One Christmas Knight

He coughed a little bit to loosen up the nervous knot in his chest, then said, “Look…ma‘am, I’ve got a sleeper in my truck. It’s pretty comfortable, and it’d be warm. I’m not usin’ it, so if you want it, well… What I mean is, you’re welcome to it.”

Well. He could see he’d surprised her as much as he had himself, saying that. Because her eyes, which had been staring a hole in the middle of his chest, suddenly flew right up and smacked into his in a way he wasn’t prepared to handle. Sort of made him wish he could have ducked.

Then she shook her head hard and said, “Oh, no, I couldn’t. Thanks, but…”

Just like that, he didn’t know why, but all of a sudden he was mad at her again. His voice got soft and polite, which, if she’d known him better, she would have known meant he was in no mood to be crossed.

“Excuse me, ma‘am, but you’re about out on your feet, far as I can see, and I got a perfectly good sleeper goin’ wantin’. Now, I’m gonna take you out to my truck and get you settled, and then I’m gonna leave you to rest as long as you need to, y’understand? Come on, now-you need anything from your car? No? Okay, let’s go, then. Come on…”

It was the tone of voice he mostly used to get J.J. to see things his way when the boy was feeling contrary and muleheaded about something, and he was glad to see it worked just as well on muleheaded pregnant women. Just when he thought he might have to tell her his personal views on women who were too selfish or too proud to do what was right for their babies, he felt her kind of relax and let out a shaky breath of surrender.

She whispered, “That’s…really nice of you,” then looked around like she’d maybe misplaced something, and mumbled, “I just…need to use the ladies’ room first, okay? ’Scuse me…” He let her go, and she turned and headed off in the direction of the rest rooms.

As she went. Jimmy Joe saw her duck her head and brush at her eyes, and he suddenly knew she was doing her best to hold on to her pride, and hide from him how tired and grateful she really was. And he felt a softening inside, a slow melting around his heart.

He flagged down a waitress and gave her his order, along with five bucks to make sure she held his table for him until he got back. Then he got his coat and keys and went to stake out the ladies’ room from a discreet distance, not really believing she would try to skip out on him, but not quite trusting that pride of hers, either. While he waited he fidgeted with his keys and paced a little, and tried to figure out why he was letting himself get so riled up over this woman.

Mirabella. What kind of name was that, anyway? Italian, that’s what it sounded like. But with a last name like-what was it? He couldn’t remember, except that it was hard to pronounce and definitely not Italian. Unless-well, of course, it was probably her married name. That would explain the last name, but not the Mirabella. If he’d had to guess he would have said she was Irish, with that red hair and those thick dark eyelashes, and pale as she was, in the good light in the restaurant he’d detected the faint ghosts of freckles.

Not that it was any of his business.

The fact that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring wasn’t any of his business, either, but there was no use denying he’d noticed. Or that it bothered him a lot more than it should have. Jimmy Joe didn’t like to think of himself as being a judgmental person, but along with everything else he’d observed so far about this woman, the fact that she’d let herself get pregnant out of wedlock couldn’t help but have an effect on his opinion as to her basic good sense.

And it still wasn’t any of his business.

Except that now, by offering her his sleeper to rest up in, what he was doing was butting in and making her his business, wasn’t he? Which she hadn’t asked for. And doing her a kindness didn’t give him the right to pass judgment on her character. He hadn’t been brought up to behave that way, and he didn’t mean to start now. No, sir.

So here’s what you do, Jimmy Joe, he said to himself as he made one more pass around the rack of paperback books, which by this time had been pretty well picked over, so there were mostly Louis Lamours and maybe a few John Grishams left. Sue Grafton’s latest-but he’d already read that. What you do is, you’re gonna let the lady rest until they open up the road and then you‘re’gonna go on your way and forget about her. Ten- four.

When he came around the rack, there she was, just coming out of the door marked Women. She looked as though she might have washed her face and taken a brush to her hair, but as far as Jimmy Joe could see, all it had done was make her look like a lost little girl.

That was when he knew the last part of that vow he’d just made might not be so easy to live up to.

To Mirabella, the walk through the truck parking lot felt like the longest of her life. It was just so damn cold. There wasn’t any snow, but a bitter wind cut like a knife through her coat, which was a soft, lightweight leather designed for southern California winters. She wanted to hurry, but that was impossible, and for once she didn’t mind that Jimmy Joe kept a firm grip on her elbow, or resent the way he patiently adjusted his long, lanky stride to match her slow, side-to-side waddle.

“Sorry I can’t go any faster-I know I walk like an obese duck,” she said at one point, characteristically trying to mask her embarrassment with laughter.

Jimmy Joe glanced at her and drawled, straight-faced, “Naw…more like you sat on a horse too long.”

Mirabella gave a short, surprised laugh. Surprised, because he sounded so much less reserved when he said it, as if he really might have a sense of humor underneath all that politeness. And because all of a sudden she didn’t feel selfconscious about the way she walked anymore. And she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was about what he’d said or the way he’d said it that could have had that effect on her.

Then they were passing between the seemingly endless rows of idling trucks, hundreds of them, rumbling away with a sound like an oncoming stampede.

“They’re so big,” said Mirabella through her shivers, knowing it was an inane thing to say, which didn’t surprise her, being right on a par with her usual snappy social repartee. Considered a clown in her family and a wit among her female friends, and at the very least, concise and articulate in professional situations, when it came to a conversational one-on-one with an attractive member of the opposite sex, Mirabella was generally about as eloquent as…well, a duck.

But they were big. Huge. Awe-inspiring, especially up close like this. Having a very literal mind, she rarely thought in poetic analogies, but the trucks made her think of great slumbering beasts-domesticated, pampered beasts, to be sure, many of whose owners had decked them out for the holidays in tinsel garlands and Christmas lights, with wreaths and red bows tied to their front grills.

“This here’s the one,” said Jimmy Joe, and let go of her arm while he took out his keys. When he stepped in between two of the massive machines and unlocked the door of one of them, she noticed that his truck didn’t have any Christmas decorations on it. Then he pulled the door open and she could see the words Blue Starr Transport written in silver on shiny royal blue, along with a logo that looked like the star of Bethlehem, and she decided that with a name and a logo like that, he didn’t really need anything more.

Shivering even harder, she said, “I can see where the Blue comes from, but Starr, with two r’s?”

“That’s my name,” he said in an offhand way as he rejoined her, pocketing his keys. “Jimmy Joe Starr. And my daddy’s before me. Come on around here to the other side. That way you won’t have the steering wheel to fool with.”

“You sure you’re not going to need a crane to get me up there?” she asked, laughing uneasily as she followed him to the passenger side. The truck had shiny chrome steps up to the cab, but it still looked like a climb, considering her limitations.

He didn’t even chuckle, although she did catch a glimpse of that sweet grin before he turned away from her to open the door. “Naw, you’ll do fine. Okay, here you go, now-upsy-daisy.”

And before she had time to be worried about it he’d stepped around behind her and put his hands under her elbows and boosted her right up onto the first step. One more good boost and she was where she’d never in a million years thought she would ever be-sitting in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler.

“Wow,” she said, looking around, “I’m impressed.” She hoped he would know she wasn’t just saying it, that she really meant it. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d thought he meant when Jimmy Joe mentioned a “sleeper,” but she hadn’t expected anything like this. The control panel just looked bewildering, complicated enough to operate a 747, but behind the seats it was like a tiny little RV, with a wide, comfortable-looking bed, no wasted space and a place for everything. Designing space for maximum use and efficiency was what Mirabella did, and she could appreciate a masterpiece when she saw it.