Hot August Nights

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“I thought I was supposed to do this start to finish.”

“Like I said, there’s a schedule. We couldn’t wait until you were ready before we started. If the weather holds, we should be finished in another three weeks.”

She opened her mouth, judiciously closed it again and glanced out the passenger window. He had a feeling she wasn’t checking out the view. As intent as she seemed on maintaining that annoying unruffled poise, she was probably biting her tongue.

He’d actually liked her better when she didn’t hold back, when she said what was on her mind. But, then, she apparently had to be in a rebellious mood and half-inebriated to do that with him.

He forced his tone to stay even. “Do you have any questions?”

She looked as if she had a ton of them. She also looked as if she didn’t know if she should pose them to him, or save them for a friendlier face. He wasn’t fooled by her quiet manners, or the composure she so diligently maintained. From the rigid way she sat, he figured she was as comfortable with him as she would have been with a water snake.

“We have to work together,” he pointed out flatly. “You might as well ask.”

The edge in his tone drew her faint frown. “Only if you’ll answer.”

“Of course, I will.”

“Then, how did you get involved with this?”

That wasn’t at all the sort of question he had in mind. Talking to her about his turbulent youth definitely was not on his agenda of things to discuss with her. Especially when that youth was what had set him so clearly apart from her and her breed.

“A friend told me about it,” he replied, knowing he was being deliberately vague, not caring as he pulled his glance from her mouth. The nerves low in his gut tightened. So did his voice. “You shouldn’t wear perfume here.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her blink at him. “Excuse me?”

“You shouldn’t wear perfume,” he repeated, her scent still taunting him. “Scents can attract bugs.”

“I’m not wearing perfume.”

Puzzled, she watched his jaw lock. Preferring only to get this ride over with, she also changed the subject.

“How far is it to the job site?”

“About half an hour. We’ll drop off your bag at the motel first.”

They were heading east, away from the commercial development she had seen from the air along the coastline. The few small, single-story manufacturing facilities they’d passed had already given way to little more than a flat landscape, lush with low vegetation and occasionally punctuated by majestic umbrella-like palm trees.

Matt reached over and turned on the radio. “I want to catch the weather,” he muttered over the blast of the air conditioner.

What they got was the news. Specifically a traffic report for Sarasota, ninety miles northwest and an ad to be sure to visit the Cypress Slough preserve out of Fort Myers where visitors could take a mile-long boardwalk and see wetland inhabitants such as wading birds, turtles and alligators.

The thought of seeing an alligator gave her definite pause. She hadn’t even considered the local wildlife when she’d thought of her trip here. But the noise from the radio prevented silence from becoming awkward, and she was pretty sure that was all Matt was really interested in, anyway.

The Cypress Motor Inn sat right off the two-lane highway on the outskirts of Gray Lake. It was flanked by a doughnut shop on one side, a field of vegetation on the other and had the nearby amenities of a two-pump gas station and a convenience store a couple of city blocks down. A pool, crystal blue and sparkling, occupied the middle of the grounds. Patches of green lawn hugged it on three sides, punctuated here and there by the same sort of tall palm that surrounded the entire building. Crushed white seashells filled in the other side and served as a parking lot.

The motel itself definitely needed a coat of paint. The tan cinder block building wrapped itself around the pool in a deep U. All doors faced center. And all doors were paired with a large window with a slightly rusted air-conditioning unit protruding from beneath it.

The Shelter office had given her the name of the motel as the one being closest to the site. Since every volunteer made her own reservation and paid her own expenses, Ashley had already been prepared for something a tad less luxurious than she was accustomed to. A person got what she paid for, and what she’d paid for was costing her $59.95 a night. She’d upgraded to get a room with a kitchenette.

Matt caught her looking with some trepidation down the long, empty breezeway. The Vacancy sign in the office window looked permanent.

“There’s no place to lock up your bag at the site, so I’ll leave it in the office,” Matt explained, as he pulled to a stop by a row of pink plastic flamingos. “You can check in when we call it quits for the day.”

“That’s fine,” she said, thinking it best to be agreeable.

“Did you bring a hat?”

The suggested clothing list she’d been sent had highly recommended sun-protective clothing, along with the unfashionably sturdy practical boots she wore. Since a purse would only be in the way, the list had also suggested that ladies either carry what they needed in their pockets or use a very small waist pack. The little black pack on the seat beside her had been a good-luck present from her assistant. Elise had filled it with headache tablets and sunblock.

“I have a baseball cap.”

Since it was in one of her travels bags, she climbed out after him and was promptly greeted by the rumble of the three vehicles pulling in behind them. A sound boom was thrust through the window of the white van even as Matt lowered the truck gate and set the bag she indicated on it. The door on the side of the van rolled back to reveal the kid with the ponytail hoisting his camera onto his shoulder.