Page 10 of Hauling Ashe

“That’s okay,” Mae proudly states. “I don’t fake orgasms anyway.”

Coffee sprays forward, splattering over my laptop screen, the back of the seat before me, and my fresh-pressed shirt.

“Excuse me?”

“You know, in the movie, Sally fakes that orgasm in a diner to prove a point. Women can fake them. Men don’t recognize them. I don’t do that anymore. My orgasms are all real and all mine.”

Good God. Stop the car, I want to yell. Let me off this ride.

Instead, I choke again, struggling with the laughter tickling the back of my esophagus. Just who is this woman and where has she come from?

“I think I’m okay with you keeping your orgasms and your friendship to yourself.” Peering at Mae’s face once more in the rearview mirror, her brows pinch and I realize I might have said too much, gone a little too far. I should apologize. She’s right. We have days together in this car, if this thing can be called a car, but we don’t need to talk. We don’t need to get personal or physical. Definitely not getting physical, even if that wounded look in her eyes sends a strange sensation to my sternum.

Quickly, I glance down at my laptop, realizing for the second day in a row, I’m wearing coffee because of this woman. And while hot coffee seeping into my shirt has me thinking of warm places, wet and dripping on a woman, I shut that thought down and focus on the emails awaiting my attention.

+ + +

“Mach, I already told you no deal.”

Currently, Impact has a publisher hounding us for a biography about Rochelle. They want us to immortalize the grassroots girl-turned-woman-empowerment motivator, but then we’d need to uncover the disturbing truth. Rochelle had never been grassroots and despite the pretty face, six-inch stilettos, and winning smile, an unpleasant woman resided within that picture-perfect form. I would know firsthand about the unattractive creature she’d become because I was married to her for almost twenty-four years.

Mae has detoured us off the highway at an exit promoting the original Route 66. I didn’t question the shift, but as we hit a two-lane highway with zero cars on the road around us, her window goes down and the papers surrounding me begin to fly.

“Mae,” I holler over the sudden noise of air whooshing into the vehicle and the flapping of papers.

“Who’s Mae?” Mach asks.

“My driver.”

“You have a driver named Mae?” Mach snorts. “Tell me she’s an eighty-year-old grandma who can barely see over the steering wheel.” My eyes flit to Mae as I try to capture the papers now disorganized and spilling over the back seat. I’ll need to re-shuffle everything once I’m off the phone. Mae rolls her window back up a little bit and I hold my gaze on the side of her face, noting once again the chestnut coloring of her hair as the strands whip around her cheeks in the breeze from the open window. Her fingers delicately brush long locks off her face, exposing the side of her neck. Her index finger twirls the wayward hairs around it for a brief second before slipping free and the tendrils dance around her cheek once again.

“She’s not,” I say, my voice cracking as I answer Mach. He knows about my predicament. The transportation service cancelled. When I told him Jane’s suggestion of her sister, Mach laughed as I had.

Is she hot? If I’d had coffee in my mouth yesterday when he’d asked, I’d have sputtered and choked around the liquid as I did a bit ago. Hot isn’t the right word, but there is something warm about her. Maybe it was that tan skin giving off proof that she enjoyed sunrays and summer days. Maybe it was that soft brown hair floating around her face. Maybe it was those blue eyes, which give me a quick glance over her shoulder.

Sunshine.

“Better?” she asks.

Am I better? In the years since Rochelle’s passing, the question has been asked by many. Was I better off without her? The thought was terrible to consider after her death and how it happened. The question was honest, though.

“So. Mae?” Mach hums in my ear, taunting me with the name and drawing my attention back to him.

“She’s Jane’s sister.”

Mach laughs harder. Had he already forgotten her name? Had I mentioned it yesterday?

“You didn’t?” He chuckles harder, implying he can’t believe I hired Jane’s sister.

“I had no other choice.” I really didn’t. Flying wasn’t an option. The train wasn’t either. Mae seemed to be the answer when I was still struggling with the question. Why? “She owes me a suit. The least she could do was drive me to California.”

The trade wasn’t exactly even.

“Well, this certainly sounds interesting.” Mach snickers and I purse my lips as if he can see me.

“Not interesting,” I state, catching Mae’s eyes in the rearview mirror again. Dammit. Why does she need to look at me like that? Then she narrows those azure beams and returns her sight to the road where she should be concentrating.

Suddenly, music fills the interior of the car. Rapid drumbeats and an electric guitar count off the beginning of “Life is a Highway.” Is she kidding me? Not joking in the least, Mae begins to sing with all the wrong lyrics.