Tiebreaker (It Takes Two 2)

I watch heat creep, creep, creep up my sister’s neck. This spells only one thing––trouble in all caps.

“Thank you!” I half-shout, intervening before this gets really out of hand. “Thank you, Chief. Nice meeting you.”

“Chief––your coffee’s waitin’ on you,” one of the waitresses, a small redhead I vaguely recognize from high school, tells him with a sexy smile and a wink. The chief takes one last look at Annabelle. Then he walks over to the counter where his travel mug awaits him.

“What was that about?” I whisper, staring at the broad back of the man in question.

“That arrogant prick’s favorite pastime is harassing the handicapped. I’m thinking about contacting the ACLU.”

In spite of the circumstance I find myself in, I cannot stop the laughter sputtering out of me. Here comes the drama. Bebe is Rowdy Ronald’s granddaughter through and through. “You’re pulling the handicapped card? Really?”

As soon as Bebe was well enough to concentrate on her studies, she insisted on getting her GED. Then blew through undergrad at University of Oklahoma in three years and got her degree to teach elementary school Phys. Ed.

When we tried to get her to slow down, she informed everyone in the family that if anyone ever used the word handicapped in her presence they would meet swift and painful punishment. Nobody was surprised. Everybody was proud.

“And I know how you drive so don’t even.”

She swipes more fries from my dish. “I may have been driving a mile, or thirty above the speed limit.” Looking off, she shrugs.

“Hey,” I say to my hellion baby sister, a smile twitching my lips.

“What?”

“I missed you.”

Her face quickly parts with a devilish grin. “I missed you too.”

My gaze slides to the well-developed backside belonging to the chief. Goodness gracious, it’s big. “He’s hot,” I mouth, tipping my head in that direction.

Bebe’s smile drops. “If you like extra trash in your trunk.”

Chapter Six

Maren

After breakfast I hit the local supermarket, stocking up on food for the long haul. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be here longer than I want to be.

The quandary I’m in does not hit me until I park the truck. It was easy enough at the store when I had three young employees trailing after me, ready to do my bidding, offering to load my bags and the case of bottled water. Now that I’m back at my grandfather’s place, it dawns on me that I have only one working hand. And even that one is not doing too hot from overuse.

My cell phone rings as I sit in the cab of the truck pondering my predicament. I snatch it up, expecting it to be Oliver, and see Bebe’s name flashing onscreen instead.

“So I forgot to mention there’s a concert tonight at Rowdy’s,” she says as soon as I answer. “That band from Austin is playing––”

“No.”

“It’s in honor of Grandpa. You have to come.”

“Mmnooo.”

“It’s going to look real bad if you don’t show. He’ll know you’re avoiding him, that you’re still hung up on him, that you’re still that pathetic girl who followed him around everywhere.”

Nobody is better at smack talk than Bebe. She’ll find your weakness and go after it without mercy until there is nothing left of your composure. This is how we ended up in a hair-pulling fight on the golf course.

“I hate you.”

“I’ll pick you up at nine.”

“No way. I still have PTSD from the last time I let you drive.” When my grandfather’s health took a turn for the worse and Oliver and I came to visit, she picked us up at the airport. That’s all I remember. I have no recollection of the fifty-minute car ride because it was so traumatizing my mind blocked it out. Oliver still won’t speak of it. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Later, hater,” I hear right before the line goes dead.

The grocery bags sitting next to me on the bench of the pickup taunt me. My good hand is aching, and every time I try to close my fingers around something with my injured one, a shock of pain zips up my arm, a clear reminder that I cannot use it.

With my father at work and my mother at her part-time job at the library, there’s no one coming to my rescue. It will have to be multiple trips.

I get out and pop the hatch of the flatbed. While I’m contemplating how to get all the bottled water in the house, the roar of tailpipes drags my gaze down the street.

It’s Noah…riding a Harley.

He pulls into his driveway and cuts the engine and it’s like a starter pistol goes off. Every nerve ending in my body stands at attention.

While he gets off the bike, I run a not-so-covert assessment from my hiding spot behind the truck. Jeans. A white t-shirt that shows off the colorful tattoos on his arms. He removes his helmet and runs a restless hand over his black hair. He looks…good. Healthy. Nothing like the man in my memories.