“It sounds like a lovely town, but I’m on my way to Boston.”
“For work or pleasure?”
Stella hesitated. “I’m not entirely sure. Pleasure, I guess. But maybe business, too.”
“I don’t follow.”
Stella laughed, rested her elbow on the passenger side door, and jumped into the whole sordid tale. She left out the more embarrassing parts about her being in her ratty sweatpants, painting flea market signs, and watching soap operas, but she kept in the part about Brenda bursting into her house and declaring she was in need of a vacation. Sam laughed when she described Brenda throwing clothes into her suitcase and practically shoving her out the door.
“She sounds like a good friend,” he said.
Stella had been too busy being annoyed with Brenda for interrupting her day off and sending her on a thus-far disastrous vacation to realize that Brenda’s concern and advice came from a good place. Despite it all, she really was a good friend.
“Her twins left home two years ago, so I guess she could relate to what I’m going through with sending my son off to college. Taking care of yourself after years of taking care of someone else isn’t as easy as I imagined it would be.”
Sam’s smile was tense. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever taken care of myself.”
“You don’t have any children?” Immediately, Stella regretted the question. She’d overstepped the bounds of propriety, but more than that, his answer could ruin everything between them.
What if he was a deadbeat dad? What if he did have children, but he’d abandoned them the way Jace’s dad did? What if Sam had kids out in the world who missed him and ached for him and wished he would write or call or visit?
On some level, Stella realized it shouldn’t matter what Sam’s personal life looked like. This was a tow, not a first date. Still, she couldn’t help but worry.
“No, no children. Nor a wife.” He shrugged and gave her his best approximation of a real smile. “Just me.”
Something like relief washed through her, but Stella didn’t know why. She’d be gone as soon as her car became drivable.
Sam looked different in his coveralls. Taller. Broader.
He put them on as soon as they got back to his shop and got under the hood. He’d complained about being hungry when he first came to hitch up her car, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to go eat now. He took his time, inspecting everything, humming to himself and nodding his head. Stella used the time to admire the organization of tools and machine parts in what had to be a thousand small pull drawers on the back wall. Every single drawer was labeled, and there was an index file on the desk to the right to keep track of inventory, presumably. The floors were smooth and shiny, and the shop smelled reminiscent of the inside of the tow truck. It was not altogether unpleasant.
Finally, Sam stood up and threw a greasy towel over his shoulder. “It’s going to be a day or two.”
“On the car?” Stella jumped up from the stool she’d been spinning around on for the last ten minutes. “You can’t fix it?”
“I can, but it’s going to be a day or two. Your alternator is shot, and so is your serpentine belt. It snapped, and your engine overheated, which caused the smoke.”
“The engine is bad, too?” Stella’s eyes felt like they were bugging out of her head.
“No, but—” Sam lifted his fingers to count off what all needed fixing. “The alternator is bad, the serpentine belt is snapped, and your camshaft is cracked.”
“You’re making up names now. I’ve never heard of any of these things.”
“Maybe that’s part of the problem. Did you ever notice your car making a ticking noise?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
Stella’s face flushed. “The last year or so, but Arlen told me it was running great. I take it to him every three months for an oil change, and he said the noise wasn’t an issue.”
Sam gave her a sheepish smile. “The noise was the camshaft. It’s cracked and needs replacing. It’s not the reason your car stopped running today, but it is one of the more serious issues, and it’s the part I’ll have to wait on.”
“Wait, so the camshaft has nothing to do with the problem? Then let’s just leave it alone. I’ll get it looked at later.” The car had gotten Stella back and forth to work every day for ten years; surely it could get her to Boston.
“We could do that, but it could ruin your entire engine, and you’d be looking at five thousand out of pocket instead of fifteen hundred.”
Stella’s vision went blurry. “Thousand? Five thousand?”
She had the money. Her emergency stash was more than capable of handling that kind of expenditure, she had made sure of it, but that didn’t make the blow any less devastating. She plopped back down on the stool, and the wheels squealed under her weight.
“This is what I get for being spontaneous.”
Sam crossed the room and moved like he was going to put a hand on her shoulder. Instead, he grabbed the towel from his shoulder and tugged at each end. “It would have broken down whether you went on a trip or not. It would have only been a matter of time. But on the bright side, you can still take a vacation. Like I said, Willow Beach is an amazing weekend spot.”
“But I was supposed to go to Boston.”
When Jace was a toddler, his life had revolved around his routines. It got so bad at one point that he wore the same outfit nine days in a row. Stella had to wash it every night so it would be clean and ready for him in the morning; otherwise, he’d devolve into a tantrum that lasted half the day.
Right now, Stella felt like having a tantrum of her own. She felt like crying or kicking something.
“Didn’t
