Mother Trucker (Crownville Truckers Book 1)

by Moxie Darling

  She smiled at him, holding an unlit cigarette in one hand while petting Ken, who, Clyde realized, was stashed on her lap beneath the table. All that was visible was his tail, which was draped over Roxy’s thigh. Even seeing the cat again gave Clyde a profound sense of relief. This was his family.

  “Nice to meet you again,” Roxy said.

  “Same,” Clyde returned. “Glad you’re on the mend.”

  She chuckled. “Gonna take more than some whore hater off his holy rocker to do me in.”

  “Sounds like one hell of a story,” Belvia noted wryly, her thumb tapping the handle of her coffee mug as she considered Roxy.

  Mae snorted, and Roxy drew on her cigarette but then remembered it wasn’t lit. “Damn no-smoking laws,” she muttered. To Belvia, she added, “And you ain’t shitting, sister.”

  Belvia grabbed her pack of cigarettes off the table and gestured with her chin. “How about we take a smoke break and you can tell me about it.”

  Roxy eyed her, and Clyde could have sworn he saw a hint of pink in the prostitute’s cheeks. “Sure thing,” she said, clearing her throat and uprooting Ken. She climbed out of the booth and kissed Mae on the cheek. “We’ll be right outside, sugar.”

  “Okay,” Mae said, watching them go.

  Belvia, who was considerably taller and wider than Roxy, paused at the door to hold it open. “Ladies first.”

  Roxy laughed, Belvia grinned, and the two walked out. When they were gone, Clyde waited for Mae to sit, then took the booth opposite her.

  “Love affair in the making?” he asked, his heart as golden and crispy as a perfectly baked loaf of bread. It felt right her sitting across from him. The damned cat, too. It felt true. Like any other outcome would have been a lie.

  Mae smiled and gazed out the window after them. “I don’t know. Could be. Never imagined Roxy with a woman, but stranger things have happened.”

  Clyde recalled the past month’s events. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  She was quiet as Ken settled himself on her lap. When he was situated, she looked at Clyde. “You came for me,” she said finally. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

  He stared at her, wishing he was a more eloquent man. “I wasn’t sure I would, either. Until I had some sense knocked into me.”

  She swallowed and nodded as if the admission hurt but she appreciated the honesty. Her mouth curved a little. “Is that literally or figuratively?”

  “Figuratively,” he said with a quiet laugh. “And it was never you I hesitated on, Mae. I want you to know that.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “It was never you.”

  “I know,” she said, looking down into her coffee cup. “And I shouldn’t have run off like I did. I just …” Shaking her head, she rubbed the mug’s handle with her thumb. “I panicked. I knew how you felt and I didn’t want to watch you leave me.” She finally met his eyes. “So, I left you instead.”

  Fear. It had damn near cost them both everything. Clyde’s fear of becoming a father against his will. Mae’s fear of being abandoned by him.

  He pulled her hand to his mouth, making her lean across the table with a laugh. Kissing her knuckles, he said, “I’d never leave you, Mae. Not when it came down to it. I can’t promise I won’t act like an idiot for a stretch, but you’re mine, and I don’t walk away from what is mine.”

  Relief and mischief shone in her eyes. “Yours, huh?”

  “Mine,” he confirmed, aching to show her just how his she was.

  She considered him, then arched a playful, skeptical brow. “Before long, there’s going to be a lot more of me. Think you can handle that?”

  Once, the image of her rounded with his baby would have shut him down quicker than a flipped switch, but now, it triggered a rush of new, unfamiliar emotions. Pride. Possessiveness. Protectiveness.

  Love.

  Times fucking two.

  “Oh, I can handle it,” he assured her.

  “Are you sure?” she asked hesitantly. “Because if you’re not, I’d rather know now—”

  “I’m sure,” he said, conveying it with his eyes. “Mae, I’m sure.”

  She nodded, and her teary smile lit up his dark places. “Funny how things turn out, ain’t it?”

  “Shit,” he laughed, shaking his head while gazing at her. “Guess I’m going to be a dad.”

  She laughed, too, and something passed between them. Something real and deep and permanent. An undeniable sense of Hell or high water, we’re in this together. “Guess I’m going to be a mom.”

  His smile faded a little as he thought of Rose. It was bittersweet, the notion of his future son or daughter meeting her. She would never understand that they were her blood. Her kin. She would never be able to speak their name or tell them tales of the good old days. She would never change their diaper or spoil them on their birthdays and Christmas. But she would know them. They would know her. And there was beauty to be found there.

  Maybe Mae and their baby had been his penance all along.

  He indicated the parking-lot drama. “What’s that all about?”

  Her expression settled into one of steely satisfaction. “That,” she said, gazing out the window as the cruiser containing Shifty drove out of the parking lot, its flashing lights coloring the dismal gray day, “is an exorcism.” She turned back, sipped her coffee, and smiled. “One less demon in Crownville, West Virginia.”

  Clyde had the distinct impression that she’d played a part in said exorcism, and it made him want to both kiss her and lock her away. “You involved in it?”

  The pleasure in her gaze smoldered. “I only hired the priest.”

  He laughed. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “You can take me home.”

  His heart ached, and it was all he could do not to throw her over his shoulder and run. That she considered his rig home filled him with a pride that nearly took his breath away. Because it meant she considered him home, too. He stood and offered her his hand. “Come on.”

  She stared at him for a sweet, lingering moment, then pulled some crinkled dollars out of her bag and dropped them on the table before taking his hand. “Get me out of here.”

  Together, they walked out of Shifty’s Petro & Go, hand in hand and hearts full of hope. He held the door open for her and Ken, and as they stepped out into the drizzle, Clyde gazed across the lot to where his rig waited. Where home waited. More than anything in the world, he wanted Mae inside it, the damn cat on her lap, and the Freight Shaker’s eighteen wheels eating up the highway as it carried them away from here and toward brighter days.

  “If it’s the last thing I do,” he promised and smiled as they headed toward the ride of a lifetime.

  EPILOGUE

  No Name Cemetery

  Creamery Hill Road

  Crownville, West Virginia

  “I want these panties off you,” Clyde growled in Mae’s ear and nipped the lobe, making her gasp and grab his shoulders.

  “You’re going to wake Rosalee,” she breathed, groaning as his rough fingers found the elastic band of said panties and yanked them down as far as their current position of her straddling him would allow. Which wasn’t far enough.

  “Rosalee is fine,” he said, exposing Mae’s throat to his teeth. “Besides, she’s with the babysitter.”

  Mae laughed and glanced into the cab of the rig, where Rosalee slept in her carrier without a care in the world, her tiny pink fingers gripping the soft edge of her blankie. Ken, who’d designated himself her Official Guardian, was curled into a ball beside her, sleeping soundly. Mae’s heart swelled to the point of bursting. Something that happened, oh, nearly every five minutes or so. It was a wonder it hadn’t given out altogether.

  “Babysitter is sleeping on the job,” she said, breathless. “Rox and Belvia will be here any minute.”

  “A minute is all I need,” he said, popping the top two buttons of her flannel and pulling it aside to reveal her breast.

  Her tender, for-baby-only b
reast.

  He heeded her soreness, though, and only kissed reverently, brushing a bead of milk from her overly sensitive nipple with his thumb. “I love that you feed our baby with these,” he murmured, kissing his way over to her bared shoulder.

  “I love that you love our baby,” she replied, kissing his temple and reveling in the feel of him. The strength of him. And he did love Rosalee. From the moment she’d been born. There had never been a more changed man than Clyde Honeycutt upon the sight of his newborn daughter. He’d stared at Rosalee as if the mud had suddenly been washed from his eyes. It was the first time Mae had ever witnessed the act of someone falling in love.

  Life had changed a whole helluva lot during the past year. And, yet, it had also stayed beautifully, blessedly the same. She was a mother now—God, she still couldn’t get used to that—and her life had become a whirlwind of diapers and feedings and late, late nights. Sometimes, the responsibility of being all things to a tiny, fragile human terrified her something fierce. And, sometimes, she felt as though she’d been born to be Rosalee’s ma. It felt right on a level that went deeper than conscious thought or even love. Her soul was one with her daughter’s, and it was a bond unlike any other.

  That wasn’t to say life was always rainbows and sunshine. Toward the end of Mae’s pregnancy, Clyde had signed on with a trucking company that did mostly short hauls, but he still had to pull out on a long haul occasionally, and Mae would stay behind at their place in Batavia with the baby. When Rosalee had arrived, taking her on the road had been easy. Well, life with a newborn was never easy—something Mae and Clyde had learned overnight. But it had been doable. It had worked. At least until Rosalee had begun to resent spending so much time in her carrier. And now that she was teething—or, as Clyde liked to call it, channeling Satan—short trips were all his and Mae’s sanity could withstand. Being apart from Clyde wasn’t easy. On any of them. But those days were few and far between, thankfully. And there was something to be said for reunions. When Mae heard his rig growling down the quiet road that led to their sweet patch of land, her heart would leap, and she’d become so overwhelmed with longing and lust and love, it took her breath away. And when he climbed down from the Freight Shaker, his jeans faded and his hair dark and curling beneath his hat, it was like falling for him all over again.

  And the way he spoiled and obsessed over Rosalee was the cherry on top.

  He’d come a long, long way from the bitter, hard, broken man Mae had first given herself to.

  “Get these off,” Clyde demanded again.

  She knew they shouldn’t. Any minute, Belvia and Roxy would show up, and they’d be interrupted. Or Rosalee would begin wailing. But … oh, he was convincing. Of course, Mae had discovered that there wasn’t much Clyde’s mouth and fingers couldn’t talk her into doing.

  Climbing off him long enough to shimmy out of the offending underwear, she threw them and caution to the wind. If they got interrupted, they just got interrupted dammit.

  She couldn’t help but let out a breathless laugh as he pulled her on top of him once more. “Have I ever told you you’re an impatient man?” she asked, grabbing his shoulders.

  He found her with his fingers. “Have I ever told you I’d do anything for you?”

  “Yes,” she managed, letting him touch her as he pleased.

  “Let me in,” he commanded, his lips brushing her cheek.

  She wove her fingers through his hair. “Always.”

  He groaned, gripping his cock and situating it where they both so desperately wanted it. She bit her lip and did her best to muffle her whimper as he entered her. The last thing she wanted was to wake Rosalee. Stopping would be very, very difficult.

  “Oh, fuck,” he said through gritted teeth. “That’s it.”

  Mae’s thighs strained as she moved atop him, unable to get close enough. She let out shaky breaths as they rocked together, skin to skin, sweat to sweat. It was deep and tight, and the friction of her sensitive nipples rubbing his hot, hard chest through her T-shirt made her clit throb. She was going to come and they’d barely begun.

  “I’m …” she whispered, bracing her palm on the wall behind him to ride him deeper. “I’m … going to come.”

  “Not yet,” he said and wound her hair around his fist in delicious punishment, slowing her down. “Wait.”

  She moaned as he took control, working his cock inside her, making her suffer just right. Still fisting her hair, he forced her to look into his burning eyes. The connection was instant and consuming. Her mouth parted, her bottom lip trembling, and all she could do was hold his gaze. It was so erotic that she felt like she would die if she didn’t come soon. She was so restrained by him, so helpless as he took what he wanted, that her entire body pleaded release. “Please,” she breathed. “Clyde.”

  “Wait,” he said again, the muscles in his abdomen flexing each time he thrust. His jaw clenched as he fucked her slow and steady, torturing her in the sweetest possible way.

  But she couldn’t wait. Her breath caught as her orgasm throbbed through her swollen clit, flooding her with liquid heat. She bit down on a tormented whimper and was thankful when he released her hair and pulled her face into the hollow of his throat so she could let it out.

  “That was very naughty,” he growled, his fingers tangling in her sweaty hair as he held her tight.

  She shook all over, clinging to him as he continued fucking her. Only this time, it was a little harder and a little faster. “You can punish me later,” she promised, kissing his damp throat and feeling his racing pulse beneath her lips.

  “You can count on it,” he vowed and then groaned as he, too, came. His fingers bit into her hip as he filled her, his breath hot in her ear. “Oh … hell.”

  They rode it out as quietly as they could, savoring the lingering pleasure in the shadowed cocoon of the sleeper. When it was over, he just held her, kissing her ear, her cheek, her throat, and, finally, her mouth. “This is forever,” he said. “You and me.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, taming his mussed hair with her fingers. Soon, he’d put his hat back on, so she savored the feel of it while she could.

  “Be my wife.”

  Mae stilled and pulled back to look at him. “What?”

  He touched her lips, gazing at them as if they were everything he held dear, then met her eyes. “Be my wife.” He took her hand and brought it to his bare chest so she could feel the heart beating inside. “Let me be your husband.”

  Tears blurred her vision. “Where did my mean, stubborn trucker go?”

  Amusement and mischief flashed in his eyes. “Oh, he’s still here,” he said, rolling her onto her back. She gasped and then laughed. “Say yes,” he demanded, kissing her senseless. “Please.”

  “Yes,” she said and then moaned when he kissed her so deeply, so reverently, that she’d never felt more loved.

  “I’ll buy you a ring,” he said, stretching her arms above her head and dragging his lips down her throat.

  She let out a gasp and turned her head to give him better access. “I don’t need one.”

  His hand found its way between her legs, and he repeated, “I’ll buy you a ring.”

  Her mouth parted, and she fisted the sheets. “Okay.”

  Just then, two things happened almost simultaneously. Rosalee let out a pre-wail warning whimper, and the rumble of an approaching rig sounded outside.

  Mae and Clyde froze, and then she started laughing. She couldn’t help it. How incredibly perfect and unkempt it all was. He grinned down at her for a split second and then rolled off, tossing her a pair of jeans with a sigh. “Fantastic timing.”

  She shimmied into the jeans and searched the floor for her sweater. Rosalee’s warmup ended, and she began wailing for all she was worth. Mae yanked the sweater over her head and started for her, but Clyde beat her to it, buttoning his flannel as he went. “I got her,” he said. “Go on and get dressed.”

  Mae sank back onto the bed with a smile, straightening t
he sweater while she watched him. Haphazardly tucking in part of his flannel, Clyde extracted Rosalee from her carrier and held her against his chest, his hands huge in comparison to her wee lavender onesie. He had to hunch over a little to keep his head from bumping the roof.

  “Hey, Rosy-Bee,” he murmured, rubbing her back. “Daddy’s got you. Hush now.”

  Still smiling, Mae pulled on her socks and boots, lacing them. “Does she need changed?”

  Clyde held up his daughter and sniffed her rear end, something made all the more comical by his lack of room to maneuver. His expression became one of horror, and he held Rosalee away from him. “I’m going to say that’s a hard yes.”

  Mae laughed. “We’re getting married.”

  Giddiness bubbled up inside her as she stared at him. Their fairytale on eighteen wheels wasn’t quite what her ma had always longed for, but it was damn close, and Mae had to imagine that Desiree was somewhere looking down on her with a crooked-toothed smile and eyes full of pride.

  “Damn right we are,” Clyde agreed with a grin, his expression that of a man satisfied on all counts.

  Awakened from his nap, Ken arched his back in an unhurried stretch, then hopped from the front seat into the sleeper, landing on Mae’s lap. She let out an oomph sound and laughed, scratching his ears. “You hear that, Kenny?” she asked, tossing the diaper bag to Clyde. “Your daddy is gonna make an honest woman out of me.”

  “Stepdaddy,” Clyde corrected, nimbly catching the bag with one hand before braving the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Or, in other words, Rosalee’s diaper.

  Grinning, Mae held Ken’s face in both hands and kissed his nose. “Don’t you listen to him.”

  Tolerating the kiss for exactly one millisecond, Ken wriggled out of her grasp and hopped onto the floor to peruse his food bowl.