Miss Gina stopped her with a hand in the air. “Not another word. It’s this room for free, or another one full price.”

Melanie bit her lip. “I’ll take it.”

Miss Gina’s grin gave Melanie pause. “Perfect. Hope, grab some of those wet towels. Let me show you where the washer and dryer are.” Miss Gina snapped her fingers with a wave of her hand.

Hope didn’t hesitate.

He didn’t mean to turn in . . . had actually driven by twice before turning around and pulling into Miller’s Auto. Besides . . . if he kept driving around the block, someone in River Bend was bound to think he’d been drinking and call the sheriff.

Not that Jo would do anything but laugh.

The crappy car he’d seen on the side of the road the night before was shoved outside of the garage doors and being lifted on the back of Miller’s tow truck.

Wyatt stepped out of his truck, shut the door without even taking the keys with him. River Bend was this side of Mayberry in terms of crime. The chances of someone jumping in his truck and taking off were nil.

“Luke?”

Luke was currently positioned between the undercarriage of the wreck and the chains of his tow truck.

Wyatt placed a hand to the side of the car and ducked.

Luke noticed him and tossed the hook his way. “Hey, Wyatt. Hook that up, will ya?”

He clasped the chain, made sure it held, and backed away from the car.

Luke wiped his hands on his faded jeans before grasping the automated controls of the tow to lift the car off the ground. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

While the belts and hydraulics kicked in, Luke asked, “What brings you by?”

“Saw this car on the road last night . . . just wondering how it all turned out.”

“Mel is an idiot,” Luke said with a laugh. “Leave it to a woman to run a car without oil.”

The familiarity of Luke’s words about the owner gave him pause. “Mel?”

“From Modesto to River Bend with an oil light blinking at her . . . who does that?” The hydraulics lifted the car as far as it would go before Luke tossed the controls on the bed of the lift. He fiddled with a few more chains while he worked.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Wyatt asked.

Luke offered a grin. “Women!”

Wyatt had to agree. A man wouldn’t let the oil run dry. Not a self-respecting man who did more than shove a key in the ignition and fill a gas tank. Thankfully, small towns weren’t filled with lawyers, doctors, and white-collar workers who fell into that category.

Women, on the other hand, didn’t have to hold six-figure careers to be deemed clueless when it came to cars.

“Can it be fixed?” Wyatt wasn’t completely sure why he asked.

“Cracked block.”

He blew out a long breath. A long look at the late model sedan had him shaking his head. “More trouble than it’s worth.”

“Yeah.” Luke shook his head. “Hated breaking that news to an old friend.” He shrugged and leaned an arm over the car. “It’s not a complete loss. She’ll make a great target out back of Grayson’s farm.”

Wyatt huffed. The image of a drowned shadow of a woman with wide eyes and fear swam into his head. She’d accused him of being an escapee from Sing Sing . . . Jack the Ripper, even. She had the right lines, but not an ounce of trust in a stranger. To hear she was an old friend of Luke’s made Wyatt wonder. “I’m sure your friend enjoyed the thought of her car being used as target practice.”

“She’s smarter than her cracked block implies.” Luke nodded toward Wyatt’s truck. “Where you headed today?”

“Miss Gina’s. I’ve been telling her for two years her roof needed to be replaced. Buckets in her attic after last night’s storm proved me right.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “That woman is still living in the sixties. Let me know when you find her pot plants.”

Wyatt had his head in the same place.

Miss Gina had a way of waving away problems as if she were high on something most times.

“I’ll do that.”

Wyatt pushed Mel and her cracked block from his head as he turned his truck back onto the main road through town.

Every year the annual high school reunion brought in new faces and the occasional casual hookup. Small towns had a way of limiting a single man’s sex life. Yeah, he could drive up the coast, or worse, up the five and hit Eugene in a little over an hour, but those encounters didn’t repeat.

When he’d first moved to River Bend the last thing on his mind was women or what he might be missing from a big city. He’d grown up just outside of San Francisco and had his share of traffic, crime, and noise to last a lifetime. The best memories of his life were those from when he was young and his parents had taken him and his little sister on camping trips to Sequoia or the Redwood National Park. The quiet and calm grounded him and reminded him of happy times. He vowed that as soon as he acquired a trade that would set him up with a nice, comfortable living in a small town outside of the state of California, he’d find one and move. A simple place that didn’t require him to drive through a desert to reach an airport.

That was five years ago.

A general contractor license was complete overkill for a small town where no one cared if you were licensed and bonded so long as you showed up when you said you were going to . . . and did the job as promised.

The nuance of small town living became obvious the first time he’d done a simple plumbing job for a widow who lived just outside of River Bend. Mrs. Kate offered a pot roast and an apple pie as payment.