“I sure would be obliged. Sorry again for—”
“Get moving!” Ty bellowed.
Wade tipped his bill cap and loped off. Ty, muttering curses, started his car and drove it to the exit. His impatience was hilarious. Sunny held back her laughter as long as she could. He glowered at her when he heard the first giggle.
“That hick. Doesn’t even know when his wife is in labor,” he mumbled.
“Isn’t he one of the Florys?”
“Yeah.”
“Intelligence has never been that family’s strong suit,” Sunny said, laughing in earnest now.
“I think they’ve married their cousins too many times. Hang on. Here they come.” A dilapidated pickup rumbled up behind the Datsun. “Hope that damn thing can make it to the hospital.”
Ty roared out onto the highway, red light flashing. He had had a siren built into the Datsun just for emergencies like this. He turned it on now and the sound nearly blasted Sunny out of the car. The wind whipped her hair around her face, and she was still laughing so hard that tears filled her eyes.
Every now and then she glanced over her shoulder. Miraculously the pickup stayed right behind them. Traffic moved aside as they sped past.
But by the time they reached the hospital and braked outside the emergency room entrance, the pickup was wheezing. White smoke billowed from beneath the hood.
Ty shoved open his door and got out. He ran toward the passenger side of the pickup, jerked open the door, and assisted the heavily expectant mother out. Her husband didn’t seem to be at all in the rush that Ty was. Wade got out of the pickup’s cab and ambled around the hood, scratching his head as it belched smoke.
“What do you reckon’s wrong with my truck?”
Ty shouted, “Get your wife inside before she has her baby out here on the asphalt! I’ll take care of the damn truck.”
His drill sergeant’s command galvanized Wade into action. He escorted his wife through the wide glass doors. “Thanks, Sheriff,” he called back just as the doors closed behind them.
Ty climbed into the steaming pickup and backed it into a parking space. He then rejoined Sunny in the Datsun. “I just left the keys in the ignition. Who’d want to steal it?”
He replaced the portable police light beneath the car seat and made certain the siren was switched off before he engaged the gears and drove out of the hospital’s parking lot.
“Well,” Sunny said with an impish smile, “that was certainly exciting!”
Ty scowled at her. Then the absurdity of the episode struck him, and his mouth fashioned a wide grin. Soon the car was filled with their laughter.
“I wanted to murder him for interrupting—”
“I thought he’d never get to the point and—”
“Then when he told me—”
“I couldn’t believe he hem-hawed around like that!”
Ty wiped mirthful tears from the corners of his eyes. “God, I’m starving. The excitement made me hungry. How about you?”
Without waiting for her consent, he pulled into the Busy Bee Café on Main Street, which was the only restaurant in town that stayed open late. “I haven’t been here in years,” Sunny remarked as he held the door open for her.
“I’m sure it hasn’t changed. It’s probably been that long since they’ve swept the floor.”
Indeed, the café hadn’t changed, Sunny observed as they went in. The acrid smell of overused frying grease was pungently familiar. The waitress she remembered from her youth was still on duty. She recognized Sunny instantly. “Hiya, Sunny. Welcome back. Gee, you’re lookin’ great.”
“Thank you. How are you?”
“Same as ever. Old and ugly.”
Sunny slid into the maroon vinyl booth Ty indicated and picked a menu out of the metal rack on the table while Ty gave the waitress their order for two coffees. “Is that all right?”