“He also told you not to hurt me.” She touches my lips. “You’d better listen or that car will go straight to the dump.”
I look into her eyes. “I would never hurt you, Jess.” I lean down and kiss her.
“Arhhhh,” Tyler throws down the wrench he was holding. “I liked it better when you two hated each other. How am I ever supposed to get this thing running if you two are kissing all the time? Jess, you’re banned from the shed. Go read or find something else to do.” He gestures towards the door.
Jess walks over and hugs her brother. He ducks and pulls away. “Please, can I stay?” she pleads. “I’ll stay out of the way, I promise. I won’t distract Jacob.”
He pulls back and shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t know where I’m going to find a new engine for this, even if I had the money for it.”
“Does that thing out there have an engine?” She gestures towards the corpse of my car.
“Yeah,” I answer. “But it was probably messed up in the crash.”
“It wasn’t damaged,” Tyler says. “I checked. The roof is all caved in, but the engine is intact.”
“So put that engine in the Nag,” Jess says, like it’s a simple thing.
I shake my head. “Changing out an engine is a big deal. There are all sorts of conversions involved. Besides, it's a different make. I don’t think there's any way that engine would be compatible.”
Tyler walks over to the window and looks out at my car. “I don’t know. I might have to do some research on that.”
sixty-five
Spring Break
March 2007
Doesn’t this fall under the official definition of redneck?”
My head snaps around at the sound of Jess’ voice. She didn’t tell me she was coming home. She’s pointing at the tree with an engine hanging out of it, extracted from the Nag.
I cross the yard and have her in my arms before she can make any more comments. I kiss her long and hard, not even caring that Tyler is watching. “You’re home.” It’s all I can say when we stop kissing.
“For a whole week,” she answers. “Spring break baby.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I haven’t released my hold of her. “Let me guess. You wanted to surprise me?”
“That and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the time off. I had to do some major switching around of shifts at the hospital. I called in a bunch of favors. I think I may have promised one lady my kidney or my firstborn or something.”
“I’ll try to make it worth it.” I kiss her again.
“Great, just great,” Tyler’s voice behind us. “Now we’ll never get this thing done.”
Jess backs away from my arms and walks over to her brother. She puts her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll stay out of the way, I promise. You guys can still work on rebuilding your car. I’ll just watch. But,” she grins at me, “Jacob is mine from 9:00 at night until Dad kicks him out.”
Tyler says something under his breath, but I’m too happy to care.
I glance at my watch again. I have another hour of this. We’re at a community fair—PR stuff. Showing kids the Humvees and tanks. Time’s dragging, and it’s making me crazy. I want to be done with this already. I want to get back to Jess. She said she was sleeping in and then going shopping with Jasmine. I won’t see her until this evening.
This kid is getting on my nerves. Asks me a million questions, pokes every button he can find. Asks me if I’ve ever shot anyone. His mom is a few hundred yards away, yapping on her cell phone. The other guys are gathered by the tank, evaluating and making comments about the women walking around the fair. I glance up to see if the kid or his mom heard what they're saying. The mom shuts her phone and calls the kid over.
“Maybe you should check to see who those ladies are before you say something like that.” Bryan looks disgusted.
I missed who said what, but I know who they're talking about. Jess and Jasmine are coming toward us. Jess is holding a soda, and Jasmine has Little Steve in a stroller.
Since we’re in public, I let the guy’s comments go. I don’t let being in public stop me from showing them that Jess belongs to me.
“No kissing on duty, Jake,” Bryan says.
