Page 96 of What Doesn't Kill Her
That earned her a startled glance from Max.
“Bikers,” she added for clarification.
Max looked even more confused.
“Never mind,” she said. She was still mentally scarred by those steep downhill runs and narrow, rutted paths with the Cyclomaniacs.
“Where first?” Max asked.
She looked at him.
He laughed; he knew the answer. He headed toward the resort maintenance buildings and her best friends in the world, the people she’d served with in the military, the people she’d hired when she became Yearning Sands’s assistant manager. He parked in front of the three-bay garage, and she was out of the truck before he’d come to a complete stop.
She slammed through the metal door and found herself surrounded by hydraulic lifts, air compressors, welders, tire storage and enough steel tool cabinets to supply Lockheed. She took a deep breath of tire-and grease-scented air and wandered back toward one of the resort’s tour buses, where five legs protruded from beneath the chassis; Temo didn’t have his prosthesis on.
“We’ll be with you in a minute,” he called.
She squatted down and put her hand on his ankle. “I can wait...Cuauhtemo.”
At the sound of her voice and his real name, the three mechanics’ creepers shot out from under the tour bus.
Temo grabbed her first, hugged her hard.
CUAUHTEMO (TEMO) IGLASIAS:
MALE. 5'7", 150 LBS, FIT. HISPANIC-AMERICAN/SECOND GENERATION. BLACK HAIR, BROWN EYES, SPANISH SPEAKER. MILITARY VETERAN. PROSTHETIC LEG. MECHANIC, HANDYMAN. BROTHER TO YOUNGER SISTER, REGINA. LEADER.FRIEND.
He loosened his grip and asked, “Are you healed?” From last winter and her encounter with Mara Philippi, he meant.
“I’m fine.” Except for the stitches in her arm and the bump on her head, but those weren’t worth mentioning to a man who had lost his leg in action.
Birdie Haynes rolled over on her creeper and the two hugged, long and hard. Then she punched Kellen hard in the shoulder. “You scared me to death! You couldn’t even text?”
“Somebody stole my phone.”
“Stole your phone? That’s funny!” Birdie wasn’t laughing. Her brown eyes swam with tears.
The two women fell into each other’s arms again.
“Are they crying?” Max had made it inside, and he was doing the smarmy superior man thing.
“Looks like it.” Carson Lennex stood up off his creeper and wiped his hands on a grease rag, then shook hands with Max.
Birdie and Temo: Kellen had expected to see them in maintenance. But Carson Lennex?
CARSON LENNEX:
MALE, 65, IRISH/HISPANIC ANCESTRY, 6'3", 200 LBS, IRON GRAY HAIR, HAZEL EYES, TANNED, ACTOR, MOVIE STAR, FORMER ACTION-ADVENTURE HERO. LIVES ALONE IN ONE OF THE TOWER SUITES FOR MOST OF THE YEAR. RETIRED. ALOOF.
And one more thing—he was violently in love with Birdie.
“What are you doing under there?” Max asked.
“Every time they drive this old bus up a steep incline, there’s a burning odor. We’re trying to figure out where it’s coming from. It makes the tourists nervous.” Carson managed to make it sound like he knew what he was talking about. Did he? Or was he that good an actor?
“Have you checked the radiator overflow?” Max asked. “If there’s a leak in one spot in one hose onto a hot spot, it could cause the smell.”
“That’s a thought.” Temo lay down on the creeper and disappeared underneath the bus.
