“Um, I don’t know? Four years?” It might be more like five; it was the original. The Joneses had given me so much crap for not trading my car in every year like they did. Fortunately for me though, Mrs. Jones hadn’t wanted me driving around a car under their last name in case I was pulled over, so I’d bought it on my own. It was and had always been all mine.
He nodded, attention focused on my engine, then took another step back. “Your terminals are corroded and need a clean. I’ll give you a jump and see if that’ll get you going until you get it fixed.”
Corroded? I leaned in, coming in to step beside him, just inches away, and peeked inside. “Is it that white stuff?”
There was a pause and then, “Yes.”
I peeked at him. He had a really nice voice… when he wasn’t snapping out words like a whip.
Up this close… I guess he had to be six-three. Six-four. Maybe a little taller.
Why was this guy not married? Where was Amos’s mom? Why was I so nosey?
“Okay, I’ll get it cleaned,” I said brightly, focusing before he got irritated with me for checking him out. I could just do it from upstairs tomorrow.
Mr. Rhodes didn’t say another word before he headed toward his truck. In no time at all, he pulled it up alongside my car and then farted around in the back cab before coming back with jumper cables. I stood there and watched as he hooked them up to my battery and then opened his own hood and did the same.
If I was expecting him to stand there and talk to me, I would’ve been disappointed. Mr. Rhodes went and sat in his truck… but I was pretty sure he was looking at me through the windshield.
I smiled.
He either pretended not to see me or decided just not to smile back.
I stood there, looking at my car’s engine like I recognized some of it when I damn well did not. After a minute, I leaned in and snapped a picture of the cables hooked up to my battery, just in case I ever had to do it. I should get an emergency kit while I was at it. I still needed to get bear spray.
What could only have been a couple minutes later, he hung his head out of the window. “Try her now.”
I nodded and dodged inside, making a quick plead for her to not do this shit to me, and turned the key.
She squealed to life, and I fist pumped the air.
Mr. Rhodes slid out of his truck and quickly undid the cables from our batteries, going back around his truck in the time it took me to close my hood, and depositing his cables somewhere in his back seat. I reached up to try and close his hood but couldn’t reach. He slid me a side look as he lifted a hand and slammed it shut.
I grinned up at him. His khaki-colored work shirt hugged the broad line of his shoulders and tapered into the grayish-blue pants it was tucked into. That hair of his was something else too, that silver with the brown…. He really was way too attractive. “Thank you so much.”
He grunted. Then he crouched down, making me freeze because his face went right by my shoulder and side, but popped back up with his cooler and coffee mug. He was out of there, back around his truck, and then jumping in. He hesitated.
Mr. Rhodes nodded at me and then reversed so fast I was impressed.
He’d helped.
And hadn’t kicked me out even if he’d looked like he would rather be just about anywhere else.
Something was something.
And I had to get to work.
Chapter 4
The next three days of my life went by in the blink of an eye.
All right, a blink if you had pink eye.
I woke up, and each of the days, I tried to jump rope, had to stop every ten seconds then start again as I accepted I was nowhere near the top tier of physical conditioning above sea level. Then I had breakfast, showered, and went to work.
Work was... parts of it were good. The parts where I got to talk to Clara and catch up with her were my favorite. Rekindling a friendship with her was like breathing. It was effortless. She was just as funny and warm as I had hoped.
We didn’t get to talk much. By the time I arrived every morning, she was hectic in trying to have everything organized before opening. I helped her as much as I could, and we squeezed in questions as she made explanations about stocking and what the store carried, which was everything imaginable and everything unimaginable.
Had I gotten my boobs done? No, they were the same C-cup I’d had since they’d stopped growing at fifteen, held up by what was basically a Wonderbra.
Did I bleach my teeth? No, I used straws all the time and brushed my teeth three times a day.
Had I ever gotten Botox done because she was thinking about it but wasn’t sure? No, but I knew a lot of people who had and wasn’t sure I would do it. I also told her she didn’t need it.
I would have asked her things too, but she’d squeezed in so many details that first day I’d walked in, that there weren’t too many other things I felt comfortable asking about so soon.
In the years since we’d last seen each other, she had gone to college in northern Colorado for nursing, moved to Arizona with her boyfriend, gotten married, and then he’d passed away too soon afterward. Since then, she’d moved back to help take care of her ill dad and run the family business, and—this was where she’d been vague and I’d bet it was because her niece had been there—shortly after that, Jackie had moved in. Her older brother got a job as a long-distance truck driver and needed somewhere safe and constant for her to stay.
Having worked for people that I cared about and loved before, I already understood how to listen and follow instructions without letting them get to me or affect my pride. But Clara was great. Literally great.
We’d made plans to hang out away from work sometime soon, but she had to get someone to stay with her dad because he couldn’t be left alone for long periods, and the nurses and aides who usually stayed with him during the day were already working too many hours with her being at the shop literally all the time since she didn’t have reliable help.
I remembered her dad and wanted to see him; she said that he would love to see me too. She’d told him all about how I was back, and that just made me want to help her that much more, even if I was pretty sure I was only one step above her previous shitty employees. My only saving grace was literally that, even though I was useless and constantly having to ask her questions eighty times a day, the customers were all sweet and patient. One or two were a little too friendly, but I was good—and unfortunately used to—ignoring certain comments.
When Clara wasn’t running around the shop talking to customers, we talked about the store. When she asked about my life, I told her bits and pieces, tiny fragments that didn’t exactly piece together properly and left plot holes the size of Alaska, but luckily the store was busy and she got distracted constantly. She hadn’t grilled me yet on what happened with Kaden, but I had a feeling that she had an idea since I was avoiding the topic.
That part of my new start in Pagosa was great. The Clara part of it. The hope I felt in my heart. The possibility of new connections.
But actually working at the store….
I’d come into my new job being realistic. I had no idea what the hell I was doing working at an outdoor outfitter. For the first ten years after I’d moved away from Colorado, the closest I got to doing outdoor activities were the times I’d gotten on my uncle’s boat. Over the last ten, I’d gone to a beach a few times, but we’d stayed at upscale resorts that served pretty and ridiculously expensive drinks.