Candid Confessions Bundle #3 (6 page)

‘Hell no! I maxed them all out to buy shoes for this
trip. You might as well just tow this car straight to the junkyard.
I don’t have any money to fix it. Then I guess I will have to
hitchhike to Toronto.’

Hartwell gazed out of the windshield for a moment,
his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He appeared to be
trying to compose himself. He took some long, slow, deep breaths,
and then he turned to me with a serious expression on his face.

‘Are you telling me that if I confiscate your car,
you will try to hitchhike all the way to Toronto?’

‘I’ll have to. I was relying on having enough gas in
the tank to get me there. Without my car, hitchhiking is my only
option.’

‘An attractive young woman like you should never
hitchhike. Apart from being illegal, it’s far too dangerous.’

So he thought I was attractive, huh? I guessed he
had noticed my tits after all. Maybe Canadian guys weren’t so bad.
I fluttered my eyelashes at him, and that seemed to force him into
a decision.

‘OK, ma’am. I’m going to suggest something I have
never done before. If you started hitchhiking and got murdered, I
would have that on my conscience for the rest of my life. But this
is the end of my shift, and my house is just a ten-minute drive
away. So I want you to follow me – at a very safe distance – to my
house. Then I’ll see if I can fix up your brakes and your headlight
for you. I’m a trained mechanic, so I know what I’m doing. If I can
repair them, I’ll let you on your way. How does that sound?’

‘That’s just awesome, Officer. Thank you so
much.’

I flashed my tits at him to show my
appreciation.

That time, he
did
notice.

***

An hour or so later, I
was standing in Officer Hartwell’s garage holding a steaming cup of
coffee. His home was a ranch-style kind of place, with a big triple
garage attached. The walls of the garage were hung with every kind
of tool you could possibly imagine. There were racks of wrenches,
spanners, saws, hammers and various power tools. The worktops were
littered with vices, snow chains and various screwdrivers. It all
looked very industrious, apart from a large, framed photograph
which hung from one wall.

The photo was one of those glamor-style ones, all
soft focus and hairspray. It showed a woman of about thirty years
of age, a pretty brunette with long, curly hair and an infectious
smile. She looked very happy. I guessed this must be the lady in is
life. So it seemed there was more to Officer Hartwell than guns and
handcuffs.

When I say Officer Hartwell, I mean Rhett. We were
on first name terms now. Apparently, his mother had been a huge fan
of
Gone With The Wind
, and she had named her two children
Rhett and Scarlett. It was a good choice. Rhett did have a bit of a
Clark Gable look about him, although he was more powerfully built
than the actor. At the moment, all I could see were his legs
sticking out from under the Rocket, which he had put up on
ramps.

‘When was the last time you had this car serviced,
Angel?’ he called out from somewhere beneath the engine.

‘Oh, I don’t bother with that kind of stuff. I just
drive it until it breaks down, and then I get it fixed. That seems
to work just fine.’

Rhett rolled himself out from under the car and sat
up, wiping the sweat from his face with his hand. Although it was
freezing cold outside, Rhett had a big brazier going to warm up the
garage. He must have had oil on his hands, because he now had a big
smudge across his forehead. It looked quite sexy.

‘Well, your brakes are screwed, and so are your
shock absorbers. Your tires are as bald as my Dad’s head, and your
headlight needs a bulb that I don’t have here.’

I snuggled up closer to the heater. I wasn’t
comfortable with anyone criticizing the Rocket. It was my best
buddy. We had been through some rough times together. ‘What does
all that mean?’

‘It means you won’t be going anywhere tonight. I’ll
have to wait until tomorrow to get the parts and fix things
up.’

‘But I’ve got nowhere to go. I can’t afford any
hotel.’

‘I understand that. And you can’t wander round the
streets all night. You would freeze to death, if nothing else.
There’s only one thing for it – you will have to stay here. I have
a spare room, and I promise you will be safe enough. I won’t touch
you.’

I wasn’t worried about my safety. Rhett was a police
officer after all, and he had shown himself to be a responsible
citizen. And the photo on the wall suggested there was a Mrs.
Hartwell to help him keep his dick in his pants. So I gave him a
grateful smile.

‘OK, thanks…that would be awesome.

***

Rhett’s house was a
timber-style, rural property, with oak beans and varnished
floorboards everywhere. When we went into the house, there was no
sign of Mrs. Hartwell. At least, not in real life. But she was well
represented in photographic form. The first thing I saw as I
stepped through the front door was a picture of Rhett and her at a
ski resort, cuddling together and laughing at the camera. As I
walked past the living room, I saw another photo of her over the
fireplace. And as Rhett led me upstairs to the spare room, I saw
that the walls of the stairway were lined with photos of the two of
them. Some in exotic locations in the sunshine, some in what looked
like the back yard of the ranch. The common theme was that in every
photo, the two of them looked radiantly happy. They were clearly
very much in love.

Rhett showed me the spare room, which was thankfully
free of any such photos. Rhett left me alone to clean up and get
ready for dinner. As I showered, I couldn’t help but feel a little
jealous of this woman whom I had never met. I had no complaints
about my life, don’t get me wrong. But I had never found love. Sex?
Oh, yes. I had enjoyed that in spades. But the closest I had got to
romance was having a guy kiss me a couple of times before he fucked
me.

And here was Mrs. Hartwell, obviously blissfully
happy in her romance with Rhett. As far as I could tell, she was
living
Gone With The Wind
in real life. I had lots of fun,
but I never felt as radiantly happy as she obviously was. Had I got
it all wrong? Should I be looking for ‘happy ever after’ instead of
‘happy for one night?’ Was there a man out there somewhere who
could make me glow like that?

I didn’t know. I got dressed, deliberately choosing
unflattering clothes. I didn’t want to get Mrs. Hartwell’s back up
when I finally got to meet her. If she kicked me out in the snow, I
was screwed. So I picked out a pair of jeans and a chunky sweater.
I checked myself in the big mirror on the dressing table, and
decided I looked suitably frumpy.

When I got down to the kitchen, I was surprised to
see that the dining table was laid for two. Rhett had knocked up a
casserole and I was so hungry I could have eaten the whole pot on
my own. It was delicious.

‘You Canadians sure know how to cook,’ I said.

Rhett looked a little surprised. ‘Actually, I’m
American by birth. I was raised in Florida, down in the Keys. Can’t
you pick the accent?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m no good at accents. So what
brought you up to Canada? It must have been hard giving up all that
sunshine to come up here to the snow and ice.’

‘Yeah, that was tough, no doubt about it. I do love
warm weather, and the lifestyle on the Keys was just fantastic.
That’s where I learned about mechanics. My Dad ran a boat workshop
down there before he retired. But I had a big incentive that made
the move up here worthwhile.’

Rhett nodded at something behind my shoulder. I
turned and saw another framed photo on the wall behind me. Guess
who? Yeah, that’s right. Mrs. Hartwell again. Boy, she was
everywhere in this house.

‘That’s Olivia,’ Rhett continued. ‘We met in Key
West. I was a rookie police officer then, and she had come down
from Canada on vacation. Unfortunately, she got robbed while she
was shopping in town. Someone grabbed her purse and ran off with
it. I was the officer who responded when she called the police. We
hit it off right away.’

‘Did you get her purse back?’

Rhett grinned. ‘Oh, of course! I fancied the pants
off Olivia as soon as I saw her, so I made that job my priority.
When I showed up with her purse, she looked at me like I was her
hero. So I took advantage of my head start and asked her on a date.
Six months later, we were married.’

‘That’s a great story! But why didn’t you stay in
Florida?’

‘We did for a while. But Olivia got homesick. She
has a big family around here, and she wanted to spend more time
with them. Then her Mom got sick, and she was unhappy being so far
away from her. So we packed our bags and moved up here. I got a
transfer into the Canadian police, and…’

‘…you have lived happily ever after!’ I said
cheerfully.

That was a mistake. Rhett looked away, and I could
see that he was fighting back some emotion. I felt stupid.

‘Did I say something wrong?’

‘No, it’s OK. You weren’t to know.’ Rhett forced
himself to look at me again, and I could see the beginnings of a
tear in his eye. ‘We did live happily…but not for ever after. We
had a few fantastic years. But then about a year ago, Olivia was
killed in an automobile accident, on the same stretch of freeway
you were driving on.’

Well, that sure killed the mood. I struggled to find
the right words. ‘Oh, Rhett. I am so sorry to hear that, I really
am. What happened?’

‘Some idiot teenager going much too fast. He lost
control of his car and spun across the freeway, rolling his car.
Olivia couldn’t stop, and crashed right into his vehicle. The guy
survived with minor injuries, but Olivia died at the scene.’

‘Oh, God. That must have been awful.’

‘It was, but at least I was there when she died. One
of my fellow officers responded to the call. When he realized it
was Olivia trapped in the car, he called me to get over there right
away. I was holding her hand when she passed away.’

I wasn’t so hungry now. I pushed my plate away. ‘Is
that why you said you hated speeding drivers?’

‘Yes, that’s it. If that moron hadn’t been going so
fast, Olivia would still be here today.’

‘I don’t speed normally,’ I said, feeling very
guilty. ‘I was just confused by the signs.’

‘Yes, you explained. I understand. But you can see
why it bugs me so much. Every day, innocent people like Olivia are
killed by stupid people who can’t keep their foot off the
pedal.’

This was getting a little heavy, so I managed to
engineer the conversation onto other topics. We finished our meal,
and I helped Rhett clear the table and load up the dishwasher. I
could see now that this wasn’t a woman’s kitchen anymore. One of
the wrenches that Rhett had used on the Rocket was now lying on the
kitchen worktop. A can of oil sat on the window sill next to a
handcuffs key, and there were oily fingerprints on the doors of the
fridge and freezer. More bizarrely, Rhett’s gun was hanging from a
mug tree, while his handcuffs dangled from a hook that was intended
for oven gloves. I wondered what the former Mrs. Hartwell would
have made of all that! I bet she would have cleared all of his crap
out into the garage.

Once the kitchen was cleared, we fired up a brew,
and then sat down in the living room to drink our coffees. There
were more photos in this room than I had seen when I passed by
earlier. And every one of them featured Olivia. The whole house was
like a shrine to his former wife. In one way it was very beautiful.
But in another sense it was a little creepy. To keep a photo or two
is one thing, but this looked like obsession. I ventured a
comment.

‘You said that the accident was about a year
ago?’

‘To be exact, it was fourteen months, two weeks,
three days and seven hours ago.’

That was creepily precise! Rhett was obviously
dwelling on this far too much. I tried to figure out how to
approach this.

‘Don’t you think maybe it’s time to move on now? Of
course, you will never want to forget Olivia, but you know she will
never be coming back. You’re still fairly young. You could easily
meet someone else.’

Rhett shook his head. ‘That’s what everyone keeps
telling me. But there won’t be another lady for me. I’m a one-woman
man. Even if I can’t touch Olivia anymore, I can still see her in
the photos, and in our home videos. That’s good enough for me.’

‘But you’re a healthy male, Rhett. You must have…you
know…needs?’

Rhett looked very uncomfortable. I had obviously
touched a raw nerve.

‘Don’t worry about me, Angel. I can take care of
myself, OK?’

I don’t think he was aware of the double entendre
there, but I had a vision of him ‘taking care of himself’ whilst
looking at photos of his dead wife. That didn’t seem healthy to
me.

***

Around about eleven,
we were both ready to retire to bed – in separate bedrooms, of
course. Rhett waved me goodnight and disappeared into the bedroom
across the hall, and I went into the spare room. It had been a long
day with a lot of driving, and I was glad to finally hit the sack.
I put on a long T-shirt by way of a nightie, and fell asleep almost
instantly. I dreamed happy dreams for several hours. Then at around
two in the morning, the old, familiar problem struck again.

Cramp.

‘Ow! Shit, holy cow!!!’

My leg hurt like hell. I jumped out of bed, and
began hopping round the room. I clutched at my calf and tried to
sooth the burning muscle. As usual, the pain subsided after a few
minutes, and I was able to sit on the side of the bed and massage
everything back into place. Cramp twice in a few hours? I had
obviously done far too much driving for one day. I was worried now
that it would happen again. What could I do to prevent it?