If that did eventually happen, he was ready with the excuse that he looked after the welfare of all his friends and acquaintances. It wouldn’t hurt to include Jamie among those. After all, his mother liked her.
Yeah, Shane silently agreed. Unfortunately, his mother wasn’t the only one.
* * *
Darkness was encroaching and everyone except Shane had gone before Jamie was free to start for Shane’s garage. She wasn’t pleased to have to leave her truck there again, but without working headlights she didn’t dare drive it at night. Besides, one of the front fenders was bent in so far that if Shane hadn’t straightened it a bit with a crowbar, it could have ruined another of her tires.
As soon as she’d parked inside the fenced work yard, Shane switched back to his personal pickup and locked the premises behind them. Jamie handed off Ulysses, tossed her purse in ahead of her and climbed into his other truck. “Okay. Let’s go.”
When the vehicle remained at idle, she frowned over at him. Both hands were resting on the wheel but he was making no move to proceed.
“Well?” she said, ruing the tinge of annoyance in her tone. “What are you waiting for?”
One eyebrow arched as he glanced at her. “Did you want something?”
“Aren’t we going to your mother’s house? I was invited tonight. I thought you knew.”
A tilt of his head and slight shrug of his shoulders was the only reply.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing. It appears that you need a ride. I’m just waiting for you to ask me for it.”
“Oh, for...” She blew a noisy breath. “All right. Will you please give me a lift to Marsha and Otis’s, Mr. Colton?”
The satisfied grin on his handsome face told the tale. He was gloating. Not that she blamed him, considering the way she’d confronted him at the park.
“I’d be delighted, Miz Jamie Lynn,” he drawled, clearly accenting his already evident Southern twang.
Not to be outdone, she did her best Scarlett O’Hara imitation and replied, “Why, ah declare, sir, you are the most gallant gentleman ah have ever met.”
He chuckled, then laughed, then laughed louder.
Jamie joined him. Hilarity brought a wonderful, contagious release of tension, and tears were soon streaming down her cheeks while they both roared and guffawed and chortled.
Although Shane didn’t appear to be producing tears as copiously as she was, he, too, was clearly overwhelmed, so much so that he had yet to start driving. She fished tissues out of her purse and offered one to him while she dried her eyes and giggled.
He wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand instead. “Where did that dose of Southern charm come from?”
“Beats me. Probably the movies. I’m still having trouble understanding everything people around here say to me. When I checked into the motel and asked the lady at the front desk if she could give me a quiet room, she said, ‘I don’t care to.’ If she hadn’t been smiling I would have been sure she was turning me down.”
“Around here that means, I don’t mind a bit.”
“Swell. So besides rescuing I need a translator?”
“You’ll catch on. It won’t take long. There must be some understanding left from childhood.”
“Bringing us back to my reason for being here,” Jamie said, sobering without great effort. “Marsha said you’d found the old records she wanted. Will you be able to give her what she was expecting?”
“I think so,” Shane said. He put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the street. “I want to clean up the boxes for her, so she doesn’t have them in the house yet. She has allergies and the dust is liable to make her sick.”
“I can help do that. You can just stack them in her garage and I’ll vacuum them clean for her.”
“We wouldn’t want to put you to all that trouble.”
It was his tone rather than the words that gave her pause. Could it be that he didn’t want her to have a chance to poke around in his dad’s old files until he’d had an opportunity to remove anything he didn’t want her to see?
“Surely you can’t be afraid of what I might find. After all, you said your father was very honest.”
“Of course he was!”
“Well, then, what’s the problem?”
Even in profile she could tell he’d gritted his teeth. “I’m trying to protect my mother, that’s all.”
“What makes you think she needs or wants protecting?”
Shane apparently had no pat answer for that question because none was forthcoming. The only change Jamie Lynn noticed was the way his fists clamped tightly on the steering wheel and his spine stiffened.