by Cruise, Anna
“Hey,” I said, my voice sharp. “I need some help.”
She couldn't hide her surprise. “From me?”
I nodded. She needed something else to think about, something to get her mind off of the near-drowning and Sheriff Jorgenson and the mess I was trying to extricate myself from. I'd never been great in the big sister department but it didn't mean I couldn't start trying now.
“Yeah,” I said. “Can you grab my purse? It's on the dresser upstairs. And then maybe you can run me into town so I can deal with my car.”
She dropped her hand away from her mouth and nodded. Before I could say another word, she lifted herself off the couch and hurried up the stairs.
I balanced against the arm rest, taking my weight off my feet while I waited for her. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I knew my car was only the first of several things I was going to have to deal with.
TWENTY ONE
Jenna pulled the car into the parking lot and managed to park it almost straight. Our drive had been quiet, even the car radio playing at an almost inaudible level. Jenna had stared straight ahead, sunglasses covering her eyes, her mouth in a tight line. I could tell she was still on edge.
“You want me to come in with you?” she asked. But her hand was already in her purse, digging around for a pack of cigarettes. I knew she was jonesing for a smoke.
“No,” I said. I grabbed my own purse and opened the passenger door. “Hopefully, I won't be long.”
I hopped out of the car and pulled open the door to the shop. A string of bells clanked together, jingling loudly. I looked around but the store looked deserted. There was a wall lined with new tires, some of them propped on the floor, some hanging precariously from long hooks mounted to the wall. A row of metal chairs with cracked linoleum seats were lined up against another wall, a coffee table in front of them offering a meager collection of auto magazines. A Culligan water dispenser gurgled in the corner and a white cart sat next to it, an ancient coffee maker with a half-full carafe sitting on top of it.
“Hello?” I said, fully expecting my voice to echo in the vacant store.
A head popped up from behind the counter, a tall, blond guy who didn't look much older than Ty. He wore a Garth Brooks t-shirt and had a gold chain around his neck, a chunky gold cross hanging from it. Hair the color of straw, fair-skinned and blue-eyed, he looked like he could have just deplaned from some Scandinavian country. And gone straight to modeling for Hollister or Abercrombie.
“I'm here to see Sven,” I said, looking around the shop.
He smiled. “That's me.” The deep voice took me by surprise but there was no mistake. He was the guy I'd talked to on the phone. And he was probably the best-looking guy I'd ever been in a room with.
I set my purse on the counter and averted my eyes so I wouldn't be caught staring at him. He wasn't at all my type—at least, I didn't think he was—but that didn't keep me from wanting to just stare at his perfection all day. I kept my eyes on the counter as he took up position behind it. The lower shelf of it—his work space—was littered with scraps of paper. Different colors and sizes, each piece looked like it had been torn from a different notebook or pad of paper. I guessed that organization probably wasn't one of his strong suits.
He shuffled through the bits os paper, his grease-stained fingers rifling through the piles until he located what he was looking for. A blue half-sheet, the left corner missing, a bunch of words and numbers scribbled illegibly across it.
“Alright. Lily.” He looked at me. “Last name is McMahon?”
I nodded and he wrote that down. Or at least I assumed he did. None of his letters looked very much like letters and, for a moment, I wondered if maybe he was writing in some foreign language.
“Alright” he said, scanning the sheet. “Tranny.”
I took a deep breath and waited.
“You got two choices,” Sven told me. He brought the pencil to his mouth and chewed it. “Buy new or install a rebuilt.”
I stared at him. “What?” I was no longer thinking about the fact that I was staring at a Nordic god personified.
He released the pencil from his perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. “New. I find a brand new transmission and put it in. Rebuilt. I take yours apart and replace all the shot components.”
“Okay.” I thought for a minute. I wished, more than anything, that I had someone to consult. Someone who knew more about cars than where to put the gas in. Jenna was just as useless as me when it came to cars. I could call my dad but current circumstances dictated that I shouldn't. I didn't want him to know where I was, what had gone down. I wanted to take care of this on my own.
“Why didn't you wait for me?”
I spun around at the familiar voice. Ty walked in, a frown on his face. He looked from me to Sven and his gaze softened, the frown turning into a smile as he offered a quick wave to the guy standing behind the counter.
“Wait for you?” I asked stupidly.
He rolled his eyes. “I could have brought you. Helped you out with this oaf.” He grinned. “Make sure he doesn't scam you. Or worse.”
Sven snorted. “Fuck off.”
So they were friends. And I hadn't been wrong in guessing his age.
Ty joined me at the counter, leaning his elbows on the white laminate surface. His arms weren't touching mine but he shifted a little so his leg was pressed against me and I had to try hard to concentrate. Sven didn't have anything on him, at least not as far as I was concerned.
“What's the verdict?” he asked Sven.
“Transmission's bad. Was just going over our options.”
Ty looked at me and I nodded. “He was just explaining what each was. New and...” I tried to remember. “Rebuilt?”
Sven nodded. “Yeah. So basically, I can buy a new transmission and get it installed for you. Or I can rebuild what you've already got. It all depends what you want to do. And how much money you want to spend.”
“New costs a shitload of money, doesn't it?” Ty asked.
“Yep.” Sven glanced down at the sheet of paper. “Part alone is gonna cost you six big ones. Easily.”
I swallowed. “Six hundred dollars?”
“And that doesn't include labor.” He stared at me, then glanced at Ty. “I could cut you a deal. Get the whole thing done for maybe a thousand?”
I expelled a breath. I didn't have a thousand dollars to spend on car repairs. Hell, I didn't have six hundred to spend.
“And the other option?” I asked.
“Rebuilding.” Sven grabbed a black notebook and opened it, thumbing through the pages. “I keep some spare stuff on hand but I don't know that I have the parts I'm gonna need for a rebuild. Gotta take it apart first and see what's going on.”
“So if you don't have the parts, how can you fix it?”
“I might not have the parts now,” he clarified. “Doesn't mean I can't get them. But it might take a few days to locate everything.”
My heart sank. “A few days?” And he was just talking about finding the parts, not necessarily putting everything back together and fixing it.
He nodded. “Might not be too hard. I've got some friends in the Cities I can call, see if they have what I need.”
“And new? I mean, if I went with a new transmission, would that get me out of here any faster?”
Ty tensed up and I immediately felt bad. I was in fix-it mode, trying to get myself to Madison. I hadn't been thinking about how my comments might sound to Ty, the guy I'd just mauled on the trail. The guy I'd just poured my heart out to in the living room of his house. The guy who'd tenderly washed and doctored my cut feet. If I was being honest with myself, I'd admit that I didn't want to leave him and the sliver of something that had ignited between us. But there was no way in hell I could stay in Pelican Lake. And he knew that better than anyone.
Sven shook his head. “Nope. Would probably take longer.”
“How?” I asked.
“Gotta order the new transm
ission. Usually takes about a week.”
I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes. “And the rebuilt. You said a few days. How much will that one cost?”
“Depends how much needs to be replaced.” I opened my eyes and Sven was scribbling on the blue sheet of paper, numbers by the look of it. “But probably half of what it would cost new.”
“So, five hundred?”
He nodded and his hair fell into his eyes. “Give or take a few bucks.” The shop phone rang and he grabbed the cordless phone on the counter, answering it as he walked toward the door that led to the auto bay.
I slowly expelled a breath and looked at Ty. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Cars aren't cheap.” His voice was apologetic. “I wish I could fix it for you. Just not a mechanical kind of guy.”
I waved my hand at him. “Please. You've helped enough.”
He shook his head and smiled ruefully at me. “Not really.”
“Yes, you have. You found me when I broke down, you've given me a place to stay. Your parents have fed me and loaned me clothes. You've given me rides.” I rattled off the list.
“Yeah, well I also put you right back in the place where you didn't want to be.”
I acknowledged this. “Well, that part couldn't be helped. Circumstances, you know?” I drummed my fingers on the countertop. “So now I just have to figure out what to do.”
“Rebuilds are the way to go,” Ty said. “I mean, especially with an older model car like yours. You don't want to sink a boatload of money in something that's that old. What year is it? 95? 96?”
“97,” I told him.
He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, think about it. If you sold the car now, traded it in at a dealership or sold it to someone looking for a used car, you'd probably barely clear fifteen hundred bucks. And that's if it were running.”
He had a good point. “I don't know,” I said. “I can't afford to have it break down again.”
“Rebuilding a transmission isn't as bad as it sounds.” He smiled. “What you get is pretty much gonna be just like you're getting brand new.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I thought you didn't know anything about cars.”
“I never said that,” he said. His smile deepened and his dimple winked at me. “Said I couldn't fix them.”
“So you know everything there is to know about cars?”
“Not everything,” he said. “But I knew enough that first day to know that leaving you on the side of the road wasn't an option.”
My heart tripped a little and I could feel the heat begin to flare in my cheeks. He'd said it with such sweetness, such conviction and I wondered if I was imagining those things. I glanced up at him and his eyes were on me, those hazel eyes that I'd once thought of as friendly but now set me on fire.
He leaned closer, the smile still on his lips and I didn't care that we were standing at the counter of A-Plus Auto. I wanted him to kiss me. I was desperate to have his lips on mine again.
“Are we camping out here until your car is done?” Jenna's voice killed the moment.
I whirled around.
“What the hell is taking so long?” she asked.
“We're discussing our options,” Ty said, straightening a little.
Jenna raised an eyebrow. “Your options for what?” Her eyes darted from me to Ty, a knowing smile on her face, and I knew where her mind was.
I rolled my eyes. “For fixing the stupid car.”
She stepped closer and I could smell the cigarette smoke on her clothes. I wondered how many she'd sucked on. It had probably been a binge kind of morning and I imagined her in the car, dragging on cigarette after cigarette. She certainly smelled like she'd gone through half a pack.
Sven reappeared. “So, what are we gonna do?”
Jenna glanced up at him and her guy radar raised up. She looked him up and down, her mouth opened in unabashed admiration. “You're the mechanic?” she asked blankly.
He nodded, a bemused smiled on his face as his eyes raked over my little sister. I could tell he liked what he saw, too.
“Jesus,” she muttered. Her voice was low but I was pretty sure they both heard her when she said, “Who knew Pelican Lake had so many hot guys?”
“I think I'll do the rebuild,” I said to Sven.
Reluctantly, he tore his gaze from my sister and reached for the tattered piece of paper. He jotted something down on it.
“Yeah, that's the way to go,” he said. “Alright, I'll take her apart today, see what's going on. Can probably figure out what parts I'll need to order and start calling around tonight. If I can get them from the Cities, I should be able to start the rebuild on Wednesday.” He glanced up at a Chevrolet calendar hanging on the wall. “With any luck, we'll have you ready to go some time Thursday.”
Thursday. It was Monday. Three more days.
Three more days of living in Pelican Lake, a stone's throw from where my sister had died, the memories closing in even more after the events of the morning.
Three more days of Sheriff Jorgenson watching me, trying to tie me to the accident that had happened that morning, a link that wasn't there.
Three more days of trying to convince my sister that I was fine, that she could go home and forget that she'd ever had to come and revisit this place.
And three more days with Ty.
Only three more days with Ty.
TWENTY TWO
I rode back to Lake Land with Ty. Jenna had made some noises about running errands and, after trying to pull more information out of her and getting nothing, I finally relented. She probably needed to be on her own for a while. Decompress. And buy another dozen packs of cigarettes.
“So, you talked to Jorgenson?” I asked Ty as we pulled out of the auto shop parking lot.
His eyes were on the road, his head swiveling back and forth as he waited for a break in traffic. “Yep.”
“And?”
The semi he was waiting on passed by and he merged on to the road. “And what?”
“Did he...did he ask about me?”
“A little,” he said.
I waited but he didn't elaborate.
“What did he want to know?”
“I dunno. It was pretty much the same stuff he asked your sister. When you got here, why you were here. Stuff like that.”
I sighed.
“Look, you don't have anything to worry about, okay?” He turned to look at me before shifting his eyes back to the road. “I was with you this morning. We had breakfast together, remember?”
I knew what he was saying. He was telling me I had an alibi. I already knew that. And I knew it should provide some small comfort, remembering this fact and knowing Ty realized it, too, but the uneasiness stayed with me.
We drove in silence for a few minutes and I leaned my head against the window, watching as the town flew past us. When he didn't slow down at the entrance of the resort, I sat back up.
“What are you doing?”
“I dunno. Just thought maybe we could spend a little bit of time somewhere else today. If you're okay with that.”
I was more than okay with that. I didn't want to go back to the resort and the likely possibility that Jorgenson would be hanging around, waiting to talk to me.
“There's a lake just up the road. But if you don't want to do the water thing—”
I interrupted him. “No. It's fine.”
And it was. I wasn't just saying it to pacify him. I'd dreaded seeing the river where I'd found my sister and it had been difficult—horrifying, even—to be back down by the water's edge. Seeing it again, hearing it again. None of it had been easy. But something had shifted in my subconscious. I didn't know if it was because I'd just been through another harrowing situation with the water—this time, with different results—or if it was because I'd finally faced the demon that had haunted me for the last decade. Whatever it was, I felt slightly more at ease. Definitely not cured. But better.
Ty drove another couple of miles before turning
off the highway and onto a paved, unmarked road. It was a single-lane, barely wide enough for the truck, the white birch trees flanking the road close enough to touch if I rolled down my window. Brambly bushes bursting with dark red berries crowded the trees and I peered closer, noticing they were wild raspberries.
He slowed the truck as the road curved and suddenly we were out from the trees and approaching a small dirt lot. Directly ahead was the lake, dark blue and still, a strip of sandy shoreline empty except for one lonely gull, his head close to the sand as he walked.
“Is this private property?” I asked.
Ty pulled the key out of the ignition. “Nope.”
“Then why isn't anyone here?” It looked like a nice lake. It was a hot summer day.
He shrugged. “Lakes are a dime a dozen around here.”
We got out of the truck and he reached into the bed, grabbing a blanket and a small cooler.
“A little premeditated?” I asked, smiling.
He grinned. “Hey. I was a Boy Scout. Be prepared is my motto.”
I followed him to the shoreline, limping only a little, and helped spread the blanket on the sand. Gingerly, I kicked off my sandals and sat down.
“Oh, shit.”
I looked up, worried. “What?”
He motioned to my feet. “You can't get in the water with those cuts. Hell, you shouldn't even have them on the sand.” He leaned over and reached for my calf. His hands were warm, the skin on his palm both soft and rough as he repositioned my legs so they were completely on the blanket.
