“Then if you’ll hand me my purse, we can both be on our way.”
“Reckon I could do that, but then I'd have to find some other excuse to stay here and coax that pretty smile.”
Oh.
It was one thing for her body to go renegade on her. It was something completely different for her mind to contemplate skipping class so she could listen to Momma’s Boy drawl out Southern platitudes.
Neil never talked to her like that.
Of course, Neil had left. Packed up while she was at work. Sent his attorney to pick up her wedding ring. Avoided her like she was some kind of freak with a communicable label maker disease.
“Now, see, that's supposed to make you smilemore,” he said.
She blinked, but her eyes still burned. “Sorry. Bad timing.”
He squirted a few more ants. “Shoulda got him with the Windex.”
She inadvertently pictured herself chasing Neil out of their house with her label maker and a bottle of Windex, and she was surprised to find she still had a laugh in her. “Now what would your momma say to that?”
“That I should buy you dinner for making you sad.” He took another swipe at her steering column. “I’m Jackson.”
All she had to do was tell him her name. She didn’t have to go to dinner, didn’t have to ever see him again. Tell him her name, and she’d move back into the mostly-single-and-attractive-to-somebody ranks, questionable though his mental state might be. But she’d still be late for class.
She sucked in a breath. She could do this. Just say hername. “I’m—I’m late. For class. And I don’t do late, and I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. And I need this class, I really do, because—well, I just do, so I need to take the ant-mobile and go. But thank you. It was nice of you to help.”
“Darlin’, you ain’t gonna get outta this parking lot without getting all bit up. They’re still crawling out your vents.”
She wouldn’t cry again. She wouldn’t. “Then will youpleaselet me help?” Nine minutes late. Did professors lock the classroom doors when class started? She couldn’t remember.
He gave the dash a couple of quick squirts, then handed her the paper towels. “Keep on going. I’ll go on and get ’em from the other side.”
Anna heaved a sigh of relief and sank into the car. She attacked the melting ants with an efficiency that apparently hadn’t made it this far south yet. Between the semi-cool air blowing on her, the faint scent of Old Spice lingering in her seat, and the feeling of being useful once again, things looked less dire.
Jackson climbed into her passenger seat and kept squirting. “You taking classes out on base?”
She suppressed a shudder and tore off another paper towel. These ants were going down faster than her marriage. “James Robert.” A beautiful, private campus without any military presence.
“Ol’ Jim-Bob, eh? What kinda class you taking?”
“Heat Transfer in Hell.” She lunged for an errant ant.
“Thermo?”
She stopped wiping to stare at him. “You’ve heard of thermodynamics?”
He blinked, almost like he was offended, then nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am. I grew up Baptist. I know all about them temperatures in hell.”
Another shadow of a laugh eased a bit more pressure in her airways. “Guess your momma raised you right then.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Together, it took five more minutes to wipe out the worstof the ants. If she sped on the roads and ran from the parking lot, she’d be only thirteen and a half minutes late, assuming a quick heatstroke recovery time. She tucked her Windex and depleted paper towel roll back into her trunk organizer, and she found a genuine smile for her unexpected helper. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He took her hand into his, his grip warm and smooth and flutter-inducing, and pressed something against her palm. “In case you need help with any more critters.” He stepped back, amusement evident in the quirk of his lips. “Hope you know more about hell than you look like you do.”
He’d written his name and number on a paper towel.
It was almost sweet enough to make being fourteen minutes late for her first class worth it. That big ol’ redneck thought she was cute.
