Deck the Halls
A sedan flew by with the blare of a horn. Traffic had moved back into the outside lane the instant Vince and his flashing lights had pulled away, but she had barely noted that fact. Shaking slightly, she switched on her headlamps, jammed the transmission into gear, put on her blinker, turned off her hazard lights and prepared to merge.
It hit her then. Like a ballpeen hammer to the back of the head.
She had never thanked him. A handsome, apparently successful man had gotten her car running for free, and she hadn’t even had the grace to thank him properly. She tried to remember all the reasons why she had been right to suspect his motives, but somehow they didn’t quite ring true.
Jolie brushed her bangs up, then down, blowing out a stiff breath and closing her eyes until the world righted itself and equilibrium returned and she could look at the situation dispassionately.
On second thought, it just didn’t figure. He had to have some ulterior motive, something so slick and cagey that she couldn’t even think of it. And maybe—good gracious—maybe he was just a nice man who liked to help people. Stranger things had happened.
Somewhere.
Sometime.
Telling herself that it didn’t matter, she took a last measuring look at traffic, then pulled away from the curb.
The problem was, somehow it did matter. A lot. Enough to make her feel small and petty and unreasonable.
She was halfway home before it occurred to her that she still had both of those coupons.
Vince shifted in his seat, the safety belt biting into his shoulder. He craned his neck, trying to work out a kink there. It was ridiculous, getting this worked up over a little thing like having his motives questioned. Everyone was suspicious of everybody, at least until they got to know one another. He’d been accused of having ulterior motives before, though not in quite some time. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t fatal.
So she didn’t trust him. So what? The world was full of people who expected automotive repairmen to rip them off. It was foolish to think she would be any different. And what difference did it make, anyway? God had obviously brought her into his life so that he could get her old car running for her again, and that was just what he’d done. End of story.
The thing wasn’t going to run for long, though. With just a cursory inspection he’d found enough wrong under that hood to keep him busy for days, but he’d only mentioned the worst of it because it was obvious that she didn’t have much money. It was just as glaringly obvious that she wouldn’t be easy to help, either.
Maybe that was the point.
If so, he’d definitely be seeing her again. He believed that God had a purpose in all that He allowed into the lives of His children. So if he never saw her again, so be it. It wasn’t his business, after all, to second-guess God, and he was just fine with that.
So why was he fighting the urge to turn around and give her a lecture on the stupidity of looking a gift horse in the mouth?
Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.
He didn’t know her well enough to be this disappointed in her attitude. And he probably never would. A hole seemed to open in his chest, burning hot around the edges.
Vince sighed and tried to concentrate on his driving. He passed an intersection on a green light and immediately heard the screech of tires followed at once by the crunching of metal. Automatically, Vince flipped on his warning lights and pulled out of traffic.
Looking around, he saw that two cars had collided in a grocery-store parking lot across the street. It didn’t seem serious, and it wasn’t impeding traffic, plus, he was off-duty. The fact was, he didn’t make wrecker runs anymore. At least he hadn’t until Jolie Wheeler had called. Well, that would teach him.
Shaking his head, he began making his way across the busy street to the parking lot. What was he going to do? Leave without making certain that no one needed his assistance? Not his style. Then again, neither was embarrassing himself, but he’d managed to do that twice now with Jolie Kay Wheeler. Twice was quite enough. Why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone?
He reached the scene of the mishap, killed his engine and slid out onto the tarmac. Two women were glaring at each other over the hoods of their tangled cars. Vince put on a smile and waded into the fray.
“Can I help, ladies?”
Almost an hour later he’d managed to uncouple their bumpers and pull out a fender so both could be on their way, still angry but maintaining their civility even as they each contemplated a hike in insurance rates. Twenty bucks richer—the one with the crumpled fender had insisted on compensating him—Vince swung the wrecker through a fast-food lane to pick up a burger to eat at home. Alone.
He could’ve dropped in on his mom or one of the girls. They were always willing to set an extra plate at the table for him, but they were always wanting to know where he’d been and who he’d seen lately, too, and he just wasn’t in the mood to answer questions about his nonexistent love life or hear how he worked too much. He wasn’t in the mood to eat alone, either, but those were the options. With a sigh, he resigned himself to the latter.
It was only later as he bit into his burger at the kitchen counter that he wondered if Jolie would call on Cutler Automotive when her old jalopy finally conked on her again, because conk it would—and she still hadn’t redeemed those coupons.
Feeling a little better, he enjoyed the rest of his burger.
Chapter Three
“Aaargh!”
Jolie smacked the steering wheel with a closed fist. Not again! This time the engine wouldn’t even turn over. No cough, no sputter, nothing.
She’d have cried if it would’ve done any good, but tears wouldn’t pay for automotive repairs. Air wouldn’t either, and that’s what was in her checking account at the moment, with payday still two days away and rent due next week.
To make matters worse, she was going to miss at least a few hours of work this morning. The week was not starting out well. Sick at heart, she wrenched her keys from the ignition and crawled out of her old four-banger—no-banger at the moment—to head back upstairs.
Her first telephone call was to Mr. Geopp, who told her only to get into work when she could. He was a pleasant enough employer but somewhat distant personally. His late wife had been easier to talk and relate to. She’d cut Jolie every possible break, especially after Russell had arrived.
Jolie would stay with Geopp for no other reason than loyalty to the memory of his wife. She just wished that he would display a little more emotion, if only to let her know for sure where she stood with him in moments like this. It was one more worry on a long list of worries.
Jolie sat down to think through her options with the car. It had started before with a simple jump from a battery charger. Maybe that would work once more. She judged her chances of getting it done for free a second time at slim to none, however, especially if she called Cutler’s again. After questioning Vince’s integrity, she doubted that he’d cut her a break. Then again, neither would any other emergency service in town.
She thought of the coupons and shook her head in resignation. Cutler Automotive probably jacked up the price twice as high as normal before giving their fifty percent discount, but at least the towing would be free. They couldn’t jack up free.
Sighing, she reached for the telephone once more. This time a perky-sounding female answered the call.
The wrecker arrived twenty-four minutes later.
Jolie was sitting on the bumper tapping one toe against the pavement when the familiar white truck swung into the lot. Her stomach lurched in anticipation, but then a stranger opened the driver’s door and got out.
“You Ms. Wheeler?”
Nodding, Jolie tamped down her disappointment and straightened away from the car to look over this newcomer.
He seemed roughly the same age as Vince and had a shock of very dark hair falling forward over his brow, but that was where the similarities ended. This fellow was shorter and wider than Vince with a noticeable bulge around the middle and a slight under-bite that made his lower jaw seem overlong. His brown eyes twinkled merrily as he thrust out his right hand.
“I’m Boyd. What can I do for you?”
“You can make my car go.”
“Well, let’s have a look,” he said noncommitally, taking a toolbox from the truck, “and while I’m looking, why don’t you tell me what’s been going on with it?”
Jolie started with that morning’s fiasco and worked her way backward over the past couple weeks, leaving out only Vince’s diagnosis. By the time she was through with her tale, he was nodding his head knowingly.
“Sounds like the alternator and probably a bad sensor. I’ll try resetting the sensor and jump-starting it.”
Jolie breathed a sigh of relief, but it was for naught. The sensor would not register, according to Boyd, and the jump did no good.
“Well, I’ll tow her in and see what a full diagnostic turns up,” he said blandly.
“What’s that going to cost?” Jolie asked, fishing the coupons from the hip pocket of her jeans. “I have these.”
Boyd took the coupons, kept the one for the free tow and handed back the other, saying, “These’ll help.”
“So how much?”
He shrugged. “Provided it’s what I think it is and we don’t find any other problems, I’d say about three hundred, but a lot depends on the parts. This is a domestic car, but a lot of the parts are foreign-made, so…” He shrugged again.
Jolie felt physically ill.
“Is that three hundred before or after the discount?”
He looked at her sympathetically. “After.”
She momentarily closed her eyes.
“I can’t afford that!”
“Aw, don’t worry,” he told her. “The boss will cut you a deal.”
That would be the boss whom she’d practically called a crook.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” she muttered.
Boyd chuckled. “No, really. Vince is a good guy. He helps people out all the time. Between you and me, he’d probably give the business away bit by bit if I didn’t keep reminding him that he was supposed to be making a profit. But then, the way I figure it, God takes care of His own.”
Jolie didn’t know about that. She just knew that life had suddenly gotten immeasurably more difficult for her personally, and it hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park to begin with.
“I don’t know how I’m going to manage this.”
“Listen, just call the shop later and speak to Vince,” Boyd urged. “Use the second number on the coupon. Okay?”
“Sure.”
The two of them were probably working the scam together, she thought sullenly, and the nice-guy acts were just a carefully coordinated part of it.
Then again, the car wasn’t faking it. The thing had been bugging out on her since well before Vincent Cutler had showed up on the scene.
Boyd had her put the car in Neutral so he could push it out of its parking space and “get a good hook on it.” A few minutes were all that were required to secure the towing device. Then he just started up the automatic winch, and they stood there watching the front end of her car slowly rise off the ground.
“I have to find a ride to work,” Jolie muttered to herself.
“Yeah? Where do you work?”
She told him, and he jerked his head toward the cab of the truck. “Get in. I’ll drop you.”
She brightened. That was the first bit of good news she’d had today.
“Really?”
“It’s on the way.”
“Great.”
She climbed into the cab of the truck while he finished securing the tow. It was spotlessly clean, despite a gash in the vinyl of the bench seat, and sported a two-way radio, GPS system and some sort of miniature keyboard attached to the dash with an electronics cord.
As soon as Boyd slid beneath the steering wheel, he picked up the keyboard and typed in some letters and numbers, then he triggered the radio and informed whoever was on the other end that he was headed back to the garage with a car in tow, rattling off both make and model.
Soon Jolie was standing in front of the dry cleaners watching her car move away behind the wrecker, its front end pointing skyward. Mindlessly, she swept her bangs back and then smoothed them down again before turning to enter the shop. Bumping into one of their regular customers, she pasted on a smile. A glance showed her that the shop was full and the counter vacant while Geopp evidently searched for garments to be picked up. She went to work.
“How are you, Mrs. Wakeman?”
“Arthritis just gets worse and worse,” came the usual doleful reply.
“That’s too bad. How many pieces today?”
“Three, and be careful of the gold buttons on the blazer. They tarnished last time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The rest of the morning proved as busy as those first few minutes, but Jolie’s mind was never far from her troubles.
Immediately after lunch, she called the garage, using the number on the card that Boyd had given her. Vince answered this time.
“Cutler Automotive. This is Vince speaking. How can I help you?”
She gulped inaudibly. “This is Jolie Wheeler again.”
“Oh, hi. We’ve got the car on diagnostics now.”
He sounded perfectly normal, as if she hadn’t insulted him, as if they were friends or something equally ridiculous. For some reason that rankled, adding a dry edge to her voice.
“So you still don’t know what’s really wrong with it?”
“We don’t have confirmation, no.”
“And when will you have confirmation?”
“Shortly.”
“Call me as soon as you know what it’s going to cost,” she demanded.
“All right.”
“Before you do any work.”
Several seconds of silence followed that, and when next he spoke, his voice was tinged with annoyance.
“No one’s going to take advantage of you, Jolie.”
She went on as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Because I really can’t afford a big repair bill.” Or any repair bill for that matter.
He sighed gustily.
“I realize that. Look, why don’t you just come by the shop after work? I’ll show you exactly what’s wrong with your car and what it’s going to cost to fix it, and we’ll figure out how to take care of it. Okay?”
He couldn’t have sounded more reasonable, so why did she feel like needling him?
“And just how would you suggest I get over there without transportation? Take the bus?”
It was an entirely plausible possibility, which made what happened next all the more inexplicable.
“I’ll pick you up,” he said lightly. “What time to do you get off work?”
She didn’t even balk, which in itself was appalling.
“Six o’clock.”
“Okay. See you then.”
They quickly got off the phone after that. Jolie stood staring at the thing for a long moment, wondering what on earth had possessed her to agree that he should pick her up, but then she shook her head.
Why shouldn’t he? He had her car, after all. She hoped she could wangle a ride home out of it, too. Beyond that, she just refused to think, period.
Vince pulled up to the curb in front of the dry cleaners at precisely three minutes past six. The shop had obviously seen better days. Its storefront looked outdated and rather dingy, but the area was clean and safe. Because he was in a ten-minute loading zone, he kept the engine running and settled back to wait.
He didn’t have to wait long. The door opened just moments later, and Jolie burst out onto the sidewalk. He grinned at her dropped jaw. Her ragged little car was purring like a contented kitten.
“It’s fixed!”
He laughed at her delight, but then her face turned thunderous. Her hands went to her hips, and he knew what she was going to say. Even as she spoke, he released his safety belt, opened the door and stood, one foot still inside the car, one hand on the steering wheel.
“I did not authorize any work.”
“No, you didn’t,” he interrupted, “but it had to be done.”
“You said we’d talk about it first!”
“Jolie, how would you get back and forth to work without your car?”
She put a hand to her head, ruffling her bangs and then smoothing them again. Vince tried not to smile at what seemed to be a characteristic gesture, something she did without conscious thought.
“I can’t pay for it!” she suddenly wailed, as if he didn’t know that.
The sidewalk was not the place to talk about it, however.
“Get in,” he told her, indicating the passenger seat. For a moment she just stared at him. “Get in,” he repeated. “My truck’s back at the shop. We can talk on the way.”
She trudged around and got into the car with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner on the way to her execution. He chuckled despite his better judgment.
“It’s not funny,” she grumbled as he dropped down into the seat and clipped his belt once more.
“It’s not tragic, either.”
“Shows what you know,” she snapped. “When was the last time you had to choose between paying the rent and other obligations?”
“It’s been some while,” he admitted, “but I have been there.”
“Then you understand that there’s just no way…” She gulped. “A—a few bucks a month, maybe, if I—”
“Will you just listen for a minute?” he urged, laying his arm along the back of her seat in entreaty.
She frowned at him, worry clouding those jade-green eyes.
“I have an idea about how we can square this.”
Her mouth compressed suspiciously. It was a very pretty mouth, wide and mobile and full-lipped, but he couldn’t help wondering what or who had fostered that mistrustful expression.
“How?” she asked.
He glanced at the front of the dry cleaners.
“Well, if it’s not a conflict of interest for you, I need someone to do my laundry.”
She blinked.
“Laundry?”
“Yeah, you know, dirty clothes and shop rags, some linens, that sort of thing.”
The clouds were beginning to lift from her eyes, but her tone was tart as she retorted, “I know what laundry is, but why should I do yours?”
She buckled her safety belt, and Vince put the transmission in gear, turning away so that she wouldn’t notice that he struggled with a sudden grin.
“Garages are dirty places,” he began, nosing the car into traffic, “and I own all the uniforms that the guys wear. I thought I could do the washing myself, even bought a top-of-the-line, extra-capacity washer-and-dryer set, but it just doesn’t get done in a timely manner.”
“And you want to pay me to do it.”
“Something like that.”
She flipped the end of her ponytail off her shoulder, obviously thinking.
“I get it. You’re talking about a barter arrangement, basically.”
He nodded and signaled with the blinker that he was moving the car over into the next lane.
“Unless, like I said before, it’s a conflict of interest for you, given that your regular job is with a dry cleaner.”
“Not a problem. Mr. Geopp stopped taking in laundry a few months ago after his wife died.”
“That’s too bad, about his wife, I mean.”
“Yeah, she was a good lady,” Jolie said lightly, but something about her tone let him know that she honestly grieved the woman’s passing.
“Were you friends?”
“Not really,” Jolie replied, looking away. “About the laundry…”
He took the hint and dropped the subject.
“I have to warn you, there’s lots of it.”
“Good. That means I’ll get the debt worked off sooner rather than later.”
He nodded, signifying that they had come to an agreement in principle at least.
“Okay, so all we have to do is negotiate the particulars. I understand that laundry costs are figured by the pound or by the piece.”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t have any way to weigh it, so I say we go by the piece, then, if that’s agreeable to you.”
She named a price that was very much in line with what he’d expected, given that he would be providing the equipment and the necessary supplies. He proposed drawing up a debit sheet so she could mark off her work and subtract the cost of it from the repair bill, which would reflect the fifty-percent reduction that she’d been promised and that would include some extra repairs to her car that he felt were necessary but which he had not yet done.
“I only have two days a week to devote to this,” she warned him.
“And what two days would those be?”
“Sunday and Monday. Those are my days off from the dry cleaners.”
He shook his head.
“Sundays are for church. I’ll be content with Mondays.”
“No matter how long it takes for me to work off the debt?” she pressed.
“No matter how long it takes,” he assured her.
She stared out the window for a long time, her expression hidden from him. He waited, confident of her decision. Finally she looked straight ahead.
“Okay, it’s a deal.”
He let her see his smile.
“Let me show you where you’ll be working, then.”
“Might as well.” She sat up a little straighter.
“Obviously this street is Hulen,” he pointed out, slowing to make a right turn. “We’re going to take the Interstate up here and head west for about a mile.”
She nodded, obviously making mental notes as he drove and talked her through the route.
When he turned the car down his street, she drew her brows together and said, “This can’t be right.”
“What do you mean? It’s right up here.”
“Here?” she echoed uncertainly, indicating the neighborhood around them with a wave of her hand.
The development was brand-new, not even half occupied yet, but that didn’t explain her confusion to him. He let it go long enough to pass by the two empty lots between the corner house and his own at the top of the rise.
“This is it.”
He couldn’t help the note of pride in his voice.
By some standards, it was a modest home, but it was everything he had ever wanted, bright, roomy, well-appointed and undeniably attractive with its gabled metal roof and exterior of natural stone and rich red brick. He’d labored over every detail, probably to the point of driving the architect and builder nuts, but this was the place where he intended to live out the bulk of his life and, he hoped, one day raise a family.
Most folks didn’t look at a first house as a long-term home, but Cutlers weren’t the sort who “traded up.” They were the kind of people who put down roots, sank them deep and let the years roll by in relative contentment. They believed in God, family, personal integrity, hard work and generosity, all notions that he’d once found boring and mundane. He’d gotten over all that, and he hadn’t questioned his values again—until he saw the look on Jolie Wheeler’s face as he turned her old car into his curving driveway.
She hated the place; he could see it on her face, and his gut wrenched. Disappointment honed a fine, defensive edge onto his voice.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“What’s wrong?” she echoed shrilly. “It’s your house!”
“You expected me to take you to someone else’s house?”
“I expected you to take me to your business, one of your garages!”
He stared at her, realization dawning.
“You thought I’d put a washer and dryer in one of my shops?”
“Of course I did!”
He stroked his chin, thinking. Guess he hadn’t ever said that the appliances were at his house, and he had mentioned uniforms and shop rags and dirty garages.
“Never thought about putting a laundry room into the shop,” he mumbled. “Might not be a bad idea. I’ll have to look into that.”
She threw up her hands, clearly exasperated.
“And in the meantime?”
He shrugged. “In the meantime we’ve got what we’ve got, don’t we?”
She dropped her jaw, trying to see, apparently, just how far it could go without dislocating. He clamped his back teeth together and mentally counted to ten before drawing a calming breath and reaching way down deep for a reasonable tone.