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her mother. But she didn’t want her mother’s life. So what the hell was she doing?
    She got in the truck, found her keys, and wished she had her cell phone. If she had her phone, she’d call Randy to say she was coming, and then maybe she’d call Billy to tell him she was making the lasagna he liked. She knew it was messed up. She looked at the keys in her hand, realized she was sitting there in a sweat, an idiot in a truck, baking in the heat.
    Katy flinched when Jesse opened the passenger door and jumped in.
    He tossed the hundred-dollar bill in her lap and smiled. “Mind giving me a ride?”
    “What?” The plastic bag of clothes crumpled to her feet.
    “I need you to follow that car. It’s kind of an emergency, and taxis won’t run to where we need to go.”
    She studied his face. Good-looking and smooth. “You’re sitting on my boyfriend’s shirt.”
    He lifted the shirt, smoothed it across his lap. “Sorry,” he said. Then he smiled a smile that was just a little bit devilish. “Come on.” He gave a little shrug like a boy. “It’s just a little drive.” Yeah, he was cute, and he knew it.
    She glanced back at the white Datsun rumbling behind the Dumpster. The driver looked like a kid, soft round face, big dark eyes staring at the man beside her.
    “Come on,” he said. She turned and looked into his eyes, green flecked with black and looking straight at her. She’d always had a thing for green eyes. She tried to guess his age, early twenties, she figured, younger than she was, but worn. He was hard-looking, likea man who didn’t eat enough real meals, a man who worked out in a basement. He had a scar on his cheekbone, a little crescent shape. But what a mouth, pretty lips that curved in just the right places. The kind of mouth that knew just how to kiss. Pushy but firm and soft.
    He smiled, leaned a little closer. “Yeah, I know. You like my face. I get that.” He picked up the hundred-dollar bill. “But I’m not looking for a date right now. I just need you to follow that car.” She liked the smell of him, clean but that man smell underneath.
    “Why should I follow that car?” she asked. Katy had tended bar for years. She was used to guys wanting things. Asking questions was the best way she knew to make them stall. Men, no matter what they were after, always liked a little time to talk.
    “Why?” The bill dropped into her lap, and he eased back into the seat beside her. “Don’t you need the money?”
    “Well, sure, but—”
    “Well, sure. Yes, you need the money. The thing is, my friend there, his name is Ronald, and I’m Brad.” He offered to shake her hand, and she almost took it, but she kept her hands on the steering wheel. “Okay, then, I understand your caution, some strange dude jumping in your truck—”
    She laughed. “Well, yeah.”
    He smiled. “You see my friend there, Ronald, he’s a little nervous. His granny, she’s sick, and she lives way out there in Whitwell. Out by Lake Waccamaw.”
    Then she grinned, sat up, looked around. “Is this a joke? Where’s Randy?”
    “I don’t know no Randy,” Jesse said. “What you talking about?”
    “Randy. My friend. He likes to play little tricks on me. He lives out by Lake Waccamaw. I drive out there sometimes.”
    “That’s nice,” Jesse said. “It’s real pretty country out there, isn’t it?”
    She nodded. “Yeah, there’s something pure out there. No tourists. Just trees and water and sky.”
    “And Randy,” he said. “But I guess you just drive out there for the nature and all.”
    She turned to him. “Look, I’d like to help you out, but I gotta get home.”
    Jesse shook his head and leaned closer. There was a softness to him, but a confidence. She liked that soft confidence in a man. She breathed that scent of him. He definitely knew what he had. He sat back and looked out her windshield as if this were just another conversation. “You got a chance to do something good here. I saw your