“Seems lame! I don’t know about your business, Jake,” Robin said as she slipped off her bowling shoes, “but in mine, you learn not to trust too much. Someone is always trying to get one over on you.”
“Is that your business? Or just you?” he asked glibly and proceeded past without her answer so he could say good-bye to the ladies.
Robin followed suit, primly extending her hand to Reba. Reba’s green eyes were sparkling with mirth as she accepted it. “Hope we get a chance at a rematch.”
That seemed unlikely, but Robin smiled all the same. “Me, too—next time, I am taking you down.”
Reba laughed heartily, the flesh on her bosom jiggling with the exertion of it. “Hell, I think you mean it!”
Sue and Sylvia likewise thanked Robin for bowling with them, and eyeballed Jake’s butt one more time as he said his good-byes to Reba. “You’re lucky there, girlfriend. Don’t keep him up too late,” Sylvia said.
“I’m not promising,” Robin said with a wink, much to the delight of Sylvia and Sue.
She and Jake waved good-bye and walked out into the sunshine to wait for Bob, where heat was radiating off the parking lot at a cool five thousand degrees. Jake was pretty pleased with his 200 game, and even reviewed some of the frames for her while they waited.
“Yeah, yeah,” Robin said, laughing. “You’re a stud.”
“I know,” he said with a grin. “So come on, that wasn’t so bad, was it? You looked like you were having a pretty good time.”
She folded her arms and peered up to the main road in search of Bob’s pickup truck. “Okay, I will admit it was fun. But I really didn’t come to Burdette to go bowling with three women I’ve never met and will never see again.”
“Life’s an adventure if you’ll let it be, Robin.”
“You sound like a John Denver song.”
“Baby, I am a John Denver song,” he laughed as Bob came barreling around the corner, the sound of his engine drowning out any further conversation. He came to a hard stop, leaned over, and pushed open the passenger door. Robin guessed that meant to get in.
Bob pointed his truck toward the opposite end of town from the smelting plant, and they were off again. With the radio tuned to a country western station, they hurtled down the main drag, picked up speed on the outskirts of town, flew past trees draped in Spanish moss, and finally slowed to turn down a poorly paved road that obviously saw a lot of truck traffic, and coasted up to three white warehouses at the end of the road.
Bob stopped the truck, got out and went inside.
Jake climbed out of the bed of the truck at the same time Robin stepped out. She brushed off her pants, then glanced up, and immediately burst into laughter at the sight of Jake’s hair.
“Watch it,” he said good-naturedly as he tried to comb it with his fingers.
“Y’all getting on okay?”
Robin would recognize that voice anywhere and whipped around. But it surprised her to see that the body did not match the voice. Eldagirt Wirt was not a ball-busting former Nazi bodyguard as Robin had imagined, but a very thin and wiry woman with lots of curly black hair, who looked to be about the same age as Robin—definitely not an old hag. She was wearing a red-and-white striped, sleeveless T-shirt, and her arms were buff. The T-shirt was tucked into a pair of black Wranglers that looked as if they had been painted on, and at the end of two skinny legs were a pair of classic Doc Martens—just like the pair Robin owned.
“Call me Girt,” she said, and stepped forward, smiling, revealing stained teeth.
“I’m Robin Lear.”
“Oh yeah, I knew who you was right away,” she said matter-of-factly. “What I want to know is, who is he?”
“My friend, Jake Manning.”
“Well, now I’m really sorry I didn’t make it to the bowling alley,” Girt said with a grin. “Hope you don’t mind a little bowling, Mr. Manning.”
“Are you kidding? I bowled a two hundred.”
“No lie?” Girt asked, clearly impressed.
“No lie,” Jake said, his chest still puffed.
Girt shifted her gaze to Robin. “I take it you don’t bowl much.”
“I don’t get the opportunity,” she lied.
Girt started toward the building. “That’s what we do in Burdette,” she called over her shoulder. “You might think about that if you’re serious about buying this place.”
That remark caught Robin off guard—she had never mentioned purchase to Girt. “What makes you think I want to buy?” she asked, hurrying to catch up.
“Mr. Iverson told me. He’s called down here twice now.”
Robin stopped in mid-stride, trying to grasp the notion that Evan had called Eldagirt Wirt, confused as to why he had, and moreover, why he hadn’t told her.
Girt held the door open for them. “You coming in?” she asked before disappearing inside.