Bed of Roses

CHAPTER ONE TUMBLEWEED MEN

CHAPTER ONE

TUMBLEWEED MEN

Y ou won’t make it five miles past the Rosepine City Limits sign in that rattletrap of a car, Sambo,” her father’s voice echoed in her head.

“You are wrong, wrong, wrong,” she singsonged to the dash.

Her dog, Nibbler, threw back his head and howled from the patched passenger seat of her 1965 Mustang. Sam wasn’t quite sure whether his vocal performance proved that he loved or hated Bob Dylan, but the proud stance he took near the cracked window for this impromptu concerto made her laugh. His tail wagged almost in time, and he looked like he was smiling any time she looked over at him. Yes, ma’am, this trip was exactly what they both needed.

“It’s a bonafide fact, Nibs. The older the violin”—she patted the dashboard—“the sweeter the music. Patsy is going to take us to Mena, Arkansas, without a single hiccup. Besides, I’m grown.” Thirty came with a resounding need to be able to stand on her own two feet, so this trip was going to be a conquest. “I can take care of myself. I can take care of you too if you want, critter.”

Nibbler agreed with a short bark.

She had almost convinced herself that the first rattle the car had made was caused by a stray tumbleweed she had run over a few minutes before. The second mechanical shudder had her eyeing the rearview mirror, hoping to see the culprit launch away behind them. She accidentally hit a big pothole, and for a few seconds, the jarring sound that had set in went away miraculously.

When gray smoke started to ooze from the side panels of the car’s hood, she glanced over at Nibbler with the same puzzled look he sported. “Maybe it’s just burning something off. I bet it’s burning that tumbleweed off and it’ll stop any minute now.”

She had only gone a hundred yards past the last speed limit sign when the rattle turned into a thumping noise and black smoke began to billow from under the car’s hood.

“Well, shit!” She scrambled as she opened the door, got out, and took in the scene. She opened the hood, and a cloud of nasty-smelling smoke swamped her before it dissipated among the branches of the tall pines.

She coughed several times and stumbled back, waving the smoke away best she could. This wasn’t in the plans. Her daddy was gonna give her so much hell for this—oh, so much hell. She hollered for Nibbler to load out. He hopped out of the car and trotted up to sit beside her, head cocked a bit as if assessing the situation.

It took a minute to swallow her pride before she rounded the edge of the vehicle and retrieved her phone from the passenger seat. She hated eating crow, but she didn’t know a soul in this area, and whether she’d like to admit it or not, she needed help. The only option she had was to call her father. As slow as traffic was in that area, she could be sitting in her car all night waiting for him to come get her.

She climbed into the driver’s seat and inhaled deeply, let her breath out slowly, then felt her phone slip from her trembling hands. It scooted across the floor like it had been greased and flew under the driver’s seat. She bent over the wheel, and her long wavy red hair cascaded into her face. She pushed it back several times, but it fell forward every time she tried to retrieve her phone. Finally, she twisted it all up into a messy bun and held it there with a clamp she had stuck on the visor.

“I might as well be working blind,” she grumbled when she couldn’t get a firm grasp on the phone. By stretching her fingers, she finally touched the edge and slowly pulled it toward her—inch by inch—until she had it in her hands.

“Victory!” she shouted as she stood up and out of the car and joined Nibbler, who was waiting patiently for her.

The sound of a vehicle approaching gave her hope that some farmer or maybe a Good Samaritan would stop, work a little magic, and she would be on her way within a few minutes. But if anything, the pickup truck sped up when the driver saw her stranded car.

“This is hostile territory, Nibbler. If we were back in Rosepine, someone would have already stopped to help us. I’m glad we don’t live anywhere near here,” she grumbled.

Then why did you leave? Her mother Wanette’s voice popped into her head.

Nervousness had seeped into Sam’s thoughts when the smoke appeared. And wariness was stepping in now as the smoke slowed, but the car didn’t stop cranking. Plus, her mother’s voice in her head was getting louder.

She wasn’t in the mood to argue with her mama, not in her head and not on the phone right now. Especially not when she had to call her father and listen to the fresh batch of I-told-you-sos he’d whip up. He had warned her about the Mustang, about driving it long distances, hell, about buying it in the first place.

“I ain’t gonna break down anywhere. Besides, you taught me how to protect myself,” she had chirped back at him. What a little hypocrite I am now , she thought, scared and stranded in the badlands of the Bible Belt. If only knowing self-defense was as good for emotional defense as it was for physical . But then Nibbler sneezed and snapped her out of her inner monologue of pity.

She stared at her phone in her hand for a minute as Nibbler went about his own business, his aim seemed to be marking every tire of the car. The woods were thick around them, reminding her of the survival shows she used to watch with her ex. Bears could be found in woods like this, at least on that show they watched that was based in Nova Scotia. Texas woods couldn’t be much different, she suspected. She put the leash back on Nibbler and explained to the displeased dog that it was for his own safety.

Two more vehicles passed her by before she pulled the trigger and finally, with a long sigh, scrolled down to her father’s phone number and hit the call button. CALL FAILED popped up, and the Irish temper passed down on her mama’s side rose from the depths of her soul. If she had to pay a dollar for every cuss word that flowed from her mouth, the gallon-sized cuss jar sitting on the kitchen cabinet at her mama’s would be overflowing by now.

Like most folks, she had relied on GPS for directions, but no cell service meant she had lost that luxury too. Her father had advised her to take his old atlas with her, but she was far too hardheaded for that. She had GPS. She would keep her phone charged. She would be fine.

“Dammit!” she swore again when she remembered that she had been listening to her driving playlist, and streaming music was probably the battery-sucking culprit. Her vintage car offered a cigarette lighter, but no charging plug-in, and it hadn’t worked since she had bought it. Now stranded with three percent battery life left, the reality of just how hellishly inconvenient that broken cigarette lighter was suddenly became clear. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to remember what the tinny voice of the GPS lady had last said.

“I’m supposed to stay on Highway 59 for one hundred and forty-six miles,” she whispered and groaned. What if there were no more towns between here and Mena, Arkansas? She’d planned on getting to her cousin’s house tonight, seeing her off, and house-sitting till she got back. Now, it was looking like Sam might not make it to Mena ’til God knows when. The longer Sam stared out at the pine-spotted woods, the more she thought about bears. Maybe her dad should’ve taught her wilderness training instead of hand-to-hand sparring. A book in her duffel bag collection in the back seat titled How to Stay Alive in the Woods could really come in handy.

When she had stopped back about an hour ago, she remembered that Nibbler had hiked his leg on a wooden sign for a bed-and-breakfast called Rose Garden in the historic town of Homestead.

“I wonder how far that place is?” The wind didn’t answer but instead blew a couple of tumbleweeds, Nibbler’s new favorite adversary, onto the road’s shoulder. He snapped out at the closest one, like a furry little crocodile, and just missed.

“You might be small, but you are vicious.” She patted him on his head. “If a couple bears are hiding behind those tall pine trees, they better think twice about coming out here, huh?” As if he understood her, he took up a guard position—his head held high, his small body tense.

“It’s kinda funny seeing two tumbleweeds just roaming around with this many trees. Out here in a land of trees, tumbleweeds are as out of place as we are,” she said aloud to her surroundings, and it felt like the woods swallowed her words up.

Sam tugged on his leash. “I appreciate the security detail, Nibs, but we have got to start walking. It will be dark in another hour.”

She locked the driver’s door and took a couple of steps when Nibbler growled and focused on the road ahead of them. Another vehicle was coming around the curve a few yards away, and hope rose in her when the big truck slowed to a stop beside her car. Maybe there were decent people in this part of the world after all.

A tall, lanky guy with thick dark hair and catlike green eyes opened the door and stepped out onto the road. “Looks like you need some help. I’m Jack Reynolds from down in Homestead. I own the nearest auto shop and towing business—actually the only one in the county.” He jerked his thumb back to the sign on the side of the truck but kept his eyes on Sam. “Want a ride into town where I can take a look at what’s going on under the hood of this pretty thing?”

Anyone who complimented Patsy couldn’t be all bad, even if he was wearing a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt.

“Yes, please,” Sam said, but Nibbler continued a low, droning growl at her feet. “How long will it take to fix it, ya think?”

Jack’s crystal clear green eyes raked over her like a starving man would look at a plate of fried chicken. Her gut might have been wrong about Patsy holding together long enough to get her to Mena, but she’d bet dollars to cow patties that she was standing in front of a prime example of what her memaw would’ve called a rake.

“Now, darlin’,” he drawled and flashed a brilliant smile, “that’s a question I can’t answer until I take it back to my shop and take a good look at it, but I can’t get it done today, and it probably won’t be ready to go for two or three days. Parts for a vintage car like this ain’t easy to find. Good things take a little time.” He smiled and winked at her.

Even blindfolded and half lit, Sam could smell a man like him coming from a mile away. Her ex had the same sort of piercing green eyes that could be so boyish and yet devilish at the same time. Today, she was in no mood for flirting or falling for whatever other moves he had probably perfected. All she needed was a ride to town, a little cell service, and everything would be just fine. Her dad would bring his truck and tow her over to Mena. He would help her find a mechanic who could fix Patsy, and bam, life would go on.

“Let’s just get on with this,” she grumbled as she picked up her dog and crawled up into the passenger seat of the truck while he loaded Patsy.

She mentally thumbed through the money in her bank account. She had enough in her savings to get her by for a few days—a few weeks if she was frugal—but then the cost of repairs to Patsy had to be added in too. Tallying up her dismal-looking mental checkbook put that little voice in her head—the one that told her she must prove to her father and to herself that she could be completely independent and be fine on her own—the one starting to wail for her attention again.

For a while, after the big betrayal of her best friend and boyfriend of three years, she had lost all her confidence. Then the offer came from her cousin to get away from Rosepine, and Sam had agreed instantly, thinking it might give her heart some reprieve. If she went anywhere in her hometown, it seemed just like fate that she would run into Chase or Liza Beth. She couldn’t escape what had happened if she stayed in Rosepine. Earlier that day, when her hometown disappeared in her cracked rearview mirror, she felt like a clean slate appeared ahead of her. Her confidence seemed to be waking up, and she wasn’t going to lose ground now.

When Chase and Sam had broken up the first time, her elderly friend Inez had poured her a double and told her that everything happened for a reason, and sometimes when you walk through pain, you find joy on the other side. How she wished Inez were here now to coach her through this situation. Sam wondered what her wise old friend would do if she were in her shoes.

“All done and ready to rock and roll,” Jack said as he slid in behind the steering wheel and gave Sam another of those hungry looks. “Where are you coming from and where are you headed, pretty lady?” He checked all the mirrors and then pulled out onto the road.

At least he was a careful driver, her brain pointed out. Nibbler ducked his head down and growled—low and down deep—as if telling Sam in the ways that only a dog can that this fella wasn’t to be trusted. He had never liked Chase either. That old saying about dogs being a good judge of character came to mind, and she vowed that from now on, she would listen to her dog.

Noted, Nibbler.

“Are you going to answer me?” Jack asked with a bit of edge to his voice. “And shut that ugly mutt of yours up or—”

“Or what?” she snapped, cutting him off.

Jack chuckled. “Whoa there, you got a little fire to go with all that red hair. I like that in a woman.”

“Is that really a pickup line? If so, don’t even waste your breath. I was on my way to Mena, Arkansas, and I was coming from Rosepine, Louisiana. Did someone in one of the cars that passed by me call you?”

No, ma’am. I was on my way home from delivering a pickup truck to Linden when I saw your smoke signal. I followed it and found you. We don’t have a motel or anything in Homestead, but I’ve got an apartment above my auto shop that I’ll gladly share with you ’til we get you back up and running. It may take a while.” Jack smiled and turned his feline green eyes over at Sam to see her reaction.

Bad boy to the bone marrow , Sam thought.

“Firstly, I don’t even know you, and secondly, I’m not that kind of girl. Thirdly, I think you’re pulling my leg. What about the bed-and-breakfast?” She pointed to the Rose Garden sign they were driving past.

“Yeah, the Rose Garden. It’s the only place in town where you can stay if you turn down my offer,” he answered and glanced over at her again. “Honey, you can’t blame a man for trying. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for redheads, especially those with pretty blue eyes.”

Sam bit back a retort, figuring she had tested her good graces with God and the universe enough for one day. “Who runs the Rose Garden?”

“Ole Kathleen Scott owns the B he was a pushy one. He had a woman named Kara who must have seen him last night and wanted to see him again, and he was flirting big-time with Sam. She wondered how many women’s numbers were stored in his phone, and if he lied to all of them. Poor Kara was headed up shit creek without a paddle if she thought this guy could be trusted.

I’ll only be in Homestead until my car gets fixed , she told herself, and then I’ll be on my way. So, whatever Kara or Jack do is none of my concern. Which reminds me, I need to call Greta and tell her that I won’t be in Mena for a few days . Samantha reached into her hip pocket and pulled out her phone.

“Cell service is spotty up in these woods,” Jack said. “I have no idea how Buster got through with that call a few minutes ago.”

Sam looked down at her phone and shivered when she found that the battery was now completely dead. The cord to recharge it was in one of her bags in the trunk of her car, and even though Jack seemed harmless—except for those leering looks and his incessant flirting—she still wondered if she had trusted him too much. Maybe she should have asked to use his phone to call home and wait for her father.

“Got a problem?” Jack asked.

“My phone is dead. I keep in touch with my mama when I’m on the road. She and my dad will be worried if I don’t check in every couple of hours,” Sam explained, hoping that if she had gotten in the truck with a serial killer, that would deter him.

You’ve been watching too many cop shows. Her mother’s voice was back in her head.

Probably so , she agreed inwardly.

She sure was glad when she saw a faded sign along the side of the road that said “The Second Baptist Church welcomes you to Homestead.”

There it was written down for all the world to see, and her phone was dead as a railroad spike, so she couldn’t take a picture to prove it to her dad. When they had taken road trips and passed so many First Baptist church signs welcoming folks to whatever town they were about to go through, he would chuckle and ask just where the Second Baptist church was located.

The next sign said “Scottie’s Bar and Grill: Where everyone knows your name.”

Dad would love this place , she thought. He always said that all a community needed to be a real town was a church and a watering hole. According to him, folks had to have a place to sow their wild oats on Saturday night and a place to pray for a crop failure on Sunday morning.

“Isn’t that business about everyone knowing your name a copyright infringement?” Sam wanted to talk about something else. She would remember the fun she had with her father later, after he raked her over the coals for not listening to him.

“Who knows?” Jack shrugged. “Could be that the television show from all those years ago got the motto from Scottie instead of the other way around.”

“Looks like the type of town where everyone knows everything about everyone, not just their name,” Sam mused.

“Pretty much.” Jack slowed down when he passed the city limits sign.

“Kathleen Scott, Scotts Bayou, and Scottie’s Bar. I’m surprised the town isn’t named Scottsville,” Sam said, trying to keep the conversation away from herself.

“It was named Homestead because the first settlers that came to the area found the remnants of an old log cabin with flowers blooming all around it. When there were enough people to have a post office, they needed a name for the town. The wife of the first family of settlers had begun to tell people that they had built their home just past the old homestead, so that’s what they chose,” Jack said.

“Do you give guided history tours for all of the tourists who come through?” she quipped, bemused.

“For the pretty ones, I do, and the tour is free of charge.” He winked over at her again. “That’s just what I’ve been told anyway. Who knows if it’s true.”

By the time she had come up with a witty enough response to bite back at his flirtation, she noticed a big two-story house sitting on a hill behind a clearing of thin white pines. “Wait! Is that the B&B?”

“Yeah, it is,” he answered. “I don’t want to drive up that narrow lane with a car behind me. I’d have a devil of a time backing out.”

She saw a couple convenience stores, a florist, a post office, and then a few more storefronts down, a bookstore named Everbloom caught her eye. “Why would someone name a bookstore that?”

“Beats me. Noah Carter owns that place. He’s always been a strange bird. In high school, he never played any sports. With his size and build, he would have made a great football player, but he had his nose stuck in a book all the time. He was one of those kids .” Jack emphasized the last two words with air quotes, then quickly put his hands back on the steering wheel.

Sam would go to war with anyone who called Patsy a piece of junk. She was of the same frame of mind about Nibbler being referred to as ugly. But what really riled her up was bullies who looked down on people who were a little different and didn’t have the same set of social rules. She didn’t know Noah, but if he followed his dream by being surrounded by books, then she could appreciate him.

“Got to say though,” Jack went on as he drove past several houses, “if I had Noah’s money and Laura to hug up next to at night, I might do something silly like put in a bookstore. I heard that books draw women like flies, but Noah wouldn’t know about that. Once a nerd, always a nerd. I don’t know what Laura sees in him, other than he’s as rich as Midas.”

“Who is Laura?”

“Just the prettiest woman in Homestead,” Jack said with a hint of sadness, but then his expression and tone changed. “At least until I picked you up on the side of the road. Now you have the crown.” A chronic flirt—that was Jack in a nutshell.

“And Noah is married to her?” Sam asked.

“No, he’s been dating her for around two years, I reckon. One of these days, he’s gotta get up the nerve to ask her to marry him. She is as impatient as she is easy to look at, so I’m betting that if he doesn’t pull that trigger soon, she’s bound to jump a fence to greener pastures. Everyone in town thinks she’s hanging on for a ring so she’s got a shot at all his money. He inherited a virtual gold mine from his grandpa when the old man died.”

Jack braked and parked Patsy into a bay in a garage with a big sign above the doors. “Jack’s Auto Shop. If your vehicle needs it, we do it.”

“There’s gold back here among all the trees?” Sam asked.

“Nope. I said virtual gold,” Jack replied. “His ancestors made a mint in agriculture years and years ago, and then his grandpa invested in oil. We’re here. Let’s pop the hood of your car and see what Buster thinks is wrong.”

Sam opened the truck door, got out, and set Nibbler on the ground. He did his due diligence, promptly marking the tire of the tow truck as his territory and kicked gravel up on it after he was done. The shop smelled like a mixture of stale coffee, old motor oil, and sweat.

“Hey, Jack!” A big guy with a round face and bald head came from between the vehicles in the other two bays and kneeled in front of Nibbler. “What’s your name, cutie?”

Nibbler licked his outstretched hand and wagged his tail. Evidently, Buster could be trusted if that old saying about dogs and kids having a sixth sense was true.

“His name is Nibbler,” Sam answered.

“Well, if you ever get tired of him, give me a call. I love animals,” Buster said and straightened up. “My wife, Allie, would love to have another pup in the house.”

“Not a chance,” Sam said with a smile.

“Well, hot damn!” Buster said when he saw Patsy roll off the trailer. “I haven’t seen one of those in years. What’s the matter with her?”

“Enough to keep ya busy, I reckon. Buster, meet Samantha,” Jack said as he came around the side of the Mustang. “Samantha, this is Buster, my partner in the business.”

“Jack fetches them and does oil changes and takes care of tires. I fix the major stuff,” Buster explained as he straightened up. “Let’s see what’s going on under the hood of this pretty little thing.”

Sam wondered why the place wasn’t named Buster’s Auto Shop, or at the very least, Buster and Jack’s, but she didn’t ask.

Jack opened the hood and stood to the side. “Samantha was on her way up to Mena when her car started blowing black smoke. I figure it’s the head gaskets. What do you think?”

Buster shook his head slowly the whole time he checked things out. “Ms. Samantha, this is a vintage car, but my first thought is that it’s going to take way more to cure her than she’s worth. I’ll clean up all the smoke damage tomorrow morning, and then I’ll know more. All the junkyards in this part of the state are closed for the day, and that’s where I’d have to scavenge for parts. I’ve got a date with my wife in half an hour anyhow, so I need to leave and get cleaned up.” He handed her a small notebook. “Write down your cell number, and I’ll call you soon as I know something. Sound good?”

“Sounds as good as I’ll get. I’ll be at the Rose Garden if there’s room,” Sam answered and scribbled down her number.

“The good news is that there will be room. Ms. Kathleen brought her Caddy in yesterday for an oil change and said that business had been slow all winter, but now that spring is here, she’s hoping it will pick back up.”

Buster headed to the back of the shop, and then Sam heard a door slam and the engine of a truck starting up.

“Alone at last,” Jack said with a twinkle in his green eyes. “I will take the price of the tow job off your bill if you’ll have a burger and a beer with me at Scottie’s. You can use my phone to call the bed-and-breakfast, and I’ll drive you up there before midnight. Wouldn’t want my truck to turn into a pumpkin.”

“I would appreciate a ride, but I’m tired and I’m sure Kathleen, or maybe I should call her Mrs. Scott, would rather I check in earlier than midnight,” Sam retorted.

Jack’s phone rang, and this time he smiled when he looked at the screen. Sam wasn’t being nosy but from where she stood, she could see that it was the same Kara who had texted him earlier. He walked away and whispered through the conversation. When he finished, he came back to where she and Nibbler were standing beside Patsy.

“I’m sorry, but I have to take care of some business. The B&B is not far. Remember we passed by it when we drove into town. A big two-story plantation-looking place straight down the road that way.” He pointed left. “Do you need to get anything out of your car before you go?”

“Just my luggage,” Sam answered.

Jack handed her the keys, and she unlocked the trunk. He helped her by looping one of her faded Vera Bradley bags over the handle of a suitcase and then repeating the process with the other one. “That should make it easy to drag all your stuff up the hill to the B&B. Buster will call you tomorrow, and hopefully, we can meet up for dinner another night.”

“We’ll see,” Sam said curtly. “Thanks for rescuing me again. I hope your meeting goes well.”

A vision of the two tumbleweeds popped into her mind as she looped Nibbler’s leash around one arm and pulled two suitcases down the cracked sidewalk. “I don’t know how I do it, Nibbler, but I draw the wrong ones out of the woodwork anywhere I go,” she vented. “Chase Warner was a good churchgoing man—well, I thought so anyway—and see where that got me. Then Jack swoops in like a knight in shining armor and turns out to be a flat-out chronic man-whore. Both have pretty green eyes, and that’s my weakness, I know. But I’m stronger than that now.” She huffed as she pulled the bag back onto her shoulder and readjusted her carrying arm. “I bet that Jack could talk the underpants off a holy woman—Chase could do that too. They’re just a bunch of tumbleweeds. No roots and not an ounce of dependability between the both of them.”