Buck snapped, his bloodshot eyes finally focusing on her. “You hear me, girl? Where’s Faithy?”
Michaele shot her father a cold look. Despite his grip on the door frame, he wobbled dangerously, and she found herself half wishing he would topple face first onto the garage floor and knock himself out.
“I’m with a customer,” she said sharply.
Buck squinted. “Well, shoot, that’s just ol’—” he hiccuped “—Pete. Pete, you seen my little girl? Got a call for her inside. She’s u-usually back from school by now.”
Yeah, right, Michaele thought sourly as she pushed herself to her feet. Only if the sneak couldn’t find somewhere to hide until closing. More often than not, her younger sibling didn’t show until Michaele was home putting dinner on the table.
Pete scratched at his thinning silver hair as he pondered Buck’s question. “Nope. Can’t say I have.”
Exasperated with the whole situation, Michaele snapped, “For heaven’s sake, Buck, you know Pete lives south of here. Faith commutes to and from Mt. Pleasant, which is north. Tell whomever’s on the phone that she hasn’t arrived yet and hang up so someone with a real problem can get through!”
She turned back to the town’s newest widower. She knew he was in no hurry to leave and would rather spend the rest of the afternoon shooting the breeze with her; but she had too many problems of her own to be swayed by compassion. “Sorry,” she said, rising, “I have to finish servicing Chief Morgan’s car, and I promised that it would be done by six. If you want to avoid getting a ticket in two weeks when this expires—” she nodded to the sticker on the truck’s windshield “—you’ll have to come to terms with what that means.”
She wiped her hands on the already filthy rag and shoved it into the back pocket of her jeans, then stepped over to the patrol car still in need of an oil change and lube job.
“Guess I could let her go for the thousand…if you threw in new tires for the ’73 to sweeten the deal.”
Michaele almost let out a whoop. She’d been wanting to get her hands on “Precious” since she was seventeen, but wasn’t about to admit anything of the kind to Pete. Instead she muttered, “Jeez, Louise. All right, already! Bring the title tomorrow along with those flats, and I’ll write you a check.”
“Cash.”
That would mean a trip to the bank, because she didn’t keep that kind of money around; it presented too much of a temptation to Buck, who could easily finish drinking himself into a grave on a fraction of the amount. “Okay, cash it is. I’ll hop over to the bank as soon as it opens in the morning.”
“And I’ll need a ride home.”
She shot Pete an irritated look. “Why don’t I just adopt you? Never mind,” she added, as he began to grin. “Okay, I’ll see that you get home. Now, please, go away and let me earn a nickel.”
Satisfied, Pete left, and Michaele went back to work. But no sooner did she start unscrewing the drain plug from the patrol car’s oil pan than a vehicle pulled up to the gas pumps. She listened for the sound of Buck’s shuffling steps. When he failed to budge, she called over her shoulder, “Customer!”
After several more seconds, she headed outside herself. “And people ask why I don’t smile more,” she grumbled under her breath.
Their customer was none other than Reverend George Dollar. Michaele’s mood went from soured to curdled. Of the twelve-hundred-seventy-something people currently calling Split Creek home, why did he have to be the one driving up?
She circled around the back of the white Escort wagon that the church had inherited several years ago and went straight to the gas tank. “Fill it, Reverend?” she called up front.
He leaned out the driver’s window and smiled into the sideview mirror. “Please, Michaele. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was around. You really do need to get that service bell repaired.”
“Uh-huh.”
The only thing wrong with it was that she’d disconnected the thing. Even when she manned the garage by herself, she would have to go blind and deaf before missing anyone pulling in.
Sliding the pump nozzle into the tank’s mouth, she glanced over the car into the station’s office-store area. As she’d suspected, her father was slumped on his throne again—whether asleep or unconscious, she couldn’t tell. What she could see, though, was that he hadn’t put the phone’s receiver back into the cradle.
She shook her head. And he insisted the crap he drank wasn’t pickling his brain?
“The windshield needs cleaning, Michaele.”
Sure it does.
Gritting her teeth, she latched the nozzle for automatic filling and reached for the squeegee soaking in the pail of cleaning liquid at the other end of the island. But she was burned. Damn it all, the old buzzard would have to be gumming the steering wheel to be bothered by the smudge or two on the otherwise sparkling windshield. No, he just wanted her stretched across his hood to get his cheap thrill for the day.
“I was sorry not to see you joining Faith at services Sunday.”
She briefly considered enlightening him. The only reason her younger sister went to church was that there were few other excuses to dress up in Split Creek without looking like a lost tourist, and Faith did like to dress up. Not Michaele, though; nor did she have the stomach to sit through any hypocritical sermons, let alone the kissy-huggy stuff that followed those gatherings. However, the businesswoman in her stopped her from being all-out rude to a customer—even a tightwad like George Dollar.
“Well, Reverend, I had an emergency tow,” she said, careful to keep her chest away from the windshield.
“I understand. Running a business is a mighty big responsibility on such a pair of small shoulders. Plus, you have sweet Faith counting on you to be both mother and—forgive me—father to her. But that’s no excuse to turn your back on the Lord, child.”
As he spoke, Michaele could feel his gaze moving over her. She was relieved when the pump suddenly shut off. Then she glanced back and saw why it had stopped so soon.
Here we go again.
Michaele slammed the squeegee on top of the pump and with jerky movements replaced the nozzle in its holder. As she screwed the fuel cap back on, it was all she could do not to grind her teeth into powder.
“I haven’t turned my back on God, Reverend,” she said, finally stepping up to the driver’s window. “It’s just that it’s been years since we had much to say to each other. That’ll be three-fifty.”
He made a great show of patting various pockets. “Dear me…I seem to have misplaced my wallet somewhere.”
Was there no limit to the man’s nerve?
“Try the glove compartment,” she drawled.
“Ah! Of course.” Without an iota of embarrassment, he reached into the compartment and soon presented her with a five-dollar bill. “You know, it grieves me to hear you speak with such cynicism, Michaele.”
“Well,
