Lips pressed together, she swallowed hard. She could barely pay her bills now. A new battery was out of the question. “How much do they cost?”
“Depends on the battery.”
She counted to ten. “Ball park?”
One shoulder rose then fell. “A hundred give or take.”
“Dollars?”
His jaw muscles moved, whether to smile or grimace, she couldn’t tell.
“No. Pickles.”
Maddie’s musical laughter floated from the back seat. “You can’t buy a battery with pickles, Max.”
He glanced at her daughter, and a ghost of a smile appeared then vanished. “No, you can’t.” He looked back at Sky. “Honk when you get back.”
Before she could reply, he got in his truck and left.
Sky watched his exit in her rearview mirror. Despite his brusqueness, she still found herself attracted to him. Just like the first time he came in the diner. There was just something about him…
“Max is really nice, ain’t he, Mama?”
“What? Oh. Yes. He is.”
“I heard Miss Gail say he got hurt being a soldier. Is that why he limps?”
Thoughts scattered, Sky backed out the drive. “What?”
“Did Max get hurt being a soldier?”
“I don’t know.” Aware of the child’s boundless curiosity, she added, “And don’t ask him, either. That would be rude.”
Maddie nodded, but Sky could almost hear those inquisitive wheels turning in the little scamp’s head and made a mental note to talk about boundaries. Again.
Half an hour later, she pulled into the drive.
Max leaned against his truck, arms folded across an impressive chest. Heat burned her cheeks when he glanced at his watch and then back at her.
She jumped from the car and hurriedly explained. “I’m so sorry if I kept you waiting. Everyone was just so slow today.”
He raised the hood without comment. “Go ahead and kill it, then see if it will start again.”
“You said it wouldn’t if I killed it.”
He inhaled and spoke slowly as though she were a child. “When it runs, the battery charges. I want to see if it held anything.”
“Oh.” Chagrined, she followed his instructions. Blue barely groaned and made no effort to start.
He hooked up this contraption to the battery, presumably the charger he spoke of, without saying a word.
A burst of cold air swirled around her, and she pulled the edges of the thin jacket tighter. Winter was blowing in quicker and colder than usual this year. The weatherman warned of a hard freeze this weekend, with sleet and snow possible. As what usually happened with East Texas weather this time of year, temps would go back up to the forties next week. Still, she needed a warmer coat, but that, too, would have to wait. Something else she couldn’t afford.
“I don’t think it will hold.”
The terse announcement took a moment to process. “And that means?”
“You need a new battery.” He wiped his hands on a rag, then threw it back behind the seat of his truck. “But we’ll see how it goes. When will you need to go out again?”
“I have to pick Maddie up at three-thirty. I have a couple of errands to run, but they can wait.”
“Leave it on the charger. I’ll take it off when I get back.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.” Flooded with feelings of inadequacy, she hugged herself a little tighter. “I don’t know any of this stuff.”
He grunted, then stepped into his truck. “I’ll be back in time to unhook it. Don’t mess with it.”
Before she could reply, provided of course something got past the lump in her throat, he left.
Sky spent the day on housework, crunched a few numbers—such as they were—and tried in vain to figure out how to add a battery to her must-have list. Max came and left a couple of times but didn’t speak.
Worse-case scenario, she might ask her boss, Ruby Sloan, to advance her some money, but then she would have to pay it back.
Tips represented the bulk of her income, but with the holidays approaching, folks didn’t eat out as much, and tips dropped off.
She had a little money earmarked for the few items on layaway for Maddie’s Christmas and vowed not to touch it. If she had to spend that on a new battery…
“Nothing I can do about that right now,” she muttered and strived to come up with a way to repay Max’s kindness. The list of options was practically nil, and she eventually settled on cookies. Who didn’t like cookies? And, thankfully, they wouldn’t use up too much of her precious resources.
