had dated she’d rarely seen him smile. And since then, he seemed to wear a perpetual frown, glaring at her as if she were a stink bug he wanted to stomp.
“I got the estimate on the damage to my truck,” he announced, handing her a folded sheet.
Damage? What damage? The dent in his fender was barely visible. Joy decided it was better not to ask. “I’ll take a look at it,” she said, struggling not to reveal how utterly irritating she found him. As far as she could see, his precious truck was on its way to the scrap yard.
“You’ll want to pay particular attention to the cost of repairing that section of the fender,” he added.
She might as well pay him off and be done with it. Unfolding the yellow sheet, she glanced down. Despite her best efforts to refrain from any emotion, she gasped. “This is a joke, right?”
“No. You’ll see I’m not asking you to replace the whole bumper.”
“They don’t replace half a bumper or even a small section. This…this two hundred and fifty dollars seems way out of line.”
“A new bumper, plus installation, costs over five hundred dollars. Two hundred and fifty is half of that.”
Joy swallowed hard. Yes, she’d been at fault, but even dividing the cost of the bumper, that amount was ridiculous. She certainly hadn’t done five hundred dollars’ worth of damage—or even fifty dollars, in her opinion.
To his credit, Lonny had done an admirable job of preventing any serious repercussions. She’d been badly shaken by the incident, which could easily have been much worse, and so had Lonny. She’d tried to apologize, sincerely tried, but Lonny had leaped out of his pickup in a rage.
Because he’d been such a jerk about it, Joy had responded in anger, too. From that moment on, they’d had trouble even being civil to each other. Joy was convinced his anger wasn’t so much about this so-called accident as it was about their former relationship. He was the one who’d broken it off, not her. Well, okay, it’d been a mutual decision.
Now he was insisting that a mere scratch had cost hundreds of dollars. It was hard to tell which dent the collision had even caused. His truck had at least ten others just like it and most of them were much worse. She suspected he was punishing her for not falling under the spell of the Great Rodeo Rider. That was the real story here.
Joy marched over to where Lonny had parked his vehicle. “You can’t expect me to pay that kind of money for one tiny dent.” She gestured at the scratched and battered truck. “That’s highway robbery.” She stood her ground—easy to do because she didn’t have an extra two hundred and fifty dollars. “What about all the other dents? They don’t seem to bother you, but this one does. And why is that, I wonder?”
Anger flashed from his eyes. “That tiny dent does bother me. What bothers me more is unsafe drivers. In my view, you should have your driver’s license revoked.”
“I forgot about the stop sign,” Joy admitted. “And I’ve apologized a dozen times. I don’t mean to be difficult here, but this just seems wrong to me. You’re angry about something else entirely and we both know what that is.”
“You’re wrong. This has nothing to do with you and me. This is about my truck.”
“Who do you think you’re kidding?” she burst out. “You’re angry because I’m a woman with opinions that didn’t happen to agree with yours. You didn’t want a relationship, you wanted someone to flatter your ego and I didn’t fall into line the way other women have.” She’d never met any of those women, but she’d certainly heard about them….
His eyes narrowed. “You’re just a city girl. I’m surprised you stuck around this long. If you figure that arguing will convince me to forget what you did to my truck, you’re dead wrong.” He shook his head as if she’d insulted him.
Joy couldn’t believe he was going to pursue this.
“You owe me for the damage to my vehicle,” he insisted.
“You…you…” she sputtered at the unfairness of it all. “I’m not paying you a dime.” If he wanted to be unreasonable, then she could be, too.
“Would you rather I had my insurance company contact yours?”
“Not really.”
“Then I’d appreciate a check in the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“That’s practically blackmail!”
“Blackmail?” Lonny spat out the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “I went to a lot of time and effort to get this estimate. I wanted to be as fair and amicable as possible and this is what I get?” He threw his arms up as if completely disgusted. “You’re lucky I was willing to share the cost with you, which I didn’t have to do.”
“You think you’re being fair?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I only want to be fair,” he said in self-righteous tones.
Joy relaxed. “Then fifty dollars should do it.”
Lonny’s eyes widened. “Fifty dollars won’t even begin to cover the damage.”
“I don’t see you rushing out for estimates on any of the other damage to your truck.” She pointed at a couple of deep gouges on the driver’s door.
“I was responsible for those,” he said. “I’ll get around to taking care of them someday.”
“Apparently someday has arrived and you’re trying to rip me off.”
They were almost nose-to-nose now and tall as he was, Joy didn’t even flinch. This man was a Neanderthal, a knuckle-dragging throwback who didn’t know the first thing about civility or common decency.
“Miss Fuller? Uncle Lonny?”
The small voice of a child drifted through the fog of Joy’s anger. To her horror, she’d been so upset, she’d forgotten all about Cricket.
“You’re yelling,” the little girl said, staring up at them. Her expression was one of uncertainty.
Joy immediately crouched down so she was level with the six-year-old. “Your Uncle Lonny and I let our emotions get the better of us,” she said and laughed as if it was all a joke.
Frowning, Cricket glanced from Joy to her uncle. “Uncle Lonny says when you aren’t teaching school you shrink heads. When I asked Mom about it, she said Uncle Lonny didn’t mean that. You don’t really shrink heads, do you?”
Lonny cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps it’s time we left, Cricket.” He reached for the little girl’s hand but Cricket resisted.
“Of course I don’t shrink heads,” Joy said, standing upright. Her irritation continued to simmer as she met Lonny’s gaze. “Your uncle was only teasing.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Lonny muttered under his breath.
Joy sighed. “That was mature.”
“I don’t care what
