Page 7 of Forever Endeavor

“Swell. Welcome to the club, mizz, uh...?”

“I already told you my name,” she growled.

“Ruby, wasn’t it? Or Amber? Opal, maybe? I seem to recall it was a jewel.”

“Real funny. Amethyst Jayde is my nom de plume. I’m Billie, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right, Billie spelled with an I and an E.” He laughed as he wrote it down. It was far too easy to pull her pigtails. “Last name?”

“Mustard.”

Huh? Maybe he had a wax build up. “Did you sayMustard? Like mustard and ketchup?” Sonny cackled. “Any relation to Colonel Mustard?”

“Yeah, he’s my ex-husband.” She rolled her eyes. “Can you get on with it, please?”

“Okay, Mizz Billie Mustard. I’ve got your keys and your number from the tow, so we’re set. Have a seat and I’ll let you know when I’m ready to drive you over.”

She pounded her fist on the counter. “You’ve got to be kidding! Thanks to you, I’ve already been waiting two hours!”

“Geez, all right, have a Snickers,” he snapped, throwing down the clipboard. “I’ll take you, but then I won’t have time to look at your car. In case you haven’t heard, I close at five.”

Billie

With a slam, he disappeared behind a door at the back of the shop, giving Billie time to stew in her own marinade and soften up as remorse inevitably set in. Yeah, the mustachioed mechanic rubbed her wrong, but he did come to her rescue on the highway, after all. His garage was her only hope for miles around, not to mention that he held the key to the only place to lay her head for a night. Better play nice.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Billie called out, as a buxom bikini bunny on a hot rod calendar caught her eye. “I tend to run off at the mouth when I’m stressed and today has been a real doozy. I’m somewhere I don’t want to be, I’ve got a deadline I don’t have a hope in hell of meeting, my car is fucked and now I’m staring down the barrel of a potentially pricy repair job.”

He mumbled something about “the world’s smallest violin” as he emerged. He’d shed his bulky coveralls and made his way toward her in boot cut jeans, rolling a black t-shirt down his solid frame, a meaty build stacked somewhere between dad bod and brickhouse. Billie tried not to stare, but oh man, that t-shirt. The fabric stretched across the vast expanse of his chest, accentuating thick tattooed forearms and mountainous shoulders that she hadn’t dreamed of climbing until that very moment. Of course, he probably realized, as most guys do, that a tight fit could even make Fred Flintstone look sculpted.

Once in the truck, he wasted no time taking off. The tires squealed out of the lot and again as he took a hard left at the wharf, whizzed past the god of two faces, and then veered onto a rough, washboard-like trail along the marina. Billie bounced around like a pea in a hot pan, hanging on for dear life.

Sonny slammed on the brakes just short of five shabby, sun-bleached fishing shacks along the shoreline. From the traces of peeling paint, Billie deduced they had once been red in color. Mounted on stubby log posts, each plywood box was topped with an overhang of corrugated metal. What might have once passed for rustic hurdled toward ramshackle. Surely, this had to be his idea of a joke.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” She scowled.

“No ma’am, this is the place.” He dangled a tarnished key from a largemouth bass lure. “Cabin three is all yours.”

“Aren’t you at least going to show me in?”

“Look, princess, I may be the chauffeur, but I sure as hell ain’t your bell boy,” he scoffed. “Besides, you told me you could handle roughing it.”

“Yeah, but, I—”

Reaching across her, he yanked hard on the handle of the passenger door, flung it wide open, and then gallantly gestured for her to vamoose. “Welcome to Chateau Fish Guts. Enjoy your stay.”

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