Premeditated Marriage

Once back on the pavement, he turned on the heater, as if mere heat could chase away the chill. Not a half mile up the highway, it began to rain. Giant, wet drops fell like buckshot, ricocheting off the hood, splattering against the windshield, making the already dark night even blacker.

The next sign he caught in his headlights was: Utopia, Montana.

Home of Charlie Larkin.

He’d expected the town to be small, but not just a few run-down buildings out in the middle of nowhere. If this was their idea of Utopia—

Through the curtain of rain, he spotted the garage first. Could hardly miss anything that big. Or that ugly. Plus, it sat right on the edge of town. And town, what there was of it, was perched on the edge of the highway as if pushed out there by the pines.

The once-red words Larkin & Sons Gas and Garage had faded on the side of the gray metal building. Not exactly an imaginative name, but definitely descriptive. Two ancient-looking gas pumps sat under an overhanging roof next to the gunmetal-gray garage. Several jalopies, stripped clean of parts, rusted under the encroaching trees.

He pulled in under the roof next to a pump. The rain pelted the metal roof loud as a drum. The hand-printed notice on the closest pump read Last Gas for Thirty Miles. He turned off the engine and looked expectantly toward the gas station office, wondering which of the Larkins were working tonight.

Unlike the lamps glowing over the pumps, no light shone in the office. It was empty—and dark—except for the round golden glow of a clock on the wall. Seven-thirty-six.

He hadn’t even considered the place might be closed. Not on a Friday night. Especially if it was the last gas for thirty miles.

He looked down the main drag through the rain. A few splashes of neon blurred in the wet darkness. Past that, he could see nothing but more highway and trees.

Swearing under his breath, he turned the key to start the car again, not sure what to do and certainly not where to go. The engine clattered to an uncertain life, ran just long enough to rattle his teeth, then quit. He tried it a couple more times without any luck before he turned off the key and slammed his palm against the steering wheel with an oath. Him and his great plan.

Rain beat on the metal roof and the night felt colder than his last stop beside the highway as he opened his door. He drew up the hood on his jacket, zipping the front closed, as he hustled to the front of the car. He’d just started to pop the hood when he heard music and the clank of tools over the sound of the rain on the roof. Glancing toward the garage, he noticed a sliver of light coming from under the second bay door.

He jogged to the office and found it unlocked. Moving toward the music, he stepped through a side door into a large empty bay. Past it, he could see the source of the light in the second bay.

A single bare bulb glowed under an old beat-up Chevy sedan in the second bay. Country music blasted from a cheap radio on the floor nearby. A pair of western boots were sticking out from under the Chevy.

“Hello!” he called over the radio to the soles of the boots.

From under the Chevy came a grunt and what could have been the word “closed.”

He’d come too far to be put off. Not only that, he couldn’t very well go out and fix his own car and risk the chance the mechanic would see him. Nor was he willing to give up his plan that easily.

“I need to talk to you about my car!” he called down at the boots, wondering if the small work-boot soles belonged to one of the Larkins. With a whole lot of luck, the feet in them would be Charlie’s.

This time he thought he heard the word “Monday” over the racket coming out of the radio and something about “gas” and “cash.”

He definitely had no intention of waiting a whole weekend without his car if he could help it. Nor was he about to wait that long to make contact with Charlie. He reached over and turned off the radio. “Hello!”

A loud painful thump was followed by the clatter of a wrench and an oath.

“If you wouldn’t mind giving me just a minute of your valuable time,” Augustus said sarcastically. This wasn’t going anything as he’d planned. But the loud country music had given him a headache and he’d had all he could take of being ignored.

An instant later, the mechanic rolled out from the underbelly of the car on the dolly, forcing Augustus to step back or be run down.

Silhouetted by only the lamp still under the Chevy, the short, slightly built mechanic got to his feet without a word and methodically began wiping his hands on a rag.

Augustus was determined to wait him out. He could feel the grease monkey giving him the once-over and was surprised that someone so insignificantly built could look so arrogant standing there in dirty, baggy overalls and a baseball cap. At six-two and a hundred and eighty pounds, Augustus knew he normally intimidated men twice this one’s size.

But if this was Charlie Larkin—

“Look,” Augustus said, trying to keep his cool. He’d been jumpy ever since the turnoff at Freeze Out Lake. Now he told himself that he was just tired and impatient. That was true. But he was also a little spooked, which, under most circumstances, was good. It gave him an edge.

“My car isn’t running,” he continued, “it’s raining like hell outside and I’ve been driving all day and I’m tired and hungry. If you could just take a quick look at the engine so I can go find a motel for the night.”

The mechanic let out a long-suffering sigh and slowly reached for the light switch on the pillar next to him with one hand and the brim of his baseball cap with the other.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t take you any—”

The cap came off in the mechanic’s hand as an overhead fluorescent flickered on, stilling anything else Augustus was going to say. A ponytail of fiery auburn hair tumbled out of the cap and a distinctly female voice said, “You just don’t take no for an answer, do you?”

Seldom at a loss for words, Augustus simply stared at her for a beat. In the light, it was obvious she was just a snip of a girl, eighteen tops, the cute little smudge of grease on her chin making her look even more childlike. The baggy overalls she wore seemed to swallow her. “You’re the mechanic?”

She looked down at the overalls that completely disguised anything feminine about her. “Don’t I look like a mechanic?”

Truthfully? No. She looked like a girl wearing her boyfriend’s overalls, just fooling around under his car while he went out to get burgers and fries.

She stepped past him and headed for the office, but not before he felt a small rush of excitement. The name stitched in red on the soiled breast pocket of the too-large blue overalls read: Charlie.

He hurriedly trailed after her, not sure where she was going or what she planned to do. “It says Larkin & Sons on the sign,” he noted. “I was hoping maybe one of the Larkins could look at my car. Maybe you could call one of them? Maybe this…Charlie, whose overalls you’re wearing?”

She stopped just inside the office and turned to look at him. “Is that your car parked next to the pump?”

Did she see any other cars out there? He nodded and she pushed open the front door and headed for his car. He followed.

She popped open the hood and, without looking at him, hollered for him to get in and try to start the engine.

Wondering what this would possibly accomplish, he slid behind the wheel, rolled down his window so he could hear her and turned the key.

The poor engine actually started, running noisily and jerkily, shaking the entire car—until she stuck her head around the open hood and motioned for him to turn it off.

“You drove all the way from—” she leaned over the front of the car to glance at the license plate “—Missoula with the car running like this?” she asked. She had a serious, concentrated expression on her face that made her look a little older.

“It just kept getting worse,” he lied, leaning out the window a little so she could hear him over the rain.

Her gaze came back to meet his. He hadn’t noticed the color of her eyes until then. They were a rich brown, the same color as the string of freckles that trailed across the bridge of her nose. He couldn’t help but wonder exactly what her relationship was with Charlie Larkin.

She continued looking at him as if waiting for him to say something more.

Under other circumstances he might have felt guilty about what he was doing. But he’d made a rule years ago: the end would always justify the means. No exceptions. And in this case, it was personal, so God help Charlie Larkin.

“Won’t be able to get it fixed tonight,” she said at last, then slammed the hood and turned away from him.

What? He knew it was just a simple matter of adjusting the carburetor. Any mechanic could do it. Obviously she was no more a mechanic than he was and knew a damn sight less about car engines than even he did.

“Leave the key in the office and check back in the morning.” She started for the office.

He stared at her back for a moment as she headed for the gas-station office door. “Wait a minute!” He scrambled out of the car and after her. She was already through the office headed for the bay and the vehicle she’d been under when he’d found her. Along the way, she’d put her baseball cap back on, the ponytail tucked up inside it again.