One Christmas Knight

“It’s comfortable,” Jimmy Joe said with a diffident shrug. He showed her how to turn off the lights in the cab and where to turn them on in the sleeper, and how to adjust the heater in case she got too warm. Then he seemed to hesitate, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“I really appreciate this,” Mirabella said with bemused sincerity. “Thanks.”

He nodded and muttered, “Okay, then.” He started to back out of the cab before pausing to add, “Might want to lock your doors.” And then he was gone and the door slammed shut on the cold, mean wind.

Mirabella waited for a moment, then locked the doors and turned off the cab lights the way he’d told her to. She went into the sleeper and drew the curtain across the opening, then stood for a moment or two just looking, trying to orient herself to the strangeness of being in a man’s private space.

She was surprised at how tidy it was. The bed was neatly made, and except for a pair of boots standing upright and together on the floor, everything seemed to be stowed away in its proper place. There was a tiny closet for hanging clothes, and drawers she didn’t look in. An overnight bag, some folded towels and a baseball cap occupied a shelf above the bed; compartments at its head held paperback books, a pack of gum and a plastic bag with some change in it. He wasn’t a smoker, thank God.

No bathroom, though; not even a potty. Which was too bad, because she already felt the need for one, although it had only been a few minutes since she’d left the truck-stop rest room. No way she was going back there now, though. It was just one more discomfort she would have to ignore.

She turned off the light and sank onto the bed with a sigh, curling carefully onto her side, which was the only position left that could even remotely be considered comfortable. And as the darkness and the vibration of several hundred truck engines folded in around her, it occurred to Mirabella that it felt a little like being in a womb herself…safe, warm, rocked by the throbbing of a massive diesel heartbeat.

Walking back to the restaurant, Jimmy Joe caught himself looking around to see if anybody had noticed what he’d just done, as if it was something he ought to be ashamed of. It was a first for him, no doubt about that. He’d had the Kenworth almost five years now, put more than half a million miles on her, and this was the first time a woman had ever set foot inside her sleeper.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t had those kinds of opportunities come knocking-sometimes literally-on his door. And he hadn’t said no to them when they did because he was some kind of prude, or had a religious thing about it-nothing like that. He just didn’t believe in mixing recreation with work, was all. Of course, nowadays most of the better truck stops, including this one, had pretty much put a stop to the lot-lizard nonsense, which did cut down on the temptations considerably.

Not that Mirabella was anywhere near being in the same category. This was a different thing altogether. But he still felt weird about it.

Back in the restaurant he found his booth still vacant and a mug of hot coffee waiting for him. He’d just about sat down when his hot roast-beef sandwich arrived, and he was hungry enough that he put off calling J.J. while he gave his dinner his full attention. After he’d gotten that put away and his coffee mug refilled, he picked up the phone and punched in the endless string of numbers it took to connect him via calling card to his mama’s house, then settled back to listen to the rings.

That was when he looked up and felt a catch in his chest as if a big bite of roast beef had gotten stuck there. Darned if it wasn’t her, standing there same as before except maybe looking even more pale and peaked. He wasn’t glad to see her. He especially wasn’t glad about the way his stomach jumped up underneath his ribs and made his heart beat faster, kind of like the way it did sitting on top of a forty-ton load when he knew a four-wheeler was about to cut him off and he had no place else to go.

He told himself he really had hoped to have seen the last of the uppity woman with the red hair, Madonna eyes, Italian name and no good sense, except maybe for helping her out of his truck tomorrow morning and into her own car and waving her on her way. Lord, didn’t he have enough to worry about, what with the weather screwing up his schedule, and wondering how he was going to make it home for Christmas in time to keep from breaking a promise, not to mention J.J.’s heart?

He sure didn’t need to be thinking about whether or not it was normal for a beautiful pregnant woman from California to have dark circles underneath her eyes, a little wrinkle of a frown in her forehead and a white look around her mouth even when she smiled.

“Hi,” she said sort of shy and sheepishly, reminding him of J.J. when he was little and used to come pit-patting down the stairs on some excuse or other after he’d been all tucked in snug for the night.

Jimmy Joe put the phone up quickly-he hoped before anybody had picked it up on the other end, because he didn’t want to have to hang up on his son twice in one evening. “Hey,” he sang out, “how you doin’? Everything all right? Somethin’ you need?”

She shook her head and mumbled, “Gouldn’t sleep,” as she eased in across from him, moving like she was made of blown glass. She put her elbows on the tabletop and pushed her hair back from the sides of her face with both hands, then left them there and used them for props. “I had to come in to use the rest room anyway. Thought I might as well see if you wanted to take the bed. No sense in it going to waste.”

It was a true mystery to Jimmy Joe why she couldn’t sleep, because she looked and sounded to him like she was in danger of dozing off where she sat. A terrible thought occurred to him. Trying not to sound as worried as he felt, he said, “Ma‘am, if you don’t mind my askin’, when’s that baby of yours due?”

She made a vague waving motion with one hand and in the midst of a great big yawn, mumbled, “Oh, not for a month yet.” Then she kind of straightened herself, making a real effort to lift up her chin. “No, I’m okay, really. It’s just hard to get comfortable, you know? I get these pressure pains in my legs…”

Jimmy Joe nodded in sympathy. J.J.’s mama had had those pains, both times. He could remember times when she’d shot up out of bed like she’d been hit with a cattle prod, cussin’ like nobody’s mama should. He said with relief, “Maybe you ought to eat something. Might make you feel better.”

She finished up another yawn, then shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

“You got other reasons to eat besides feelin’ hungry,” said Jimmy Joe sternly, nodding toward the part of her that was pushing up against the edge of the table. “Got to keep your strength up.” He was fed up with the way she kept ignoring the needs of that baby of hers, so he didn’t wait to see if she agreed with him, but just started looking around for a waitress.

Things having settled down some by that time, he was able to spot one right away. She came ambling on over and brought the coffeepot with her, probably assuming he was wanting a refill. The waitress was one he didn’t know-a skinny woman with frizzy gray hair and deep lines on her face from smoking-but she looked cheerful and sort of motherly, so he checked the name tag pinned to her uniform blouse and turned on the charm.

“Hey, Dottie, what kind of soup you got today?”

Dottie looked up at the ceiling like she expected to see the menu written up there and gave it some thought. “Let’s see. Tonight we got…I b’lieve it’s cream of broccoli and chicken noodle.”

“Well, okay. You can bring the lady a bowl of that chicken noodle, if you would. And a big glass a’ milk.” He grinned, flirting just a little bit, and added, “And I’ll take some of that coffee, since you brought it.”

Looking pleased, Dottie sang out, “Chicken noodle, comin’ right up.” She splashed coffee into his mug and went on her way.

Jimmy Joe sat back in his seat prepared for an argument, but he could see right away he wasn’t going to get one. He was glad to see the woman wasn’t stubborn to the point of being plain stupid, and at least had the sense to recognize a lost fight when she saw it.

But…now what was she doing? She had her big pocketbook open on the seat beside her and was digging through it and dragging out bottle after bottle of some kind of pills.

He put his hands on the table and laced his fingers together and watched her, watched the slick, shiny red curtain of her hair swing back and forth across her face, catching the light, and tried to think whether he’d ever seen anything in his life before that was exactly that color.

Finally he cleared his throat, shifted around in his seat, and came out with, “I know it’s none of my business, but…”

Her eyes flicked at him like a dog after a fly. “Vitamins,” she explained shortly, and went back to rummaging.

“Ah,” said Jimmy Joe, nodding. He felt unreasonably pleased. And at the same time, bothered by the notion that it did seem to matter to him whether or not this woman he wasn’t ever going to see again after tonight did or did not care about her baby’s well-being. It gave him a case of the restless fidgets, and after watching a moment or