“Fine. Good thinking,” the attorney said.
“But it won’t come to that,” Joe added. “I can assure you by the way it’s being set up, there will be no survivors.”
“Let me know how the run-through goes tomorrow, and that we are good to go the next day.” The attorney hung up.
Chapter Fourteen
At the truck center near Twin Falls later than evening, Hugh and Jenny were getting ready to bed down for the night.
There was no awkwardness between them. The discussion they’d had in the restaurant over dinner a little while ago had ended amicably. Understandings were had. Agreements were reached.
In a sense, revisiting that restaurant had been like a return to the scene of the aftermath of one of their hijacking episodes. It was where they had sat down with Trooper Donovan right after the events that had been featured so heavily in the reporter’s newspaper article.
The location on the highway where Hugh had been handcuffed and had broken out of the trooper’s cruiser to save Jenny and the trooper was down Highway 93 a few miles from where they were now.
The surviving, but seriously injured, hijackers had collected their dead buddy and had taken off. Donovan had wanted to go someplace to interview Hugh and Jenny for the record, and that’s how they had ended up in a booth two booths away from where Hugh and Jenny had sat just a little while ago having their dinner.
From what Hugh and Jenny had told him, Donovan had enough for the official record of that failed hijacking event. He had closed his notebook and had said thank you.
But the trooper had also been able to piece together an unofficial story explaining Jenny’s presence in the truck, and her relationship to the hijackers. It was clear to Donovan that Jenny at first had been a willing accomplice. But it was also clear after her uncle had held a gun to her head that she’d had no more intention of helping the hijackers.
Hugh, Jenny and Trooper Donovan had left the restaurant that day with the understanding that because Donovan would surely have been a dead man at the hands of the hijackers and, but for Hugh’s heroics he would not have survived the day, that extra, unofficial information about Jenny would forever remain between those three.
“You remember this place?” Hugh asked, as he and Jenny sat themselves down in the diner earlier that evening.
“Oh, yeah. How could I forget. What a day. What a nightmare that was.”
“What I appreciate is from what I could gather from Charlie’s statement about Donovan he’s kept his word about keeping a lid on the full extent of what happened that day.”
“Thank goodness for that, Hugh.”
Meals ordered, Hugh told Jenny he’d like to talk to her about last night.
“OK.”
Hugh explained he’d had quite a few girlfriends. Nothing serious. Nothing long-lasting. And that’s what the problem was. It had reached a point where he’d figured those empty relationships, based exclusively on sex, were getting him nowhere.
He told Jenny that about a year and a half ago he had decided to avoid all relationships until he met the one he could be committed to without the interference of a sexual, but shallow, attraction.
“Jenny, you’ve got to believe that because of the way we first met and didn’t get along I am as surprised as anybody that you are the one. But, you are. You are definitely the one I’ve been waiting for.”
He could see Jenny’s eyes glistening as he spoke.
“But, here’s the thing,” he said. “This relationship with you, because of my past background in relationships, could be broken in an instant if I slipped back into my old ways.”
“It’s not you,” he went on to say. “It’s all on me. If we gave in to temptation now I would never be absolutely sure if it was the old Hugh or the new Hugh who was marrying you. If it turned out to be the old Hugh, then I’m afraid our relationship could be doomed to failure.”
Jenny was leaning forward, elbows on the table, her hands cupped in front of her face, with only her eyes showing. Eyes that were now openly flowing with tears.
“Is this making any sense?”
“Oh, yes, Hugh. I was so afraid something was wrong with me. That you didn’t want me. Especially knowing I’ve never done that before. You know? … what I mean?”
Hugh chuckled, startling Jenny.
“Darling. Not a day goes by, sometimes not even hours or minutes, when I don’t think about that,” Hugh said.
They heard a loud throat clearing and broke out of their reverie to see a waitress standing at their table with their plates of food. She was red-faced, and obviously uncomfortable.
“Oops. Sorry,” Hugh said to the waitress. “Go ahead.”
On their way back to the truck, Jenny told Hugh she was glad he had explained himself.
“It takes a lot of the pressure off. I do understand, and I agree it’s for the best.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“You mentioned your background, but you should remember my background, growing up mostly with biker gang friends.”
She reminded Hugh what a rough crowd they were. Sexual favors were granted easily among themselves.
Hugh definitely remembered Jenny’s biker friends, and subconsciously rubbed the spots on his chest, arms and shoulders where he had endured a painful initiation when he had first met them. Hugh was an honorary Bakers Town Bad Ass biker gang member, and Jenny was his official Old Lady.
The gang had adopted Jenny as their “little sister.” They were
