She stiffened.
“Bad.”
Her shoulders sank.
“Tomorrow?”
I looked toward my service truck.
“Cheap.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Pulley and belt.”
I straightened.
“If I have the right size, you're moving in an hour.”
For the first time, relief crossed her face.
It disappeared quickly.
“You carry those?”
“I fix farm equipment in places where parts stores close at six.”
That seemed to answer more than she had asked.
I walked toward my truck.
My phone buzzed again.
6:05 at the latest. Shower at the shop. Do not show up smelling like hydraulic fluid.
I ignored it.
When I returned with tools, the woman was still standing exactly where I had left her.
“You don't have to stay there.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You think I'm going to steal the engine?”
“I think I'm going to watch.”
“Fair.”
I removed the belt fragments first.
She followed every movement.
Not because she distrusted my work.
Because every piece mattered to her.
When I tossed one shredded section toward my tool mat, her eyes followed it.
Interesting.
I pointed toward the bloody napkin.
“You should clean that.”
“It’s fine.”
“It isn't.”
“You a doctor too?”
“No.”
“Then fix the truck.”
I smiled.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her cheeks colored slightly.
I worked.
The old pickup was a mid-nineties three-quarter-ton with more than two hundred thousand miles if the odometer could be believed.
The engine had been maintained carefully.
Not perfectly.
Carefully.
There was a difference.
Nothing had been replaced simply because it looked old. Whoever owned the truck repaired things until repair became impossible.
That told me something about the man she had lost.
A strip of white tape was wrapped around one radiator hose clamp.
Faded block letters remained visible.
I reached toward it.
The woman moved instantly.
“No.”
I stopped.
Her reaction was too fast to be ordinary.
“What?”
“Don't remove that.”
“I wasn't.”
Her chest rose and fell.
“I’m sorry.”
I pulled my hand away.
“It's staying.”
She nodded.
I looked at the tape again.
Something had been written there once.
A date, maybe.
Or initials.
I decided not to ask.
People volunteer grief when they're ready.
If you pry, they either lie or bleed.
I knew that from experience.
I replaced the pulley.
Then the belt.
The woman watched quietly for several minutes before saying, “You really have somewhere to be?”
I glanced at her.
“What?”
“You checked your phone four times.”
“My sister has apparently confused a blind date with a military operation.”
That produced a real laugh.
Small.
Unexpected.
It changed her entire face.
“You have a blind date?”
“Unfortunately.”
“That's encouraging.”
“Why?”
“I have one too.”
I stopped turning the ratchet.
“You're standing beside a dead pickup in a dress because you're supposed to be on a date?”
“Yes.”
“That explains the shoes.”
She looked down at the thin heels sinking into gravel.
“I had intended to arrive using roads.”
“Ambitious.”
That laugh came again.
I liked it.
That was irritating.
I had spent four years carefully constructing a life where liking another woman did not become necessary.