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“Oh, trust me, boy. You’re not gonna wanna be here for this one. She’s in one of her moods today.”
“I heard that!” Bernice called from … somewhere.
I looked around warily. I could’ve sworn she’d been in the house, but man if that holler hadn’t sounded like it’d come from the maze of junk on my right instead. Turning back to Shifty, I held out my hands. “Last chance, Shifty. You want me to risk it and help out?”
“How ’bout you just cut me a deal on the labor instead? I don’t know how much damage that dang squirrel did to my engine—may he rest in peace—but I have a feelin’ it’ll be enough to break my piggy bank.”
The responsible future-businessowner in me wanted to tell him we couldn’t go around giving out discounts all willy-nilly, but then I thought better of it. I didn’t have time to spend the afternoon organizing a truckload of junk with Shifty and his old lady, so it might be worth more in the end to cut him a little break.
“Alright,” I said with a quick nod, heading back toward my truck. “You have yourself a deal. I’ll swing back by this afternoon. Call me around three if you need more time.”
I headed out, shaking my head as I went. When I reached the two-lane highway that led toward town, I pulled out behind a baby-pink Mercedes convertible. Two women sat in the front with ball caps on each of their heads and threw their arms out while singing to country music so loud I heard it through my own open window.
Where were these two going? They couldn’t be headed for Charlotte Oaks in that car unless they were just passing through. Before I could think anything more on the topic, however, a flash of brown caught my eye from the side of the road up ahead.
A deer.
As it headed for the blacktop, I eased my foot off the gas out of reflex, figuring the woman in the convertible would do the same.
But … she didn’t.
Well, shoot.
4
EVERETT
The women showed no signs of slowing down, so I yelled out the window for her to watch out. But, of course, there was no way she could hear me over the music blasting.
My grip tightened on the wheel as the deer loped into the middle of the road, and I braced myself to watch it get slaughtered by these two girls in a Barbie car with no sense of what it meant to drive on a country road.
First the squirrel and now this? What was with the people in this town? They were a danger to wildlife, no question about it.
Thankfully, Speed Racer Barbie didn’t hit the poor thing. But she did swerve wildly, her obvious inexperience causing her to veer off to the right and bounce like a Skee-Ball as her expensive little car bumped and banged over rocks the size of foot stools.
With a start, I pulled up in front of her out of habit—I was driving a tow truck, after all—and threw myself out of the cab in a rage, charging over to them. “Your corn bread ain’t done in the middle, lady! Why’d you swerve like that? Everyone knows you need to be ready to—” My words halted as the driver removed her sunglasses.
“Ready to what?” Laney asked.
“Uh, ready to slow down,” I finished, stunned.
Well, I’ll be. I should have taken my chances with Bernice.
Here I’d been worried about how it would go when I saw Laney at the reunion, but how had it not entered my mind I might see her around town? I sure hadn’t expected to see her like this, but not seeing her at all? That was a dumb thing not to anticipate.
But since I was already closer to her than I’d been in years, I took a beat to see her fully. Her eyes were the same deep pools of blue I used to get lost in once upon a time, and her full lips were pulled into a hesitant smile. Well, the corners were turned up, but it might have been more of a look of embarrassment than something she’d wear if she were happy to see me.
Her long blonde hair was tied back in a low bun under the old ball cap she wore, which had the outline of Tennessee on it with a heart drawn over Charlotte Oaks with a Sharpie. Her little sister Dakota had given it to her ten years ago when she’d first taken off to Nashville, telling her she might be headed for big things but to never forget where she came from.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if staying away for the last six years meant she hadn’t done as her sister had asked, but since I figured that had a lot more to do with me than anything else, I didn’t.
“Hi,” she said in a meek voice.
I stood up a little straighter and nodded once. “Laney.”
We stared at one another as I slowly approached her side of the car. My chest felt tight like I’d suddenly forgotten how to draw in a breath, but then who could blame me? The last six years had only made this woman more appealing than she’d ever been, and I couldn’t tell if I was disappointed I’d missed it or plain grateful I got to see her now.
“And I’m Paisley,” the other woman said, alerting me to her presence. Right. There were two women in this prissy little car. She looked between us with a frown. “Do you two know each other?”
