Kindling Flames—Gathering Tinder (11 page)

“Nothing much,” Mary admitted as she slid the files over for Vicky to look at. “The numbers all look good this week.”

Vicky flipped open the folders to check the stats.

“We did finally get a permanent driver to take the eastern run.”

“That’s good.” Vicky nodded at the progress.

“You’re telling me. I was getting tired of listening to Mr. Rodgers grumble about the temps we were being sent.” Mary pushed her glasses up and rubbed the spot between her eyebrows. “Another week of that, and I was going to start driving the truck just to shut him up.”

Vicky grinned at the idea of the petite brunette behind the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler. “I’m glad you didn’t have to. I would miss our weekly chats.”

“Not as much as they would,” Mary nodded her head towards the men outside. “If we weren’t here to take care of business, they wouldn’t have time to talk about their cars.”

Vicky agreed, and the two women went over the things that had happened during the week. Mr. Rodgers would tell Darien anything important during the time they chatted, but they would leave the fine details up to the girls. When Vicky and Mary finished, Vicky folded up the file and slipped it into her bag. “Want to walk to the break room with me? I need to get something to drink.” Standing up, Vicky pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder.

Mary agreed, and the two women chatted about their lives outside of work as they walked to the vending machines. Vicky picked up tea for herself and water for Darien, and they were on their way back to the shipping bay when music came from Vicky’s bag. Mary’s words failed at the eerie song.

Vicky fished the cell phone Darien had given her from her bag. “Hello?” Vicky answered, expecting to get Darien wondering where they were.

There was a long pause before an unfamiliar voice spoke. “May I please speak with Master Darien?” the thick, warm, male voice asked.

Vicky slipped into her professional voice. “Mr. Ritter is in a meeting at the moment. May I take a message and have him call you back?” She quickly pulled her notepad out, so she could jot down a message or number.

There was another long pause before the man answered her. “Tell him we’ll be gathered at sunset, awaiting his arrival.” The line clicked dead without giving Vicky a chance to ask anything.

Who was gathered? Where? She stared at the silent phone before folding it up and slipping it back into her bag. The caller ID didn’t show a name or number, just ‘Private’. She hoped Darien would understand the cryptic message.

“Everything okay?” Mary asked as they started back towards the shipping bay.

Vicky nodded. “Apparently, someone wants to see Mr. Ritter tonight.” She frowned a little. “The guy wasn’t very clear.”

Mary patted Vicky on the shoulder. “I get those for Mr. Rodgers from time to time,” Mary opened the door to the shipping bay and held it for her guest. “He always seems to know what they’re about.”

Vicky stepped out and nodded. She didn’t go into the fact that the call had come in on the strange phone Darien had given her. As far as she knew, her boss was the only person who knew that number.

The two women found their bosses still going on about the muscle car.

“And, it’ll do a quarter mile in 13.99 seconds at 101.” Darien’s boasting earned him a long whistle from his friend.

“Pardon the intrusion,” Vicky slipped into pause in their conversation. “I just got a call for you, Mr. Ritter. Do you have a meeting set up for this evening?”

Darien gave her a confused look. “Not that I’m aware of.” He pondered who could have called his assistant. “Who was it?”

“I have no idea,” Vicky shook her head. “He just said they’d be waiting for you after sunset.”

A strange look crossed Darien’s face, and he pulled his phone from his pocket to find that the battery was dead. “Pardon me, Mr. Rodgers. It seems I’ve forgotten something this evening.” Darien shut the hood of the car.

“Then don’t let me keep you.” Turning to Mary, Mr. Rogers asked, “Did Miss Westernly get everything she needed?”

Mary nodded.

Vicky said goodbye and got into the car. Whatever Darien had forgotten seemed pressing. Her boss bid his farewell and climbed into the car. It took no time for them to get back out into the rain and zooming down the highway.

“I’m sorry, Miss Westernly,” Darien apologized very seriously. “I wasn’t expecting this today. It’s quite a drive to where I need to be tonight, and I don’t have time to take you back to the office.”

Vicky wasn’t sure what was going on, but she had never seen him so tense.

“I’m going to head straight out there and let you drive back by yourself.”

“That’s fine with me, but how will you get back?”

“Don’t worry about that. I just want to make sure you’re safe.”

Vicky gave him a confused look. Something about that statement bothered her.

“What did you get from Mary?” he asked to distract her from the questions floating just behind her eyes.

She shook her odd feeling away and pulled the business file from her bag to summarize it for him.

Darien didn’t hear a word she said. He was too busy preparing to spend the evening with the Vampire Council.

“Damn it!” Darien cursed as he hit the debris that the car in front of him kicked up. Due to the heavy traffic, he had been unable to swerve out of the way, but he’d done his best to straddle the chunk of tire tread bouncing down the road.

Vicky covered her mouth to hide her smile. A string of rather colorful words issued from her boss as the garbage thumped along under the car. She had never heard such things slip past his lips before.

“Charlie’s going to tan my hide if anything happens to the car.”

“I thought these were your cars?”

“They may be my cars, but they’re Charlie’s babies.” Darien chuckled at the love the old man lavished on the machines in his care.

Vicky’s smile widened as she nodded. She could just imagine the hours Charlie spent rubbing wax onto the vast collection Darien kept squirreled away in that garage.

Darien took the exit ramp off the interstate and hit a county road that took them farther north. The storm was starting to wane, and the tail end of the day was just peeking through the thinning clouds.

***

Letting her mind wander, Vicky rode on in silence, watching the cornfields roll past. She was pulled from her thoughts by another string of indecent words from her normally proper boss. From where she sat, Vicky could see the little dials on the dashboard telling them that the engine temperature was much too high.

Darien continued to mutter as he pulled the car over to a wide spot in the road and got out to see what had gone wrong.

Vicky climbed out so she could help if he needed it.

Darien lifted the hood and looked down at the V8 steaming in the drizzle. He popped open the overflow bottle and looked in it before pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. Using the cloth to insulate his fingers, he twisted the hot radiator cap open to check the water level inside.

Vicky could remember her father doing this many times on the clunkers he drove, but the steam that came out was nowhere near as strong as it should have been.

Darien squatted down and placed his hand on the bumper of the car as he looked underneath. “We must have broken the radiator hose when we hit that junk.” He sighed as he stood and looked up and down the road for an answer to their problems. There were no signs of life on the little road. Darien cursed his luck again and turned to ask Vicky for her phone, but she was gone. He found her digging in the glove box of the car.

“How far do we have to go?”

The question surprised Darien. “Another twenty miles or so,” he answered, watching her pull the key from the ignition switch and climb back out of the car.

She dropped her suit jacket on the seat and rolled up her sleeves. Opening the trunk, she looked inside and made a disappointed noise before shutting the lid again. Only a spare tire.

Confused by her actions, Darien followed her around to the front of the car, where they both squatted down to look at the damaged hose. “What are you thinking?” he asked as he watched the wheels in Vicky’s mind turning.

“I’m thinking that I’m going to need a new pair of stockings,” she answered, and stood up.

To Darien’s surprise, the woman turned from him and pulled up the hem of her skirt. She freed the top of her silk stocking from the garter holding it in place. Slipping out of her shoes, she pulled the first of the sheer tubes off.

Darien stood up and stared at her. He had no idea how taking off her stockings was going to help their situation.

When Vicky had them both in hand, she sat down on the wet ground in front of the car and wiggled underneath.

“What are you doing?” he asked, looking down through the engine compartment to see his assistant threading the delicate material around the damaged hose.

“I once watched my dad nurse a pickup truck with a damaged radiator hose fifty miles to town with only two gallons of water and a shop rag,” Vicky explained as she twisted the first stocking into place and tied it as tight as she could. “He wrapped the cloth around the crack, so it held the hose together.” She added the second stocking to the first. “I figured we could make it twenty miles if we could just get this tied off.”

“With stockings?” Darien questioned her judgment.

“With
silk
stockings,” she corrected. “Silk is a very strong material, especially when it’s wet.” Vicky checked her knots and pulled herself out from under the car.

“You wear silk, thigh-high stockings?” Darien asked, reaching down to help his assistant from the ground. This was another thing he hadn’t expected from her.

Vicky blushed a little at his question. “One of the guys I dated in college got me started on them.” The red on her cheeks deepened as she thought about the reasons her ex-boyfriend wanted her to wear them. “I found they were more comfortable than other options. And the silk ones are more durable then the nylon ones.”

Vicky pulled away from Darien’s hand and gathered her shoes to take back to the car. She pulled out her tea and the bottle of water Darien hadn’t touched and brought them around to the front of the car.

“That’s not going to be enough,” Darien shook his head in mirth as Vicky emptied the bottle of water into the radiator.

“I know.” She took one final swig of her drink before upending the liquid into the car. Vicky looked at the sky as the rain began picking back up, “You better get back in before you get soaked.” She handed Darien the key and ushered him back into the car. “There’s no reason for both of us to get wet, and you still have a meeting this evening.”

Finding it hard to argue with the woman’s logic, he let her put him back in the car and shut the door right before the rain cut loose. He watched Vicky collect the two bottles and make her way to the ditch, where a swelling stream of water was flowing past. Darien sighed helplessly as he waited for his assistant to finish, so they could get back underway.

It took several trips into the muddy ditch to get enough water to fill the radiator. Once full, Vicky signaled Darien to start the motor up and checked to make sure her makeshift patch was holding. Pleased with her work, she shut the hood. The dirt she had gotten on her back when she first laid down had been washed away while she worked, but there was still some on her legs. Pausing at a puddle, she cleaned the remaining traces of mud from her calves before opening the door. Since she was now soaked to the bone by the cold liquid falling in sheets from the sky, she stopped long enough to arrange her coat on the seat to protect the upholstery before sitting down gingerly.

Looking over at his drenched assistant, Darien turned the heater in the car up as far as it would go. He studied the woman who had just fixed his car. She huddled on the very edge of the seat with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, trying, unsuccessfully, not to drip on anything. Her hair had come loose and hung in rivulets about her shoulders, over her white shirt. The sheer material clung to her skin, and he could see what she wore underneath without even trying.

She tucked her bare feet under the dash, where the warm air could blow down on them.