She glanced back at the white Datsun rumbling behind the Dumpster. The driver looked like a kid, soft round face, big dark eyes staring at the man beside her.
“Come on,” he said. She turned and looked into his eyes, green flecked with black and looking straight at her. She’d always had a thing for green eyes. She tried to guess his age, early twenties, she figured, younger than she was, but worn. He was hard-looking, like a man who didn’t eat enough real meals, a man who worked out in a basement. He had a scar on his cheekbone, a little crescent shape. But what a mouth, pretty lips that curved in just the right places. The kind of mouth that knew just how to kiss. Pushy but firm and soft.
He smiled, leaned a little closer. “Yeah, I know. You like my face. I get that.” He picked up the hundred-dollar bill. “But I’m not looking for a date right now. I just need you to follow that car.” She liked the smell of him, clean but that man smell underneath.
“Why should I follow that car?” she asked. Katy had tended bar for years. She was used to guys wanting things. Asking questions was the best way she knew to make them stall. Men, no matter what they were after, always liked a little time to talk.
“Why?” The bill dropped into her lap, and he eased back into the seat beside her. “Don’t you need the money?”
“Well, sure, but—”
“Well, sure. Yes, you need the money. The thing is, my friend there, his name is Ronald, and I’m Brad.” He offered to shake her hand, and she almost took it, but she kept her hands on the steering wheel. “Okay, then, I understand your caution, some strange dude jumping in your truck—”
She laughed. “Well, yeah.”
He smiled. “You see my friend there, Ronald, he’s a little nervous. His granny, she’s sick, and she lives way out there in Whitwell. Out by Lake Waccamaw.”
Then she grinned, sat up, looked around. “Is this a joke? Where’s Randy?”
“I don’t know no Randy,” Jesse said. “What you talking about?”
“Randy. My friend. He likes to play little tricks on me. He lives out by Lake Waccamaw. I drive out there sometimes.”
“That’s nice,” Jesse said. “It’s real pretty country out there, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yeah, there’s something pure out there. No tourists. Just trees and water and sky.”
“And Randy,” he said. “But I guess you just drive out there for the nature and all.”
She turned to him. “Look, I’d like to help you out, but I gotta get home.”
Jesse shook his head and leaned closer. There was a softness to him, but a confidence. She liked that soft confidence in a man. She breathed that scent of him. He definitely knew what he had. He sat back and looked out her windshield as if this were just another conversation. “You got a chance to do something good here. I saw your license plate—POSITIV.’ You like to think positive, right?”
“I try,” Katy said.
“You like to do good things, right?”
She nodded, looked back at the other guy in the car.
Jesse sighed. “Well, Ronald’s granny, she’s sick, and he’s got these groceries in his trunk, and he’s gotta get the stuff to her, and if he makes it there, he can get a neighbor to work on the car.” He nodded, rocking in the seat beside her. “See, she’s waiting, and we’ve got these groceries in the trunk, and it’s a long ways out there through farm country. And that car, it’s always stalling out, and you got no idea how bad that can be in this heat.”
It sounded like a good story, but there was something off. “I need to get home,” she said. “My fiancé—”
“What about Randy? Nah, Randy isn’t your fiancé.” He said the word mean and teasing. He lifted the hundred-dollar bill and held it to her face. “For your gas and trouble. It’s just forty-five minutes from here. But then, you know that ’cause Randy lives out there, and you like to drive out and see him.”
She studied her hands on the steering wheel. The engagement ring shone in the sunlight. Something was wrong. This felt like a joke. It had to be a joke. Maybe it was Billy’s joke. Maybe Billy had found out about Randy. Maybe Billy somehow knew where Randy lived. “Is this a joke?”
“Nah, man,” Jesse said. “This is serious. Listen to that car of his.”
She listened to the chugging, staggering sound of the engine. “I’m sure it’s something simple,” she said. “You can just pull up there to a station. You could use some of that hundred dollars to fix his car.”
He smiled again as if he were telling her a joke she just didn’t understand. “Not when we can get it fixed for free. And besides, I can’t keep track of the money he owes me.” He opened his palms in a little helpless gesture. She studied that hundred-dollar bill. “It’s the principle of the thing,” he said.
“I mean why would I want to drive out to Lake Waccamaw?” she said. It was just too strange that Lake Waccamaw was exactly where she was heading as soon as she changed into that new underwear. He waved the money again, then shrugged, made a move to get out of the truck. But he didn’t leave. He paused, looked back at her.
She reached for her purse. It lay open between them.
“Look,” he said, “nothing funny is going on here. We just need you to go along in case the car dies. We can fix the car for nothing if we get out there. Ronald’s granny, she’s waiting, and if we don’t hurry, that milk in the trunk is gonna turn. I need a ride, that’s all.” He dropped the hundred dollars into her purse, zipped it tight, and tossed the purse into her lap. “There and back,” he said. “And tonight you and your fiancé, or Randy, can go have a steak dinner on me.”
“I don’t eat steak,” she said.
“Tofu, then.” He smiled. “Go have twenty tofu-bean-sprout suppers on me.”
He was really good-looking when he smiled. Like some rock star. Flashing eyes, sandy hair that fell in his face. He had country-boy good looks, the kind of face that promised wild rides in fast cars though green hills. Definitely the type she liked. “Come on,” he said softly. “My friend over there, his granny’s waiting, and she doesn’t have a phone. All you gotta do is start the engine and pull out, follow that car.”
She clutched her keys and took in his clothes, Polo shirt, good jeans, Nikes that looked brand-new. At least he had good clothes. And he was polite for a guy who’d jumped into her truck. She sat back. It was a risk. But it would make a great story to tell her friends. And Randy, he’d love it that she’d taken such a risk and made money doing it.
“A hundred bucks. How else you gonna make a hundred bucks so fast?”
“All right,” she said. “There and back.”
“There and back.” He laughed.
She started the engine, glanced over and saw the nod he gave the other guy, not happy but intent. She wished she could call Billy, tell him where she was. If she could call Billy, she wouldn’t go to Randy’s. If she could call Billy, she’d get rid of this guy and head straight home.
Katy backed out and pulled in behind the Datsun. Jesse cracked his knuckles and sighed. She saw the batting gloves. She mashed the brakes, kept her eyes on her hands gripping the steering wheel.
“What’s wrong?”
“Why are you wearing those gloves?”
He opened his hands. “Yeah, not exactly sexy, right?”