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Remy nodded and opened the door. “Yeah. It’s five years old, not sixty.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Ever had to work on it?”
He shrugged. “No.”
“Not even to change the oil?” she persisted.
Remy shook his head. “I have someone else do it.”
Shelby snorted. “I can change my oil, swap out spark plugs and replace an alternator without paying a fortune for someone else to do it.”
“Why would you?”
“I don’t know what Navy SEAL retirement pay is, but sheriff’s deputies aren’t rolling in the dough. If my mother hadn’t let me take over the payments on her cottage, I wouldn’t have a place to live. Hell, I’d be living with my sister and her brood.”
Before Remy could anticipate her move, Shelby pushed away from the fender and walked around to the passenger door. “Come on, Remy. I’m hungry and too tired to continue the investigation today. I need a good night’s sleep without being poked and prodded by well-intentioned nurses and lab techs.” She pulled herself up into the passenger seat and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.
Remy climbed into the driver’s seat. “Do you have any food in your refrigerator?”
Shelby groaned. “A jar of pickles and half a hamburger I bought a week ago.”
“If you can hold out a little longer, I’ll stop at your sister’s store for something to eat.”
“I don’t need to eat,” she said. “I’m too tired.”
“You might not need to eat, but I do.” And he’d also make sure she had something to fill her belly. She wouldn’t recover quickly if she didn’t give her body the fuel it needed to mend itself.
“Whatever,” she muttered. “I just know my sister. She’ll want to talk. I’m too tired to talk. Besides, I spoke to her while you were renting the boat.”
He inserted the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine turned over immediately.
“See?” Shelby’s eyes were closed, but a smile tilted her lips. “Starts like a charm. I put a new starter in it a month ago.”
Remy chuckled. “Is there anything you can’t do? My masculinity is suffering here.”
She snorted. “I always promised myself I would never need a man in my life. After my father chose his secretary over his wife and daughters, I watched my mother struggle to support us. She’d relied on my father’s income for so long she had no marketable skills. She worked in the high school lunchroom during the day and waitressed at a bar at night on the weekends.”
“Why did I not know this? I went to the high school.”
“She didn’t want to embarrass Chrissy, so she stayed in the back. She never came out when the students were present. It’s ironic that she made more money in tips working two nights than she did all day in the lunchroom. And it took every bit of it to pay the mortgage, utilities and put food on the table. Chrissy looked after me while Mom worked.”
Remy shook his head as he pulled out of the marina parking lot and drove up to Main Street. “Is that why you tagged along on our dates?”
Shelby nodded. “I thought I was old enough to stay home alone, but Chrissy felt responsible and insisted I come along.”
Remy grinned. “You remember?”
Shelby’s eyes widened. “Holy cow. I remember. You drove a Mustang convertible you rebuilt with your father. The engine ran fine, but the leather seats were so torn up, you had blankets over them.”
Remy had almost forgotten that old Mustang. He’d spent the summer before his sixteenth birthday working with his father, rebuilding the engine. He’d worked in Charlie Hughes’s fields, weeding, hoeing and picking produce to sell to the local stores and at the farmer’s market to make enough money to buy parts for his car.
“You were so proud of that car,” Shelby said softly.
Yes. He had been. “It was a labor of love between me and my father. I never felt closer to him than when we worked on the ’stang.”
“I envied your relationship with your father. I felt as though my father didn’t love us because I wasn’t the boy he’d always wanted.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Remy said.
