In the end, after what felt like forever, but was only a second or two, caution won and, still without saying a word, Hugh climbed up into the top bunk and got under the covers.
“Not even to snuggle?” She must have realized Hugh was going to stay in the top bunk.
Hugh knew what snuggling in bed with a naked, beautiful girl would lead to. No question about it. Been there, done that.
The desire was definitely there on his part. But his instinct told him he’d better resist.
“Honey, we’ll talk about it in the morning. OK?”
No reply from Jenny.
Chapter Nine
Hugh woke up first.
Because he had slept in his clothes he had only to drop down to the deck from the top bunk, and he was ready to go. He glanced over at Jenny, and saw she was wearing pajamas.
He exited the cab as quietly as he could and walked over to the truck stop facility to use the restroom and to get a cup of coffee. Some truck stop coffees were better than others. This was a decent cup, and it saved him the trouble of having to brew a cup in the cab.
On the way back to his truck, Hugh thought about what to say to Jenny. He wasn’t sure if he could explain his hesitation. After all, what normal, healthy, virile guy would turn down the kind of invitation from a beautiful girl he had gotten last night?
He was concerned Jenny would think his dismissal of her offer was a rejection of her, that she might believe Hugh thought something was wrong with her.
Hugh realized that if he bungled this coming conversation with Jenny it could have long-term consequences, which would make for some uncomfortable days – and nights – as they were committed to being together in the confines of the truck for the indefinite future.
As Hugh approached his truck he could see Jenny was up. OK. Might as well get it over with.
“Good morning, honey,” Hugh said.
Jenny didn’t react. She looked at him, then looked away.
That’s a good sign. Hugh recalled her sometimes quick temper, and how she might have reacted in a much more unpleasant way.
“Can we talk? I want to explain about last night.”
“No,” Jenny said. “I’m leaving …”
Hugh’s heart sank at hearing that.
Jenny must have seen the expression on Hugh’s face because she continued, “I’m leaving to go to the restroom, so I can’t talk right now. We’ll talk when I get back. OK?”
“Yeah. Good.”
“I’ll be awhile. Can I have your card for shower credits?”
To fill the time while Jenny was out of the truck Hugh dug up the laptop computer his mom had packed into the back of one of the cab’s cabinets.
The laptop’s battery was dead, so Hugh had to plug its charger into a hundred-twenty-volt receptacle. His truck’s sleeper cab was wired for twelve volts and one-twenty volts. The higher voltage receptacles received power from the fifteen-hundred-watt inverter, which was connected to a separate battery dedicated to the sleeper. When the truck’s engine wasn’t running, the battery was kept charged by the APU, which would come on automatically if the battery amperage fell below a certain level.
When the laptop had gotten enough juice from the charger to boot up, Hugh paid for a one-time use of the truck stop’s wi-fi service and logged into his email account. He didn’t expect much, but James might have sent him an email, or he might have an email from one of the few accounts he needed to keep track of, like insurance, medical, investments or his accountant-tax guy.
The most recent emails were two that had arrived from Charlie. One was from yesterday afternoon and the other was just a few minutes earlier this morning.
The gist of the first email was thanking Hugh and Jenny for meeting with her, it was a good interview, blah, blah, blah.
In closing, she said she was almost finished with the article from their interview. It was planned to be published beginning with the earliest edition of tomorrow’s newspaper, the one that gets trucked to out-of-town distributors.
That’s today.
The second email, the one that had arrived a little while ago, was an apology for her aggressive behavior during their interview, and she hoped this hadn’t soured Hugh and Jenny from talking with her again.
She promised if she could meet with them again it would be under less formal circumstances, less stressful, and she would honor their wishes about what they did and did not want to talk about.
He wasn’t sure what he thought about this reporter’s change of attitude between the two emails, and her suggestion she was hoping further interviews might be in her future. He’d have to talk to Jenny about it after they’d had their talk about what happened – or didn’t happen – at bedtime last night.
When Jenny came back from the truck stop facility she looked gorgeous as usual. Hair washed, dried and brushed. Not pretentious. She was a natural beauty who didn’t need to drop a ton of money at a salon to turn heads.
As she climbed up into the cab Hugh saw she was holding an Idaho Times newspaper.
“I saw this in the line of racks outside the entrance. I didn’t take the time to read the article, but we’re in it.”
“Thanks. I got a couple of emails from Charlie. We need to read the article and talk about the emails. But first, we need to talk about last night.”
“You know what? ’m good with it. I understand. I shouldn’t have done that. We can maybe talk about it later when things have cooled down a bit. OK?”
“All right,” Hugh replied. Relieved.
Hugh made Jenny a coffee while she put away her shower things.
“Let’s go ahead
