A Thousand Miles

Part 4

"Thought you said this thing would make it." Shane unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door in unison with JoLynn.

"And it will." She snapped. "Eventually."

He stifled an unexpected laugh and glanced at her, trying to determine if she was being witty or just uptight. No trace of a grin softened her features, and she hadn't spoken a word in the half hour or so since they'd pulled out of the office parking lot. Definitely uptight.

Shane closed his door and joined Curtis at the front of the Suburban. He had the hood up and was staring blankly at the massive engine. JoLynn came to stand on Curtis' other side.

"Any idea what's wrong with it?" The sharp edge to her voice was absent as she addressed Curtis. But Shane knew the next words she spoke to him would be hard as steel. She couldn't stand him. It radiated off of her like a shimmery heat mirage off a blacktop road on the hottest day in August.

Curtis shrugged and shook his head. "Not a clue. You know anything about fixing trucks?"

Shane stepped up to inspect the engine. JoLynn obviously despised his very existence, but that didn't mean that the rest of the crew should feel the same way. Nonetheless, it surprised him that Curtis would ask for an opinion.

"Nah, not really." He leaned in for a closer look. "Fifteen, twenty years ago I might could've helped, but there's so much electronic nonsense in there these days. Better call a professional."

His glance wandered from Curtis to JoLynn. Her frown spoke volumes. Clearly, she expected one of the two men standing next to her to jump up and find a way to fix her problem. Women like her always did. Heaven forbid she should chip her nail polish or get dirty. He glanced down at her hand which rested just above the grill. No polish. No jewelry. Just a cheap looking, leather banded watch. The hand itself was beautiful, however, with long graceful fingers and smooth skin. The memory of her vulnerable, defeated expression before she'd left the office came unbidden, accompanied by a completely unjustified sense of guilt.

"Well." She spoke and he glanced back at her face as she pushed away from the Suburban's carcass, went back around to the driver's side, and pulled out her backpack. "There's a motel across the street. I'll go see if they'll recommend a tow service."

Shane blinked and watched her trot off down the right-of-way for several yards before jogging across the highway. She finished her crossing, made her way through a parking lot, then disappeared into the lobby of the Interstate Inn.

"What's she doing?"

"Well, if I understood correctly, she's going to call a tow truck."

Shane grinned at Curtis' retort, but didn't misunderstand his expression. The raised eyebrows and questioning tilt of his head issued an unspoken challenge for Shane to criticize JoLynn out loud. And since Curtis did not strike him as the kind of guy to shy away from a fight, it was probably better not to verbalize the doubt that JoLynn, could, let alone would, handle this problem all by herself.

After a long moment of meeting his level stare, Curtis shrugged. "She's the boss."

"If she's having so much trouble with this old truck, why doesn't she just get her Daddy to buy her a new one?"

Curtis chuckled and let the hood drop.

"She comes from money, right? Her father owns Travis Industries, and it's worth millions."

"Well, yeah." Curtis wiped his hands on his jeans and gave Shane an assessing look through narrowed eyes. "But she'd probably sooner hitchhike than ask her Daddy for anything."

That came as a surprise. "They don't get along?"

Curtis shook his head. "I don't know about all that. You'd have to ask her how well they get along. I do know that old Harlan would give her anything she wanted if she'd quit this show and go on back home."

Now the story was beginning to make a little more sense. A rich girl defying Daddy's wishes. That he could believe.

Shane glanced absently toward the Interstate Inn and indulged an image from his past. Golden blonde hair, baby blue eyes, smooth alabaster skin. Classic pearl and diamond earrings dangled provocatively against a delicate jaw and paled in comparison to the girl who wore them; another rich girl bent on defying her father's wishes, and whose rebellion had wrecked his life.

"She works hard." Curtis' words called him back to the present. Shane blinked and resisted the urge to shake the lingering image from his head.

"Hmm." It came out sounding a little like a grunt. A disbelieving grunt at the sweet show of loyalty from the cameraman.

"She doesn't really care for you, though, does she?"

Shane heard the grin—the approval—in Curtis' tone. He shook his head. "No. Not really."

"And that bothers you?"

He shook his head again and smiled. "No. Not really."

"So, how's that gonna work out? Two co-hosts who don't care for each other."

Shane shrugged. "I guess we'll find out if we ever make it to the Alamo."

Curtis turned and leaned his weight back against the grill of the SUV. "Well, at least it's not too hot out."

Shane glanced up at the cloudless June sky. The sun was climbing ever higher and, although it wasn't nearly as hot as he knew it would be this time next month, he'd already broken a sweat just standing around. When his eyes burned from the intensity of the sunlight he cast a glance over at Curtis who'd had the foresight to wear a ball cap.

"So, what's your story?"

Curtis' glanced at the highway and watched the traffic, his stubble-lined jaw clenching and twitching for a moment before he released a breath and let a smile form. "I'd be happy to tell you all about it. But I get the feeling you already know."

Shane had tipped his hand earlier in the conversation when he mentioned knowing about Travis Industries and the company's approximate worth. Now Curtis rightly assumed that Shane had checked into his background as well, and no background check was necessary to know that Curtis had not been raised in the lap of luxury. A rough past was etched into the lines emerging on his still young face. Shane gave a slow nod. Best to just admit the truth and move on from here. "I'm pretty sure I don't know the whole story."

Curtis glanced sideways at Shane, seeming to relax. Finally, he shrugged. "I guess we all do stupid things when we're young. My stupidity landed me in a juvenile detention center for a few years. But I straightened up."

"Straightened up and went to college. How'd you manage that?"

Curtis grinned and let his gaze wander back to the highway. "I know some people."

Shane glanced at the traffic and nodded. Fair enough. "So, how'd you end up working on the show?"

Curtis drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "Same way as Mel and JoLynn. We knew each other in college. We were all majoring in communication studies at Southwestern." He grinned. "This actually started out as a class project. It took a few years for JoLynn to get it off the ground. But she was determined."

Shane followed his glance to JoLynn as she crossed the highway. As she approached, he forced himself to look at her with a more objective eye, imagining that he was looking at her for the first time, and that he knew nothing about her.

She was pretty. Her long reddish-brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. He couldn't determine her eye color from this distance, but he knew from their meeting yesterday that it was green. She looked good in her faded jeans and white t-shirt. She looked sweet. Like a nice girl-next-door kind of woman, who maybe had a bit of a fiery streak that only those closest to her ever got to see. He felt a smile creep across his face. Maybe he should count himself lucky that he'd been allowed to see it so soon.

She smiled at Curtis when she reached them, and her face softened so pleasantly. It made him hope she'd smile at him, too.

"Fifteen, twenty minutes." She was slightly breathless from her jog across four lanes of divided highway. But with one deep breath, she seemed to recover instantly. "I say we put the windows down, and get out of the sun."

She breezed passed him without the slightest glance in his direction. Not a scowl, not a grimace, certainly not a smile. Nothing. Like he wasn't even there.