Home Sweet Gnome (7 page)

I had a point and by the hard set of his jaw, he knew it. “It’s still your fault.”

I rolled my eyes as I tucked my earbuds in, hoping to drown him out with music from my iPod.

Once we got on the interstate, we started to make progress, but very slowly. The pickle couldn’t handle the hills on the east side of town, and of course we had to cross Bozeman Pass to get out of the Gallatin Valley. We were going so slow even a combine passed us in the left lane.

I, of course, made no mention of this since it wouldn’t help us go any faster, so I pulled out my e-reader and buried my nose behind it, pretending to enjoy a book.

“Jesus, I could walk up this hill faster,” JT grumbled, loud enough I could hear it over my music.

A truer statement had never been said. Even me, who only ran when chased by an axe-wielding murderer, could have scaled the steep highway faster. It was almost impossible to be patient when my life was moving forward at twenty miles an hour.

By the time we started our descent at the top of the pass, I really had gotten into my book and only looked up when we were slowing at the end of an exit ramp.

“Why are we getting off the highway?” I called forward.

Aunt Velma glanced over her shoulder. “It’s a Trekker Truck Stop. When you get a large drink you pay once and get free refills at every one along the way.”

Goldie maneuvered the RV into the large lot and parked in a pull in/pull out spot. The place was huge—rows and rows of gas pumps, more eighteen-wheelers than I could count. The large sign boasted
All-u-can-eat buffet for $4.99 and free hot showers with purchase
.

“Stay with me, Zach. You three, this is our first stop, so make the most of it,” Goldie added before she hopped out, her grandson dexterously jumping down behind her.

“Why can’t we keep driving and just use the bathroom in back?” JT asked, angling his head in that direction.

“Goldie says she’s got the tanks all filled so it would be perfect for the new owner,” Aunt Velma replied before she too exited. “Doesn’t want the guy to have to empty out our waste.”

I crinkled my face up.

“Then what’s the point of a camper?” JT grumbled. “This is going to take forever. We’re only in Livingston.”

Livingston was the next town over from Bozeman, a usual twenty-to-thirty-minute drive away. I only shrugged, knowing nothing I could say would be helpful, then followed the herd into the building.

After taking care of business, I heard Goldie call to me from across the convenience store over the canned Karen Carpenter song blaring from the ceiling speakers. She stood by the soda machines waving a large plastic to-go cup. “What do you want? Cola? Iced Tea?”

Everyone turned to look at Goldie, who had an exceptional ability to project her voice and a complete lack of concern about what people thought of her.

“Tea,” I called back. The truckers who were shopping for preservative-rich nibbles turned their heads back and forth between us like watching a tennis match.

Goldie nodded and turned back to the machines, grabbing another cup from the dispenser.

“Hey, you look mighty familiar,” one man said, walking over to me. He looked like the fourth ZZ Top. “Hey!” His face lit up in a big smile, one gold tooth bright and shiny. “You’re in those cop movies. Hey, Ronald, check on this!”

Ronald, who took his fashion sense from country music stars—sporting a pair of jeans, big rodeo belt buckle and a plaid button-up with the sleeves hacked off—came around the aisle with the chips and pretzels. “What is it, Ralph?”

Ralph pointed at me as he held a bag of BBQ chips and started chowing down. Crumbs fell down and got lost in his beard. He pointed at me, one seasoned chip between his fingers.

Ronald swung his gaze my way and dropped his coffee, splashing the brown sludge all over the tile floor. “Holy shit. You’re… I mean, you know who you are. Can I—”

“What Ronald’s trying to say—he really doesn’t have a stutter,” Ralph cut in, “is that you’re our favorite actress. Very realistic. When you put your foot behind your head in that special move you do, do you ever get stuck?”

I just stared at the men open mouthed.

“Can I get your autograph?” Ronald asked, completely in awe of me. “Around my belly button?”

I cringed.

“Here you go.” Goldie thrust a big cup in my hand. “I got the Colonic Canon size. Hello, boys.”

Ronald and Ralph nodded, but they kept their gazes pinned on me, afraid I might run off. Which I might if they’d just blink. “Is she your agent?”

“Agent?” Goldie wondered as she took a sip from her straw.

Ralph ran his fingers over the bottom of his beard. “I understand why you’d need to have someone with you being famous and all. I mean…you’re Silky Tangles!”

Goldie raised one eyebrow, no doubt enjoying this mix-up immensely. If I’d known any better, I’d say she planned it. I took a sip from my own colossal straw to avoid answering.

“Why don’t you take a quick picture, and then we’ll be on our way,” Goldie offered, waving her hand in a herding motion for the men to stand next to me.

Ronald didn’t hesitate. He pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it to Goldie. Both men moved to stand as close to me as possible and Ronald wrapped an arm around my shoulders, his meaty hand sweaty. The pulsing flash brought me out of my stupor. I gave both men a tight smile and wriggled out of Ronald’s grasp.

“Boy, look at the time.” I glanced down at my watch-free wrist. “We should be moving on if we want to meet Zach’s friend in Billings.”

Ralph and Ronald offered their thanks and we left them staring at the small phone screen. “I’ll be sure to share this on Facebook,” he called out.

Great.

We got in line to pay for our drinks. “New friends?” The deep timbre of JT’s voice made my nipples harden. I didn’t even have to see him to get all hot and bothered. I wouldn’t mind writing something around
his
belly button. Just because he was a jerk didn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun.

“Mmm,” I replied noncommittally.

“Or are they fans? Guys who aren’t just imagining what you look like beneath your clothes, but
know
?”

I spun around, ready to tell him I was
not
Silky Tangles for the umpteenth time. But when his face was right there, his dark eyes so piercing that he could practically hypnotize a woman out of her panties, I decided against it. It was the cocky grin that had me changing tactics.

I shrugged casually, moved a step forward in line. “It’s important to me that I’m available to my fans.”

“Available?” He took a sip of his coffee and eyed me over the brim.

“This is a truck stop, the perfect place to build my fan base.” I sighed. “Besides, it’s great men recognize me even without my hair styled and the fake eyelashes. Don’t forget the clothes. They even recognize me in clothes. Just like you did before the whole Taser thing.”

One of his eyebrows went up, the little scar shifting into the shape of a comma. His coffee was forgotten, but he still held it up by his mouth. “So you’re saying—”

“Give me your drink, Daphne,” Goldie told me, interrupting us. “Go get Zach away from that barrel of beef jerky. If he eats any of it, he’ll have diarrhea for a week, especially the jalapeno flavor.”

I grinned at the surprised look on JT’s face and put a little extra shift in my hips on my way over to the jerky barrel, although shorts and an old T-shirt weren’t that alluring.

We made it to Billings in a record-setting pace of four hours. It was the slowest trip ever made by a motorized vehicle when the roads were dry. Lewis and Clark made it by boat faster back in the day. Besides the break at the first truck stop outside Livingston, we hit the next one as well because everyone drank too much of their beverages. Goldie’s ban on the RV’s bathroom made for very slow going. There were four men waiting at the next Trekker for me, or Silky Tangles, so I signed autographs then beelined for the safety of the empty ladies’ room. How the men knew I was going to be there had me stumped until they mentioned something about Facebook.

Zach was met by his friend and mother in the parking lot of a McDonald’s off the highway. After a quick romp in the Playland, they were on their way. The remainder of us waited for Esther Millhouse. Aunt Velma was asleep in the back bedroom, her snoring cutting through the quiet like a buzz saw in the springtime. Goldie read from her e-reader in the driver’s seat, her rhinestone-encrusted eyeglass holder that ran around her neck sparkled in the sunlight. JT paced outside the RV on his cell as he took a sip from another cup of coffee. If I drank as much caffeine as he had, I’d be up for a week. I was stuck at the miniscule dinette with my laptop, trying to eek out the beginnings of a road trip article. So far the topic was Truck Stops Of The West, but it was early enough in the trip to be hopeful for more.

We were so far behind I didn’t know if Esther was late or we’d missed her and she’d given up. I glanced at my watch with a sigh. Four o’clock. At the rate we were going, we wouldn’t be to Sturgis until the middle of the night. Just when I was about to close the lid on my computer and take a nap myself, a horn blared to the tune of
Dixie
. Montana was definitely a red state and folks leaned toward the conservative, but I didn’t consider it a part of the South. We weren’t remotely near the Mason-Dixon line and it was more about cowboys and Indians out here than the North and South.

“There she is!” Aunt Velma called out. She ducked her head to fit through the small bedroom doorway, her red hair matted flat on one side.

I pulled down a slat in the metal shade on the window behind me. Nothing stood out of the ordinary until a woman who was about five foot nothing, had blinding white hair and wore a purple velour tracksuit climbed out of a late-model Taurus. That car had the
Dixie
horn?

She angled her head back into the car and made the toot-the-horn arm motion and the horn blared again. She laughed and slapped her knee at the repeated sound. Yes, that was the car. Everyone in the parking lot turned her way and had mouths hanging open, staring. The trunk popped and she went to the back, grabbed an avocado-green hard-sided suitcase circa 1975 and set it down. Reaching back in, she pulled a large cardboard box that, from my elevated angle, I could see was filled with liquor bottles. She placed this on the ground next. Lastly, she pulled out a huge watermelon. Oh man, this was going to be a serious road trip.

This was not a woman to underestimate. She was strong as an ox to lug a watermelon of that size when you weighed ninety pounds soaking wet. I had no doubt she could drink any one of us under the table based on her trip supplies. This woman had been a Roller Doll? She marched right over to JT, who stood on the curb, phone to his ear and mouth on the ground and handed him the watermelon. He fumbled with his coffee, his phone and the large fruit, completely stunned. When Esther turned back to the
Dixie
car, JT was mumbling to himself. It was probably a good thing I wasn’t a lip reader.

Aunt Velma and Goldie piled out of the RV and I followed, albeit a little less enthusiastically.

“Only you, Goldie West, would drive an RV that looks like a giant silver dildo,” Esther Millhouse commented, hands on hips and shaking her head.

JT spewed coffee in a three-foot radius, then muttered something I could definitely understand without hearing.

“Put that watermelon inside for me, young man,” Esther dictated. Probably knowing he couldn’t just hand the thing back to the woman without appearing rude, he did as he was told. He gave me a look that screamed
What the fuck?

“Daphne, Daphne, come meet Esther.” I didn’t have a choice but to join my aunt and meet the woman since she was going to be spending the next few days with us.

“Hello, Esther.” I shook her tiny hand and tried not to cry out when she gave me a death-grip squeeze.

“I’ve heard all about you,” she replied. “This is going to be great. I love a good trip with the girls, and that man, hoo-wee. Has any of you claimed him yet, because it’s been a long time since I’ve had myself a man like that?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw JT step out of the RV, but at the woman’s words, backpedaled right back inside. Perhaps he was afraid he was going to get his ass pinched. I tried not to grin.

“I’ve already claimed my man, Esther. You were at the wedding forty years ago,” Goldie said.

Esther sniffed. “How about you Velma?”

“Carl’s all the man I need right now, Esther.” Based on the way they humped like rabbits, I couldn’t imagine her having enough strength for another.

“Hmm, it’s just you and me, kid.” She eyed me like a boxer across a ring. “So who is that beefcake?”

“JT, stop hiding and come out here,” Aunta Velma called.

Ducking his head, he stepped out of the RV and tried to look like he wasn’t dreading the next few minutes. “Ma’am.” He nodded at Esther, who was taking in every inch of the man like a woman at an all-male revue.

“JT had a little problem with his motorcycle in Bozeman and we’re going to drop him off at Sturgis on the way.”