The Chance (Thunder Point #4)(49)

Justin laughed at him and began on the paperwork for the invoice.

“I’m going to get us a pizza,” Al said.

“I can help with that, too,” the kid said.

In the few weeks Al had been there he watched as Lucky’s became a little bit of a hangout, too. Laine was there regularly, whether she’d been out for a run or on her way home from one of her consulting jobs. She often checked in, asking Eric what they should do for dinner. When Mac filled up the sheriff’s department SUV, he managed to stay awhile because the crew at Lucky’s made good company. Such was the case with many residents. And, of course, there were Ray Anne’s visits, seldom for a full tank and never in a big hurry. If Al was aware she was at the pump, he took the job. He wiped off his hands, excused the rest of the garage team and spent a little quality time on Ray Anne’s little BMW. He knew he did a lot of grinning while she was there.

Eric said, “You ever wonder how she walks in those shoes?”

Al had lifted a brow and said, “Walking is way overrated.”

On one of her passes through the station she said, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night at Cliff’s, since it’s your night off.”

“I guess so,” he answered.

“You know, one of these nights you’ll have to stay for dinner....”

“I’ve had dinner there a time or two,” he said, grinning. “But I’m thinking it’s about time for something Italian.”

“Sure,” she said, clearly disappointed.

“You can probably recommend a good place.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m a full-service Realtor.”

“I thought you could. Let’s see—I’ll get to Cliff’s around five. Maybe five-thirty. That’s about when you get there, right? You think of some good Italian place and I’ll take you out. How’s that?”

The disappointment on her face melted instantly into a look of pure pleasure. “That would be perfect. I know all the best restaurants in Coos County.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Al found himself looking forward to a dinner out with Ray Anne more than he’d looked forward to a date in a long while, and it was entirely successful, starting with their hysterical laughter when he folded himself up in her BMW. “I don’t know if this is gonna work,” he said.

“I can’t get in that truck!” she said, laughing. “It’s as far off the ground as I am tall! And I’m in a tight skirt and heels!”

“And those heels do you proud, too. You don’t weigh much. I could pick you up and throw you in,” he suggested.

“Aw, you don’t think I weigh much? Not only do I love you for that, I can eat more Italian tonight than I’d planned to. Now just put your chin on your knees like a good boy and let me worry about getting you there!”

“Drive carefully,” he said. “If you hit a berm or pylon, I’ll have to have my knees removed from the back of my head.”

She took him to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant decorated with plastic vines and grapes and he told her he’d forgotten his reading glasses and asked her to order for them both. She did an expert job and they laughed all through dinner. He wanted to know all about what it was like growing up in Coos County and she wanted to know what it was like just moving from job to job with no real commitments.

“It’s not exactly like that,” he said. “I’ve worked for a few of the same people, like Eric, who are willing to hire me even though I don’t seem to be looking for a career. In a dozen years I’ve worked for Eric several different times, then I’d hear from someone who needs help or wants me back for a contract they can’t fulfill without extra help. I don’t like the north in the winter, I don’t like the south in the summer. I’m not saving up for a European vacation or big house, that’s just how I roll. I like Eric. I don’t work for people who don’t prove to me they’re honest and straightforward and Eric is.”

“So you’ll move on and probably come back in six months or a year?” she asked.

He tilted his head, wrinkled his brow and said, “That just seems to be the way of it. Maybe I like too many things. I like driving a truck, like mechanics, and since I was raised on a farm, that still has appeal. I go back to Iowa just about every year even though there’s hardly anyone there I know anymore. Sometimes I hang around, help out old neighbors.”

“What happened to the family farm?” she asked.

“We gave it up. Sold it. There’s just my sister and me. She gave her half to charity and I put my half into a few bonds and a new truck. It wasn’t that much land. It seemed like way too much farm when I was working it, but once it was for sale it turned out to be a little dinky farm.”

“Do you miss it?” she asked.

“I do,” he admitted. “But I didn’t want to be a farmer all alone and with no other siblings and my parents gone, it didn’t hold much appeal. Plus, it didn’t take me long to see I could do without those really bad Midwestern winters....”

Ray Anne, he learned, loved what she did and where she did it. Loved it with a passion. Thunder Point was an easy place to live, she knew everyone, and her work took her all over Coos County and beyond. She loved being with people all day, as many days a week as she could stand it. She had a few really good friends in town, made a decent if modest living, mostly by managing rental property in the area, and life was as she liked it—maybe not cosmopolitan but satisfying. “If I could’ve talked Cooper out of that beachfront property, the commission would’ve been incredible, but the greedy bastard wouldn’t let it go. I love him, but that was on the selfish side.”