Bounty(38)

However, I wasn’t able to fully enjoy this lovely feeling. I was too busy glancing at the back of my truck where bags of cement that didn’t look waterproof were laying.

Fortunately, Deke’s arrival in his bronze Ram with patterned steel tool cabinet in the back growled up like the monster it was, the sound of the engine beating back the soft wafting of the wind.

Deke was behind the wheel, phone to his ear, and I watched with some marvel as he drove past me, executed a three-point turn then drove past me again to park at the side of the road in front of my truck, all with his phone still to his ear.

He angled out of his truck, yes, with his phone at his ear.

“Yeah, County Road 18. ’Bout a mile off of Main Street.” I heard him say as he sauntered toward me and my vehicle.

He glanced at me as he passed me and stopped beside the bed of my truck.

“Tow it. Fix it. I’ll text you Jus’s number so you can deal with her on it,” he kept speaking. “Right. Cool. Later.”

He disconnected and shoved his phone in his back pocket, his gaze coming to me.

“Wood, man who owns the local garage, is sending a tow.”

“That’s cool you did that. Thanks,” I replied just as a gust of wind blew a hank of hair across my face.

I pulled it away, flicking it back over my shoulder and finding when I’d accomplished this, Deke’s eyes were at my shoulder.

“Paint’s in the cab. The rest in the back,” I shared.

His head twitched like his mind was elsewhere and I’d alerted him to the present then his chin lifted and he turned to the bed.

I moved around the hood to get the paint that was on the passenger side, which included cans of primer, as Deke instructed I buy.

I moved all the paint to his truck. Deke moved all the cement and grabbed the glaze.

I started to go to his passenger side when he said, “Leave the keys under the floor mat, you got one in that heap.”

I lifted my gaze to his.

“Say what?” I asked.

“Leave the keys under the floor mat. Wood’ll need ’em.”

“Like, leave the keys to my truck under the floor mat with my truck abandoned on the side of the road?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, like leave the keys to your truck under the floor mat with your truck which has got a flat and can’t go nowhere so it’s on the side of the road so whoever Wood sends out with the tow, someone who’ll be here in probably ten minutes, can get your truck and they’ll have the keys.”

“Why do they need the keys?”

“So they can deal with your flat and not have to roll that old-ass fucker out of a bay to park it while they wait for you to come pick it up.”

“Deke, I’m not leaving the keys to my truck right here.”

“Jus, no one’s gonna steal that wreck and not just because they can’t without changing the spare themselves, a spare that doesn’t exit. But because they won’t have enough time and no one would want that wreck in the first place.”

He was ticking me off.

“It’s not a wreck,” I snapped.

He looked to my truck and back at me.

“Jus.”

That was it.

Just Jus.

Like that said it all.

Sure, my faded red old Ford pickup looked like a wreck.

But it was no wreck to me.

“Maybe I’ll wait until they get here,” I suggested.

“You wanna hang at the garage while they find time to fix your tire?”

This did not sound fun and I had things to do that day.

“Deke—”

“Keys. Truck. Now, Jus. It’s gonna start comin’ down and soon and we want that cement in your house, not in my truck turnin’ into concrete while we argue about somethin’ stupid.”

Shit.

With no other choice, I stomped to the driver side and put my keys under the front seat (for he was correct, I had no floor mats).

I then stomped to the passenger side of Deke’s truck. He was already at his side.

We climbed in.

Deke started up his behemoth and we took off.

“Need to get a new ride, Jus,” he advised me.

“I do not. My truck’s perfect.”

“Perfect for that gig you got goin’ on. Not perfect for a woman who lives alone in a remote location like this with an unpredictable climate like the one we got in Carnal.”

“It’s fine.”

“Unless you take serious good care of it, you’re lucky you only got a flat.”

“I take serious good care of it,” I assured. Then asked, “The gig I got going on?”

“The whole gypsy princess thing.”

I looked from the road to him. “It’s not a part of my gypsy princess thing. My gypsy princess thing isn’t even a gypsy princess thing. It’s boho.”