“But you know you could have grabbed one of our empty milk jugs at home,” Hugh said.
“No way. Your dad and brother tease me enough as it is.”
Back at the truck, Jenny took out the bagged lunches Hugh’s mom had prepared for them. While she was setting out their sandwiches, fruit and chips, Hugh sat in the passenger-side front seat people-watching. It was a favorite pastime for Hugh.
Jenny came up behind Hugh, and sidled around to sit on his lap facing him. “Come here you.” She reached up and held Hugh’s face in her hands and kissed him with some intensity.
“What’s that about?” Hugh asked. He was surprised by this sudden affection, but didn’t object to it.
“It’s that we haven’t had any time alone at your family’s place. We’ve been together there, but not together.”
She started to kiss Hugh again.
“Whoa! That isn’t happening!” Hugh shouted.
“What?” Jenny yelled as she drew back from Hugh, who was trying to get up from his seat.
She craned to look out the window at what Hugh was so interested in. Across the lane from them in another line of parked trucks, they could see a man swinging from a truck’s driver’s side mirror mount and trying to kick in the cab’s side window.
The guy managed to craze the tempered glass of the window, and Hugh could see he was within a couple more kicks of breaking through.
“No way, Jose!” Hugh yelled as he launched himself out of the truck, and started running toward the other truck. He saw the attacker had managed to break through the window, and was trying to grapple with the occupant.
“Hugh, no!” Jenny yelled at Hugh’s running figure. “No. Not again!”
But before Hugh could reach the truck where the assault was taking place he heard a shot and saw an accompanying blast of light from the cab. He saw the attacker fall hard and limp to the tarmac.
Hugh put on the brakes and stopped where he was. The last thing he wanted was for the occupant of the cab to think the attacker had an accomplice, and to decide to shoot anything, or anybody, within sight.
Within a moment, the cab’s occupant, presumably the driver, opened his driver’s side door and leaned out to see if the assailant was going to resume his attack.
Seeing the driver had a cell phone in his hand, and not a gun, Hugh bent down to check the attacker’s pulse. A crimson stain spread from a center-mass hole in the guy’s shirt. Then the lights went out in his eyes, and he was gone. The one shot must have been a fatal one.
“What was that all about?” Hugh asked the driver.
“I don’t know. I don’t recognize the guy. I have no idea why he was trying to break into my truck.” He held the phone to his ear, and was telling someone, probably 911, there’s been an attack and a shooting.
Hugh knew Jenny was likely getting worried, so he went back to his truck.
Later that evening, after Hugh and Jenny had eaten their dinners, an investigator with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office knocked on the door of Hugh’s truck to interview him as a witness to the shooting.
Hugh didn’t have much to add to what several other witnesses had observed, and what was obvious from the evidence at the site of the shooting.
The investigator told Hugh the attacker was likely under the influence of a drug. Preliminary guess was meth. The trucker would not be charged with assault for using a gun in self-defense.
“He’s probably got some explaining to do to his fleet manager and safety officer,” Hugh said. “Most carriers have very strict no-firearms policies for drivers.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” the investigator said.
All the excitement over for the night, Hugh and Jenny made another trip to the truck stop restroom before getting ready for their first night alone in his truck since before the events of the final hijacking. It would be their first night alone together since Hugh had proposed to her.
Back at the truck with Jenny, Hugh unlocked the cab door.
“Go ahead and get yourself ready. I’ll putter around outside a bit.”
“OK, thanks.”
When Hugh saw the lights in the cab had been turned off, he climbed into the sleeper to get ready for bed. He appreciated that his mom had washed all his linens, including his and Jenny’s bunk sheets, pillowcases and blankets.
As quietly as he could, with only the truck stop parking area lights for illumination inside the cab, Hugh approached the darkened sleeper berth intending to surprise Jenny in the top bunk with a good-night kiss.
The surprise was all on Hugh, however, as Jenny was not in the top bunk.
He stepped back a step and bent in to see she was in the lower bunk – Hugh’s bed – in the darker shadow against the far side. She had only her hands and face showing as she held the blankets up to her chin.
“Hi?” Jenny said. Her voice was quiet, breathy. Her expression was expectant-looking.
Hugh was momentarily made speechless by this sudden and awkward turn of events. Then it got worse. Or better. Jenny lowered the blanket to just at the rise of her breasts, making sure, Hugh realized, he would notice she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the covers.
Still not saying anything beyond her initial “Hi,” Jenny released the blanket with her left hand, withdrew her arm and patted the bed next to her. That movement opened up more of the blanket, further exposing more of the curve of her left breast.
Seeing all this, the bottom fell out of Hugh’s stomach, and his mind raced with conflicting emotions. Desire
