Jimmy Joe glanced at her and drawled, straight-faced, “Naw…more like you sat on a horse too long.”
Mirabella gave a short, surprised laugh. Surprised, because he sounded so much less reserved when he said it, as if he really might have a sense of humor underneath all that politeness. And because all of a sudden she didn’t feel selfconscious about the way she walked anymore. And she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was about what he’d said or the way he’d said it that could have had that effect on her.
Then they were passing between the seemingly endless rows of idling trucks, hundreds of them, rumbling away with a sound like an oncoming stampede.
“They’re so big,” said Mirabella through her shivers, knowing it was an inane thing to say, which didn’t surprise her, being right on a par with her usual snappy social repartee. Considered a clown in her family and a wit among her female friends, and at the very least, concise and articulate in professional situations, when it came to a conversational one-on-one with an attractive member of the opposite sex, Mirabella was generally about as eloquent as…well, a duck.
But they were big. Huge. Awe-inspiring, especially up close like this. Having a very literal mind, she rarely thought in poetic analogies, but the trucks made her think of great slumbering beasts-domesticated, pampered beasts, to be sure, many of whose owners had decked them out for the holidays in tinsel garlands and Christmas lights, with wreaths and red bows tied to their front grills.
“This here’s the one,” said Jimmy Joe, and let go of her arm while he took out his keys. When he stepped in between two of the massive machines and unlocked the door of one of them, she noticed that his truck didn’t have any Christmas decorations on it. Then he pulled the door open and she could see the words Blue Starr Transport written in silver on shiny royal blue, along with a logo that looked like the star of Bethlehem, and she decided that with a name and a logo like that, he didn’t really need anything more.
Shivering even harder, she said, “I can see where the Blue comes from, but Starr, with two r’s?”
“That’s my name,” he said in an offhand way as he rejoined her, pocketing his keys. “Jimmy Joe Starr. And my daddy’s before me. Come on around here to the other side. That way you won’t have the steering wheel to fool with.”
“You sure you’re not going to need a crane to get me up there?” she asked, laughing uneasily as she followed him to the passenger side. The truck had shiny chrome steps up to the cab, but it still looked like a climb, considering her limitations.
He didn’t even chuckle, although she did catch a glimpse of that sweet grin before he turned away from her to open the door. “Naw, you’ll do fine. Okay, here you go, now-upsy-daisy.”
And before she had time to be worried about it he’d stepped around behind her and put his hands under her elbows and boosted her right up onto the first step. One more good boost and she was where she’d never in a million years thought she would ever be-sitting in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler.
“Wow,” she said, looking around, “I’m impressed.” She hoped he would know she wasn’t just saying it, that she really meant it. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d thought he meant when Jimmy Joe mentioned a “sleeper,” but she hadn’t expected anything like this. The control panel just looked bewildering, complicated enough to operate a 747, but behind the seats it was like a tiny little RV, with a wide, comfortable-looking bed, no wasted space and a place for everything. Designing space for maximum use and efficiency was what Mirabella did, and she could appreciate a masterpiece when she saw it.
“It’s comfortable,” Jimmy Joe said with a diffident shrug. He showed her how to turn off the lights in the cab and where to turn them on in the sleeper, and how to adjust the heater in case she got too warm. Then he seemed to hesitate, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“I really appreciate this,” Mirabella said with bemused sincerity. “Thanks.”
He nodded and muttered, “Okay, then.” He started to back out of the cab before pausing to add, “Might want to lock your doors.” And then he was gone and the door slammed shut on the cold, mean wind.
Mirabella waited for a moment, then locked the doors and turned off the cab lights the way he’d told her to. She went into the sleeper and drew the curtain across the opening, then stood for a moment or two just looking, trying to orient herself to the strangeness of being in a man’s private space.
She was surprised at how tidy it was. The bed was neatly made, and except for a pair of boots standing upright and together on the floor, everything seemed to be stowed away in its proper place. There was a tiny closet for hanging clothes, and drawers she didn’t look in. An overnight bag, some folded towels and a baseball cap occupied a shelf above the bed; compartments at its head held paperback books, a pack of gum and a plastic bag with some change in it. He wasn’t a smoker, thank God.
No bathroom, though; not even a potty. Which was too bad, because she already felt the need for one, although it had only been a few minutes since she’d left the truck-stop rest room. No way she was going back there now, though. It was just one more discomfort she would have to ignore.
She turned off the light and sank onto the bed with a sigh, curling carefully onto her side, which was the only position left that could even remotely be considered comfortable. And as the darkness and the vibration of several hundred truck engines folded in around her, it occurred to Mirabella that it felt a little like being in a womb herself…safe, warm, rocked by the throbbing of a massive diesel heartbeat.
Walking back to the restaurant, Jimmy Joe caught himself looking around to see if anybody had noticed what he’d just done, as if it was something he ought to be ashamed of. It was a first for him, no doubt about that. He’d had the Kenworth almost five years now, put more than half a million miles on her, and this was the first time a woman had ever set foot inside her sleeper.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t had those kinds of opportunities come knocking-sometimes literally-on his door. And he hadn’t said no to them when they did because he was some kind of prude, or had a religious thing about it-nothing like that. He just didn’t believe in mixing recreation with work, was all. Of course, nowadays most of the better truck stops, including this one, had pretty much put a stop to the lot-lizard nonsense, which did cut down on the temptations considerably.
Not that Mirabella was anywhere near being in the same category. This was a different thing altogether. But he still felt weird about it.
Back in the restaurant he found his booth still vacant and a mug of hot coffee waiting for him. He’d just about sat down when his hot roast-beef sandwich arrived, and he was hungry enough that he put off calling J.J. while he gave his dinner his full attention. After he’d gotten that put away and his coffee mug refilled, he picked up the phone and punched in the endless string of numbers it took to connect him via calling card to his mama’s house, then settled back to listen to the rings.
That was when he looked up and felt a catch in his chest as if a big bite of roast beef had gotten stuck there. Darned if it wasn’t her, standing there same as before except maybe looking even more pale and peaked. He wasn’t glad to see her. He especially wasn’t glad about the way his stomach jumped up underneath his ribs and made his heart beat faster, kind of like the way it did sitting on top of a forty-ton load when he knew a four-wheeler was about to cut him off and he had no place else to go.
He told himself he really had hoped to have seen the last of the uppity woman with the red hair, Madonna eyes, Italian name and no good sense, except maybe for helping her out of his truck tomorrow morning and into her own car and waving her on her way. Lord, didn’t he have enough to worry about, what with the weather screwing up his schedule, and wondering how he was going to make it home for Christmas in time to keep from breaking a promise, not to mention J.J.’s heart?