“Cars you bet. These things, no.”
“You don’t like my baby?”
“Oh, she looks real nice.” The man looked inside the engine compartment, then sniffed. “You were right to put it out of its misery.”
“That’s me, a real humanitarian.”
“Not every little lady thinks so practical.” He had the face of an eagle with a hooked nose. Bright, mischievous eyes glowed in the mercury vapor parking lot lights. “Can I buy you breakfast?”
“I can buy my own.”
“Fair enough.” He walked away.
“Is the food good here?” She took quick steps to cover the distance his sturdy long stride placed between them.
“Ain’t heard the old saying ’bout where truckers eat?” He waved at the long line of trucks.
“Guess I have.” Sarah caught up. “I can pay, but it doesn’t mean I want to eat alone.” Funny thing was, she was never bothered by eating alone. He held the door open for her. She waved for him to go, and he shrugged then walked in first.
“I’m Sarah.” She extended her right hand as they sat on opposite bright red benches of the booth.
“Dave.” He took her hand delicately. The edges of his calluses felt like strips of sandpaper around a leather-smooth palm. His hand swallowed hers; she felt compelled to squeeze hard. “Nice grip, little lady.” He shook his thick paw. “So, you always drive so early?”
His reaction made her smile. “Felt like getting an early start.”
A broad, blond mustache covered his upper lip, slightly unkempt, and his cheeks were full. His hair was short, and he had a deep cleft in his broad chin.
A waitress in her mid-thirties approached. She was kind of pretty in thick black-cat glasses. She had an Olive Oyl body that she carried with strange grace. “Well, as I live and breathe. How ya been, Dave darlin’?”
His soft accent begat a warm drawl. “I been good Mary Jo. How ’bout you?”
“Well, just dandy. Ain’t seen ya in ages.”
“I had a run o’ work up and down California. Good to be on the east to west again. The folks is nicer.” He winked.
Mary Jo pushed her pencil through her bright blonde hair, piled high enough to stretch a five-foot-seven frame to over six feet. “You want the usual, hon?”
“You know what I like!”
Mary Jo turned to Sarah. “And for your lady friend here?”
“Just acquaintances. A cup of coffee, two poached eggs, and dry toast. Separate checks, please.”
Mary Jo popped her gum. “Sure thing, hon.” She walked away.
“That’s some plain eatin’, little lady.” Dave lifted his brow.
“I like it fine.” Sarah felt a little defensive. She eyed Mary Jo. “Old friend?”
“You meet a lot of people on the road. Some real fine people.” Dave’s eyes locked briefly on the waitress.
“Your friendship extends beyond ham and eggs.”
“Were that true, it would be none of your concern, little lady.”
“My name’s Sarah, not ‘little lady.’”
“Well, you ain’t big, Sarah.”
Sarah collapsed her fingers over a swelling smile. “I’m a little chubby.”
“You’re built like a woman.”
Sarah pursed her lips.
“You don’t like being a woman?”
“I like being a woman just fine.”
“Where you headed, little…Sarah?”
“Idaho.”
“Big place. Any spot in particular?”
“Nampa.”
“Nice town. I can take you as far as Winnemucca.” Dave pointed to a new, bright red Peterbilt semi with a sleeper outside the diner.
Sarah had planned to find a Travelodge and a garage in the morning. But she was near broke; that’s why she was going back. It wouldn’t be her first hitchhike. “You think my car’s bad?”
“It ain’t good.”
Sarah knew it was true. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that ride.” She eyed the big omelet with home fries and toast with cherry jam that Mary Jo set down in front of Dave.
“I can pay.” She picked at her carefully chosen breakfast.
Between orderly but ravenous bites from his plate, he said, “For what?”
“The ride.”
“No point. I’m already going that way.”
When they left, Dave held the passenger door of his truck open. Sarah paused until he walked away from it. She climbed up and closed the door.
Dave sang along with Hank Williams’s “Hey Good Lookin’,” his voice a near dead ringer. When the song finished, Sarah tapped the dashboard. “I don’t have a radio. You mind if I check the local stations? Catch up with the news?”
“Be my guest, darlin’. A dose of Hank’ll keep me going for miles.”
She twisted the dial all the way up and back down a couple times, then settled on a station. A song started.
Dave’s brow lowered. “What’s that?”
“Jimi Hendrix, ‘Voodoo Child.’”
“The sound?”
“Huh?”
Dave interpreted the guitar’s opening notes deftly.
Sarah grinned. “It’s a wah.”
“A what?”
“A wah. You push it up and down and it makes a sound. You know, like ‘wah, wah.’”
“Wah wah.”
“Yeah. You like it?”
“Not particularly.”
Sarah turned the dial, but Dave gripped her hand and turned it back. His thick fingers were like kindling, strangely delicate. “Leave it.”
“But you don’t like it.”
“Never know till you see something through.” He eased her hand from the radio like lifting a rose. After a couple lousy local commercials over the silence in the cab, the song “Bluebird” played.
Dave nodded. “Now I kind of fancy this one.”
“I saw Buffalo Springfield in San Francisco. Good show!”
“Is that where you’re coming from?”
“Yeah. Protesting.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Huh?”
“Protesting. Anything in particular?” A wry smile. He tapped the steering wheel with his meaty thumbs to the beat of the song.
Sarah covered her grin. “What do you think?”
“Well, there are so many things. Could be burning bras. I hear some gals do that, right?” Dave’s cheeks went a bit pink. Sarah liked the color.
She squeezed her polka-dot dress between her full breasts. “With boobs like mine, a bra isn’t a statement, it’s a necessity.”
Dave’s blush deepened. He laughed. “Okay, whatcha protesting?”
“The war in Vietnam.” Silence except for the song. “I suppose you disagree.”
“I don’t ponder on it much.”
“You should.”
The radio signal began to flutter. Sarah turned the knob.
“Not much out here.” Dave waved across the still-darkened Nevada desert.
“Yeah, I hate it. It’s always the same. So boring.”
“No, no, you just gotta know what to look for. You can’t insist that every road curve and give you big green pastures and majestic mountains. This desert’s beautiful. And these long straight roads, well they’re steady, predictable, always going someplace, always been someplace. It’s a long, beautiful comfort. And give the desert a long drink, and there’s nothing like her.”
“I can’t get you to say a word about the war, but talk about the desert and you go on for a week.”
“It’s something I like, little…” One brow lifted. “Sarah.”
“You don’t feel strongly about our men dying for nothing?” Her voice raised.
He held up his hand. “Now, don’t you get your dress in a bundle.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I didn’t mean nothing bad. Look, I think about getting my shipment to the next destination. Keepin’ good tires on my rig and the tanks ful
l, staying one up on the state cops. There are smarter people’n me out there to think on that big stuff.”
“It’s everyone’s concern when people are dying for no reason, Dave.”
“Well, then, I’ll work on that.”
The wry twist of Dave’s face made her mad. She looked out the right side of the cab until she could lasso her uncomely grin.
Sarah pumped her fist as she found a radio station. “Got one!” Johnny Cash sang “Folsom Prison Blues.” She patted Dave’s knee. “Bet you like this one.”
Dave stared out front and bit his lip.
“Want me to change it?”
“No, leave it. I do like this one.”
She leaned closer, chin on her fingers with a close-lipped smile.
“You got something to say, Sarah?”
“You’re passionate about deserts and country music.”
“Passionate? I like ’em.”
“And yet you don’t care about the war?”
“Pardon, darlin’. What I said was, ‘I don’t give it much thought.’”
“My brother’s in Canada.”
A long pause. “I hear it’s nice this time of year.”
“He’s a draft dodger, Dave.”
“I kinda got that, Sarah.”
“Honestly I don’t know when you’re being serious.” She took an errant hair from his shoulder.
His eyes turned just enough to watch her make contact. “Is that so?” The radio signal faded. The cab fell silent again but for the throaty hum of the diesel engine. The horizon to the east started to glow.
“If I were a man and got drafted, I’d go to Canada. What do you say to that?” Sarah turned to face him like a confrontation.
“Well, I’d say, ‘Tell your brother I said hey.’”
Sarah covered her mouth as she laughed.
“Why you do that?”
“What?”
“You cover your smile.”
“Nothing.” A long pause. “It’s my teeth.”
“You got fine teeth.”
“The lowers are uneven.”
“Yeah. Ain’t they grand?”
“Now you’re teasing me.”
“Nope.”
Sarah smoothed the edges of her dress from her plump waist down her full hips.
Another long silence. Dave continued. “When I was a boy, I fought all the time. Drove my ma and pa nuts. One day Mama says, ‘Davey, what you fightin’ about now?’ I say, ‘Well Ma, Johnny say some bad things ’bout you.’ Ma says, ‘Like what?’ I say, ‘Like you fat.’ ‘I am fat. You stupid, boy? Fight for telling o’ the truth?’ But Dad didn’t give me a talkin’ to. He just walloped me good. Johnny beat me, Dad beat me, Mama was mad at me.” Dave nodded to signal the end of his story.
“So, the point is you should choose your battles.”
“Listen. A few days later, Johnny calls Mama fatty again. That time I’d figured out how he beat me, and I walloped him but good. That day on, two times my size and big ol’ Johnny crossed the street when he saw me a-comin’.”
“I don’t get you, Dave.”
“I got no more points to make. My fightin’ days are over.”
She eyed his body language, the way he looked at her in scant periphery. “I bet you were in Vietnam. Bet you weren’t even drafted.”
The corner of Dave’s mouth curled up. His accent again softened. “So, tell me, you think we were wrong to go to Germany and Japan in World War II?”
“War is wrong.”
“So we should have laid down for Hitler and Tojo? Been peaceful and stay out of war?”
“Well—”
“How about Korea. Okay to let the South fall?”
“You don’t know that it would have.”
“No, and you don’t know that it wouldn’t have. Let’s say it did.”
“It wasn’t our fight.”
“Say your brother gets in a fight. Someone starts a fight with him. You see the person who’s fighting him has a gun in the back of his pants, where your brother can’t see. You can reach it real easy. Do you grab it? Do you warn your brother? Do you just leave it be and hope for the best?”
“My brother doesn’t fight.”
“He’s got no choice this time.”
A deep breath. “It’s—it’s not the same thing.”
“You ’spose?”
“I thought you didn’t give these things too much thought.”
“Just makin’ repartee. Answer the question.”
“Repartee.” Sarah snorted and looked away.
“Answer the question.”
“I’d grab the gun, but that’s different.” She kept her eyes away.
“Knew it.” He nudged her elbow gently.
“Don’t be so smug. Now you answer me something.” She turned back to him.
“Shoot.” Dave pointed one finger out toward the desert and made a realistic gun sound complete with long echo.
Sarah grabbed her mouth, then dropped her hand and allowed her smile to echo as well. “Okay. Say your house is on fire. You’re in your room on the first floor, your two kids are asleep in their bedrooms on the third floor, while some adult guests are in the basement.”
“I got no wife, no kids, Sarah.”
“Play along, Dave, there will be a prize at the end.”
He snorted. “I like prizes.”
“Do you save the guests, or your kids?”
“Maybe I save the adults, and they help me save my kids.”
“But what if you head for the basement, and the fire spreads beyond control. You manage to get the adult guests out, but at what cost?”
“Well, me and the guests line up by the kids’ windows and have them jump into our arms.”
“Your kids are twenty-two and nineteen respectively, and owing to your big-boned wife tip the scales at 270 pounds each.”
Dave howled a deep laugh that nearly shook Sarah’s eardrums loose. Amidst laughs he said. “Well, I’m pretty strong.”
“Y’all ain’t that strong.” She conjured a convincing drawl.
“Of course I’d save my kids.”
“I knew it!”
“Don’t be so smug.” Dave looked into the side mirror. “Goddamn. I hate that. Pardon my cursing.”
“I heard worse. What’s wrong?”
“Guy’s drafting.”
“Drafting?”
“Yeah, they get up real close and the draft from the trailer pulls them along. Makes me nervous as hell.”
Sarah looked away.
“Don’t tell me you do that.”
She shrugged.
“You know what happens if I gotta stop quick? I saw it happen to another trucker on the road to Stockton. Bigger car than yours, and it wasn’t just the driver of the car. She had her...” Dave bit his lip hard. “There was a kid.” He looked away and wiped each cheek with his thumb.
“I—I’m sorry.” She patted his shoulder.
“Just don’t draft, Sarah.”
Sarah curled her legs toward him while he studied the mirror. “Okay.”
He reached toward the shifter, and his fingers grazed Sarah’s bare knee. His hand jerked back. “Pardon.”
“For what?”
“Your leg. I mean, it’s a fine…it’s, uh, real smooth and all. But I didn’t mean to…aw hell.” That wonderful color lit up his full cheeks. He turned back to the mirror and upshifted until the car appeared from the void behind the truck and passed him.
“It’s okay.” Sarah edged a little closer to him. Her knee pressed his hip.
Dave squeezed the gearshift tightly.
After a long silence, Sarah resumed, “I think we’re spending too much time worrying about other people’s gardens. Not tending to our own.”
Dave sighed. “Yeah, I can see you draftin’ out there on the highway.”
“Bet you think women should be seen, not heard.”
“No, I just don’t see things the same.”
“Really?” A hint of s
arcasm.
Dave studied the road closely. “You ask a man who’s been in hell if he’s happy to be in a garden with a few weeds, he’s libel to say a big ‘yes.’”
“What hell have you been in, Dave?”
“It’s just an observation. More repartee.”
“It’s more than that.”
Sarah rested her hand on the top of the seat just behind Dave’s shoulder. “You have a nice face.”
Dave blushed deeply and looked away.
Sarah grinned. “And you gave me a hard time for covering my smile. You’re a traditional man.”
“You ’spose?”
“Can’t you give a straight answer?”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
“No, I guess I didn’t.”
“Standing up for what you believe is good. I’m just a little further down the road in this life than you. Maybe I seen a few things, done a few things, that bring a different light. Speaking of, there’s a pretty sunrise about to lift. I most always stop for the sunrise. I drive the night so I can see the morning come.” Dave navigated into the next truck stop. He positioned on edge of the parking lot with the cab facing due east, toward the soft wash of vermilion on the naked desert.
“Where were you that sunrises became so important, Dave?”
“What you mean became?”
“Don’t toy with me.”
He shook his head. “You’re a handful.”
“Yup. Answer the question.”
A long pause. “A place where a man can think through every mistake he made. A place where a man can learn to use his voice like a tape recorder. A place where a man can taste a steak in his mind while scraping scraps of rotten rice up in his fingers. Learn all the things that got past him when he was busy being an idiot fool.”
Sarah’s knees pressed tighter to Dave’s hip. She traced her fingers on his thick shoulder. “Where?”
Spoken softly, “Vietcong prison camp.”
“Sorry, that must have been—”
“It’s going to be a magnificent sunrise.” Dave reached toward her face and waited. She nodded and he stroked her full cheeks, then traced her slim lips with his rough thumb. He whispered, “I may not be looking at that sun when it comes. You’re too beautiful.”
Sarah started to cover her smile, didn’t, and rested her head on his shoulder. She lifted her mouth to Dave. After a pause, Dave dipped his sweet-salty tongue in her mouth. He traced her teeth, then the bottom of her tongue, then around the top. “You taste so fine, Sarah.”
Best Erotic Romance Page 12
