The teenager looked over at her, his clean-shaven head glinting like a cue ball beneath the overhead lighting. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey what?” she asked curiously, fiddling with the door to the gas tank.
He grinned. “Just hey, Blondie. Are you having a little trouble there?”
The little door wouldn’t open. “No,” she muttered, pulling at it with both hands. “It’s just…stuck a little, I think.”
He sauntered over, bringing a heavy aroma of cigarette smoke with him. “You can’t open it from out here, or everyone would be siphoning your gas. Pop the safety latch inside.”
She bit her lip, trying to translate this into Palm Beach language. “Pop what?”
“You’re kidding, right? The door to the gas tank. Hell, haven’t you ever filled up a car before?”
“Not this particular car,” Julie said honestly. Nor any other car, but that was none of his business. “Could you show me where to…pop it?”
“I’d show you anything you want.” He looped his skinny arm around her shoulders, guiding her over to the driver’s side of the car. “You open the car door—like this—and pull that little lever—like this—and it pops the door to the gas tank open. Now pay attention and I’ll demonstrate.” He guided her back to the pump. “Pull the hose out. Twist the cap on the tank, put the hose in and push Start. See? It’s that easy. What’s your name?”
Julie was watching the gas pump intently, afraid the thing was going to overflow. “My what? Oh…Julie. Thank you for your help.”
“I’m Jeff.”
“Goodbye, Jeff.”
“What’s a pink and fluffy thing like you doing out here at 2:00 a.m.?”
“Is this thing going to stop on its own?”
He chuckled. “Poor baby. Whoever let you out alone after dark made a big mistake. Yeah, it will stop.” His fingers kneaded her shoulder. “You owe me something, don’t you think? Have you got a phone number?”
“Everyone has a phone number,” Julie said irritably, twisting away from him.
“What are the chances you’d give it to me?”
“The chances of my adopting you would be greater,” she said, tossing her hair back and staring him down as she would a fly, moth or any other insect annoying her. “Goodbye, Jeff.”
“Not interested, huh?”
“No,” Julie said with an overdose of sincerity, “but I’m sure I’ll have wonderful memories about you for the rest of my life.”
He held up both hands in surrender. “Your loss, Blondie.”
“Let’s talk about loss,” Billy said.
Julie hadn’t seen him approach, as most of her focus had been on the mysterious gas pump and the worrisome gurgling noises it was making. He was carrying a dented old gas can, which he put down directly in front of Jeff. “There are all kinds of loss,” Billy went on, with a smile that didn’t even begin to reach his eyes. “You can loose teeth, for one thing. That kind of loss is really painful. You don’t want to lose any of your teeth, do you, kid?”
There was something about Billy’s expression that made Julie plant herself between the two. “This isn’t necessary. He was showing me how to make the gas pump work.”
“What-ever,” Billy replied, in his best growling fashion.
“Hey man, she needed help,” the teenager said, quickly backing up as he talked. “She couldn’t figure out how to fill the car up, so I helped her. Ask, if you don’t believe me.”
Billy raised one eyebrow at Julie. She nodded and he seemed to relax almost imperceptibly. “Okay, kid. You can leave.”
Jeff didn’t need a second invitation. The fluorescent laces on his combat boots flashed as he sprinted inside the truck stop to pay for his gas. Billy never took his eyes off Julie, not for a second. A muscle in his jaw was working hard and fast. “You really don’t know how to fill up a car, do you?”
“If I did, would I embarrass myself like this?” Julie threw back, cheeks flaming. “He was just a baby, you didn’t need to scare him. You were a baby once…or were you?”
“Never,” Billy snapped. He was so frustrated, he wanted to kick something. Harris had just answered his private line when Billy had looked outside and seen Julie in what appeared to be yet another sticky situation. He’d hung up on the man to come to her rescue. “What is it with you? Didn’t you learn the first time? Don’t talk to strangers!”
“I never talk to strangers! I don’t know any strangers!”
Billy thumped his head with the heel of his hand. “Why do I expect logic from you? Julie, that kid was a stranger. That drunk trying to get in your car was a stranger. Hell, I’m a stranger! You shouldn’t be talking to any of us, don’t you get that?”
“You’re a policeman,” Julie sniffed. “You’re perfectly safe.”
“What if I’m a bad policeman? Have you thought of that? You can’t go around trusting everyone you meet, or you’ll never get home. Learn from your mistakes.”
At that point, Julie knew she was either going to cry or slap him. Before she could lift her hand, the tears were welling up in her soft brown eyes. “You don’t need to talk to me like this,” she sniffed. “I have enough on my mind without taking your abuse. You’re overreacting, anyway. I’m not your responsibility. I know I’m not…familiar with some things, but I’m not stupid, either. Just take me back to my car and you can go on your merry way.”
“And you’ll go home?” Billy persisted, steeling himself against the weeping Bambi look.
“When I darn well please,” Julie tossed back, refusing to be intimidated as easily as poor Jeff had been. “Which could be months from now!”
Silently, Billy counted to ten. Then, quite softly he said, “Get in the car. Now.”
“And if I don’t?” some devil made her say.
He took two steps, bringing his body three inches from hers. He dipped his head, letting the words swirl over her parted lips. “Then I’ll spank the living daylights out of you, right here and right now.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Ha! Honey, at this point there’s no telling what I’ll do.”
Brown eyes warred with blue for a good ten seconds. Julie gulped, lifted her chin and tried to say something to break the standoff, but the small movement closed the distance between them. For the space of a heartbeat she felt the touch of his lips on hers, no deeper than moonlight. Her body prickled fiercely like awakening flesh from top to bottom. And somewhere in the depths of her unconsciousness, she thought to herself, I want more. Whatever this is, I want more.
And so it was Billy who finally jumped back, Billy who threw open her car door and pushed her inside with barely restrained force. He’d known precisely what she was thinking, not only because she was too inexperienced to hide it, but because he was thinking the same thing.
More.
He decided he wasn’t getting paid nearly enough for this job.
On the positive side, the not-so-good Samaritan was gone when they returned to the cypress jungle where Julie had abandoned her car. On the negative side, so was Julie’s Porsche.
“Oh, my sainted aunt,” she whispered, her jaw dropping. “Did I…could I have…I