“Yeah, she’s on the computer in one van, and we have a driver in that van, then I drive this van.”
“And you work on it?” He motioned to where it sat with its hood up. “You knew it was the water pump?”
“Ah, yeah. Our dad, he was always working on cars, you know, to keep them running, and since we don’t have any brothers, well, we were always out helping him. Getting cursed at, you know.”
He didn’t know. He barely remembered his dad, who had left when he was in second grade. “That’s good he taught you.”
“Yeah, but it’s not exactly something I can fix out here . Or probably even when we get in town. These vans are a lot different than the old Chevy truck I helped my dad rebuild. Mostly computerized.”
“That’s impressive. I know the basics, but the very basic. I had an old car in high school, too, and I kept it running, but like you said, it was a lot different than the the new cars. But really I just knew how to change the oil and flush the radiator. No real mechanical expertise.” He looked back toward the van, whose side door was still open. “So about the weather we’re expecting?”
“Um, yeah, the predictions are within fifty miles of here tomorrow. I hope we can get our clients out on the road by then.”
A shudder ran through his body. “Isn’t that dangerous? Taking these people out to see storms like that?”
“Oh no.” She waved a dismissive hand. “We take the utmost precautions. I mean, we have first aid training, we’ve had driver safety training, we limit where we chase. Like, we don’t chase in cities because of traffic, and we don’t chase at night because you can’t always see what’s coming.”
“And what about flooding and hail?”
“Like I said, my sister is a trainer meteorologist, and we don’t get close to storms that have bad hail. We explain to our customers the reason why. No sense in putting them in danger, or the vehicles, you know, though we don’t tell them that. Insurance is already through the roof, if you can imagine.”
“Yes, but I’d figure that you’d go down roads that aren’t that well-maintained, you risk getting stuck, or worse.” The vans had fewer ways to exit than the school bus had, and just the idea of being stuck inside one with all those people…
“We don’t go anywhere unless we have a safe escape,” she assured him.
He swallowed. “That’s good to know, I suppose, if you’re familiar with the area and know where you’re going.”
She gave a quiet laugh. “Well, yeah, that isn’t always the case.”
She drew her legs up, resting her heels on the passenger seat of the cruiser and rested her elbow on her knee, twirling her finger through her curls, drawing his attention to the many colors, browns and blacks and a touch of red, silky and soft-looking.
And her easy way, her casual way—he should chide her for sitting that way in his cruiser, but he kind of liked that she was relaxed with him. Strangers usually weren’t, especially when they encountered him in his uniform.
And, well, he’d lost the pounds that had weighed him down as a kid. The effort had taken a long time, because his mom didn’t understand that he didn’t want potatoes and tortillas and fideo and all the good stuff he’d grown up eating. He’d started going for runs, though at first he’d quit after only a few minutes, because running in West Texas in the summer on dirt roads was brutal. During the school year he started driving to high school, and he left home extra early so he could run on the track there, in the dark, where no one could see him and tease him. He hadn’t told anyone but his mother what he planned to do, just let them see the results themselves.
Slowly, slowly, he’d transformed, because old habits were hard to break, right? But now he was tall and strong and pretty imposing in his uniform, was the point. Most people reacted like Angelica had.
Not like Esperanza.
“I guess you get in some dangerous spots, too, being a cop,” she said, gesturing to his uniform. “What’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to you?”
He shook his head, because he tried to keep a shield down over some of the things he’d seen. He didn’t want to tell her about the kids he’d seen killed in accidents, the migrants who’d been smuggled over in the back of a semi who’d died of heat stroke, the high water rescues he’d witnessed that chilled him to the very bone.
“Most days are pretty boring, and I just spend the day driving around.”
She sat forward, folding her legs into a lotus position. “So you know the roads around here pretty well?”
Something in her tone shifted and raised his suspicion. “I mean, yeah.”
“This is our first time this far south. If I buy you dinner, can go you over some maps with me? Of the area?” When he hesitated, she got a little flustered. “When you’re off-duty, of course.”
“Ah, yeah, sure. Sure, we can do that.” His brain scrambled to think if The Wheel House was open tonight, because he’d much rather go there than sit in the diner under Ginny’s watchful eye, though he was pretty sure she didn’t work nights anymore, since she owned the place. But Hailey was always too busy slinging nachos and pouring beer to notice what her friends were doing when they showed up.
“Great!” Esperanza patted the insides of her thighs with her palms. “What time do you get off?”
“Ah, my shift ends at four. I could meet you at The Wheel House around six thirty?”
“What’s The Wheel House?”
