Lucy’s brown-painted lips did their best to sneer. “Like I’d care.”

“Oh, you’d care, all right. Give it up, Lucy. The day Button got you for a big sister was the luckiest day of her life.”

Lucy blinked and turned away, but not before Nealy caught a glimpse of the vulnerable fourteen-year-old who lived beneath that tough facade.

After she left, Nealy stretched out her legs on the quilt, propped her back against one leg of the metal table, and contented herself watching the life of the small West Virginia town pass by.

She’d just started to doze when an ancient red Oldsmobile pulled into the parking lot and Mat climbed out of the driver’s side, looking even more ominous than he had earlier. “I was right. It’s a busted tie rod, and it won’t be ready until tomorrow morning. ” He stopped next to her. “Mabel’s parked at the garage, which seems to be part of the county junkyard. There’s some kind of landfill next to it, and the whole place smells like a Mafia burial ground.”

“So we can’t spend the night there.”

He slumped down into the chair across from her. “There’s a Holiday Inn about five miles away.”

He looked like a man in desperate need of a drink, and she pushed what was left of her watery Coke at him. “I’ll get you a hamburger.”

“See if you can find one with some nice E. coli tucked inside.”

“I believe it comes with the order.”

He smiled, then fastened his lips around her straw and took a sip. She’d expected him to drink from the rim, and she stared at him for a moment. He set down the paper cup. Something crackled between them, an awareness that made her edgy and self-conscious.

She’d never met anyone who emanated so much male sexual energy. She saw it in his eyes, the set of his shoulders, the curl of his fingers. She heard it in that blast-furnace voice. It was almost as if he’d managed to escape female influence. He belonged on the back of a bucking horse, behind the wheel of a ship, building roads, or leading a military charge.

She shook off her fanciful thoughts and headed for the drive-in window. She knew nothing about men like Mat Jorik, and furthermore, she didn’t intend to learn.

Lucy returned just as Mat finished eating. She watched Button try to crawl up his leg into his lap, then looked over at the ancient Oldsmobile. “Couldn’t you get a Camero or something?”

“They were fresh out.”