Jenny came around to face Rose, the pitcher of ice water on the cart rattling. She raised her eyebrows. “A makeover, huh?” Seeing Rose’s new look, she whistled appreciatively. “Well, look at you, hot stuff.”
Rose seemed happy to see her. Even happier to see the food tray. He laughed. “Must be some good meatloaf.”
Jenny laughed, too. “Almost as good as my grammy’s, and I don’t say that lightly.” She then glanced at Mae with a wink. “I’m Jenny.”
Mae laughed, pulling her bag’s strap over her shoulder to lie across her chest. “Mae. Nice to meet you.”
Taking the lid off the meatloaf, Jenny added, “Love the makeup by the way. That was good of you.”
Glancing at Rose, Mae smiled. “My pleasure.”
Jenny pulled the wheeled stool up to Rose’s chair, sat, and readied the meal. “All the aides are dying over your cat. Everyone’s been talking about him.”
Laughing, Mae walked over to Ken and scratched his head. “Don’t let him hear you say that. He’s way too full of himself the way it is.”
In response, the cat yawned and stood.
Clyde knew the home would gladly provide him and Mae a meal tray, too, but he could tell Rose was growing tired, and visiting hours were winding to a close. It was time for them to hit the road. Leaning down, he kissed Rose’s forehead, closing his eyes for a brief moment. “Bye, kiddo,” he said quietly, knowing she was too old for the nickname and not caring. He was her big brother. He’d call her kiddo until the day she died. “I promise to bring you something next time.”
She gazed up at him with adoration, and he managed a smile before nodding to Jenny. God, he hated the goodbye.
“Have a good one, you two,” Jenny said, then began feeding Rose her dinner while enthusiastically describing the cotton-ball-sheep crafts they’d be making in class tomorrow.
Clyde glanced at Mae, who was reattaching Ken’s leash to his harness. “Ready?”
She looked at Rose one last time with a faint smile, then nodded. “Let’s go.”
As they walked into the hall, it occurred to him that Mae was different. Truly different. Different than his piss-poor mother. Different than Lila Jane for damn sure. And he wanted Mae in his bed so he could show her just how much he appreciated what she’d done. None of that, however, changed the fact that he was no good for her. She needed a man who could love her. Touch her soft and slow. Do her right. Not a man who’d bend her over, tear off her panties, and mount her like a dog. She needed a man who knew how to handle her inexperience.
Clyde wasn’t that man.
And that knowledge slid under his skin like a hot blade and burned.
At the nurse’s station, he paused and pulled an envelope out of his back pocket, showing it to Retta. Though she was on a call, she held her palm over the receiver and smiled at him. “Heading out?”
“Yeah,” he said, tossing the envelope on the counter. “For next month.”
She took it with a nod, waved at Mae, then went back to the call.
Clyde took Mae by the elbow and led her out into the August evening, wishing he was a different man with different sins and a future that included more than just eighteen wheels and lonely road.
CHAPTER NINE
State Route 35
Jackson, Ohio
Mae gazed out the window, watching the trees blur by as Clyde talked on the CB with another driver about road construction slowing traffic on I-21. Her thoughts were so tangled, she’d need a mental machete to cut her way out. She’d thought him to be a hard man. He was generally so guarded and grim, his dark brows drawn low as if he was forever thinking dark thoughts. And the way he’d touched her so … hungry. Seeing him with Rose, though, only complicated how Mae felt about him. Mostly because she had no business feeling about him period. But he’d been so gentle with his sister. That stony exterior had crumbled leaving him gentler. Softer. More vulnerable. He’d cracked a few smiles, and the shadows had faded from his eyes. Some of them, at least.
And he’d been handsome before, in an unrefined kind of way, but in that room, she’d seen what lay behind his walls, and despite all the reasons why she shouldn’t be, she was drawn to that side of him.
Well, if she was bare-bones honest with herself, she was also drawn to the hair-pulling, ass-grabbing side of him.
Maybe a little too much.
Dragging herself from her unwanted and most definitely unneeded thoughts, she glanced over at him.
“Roger that, Walking Taco. Keep the rubber down,” he said into the mouthpiece, then hung up.
“Trouble?” she asked, turning to check on Ken. He was stretched out on the sleeper’s bed, his striped belly proudly exposed. She smiled a little and turned back.
“Just construction,” Clyde said. “We’ll bypass it.”
She nodded and studied him. Evening was coming on, and the setting sun cast the rig’s cab in an amber glow. “Rose is wonderful,” she said quietly. “I’m glad I met her.”
When Mae had walked into Willow Brook, she hadn’t been sure what to expect, but Rose had been a joy. Granted, it was never easy seeing someone in her condition. Someone whose life was, for all intents and purposes, over. Or, in Rose’s case, having never really begun. But, despite all that, there had been a lightness about Rose. As if she was untainted by the world and was better for it. As if the simplest of pleasures were magnified tenfold. Rose didn’t know she was paralyzed or had brain damage. All she knew was that she loved her brother, cats, and meatloaf, and there was something inherently beautiful about that. About her. And interacting with her had made Mae forget about her own troubles for a little while.
Clyde looked at her as he shifted gears. “Thank you,” he said. “For what you did.” Turning his gaze back to the road, he added, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Mae said. “Just spent time with a great girl.”
His smile was faint. Sad. “Yeah.”
She thought about the envelope he’d dropped off at the front desk and hesitated before asking, “You pay them in cash?”
He blinked as if caught off guard. It was a moment before he answered. “Yes.”
Judging by the thickness of the envelope, it had been a lot of money. At least a few thousand dollars. And, while how he made his money was no business of hers, if it was something illegal, she wanted to know. She was potentially in enough trouble already without adding a drug charge to the list.
She decided not to beat around the bush. “Are you a drug dealer?”
In her experience, folks with that much cash in their pockets were either running drugs or women and, assuming there weren’t any hookers hiding in his rig, she had to assume it was drugs.
He let out a laugh “Damn, woman, you jump right off, don’t you?”
She only raised her brows and waited for his answer.
He sighed. “No, I’m not a drug dealer.”
“Okay,” she said expectantly.
He looked at her, seemed to consider his answer, then said carefully, “I’m a bootlegger.”
She frowned. “Of what?”
Gazing at the road, he clenched his jaw as if uncertain how much to tell her. “Moonshine.”
A bewildered laugh escaped her. “You’re serious.”
This time, it was his turn to arch a brow. “Not the reaction I expected.”
“No, it’s just …” She couldn’t even finish and laughed so hard that Ken raised his head and meowed in sleepy irritation. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, covering her mouth to hold in the laughter. “It’s just too much.”
He thought about it and grinned. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Could we be any more clichéd?” she asked, shaking her head. “I’m on the run and you’re bootlegging moonshine.”
“Modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Mae and Clyde,” she corrected.
“Mae and Clyde,” he agreed, laughing quietly.
Clearing her throat, she asked, “
Do you have some now?”
He nodded. “In the trailer.”
She glanced in the passenger’s mirror at the trailer they hauled, the asphalt below its tires a blur. “I’m glad you’re not a drug dealer.”
“I’m glad you’re not a prostitute,” he said.
She considered that and then looked at him. “And if I had been?”
“Wouldn’t matter. Just glad is all.”
It was illogical and possibly insane, but his nonchalant answer cut her on multiple layers. She eyed the truck stop they approached, its many lights glittering like a beacon for weary travelers. “Good, because I could use the extra money.”
She had no intentions of making quick cash on her back, but for whatever reason, she wanted it to matter to him if she did.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him stiffen, but she ignored him, taking stock of the truck stop. It was a big one. A “rig city” as her ma used to say. The towering sign they drove under as Clyde navigated the Freightliner off the highway proclaimed it to be a Pilot Travel Center. It stretched beyond the rig’s nose in all its brightly lit, touristy glory like the motherland. She let out a breath of relief. A place like this would have food. And showers. Her wipe-down earlier had gotten her through the day, but she needed a genuine, soap-and-water bath. Desperately.
He pulled the truck into a vacant slot next to a shiny purple Kenworth, whose running lights dazzled the eye. She looked over her shoulder into Clyde’s sleeper. “Wanna go out, Kenny?”
At the sound of her voice, he opened his eyes, glanced at her, then closed them again, tucking his tail around him more snugly.
She shook her head at him and grabbed her bag, slinging the strap over her shoulder. He’d had a long day and would probably sleep all evening. Which meant, of course, he’d be wide awake and bouncing off the walls at about two in the morning. She reached for the door handle.
“What are you going to do?” Clyde asked.
Pausing, she turned to him. He was still gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles white. His jaw was set in a hard line, but he didn’t look at her. He was angry.
She opened her mouth to tell him the truth, that she was going to buy a shower, but some shameless, ridiculous part of her wanted to rile him. “I told you.”
He finally looked at her, his brow furrowed. “You don’t need to do that.”
Adjusting her bag’s strap and making sure the flap was closed, she said, “I’m going to need money. I’m not a freeloader.” That much was true. And, while she wasn’t willing to turn herself out, she might be able to make a few bucks cleaning up the girls working the lot. She reached for the door handle again.
“No,” he said.
She bristled, looking back at him once more. “What?”
His jaw clenched. “You’re not fucking one of these assholes for money.”
She arched a brow. “Excuse me?”
He looked at her. “It’s not happening.”
Anger flared inside her. She’d wanted a reaction, and it had worked. Be careful what you wish for. “Because you say so?”
He jerked the keys from the ignition, the jangle too loud in the enclosed space. “Because it’s not happening.”
Her mouth thinned. “I thought it didn’t matter to you if I was a prostitute?”
He looked away with a curse. “It doesn’t.”
She glared. “Good, because I’ll damn well do what I want.”
Before he could argue, she opened the door and hopped out, her boots landing on gravel with a crunch. She slammed the door and stared at the busy lot, unreasonably mad and no idea what to do about it. What was it about Clyde that tied her up in knots? One minute she was telling herself she had no interest in a relationship—something that, given her circumstances, made a helluva lot of sense—and the next, she was angry at him for feeling the same way. That naïve, romantic girl inside her wanted him to wear her down until she said yes. She wanted him to want her even if they couldn’t be together. “You’ve gone off the deep end,” she whispered to herself and started for the shiny, welcoming travel center. As she did, though, she tripped on her sloppily tied bootlaces and had to catch herself on the purple Kenworth to keep from falling.
“Well, hey, babydoll. Ain’t every night I find a beautiful girl leaning on my rig,” someone said.
She looked up to see a man walking toward her. Or, more specifically, toward the rig she was holding onto. He was carrying what looked like an armload of junk food and a giant soft drink, and he wore a dimpled grin. He was a young trucker. Maybe a year or so older than her. And he had a boyish air about him that made her want to pinch his cheeks. It was nearly dark now, but she could see that he had sparkling, mischievous blue eyes. He was cute, and she briefly considered flirting with him simply to prove to Clyde that she could, but getting clean and fed were far more appealing. Still, she had no reason to be rude. Pushing off the rig, she bent to retie her boots. “Sorry,” she said. “I tripped.”
He came to a stop before her, sucking on the straw of his soft drink. “Quite all right, sweetheart. You from around here?”
Smiling at his lackluster attempts to charm her, she finished tying her right boot, then moved on to the left. She heard Clyde’s door slam and, from her position on the ground, saw his own boots land. “No,” she told the young trucker. “We’re just passing through.”
Clyde strode around the front of the Freight Shaker with murder in his eyes. He stopped and took in the scene. A scene that, to him, must have looked scandalous, because he stormed over, grabbed her by the elbow, and jerked her upright. She looked at him in bewildered shock and demanded, “What are you doing?”
He looked so furious that she was momentarily stunned. He glared at the young trucker, who’d released his straw and looked so startled it might have been comical under different circumstances. “Get fucking gone,” Clyde growled at him.
The young trucker looked from Mae to Clyde. “Look, man, I don’t know what you think—”
“What I think is you need to climb in that fancy chicken hauler and get the hell out of here,” Clyde interrupted.
Overcoming her initial shock, Mae yanked free of him, her bag bouncing against her hip. So much for him not caring if she turned tricks. Not only did he care, but he cared a lot. Enough to make an ass out of himself, apparently. The thrill it gave her was overshadowed by the obnoxious caveman routine. Though she wanted to rip him a new one, she turned instead to the trucker, clearing her throat. “I’m sorry. He’s off his meds.” Then, grabbing Clyde by the wrist, she dragged him toward the visitor’s center, leaving the bewildered young man and his oversized soft drink behind.
“Are you out of your mind?” she demanded of Clyde when they were out of earshot.
“Are you?” he growled back, switching their grips so that he held her wrist and not the other way around.
“Why?” she asked, glaring at him. His face looked harsh and furious in the neon glow. “Because I talked to another driver?”
“Because you were about to do something stupid.”
“What’s it to you?” she asked. “I’m not yours. We’re not together. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“Not that.”
“I seem to recall doing that with you.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “You’re not a whore. Don’t act like one.”
Mae gasped, feeling as though he’d slapped her. She drew to an abrupt stop, forcing him to follow suit, and stared at him, tears of embarrassment and how-dare-you anger burning in her eyes. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
To his credit, regret flared in his own gaze, and he tightened his grip on her wrist as if worried she’d run. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t realize what a hypocritical bastard you were,” she said, unwilling to let the tears fall. She jerked her wrist free. “And by the way, that wasn’t a blowjob warmup you saw. That was me tying my boots.”
Without another word, she strode toward the travel
center.
He didn’t follow.
Good, she thought as she walked into the brightly lit building. Let him simmer in it.
Inside, the air conditioning washed over her like a long-lost friend, and she sighed in relief. The shiny, buy-me-now displays boasted everything from candy bars to motor oil. Rows of grab-and-go snacks, toiletries, and automotive supplies dead-ended into a wall of glass-doored coolers containing every sugary drink known to man. A Subway operated in tandem with the travel center, and the scent of fresh-baked bread wafted in the air, mingling with the smell of hot dogs slowly turning inside a nearby countertop rotisserie. She bypassed all that and headed straight to the register.
A middle-aged woman with bleached hair and too-dark eyeliner greeted her while chewing gum. “Can I help you, sweetie?”
Mae managed a smile and pulled her tattered red-leather wallet out of her bag. “One shower.”
The cashier nodded and punched it into the register, asking, “Got a rewards card?”
Mae shook her head. “No.”
“Fourteen dollars, please.”
Though forking over so much money for one measly shower was like pulling teeth, Mae was willing to hand over her entire savings for one at that point. And she wasn’t about to borrow Clyde’s rewards card, which accumulated points toward free showers with every fill-up—something truckers did often. Keeping her hands inside her purse to avoid any prying eyes, she pulled fourteen ones out of her tightly rolled savings and handed it over.
The cashier took it, rang her up, and handed her a keycard. “Third one. End of the hall. Towels are in there.”
“Thanks,” Mae said, taking the card and heading in search of the facilities.
As she started down the hall, she wondered where Clyde was. Would he leave her here? Was he already gone? Or would he be waiting for her in the rig? She didn’t know, and she hated herself for caring. Despite how angry she was with him, she dreaded the thought of continuing on alone. She could take care of herself, but it was comforting knowing another heart was only a few beats away. Even if that heart belonged to a jackass. To be fair, she’d been kind of a jackass, too. She didn’t know what was between her and Clyde, but she knew it was something. Good or bad, they had a connection and not just a physical one. They could deny it all they wanted, but she felt it every time she looked at him or heard his voice. And, while she’d been innocent in the whole boot-tying incident, she had deliberately tried to provoke him beforehand. It didn’t mean she’d let his cruel remark slide, but she was woman enough to admit she had played a part.
Mother Trucker (Crownville Truckers Book 1) Page 9
