Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
REVA
Thirteen hours.
That’s roughly how long the drive takes from Chicago to New Orleans, according to the GPS. Toulouse Street, to be exact, a street that from my research appears like any other adjacent to those in the French Quarter.
The Explorer makes it eleven and three-quarters before she dies, right on the outskirts of the city I’m headed into.
With a sound between a hiccup and a heave, Lucille gasps out one last breath before rattling to a stop on the side of a dusty highway. I pop the hood and climb out, squinting against the bright sunshine and pushing my sleeves up.
Despite it being November, it’s fucking hot. It’s got to be in the seventies.
Freaking ridiculous. It snowed last week in Chicago.
Smoke billows up from beneath the hood, and I scratch my eyebrow with resignation, chewing on my lip as I wait for some of the heat to disperse. I knew Lucille was on her last legs. Or wheels, I guess.
She has over two hundred thousand miles on her, but all in all, she seemed to be doing fine. I figured she’d get me down here fine.
And she did. Just not all the way.
After a few minutes, I remove my hoodie and toss it into the front seat. I’m wearing jeans and a strappy tank with my Docs and immediately feel a thousand times better. Fucking uncivilized for it to be this hot this time of year.
The smoke is dissipating, so I gingerly reach around for the latch that will allow me to spring the hood open all the way. It pops open, beaning me on the head and burning my fingers in the process.
“Mother FUCK,” I screech.
“Is that any way to talk to that sexy piece of vintage machinery?”
I glare around the edge of the hood, my gaze landing on a man who had to have stepped out of an underwear ad for Hot and Sexy with Muscles for Miles, except he isn’t wearing underwear.
I have no actual way of knowing if he is or isn’t wearing underwear, of course.
I mean...he might be. Or not. I have a feeling he isn’t—not sure why.
But I can’t see whether he is or isn’t. He just isn’t wearing only underwear. He’s wearing pants. Which is totally normal, as he’s out here, like me, on a highway. In the daytime.
And what the actual fuck is wrong with me?
My brain spins with dandelion fuzz, and the rest of me is too hot and tight to make functioning easy.
Now he’s squinting at me, his expression a mask of confusion. “What are you mumbling about?”
“Not a damn thing,” I manage. “But this sexy piece of machinery has left me high and dry, and if you ask me what seems to be the problem, I promise to find the first sharp piece of metal I can and—”
He laughs, a deep, rich sound like coffee, and I stop talking.
I smile back despite myself, cross my arms over my chest, and lean a hip against the hood. “I’m Reva. Uh…McEntire. You know anything about cars?”
He gives a quick nod, absorbing the name and the question. “Depends on what the problem is. Mind if I take a look?”
“Not at all, as long as you don’t mansplain anything to me.”
He laughs again and walks around the hood, making me turn around so I can continue to take him in. “I wouldn’t dare. I’m Shiloh.”
He’s tall and solidly built, with inked arms descending from the sleeves of a plain black tee shirt. I’d like to study his tattoos at length, but a quick glance assures me there’s no rosary, and I direct my attention to other things, trying to soak him in all at once.
His eyes, hidden at first behind reflective sunglasses, appear hazel once he takes the shades off behind the shield of the hood. His hair is thick with waves, deep brown similar to my own but gilded at the tips, and his skin a rich, sun-kissed bronze.
Best, though, is his scent. It’s nothing more than soap and man, but something about it tugs at me. I lean toward him, trying to catch more than just the barest trace of that smell.
I want more.
He looks up from where he stands beneath the hood, our gazes colliding and fastening to one another for a long moment that steals the breath in my lungs. Behind me, a car whizzes by. Neither of us blink.
“Ah. I hate to have to tell you this, Yank,” Shiloh says.
“Yeah?” I sway closer.
“Your truck here needs fixin’.”
“Lucille.”
His gaze flickers to mine. “Hmm?”
“Lucille. That’s her name.”
A slow smile crawls over his face. “She picked a fine time to leave you, didn’t she?”
I blink, then laugh, his humor sliding over me like warm silk. “She did.” It fades just as fast, and I tip my head back to the sky and growl. “I guess I need a tow.”
“I reckon you do.” He eyes me, then jerks his head toward his truck, parked behind Lucille. “C’mon. I know a guy. I’ll call him and drive you into the nearest town…well, it’ll pass as a town, anyway. They have a spot to eat, a place to stay. I’ll keep you company while you wait.”
I tilt my head to the side and look up at him through my lashes. “Oh, yeah? You’re gonna keep me company, huh?”
And hopefully, probably, not murder me.
Immediately afterward I want to kick my own self in the ass, metaphorically speaking. I’m not the kind of girl who flirts, and not with ease.
I’m the kind who kicks the dude in the ass for attempting to flirt with me.
Something about Shiloh, though, makes me want to simper and bat my eyelashes.
“The day I won’t keep a pretty girl like you company is the day they seal me in my tomb. Need anything outta there?” He jerks a thumb at Lucille, and I reach in to grab my duffle and hoodie, my lips repeating his words silently and then aloud.
“Seal you in your tomb? What, are you a vampire or something?”
His lips kick up at the corners and he takes the duffle from me.
“I can carry that—”
“Not when I’m around. And no, not a vampire, although I wouldn’t say no to sucking on your neck.”
I’m horrified to feel myself blushing. I haven’t blushed since I was ten years old, for Chrissake. “So what’s this business about a tomb, Mr. Non-Vampire?”
He opens the back door of his truck on the passenger side and tosses the bag in, then opens the front door to the cab and gestures. “Up you go.”
I haven’t had a dude open a door for me since…ever…but I decide to let it go, and climb into the truck, settling myself in the plush interior and strapping in as he walks around and then climbs in, himself.
What a day. What a year.
What a fucking life, only to end up here.
“Down here near the Gulf, our water table is so high that in-ground graves are not a good idea. Results in flooding and messed-up remains, you see.”
Ah.
“Got it. Thank you.”
With a quick over-the-shoulder check of traffic, Shiloh pulls out onto the highway and places a hands-free call.
“’Lo, you got Murray.”
“Murray, it’s Shiloh. Got a pick up for you, out on Highway…”
Listening with half an ear, I peer out the window as the scenery flashes by in a blur of green that seems so out of place given the winter gray of Chicago. It’s a different world down here, one populated by an eternal summer and people who speak with nothing but vowels.
I glance over at Shiloh, who’s disconnecting his call.
I’d like to buy a vowel, Alex.
“Thanks,” I say softly.
“Sure.”
“Not that I couldn’t have made a call myself.”
“Hey, Yank.”
I just look at him.
“It was my pleasure. Now, what do you like to eat?” Shiloh continues. “They have this café that serves good sandwiches and burgers and stuff, and…”
I wait.
He side-eyes me.
“And?”
“And they have this café that serves great sandwiches and burgers and stuff.”
“Ha. You’re a funny one, Shiloh. The café sounds good.”
The drive to the café is about fifteen minutes, during which Shiloh fills the time with stories about the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it little town we’ll be coming into, Florelle.
It’s basically a highway stopover, consisting of a few places to eat, a bar, a couple of chain hotels and gas stations, and a Starbucks.
“Murray’ll grab your ride and give you a call later, let you know how long it’ll take him to fix her up.”
“Perfect,” I murmur, still watching out the window. Something here calls to me, warms me through like the temperature. Even slightly on edge about being in a vehicle with a strange, way-too-charming tattooed man, I’m more relaxed than I have been in years.
Off in the distance, a sign for Fireworks! reaches over distant treetops for a brilliant blue sky studded with clouds. Behind it, another one boasts alligator expeditions for the whole family.
I’m suddenly starving.
“How much farther?”
Even as I ask the question, the road begins to narrow and the speed limit drops, and the tiny town of Florelle comes into view.
“Oh, not much,” Shiloh answers tongue in cheek.
I shoot him an amused glance. “I see that.”
Florelle is like any of the other hundreds of pass-through interstate towns I drove by on my way south, nothing much of note but a godsend to every weary traveler.
The only thing that distinguishes it from every other junction like it is the little diner-cum-drug store at the corner of the first intersection, housed in a faded lime green building with pink trim that’s seen better days.
A sign over a weathered navy awning reads “Chappy’s Eats.”
Shiloh pulls into a diagonal parking space fronting the small, pale green building with laconic male grace.
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I open the door and climb out, while on the other side of the truck Shiloh does the same. Delicious scents assail me instantly.
My mouth waters and from across the expanse of hood I shift my gaze to find Shiloh looking not at the café, but at me.
His eyes are curious.
A bit wary.
Intent.
But all he says is, “Hungry?”
I gather my hair back into a low ponytail at the nape of my neck and face forward, my heart beating in my stomach and my ears and my throat. “You have no idea.”
Shiloh is all charm through crawfish po’boys, fries, and tea so sweet my teeth hurt. He’s full of stories about the area, and Chappy, the hound dog the diner’s owner has always owned.