Joyride Read online

  Joyride

  Patricia Coughlin

  For my niece, Kristen O’Connor, with congratulations and best wishes for her new career.

  Congratulations!

  Dear Readers,

  Starting a first job is an exciting, stressful, unpredictable time in anyone’s life. It is even more so for Cat Bandini, who must juggle a job she needs, the job she really wants, and a man she really doesn’t. On her own at last, Cat is eager to unleash the free spirit inside her to pursue the dreams of travel, success and passion that sustained her through a lonely childhood.

  Those dreams definitely do not include a man whose own tragic past has left him with little faith in either dreams or himself…a man like Bolt Hunter. Cat’s honest faith in true love and happy endings is in direct opposition to Bolt’s beliefs and experience.

  Luckily for Cat, starry-eyed optimism is contagious and she soon has Bolt believing in the magic of true love and trusting in things he’d once sworn didn’t exist…things like fresh starts and happy endings. Though Cat must eventually lose her rose-colored glasses, she can still see that there’s room in every woman’s dreams for a man like that, a man willing to change his mind, admit he was wrong and risk everything to prove to the woman he loves that fairy tales can come true.

  Patricia Coughlin

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter One

  Cat felt like hugging someone. Wrapping her arms around someone and squeezing as hard as she could. She was that happy.

  If her friend Gator Simms had stopped by to tell her the good news in person rather than phoning, she would have hugged him. As it was she had to settle for gripping the telephone receiver and doing a little dance that left her entangled in the yards of spiraled phone cord that enabled her to indulge her penchant for roaming as she chatted.

  “Cat? Cat? Are you still there?” Gator asked.

  “Yes,” Cat shouted as she dropped the receiver and hurriedly went about unwinding the cord from around her legs. “I’m here. I’m just...sort of... Oh, drat...under, over, back...there,” she said triumphantly as she reclaimed the receiver and brought it to her ear. “All set.”

  “What on earth are you doing?” Gator asked. He sounded exasperated.

  “I was...” Cat hesitated. Gator was a friend, it was true, but she still probably ought to make an effort to put her best foot forward, to show him that she was responsible and in control, the right woman for the job and all that. “I dropped the phone. Sorry.”

  “Well, try and hold on to it, will you? This is important.”

  “You’re telling me? This job has saved my life, Gator. I still can’t believe your friend picked me to do it.”

  “Well, he did. If you’re still interested.”

  “Interested?” she echoed. “Interested in getting paid two thousand dollars, plus expenses, to fly to Montreal, fetch a vintage Chevy convertible and drive it back here? Trust me, I’m not just interested... I’m thrilled, I’m ecstatic, I’m dancing on air.” This time she caught herself with the cord twisted around one leg and froze. “Figuratively speaking, of course. Seriously, Gator, I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Just don’t mess up.”

  “Please. Driving a car from Montreal to Florida is hardly brain surgery.”

  “So don’t try and turn it into that, okay?”

  Cat pressed her splayed fingers to her chest as if he could see her. “Moi?”

  “Yeah, you. I know you, remember, Cat? Just keep it simple. Like you said, it ain’t brain surgery.”

  “Relax, Gator, I’m an excellent driver.”

  “I know, I know, but you’re also a little...”

  “Do go on.”

  “Eccentric. Just a little,” he added hastily, as if to smooth her ruffled feathers. As if being called eccentric was the sort of thing likely to ruffle her feathers. He really didn’t know her that well after all, Cat decided.

  “I wear my eccentricity like a badge of honor,” she muttered.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  Cat rolled her eyes. “I said I’m honored that you trust me enough to recommend me to your friend. I won’t let you down.”

  “Good. You’re still planning on making the drive alone, right?”

  “I really don’t have a choice. All my friends who graduated with me in June already have real, honest-to-goodness jobs. I’m the only one delivering newspapers and watering other people’s houseplants to pay the bills.”

  “If you wanted an honest-to-goodness job you should have majored in accounting or some other real honest-to-goodness profession.”

  “Photojournalism is a real profession,” she corrected with a touch of irritation. “There just aren’t many openings in this area.”

  “Well, don’t even think about moving anywhere else until you finish this job, okay? I have this sudden vision of you ditching the car somewhere in Pennsylvania to take a job with the Rocky Mountain Gazette.”

  “Gator, honey, the Rocky Mountains are not in Pennsylvania,” Cat pointed out, “but I get the message. And it’s probably just as well I’ll be traveling alone. It will mean fewer distractions, and I’m hoping to take some shots here and there for a project I have in mind.”

  “Just don’t carried away.”

  “Not a chance. It is okay if I make a few stops along the way, isn’t it?”

  “As long as they are along the way. No side trips, no detours.”

  “Of course they’re on the way,” she assured him, not nearly as certain of that fact as she was that the Rockies weren’t in Pennsylvania. She shrugged. How far off the planned route could Wilmington, Vermont, be? “Stick to the straight and narrow, that’s my motto.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I got this job.”

  He groaned.

  “Heavens, Gator, you sound positively stressed. Since when have you been so obsessive?”

  “Since I’m the one who brought you and Tony LaCompte’s very expensive car together. I mean it, Cat, this guy is a fanatic. If you so much as put a scratch on the chrome, he’ll—”

  “I won’t,” she interrupted. “Relax. Make a cup of chamomile tea, why don’t you? It’s great for the nerves.”

  “My nerves will be just fine as long as you promise me you understand the ground rules, stick to the route outlined on the map I’ll be giving you, when in doubt play it safe and above all do not speed and do not have any accidents.”

  “Stick to the route, play it safe, no speeding, no accidents. Got it,” Cat assured him before promising to stop by his antique shop the next morning to pick up the map and a check to cover her traveling expenses.

  Without the hindrance of the telephone cord, she was free to dance around the living room of her small apartment. She made her own music by singing, turning Gator’s warning into a fitting version of an old hit from the sixties.

  “No speeding, no accidents,” she crooned exuberantly, “just fun, fun, fun in my ‘57 Chevrolet.”

  She closed her eyes and pictured the coming weeks. She could see herself behind the wheel of one of America’s great classic cars, the open road before her, the wind in her hair. All she had to do was pack and pick up the paperwork from Gator and she was on her way.

  Her dance ended abruptly. Well, almost on her way. She still had to call and tell her uncle Hank that she would be out of town for a while. She app
roached the task with the same blend of annoyance and sense of duty that other twenty-two-year-olds probably felt reporting in to their parents. And with good reason. For all intents and purposes, Uncle Hank was both mother and father to her and had been since her parents were killed in an auto accident seventeen years ago.

  Her mother’s older brother, Henry L. Hollister, had been a confirmed bachelor and a devoted Army general and utterly ill-suited to raise a five-year-old girl...especially one as free-spirited and stubborn as Catrina Amelia Bandini. But he had never stopped trying, and in spite of the fact that he was rigid and overbearing and maddeningly overprotective, Cat loved the old bear dearly.

  That’s why she had to call and tell him about her plans, even though she knew it would mean a lecture about the dangers awaiting a woman traveling alone and more warnings on top of those Gator had already issued.

  Steeling herself for the inevitable, she dialed the number of her uncle’s house in Tampa, which was over an hour’s drive from where she had purposefully chosen to live. Cat half hoped he would be out for the evening and she could get away with breaking the news to his housekeeper, Marietta, or, better yet, his answering machine.

  No such luck. He answered on the seventh ring. The fact that he answered told Cat it was Marietta’s night off. The telephone was high on the general’s list of necessary evils of the modern world. Growing up, Cat had thought more than once that he would be very much at home in a world where communication took the form of drumbeats and smoke signals.

  “Hi, Uncle Hank,” she said.

  As always, the gruffness in his tone faded instantly as he recognized his niece’s voice. “Catrina, what a nice surprise. How are you, honey?” Without giving her a chance to reply, he asked sharply, “Is everything all right?”

  She laughed and shook her head at his predictability. “Everything’s fine here. How about with you?”

  “Fine, fine. I still have that box of books I cleaned out of your old room anytime you want to come and pick them up.”

  “I will, Uncle Hank, soon, I promise.”

  “I could drive them down to you if you’re too busy.”

  “No, no, I’ll come for them. Maybe in a few weeks. I’ll plan on spending the weekend, if you like.”

  “I’d love it and you know it. I miss you, Cat.”

  “I miss you too, Uncle Hank.” She wandered across the room and perched on the rolled arm of the overstuffed chintz sofa she’d bartered off Gator the very first time she’d wandered into his shop. “I hope I’m not calling at a bad time,” she said to her uncle. “It took you a while to answer.”

  “There’s never a bad time for you to call,” he assured her. “I’m playing chess. This will give my opponent a chance to plot strategy.”

  “Your opponent?” she echoed on a note of gentle teasing. “Anyone I know?”

  “I don’t think so. A young man who served under me a few years back. His name’s Hunter.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” she said, slightly disappointed. “I was hoping maybe you had a date.”

  Her uncle chuckled. “I’m afraid not, but not for lack of encouragement on your part.”

  “Well, at least you’re getting to play. I know how much you love chess. Why don’t you teach Marietta to play?” she suggested, as if the idea had just popped into her head. “Then you’d have an opponent on hand six days a week.”

  “Nice try, Cupcake, but that would be—”

  “Mixing business with pleasure,” Cat grumbled, finishing his thought for him. “Personally, I’ve never understood that taboo. It seems to me that a healthy dose of pleasure would make any business more tolerable.”

  “Interesting theory. Might it have something to do with your current state of employment, do you suppose?”

  The tables had turned. Now he was teasing her. Cat grinned into the phone.

  “As a matter of fact, my main reason for calling is to tell you that I have a job.”

  “Cat, that’s terrific news. Congratulations. Is it with that magazine you told me about?”

  Cat winced, realizing that in her haste to trump his teasing remark, she’d overplayed her hand a bit. “No. Actually, to tell you the truth, it’s not that kind of job. Not a real one, I mean. But it is a step up from walking Mrs. Swenson’s poodles at five every morning.”

  “Tell me about it,” her uncle invited with a laugh.

  Cat told him about her plan to drive from Montreal to Florida, keeping her tone upbeat in the hope that he might catch her enthusiasm and not think too deeply about the particulars. For that reason she also refrained from mentioning any details other than to emphasize how much she would be earning for a couple of weeks’ work at the most.

  When she finished, she heard her uncle sigh. Not usually a good sign, but definitely better than having him ask outright if she had utterly lost her mind, his reaction to her short-lived plan to spend a year on a shrimp farm in Ecuador.

  “Cat, you know you don’t have to take on these crazy odd jobs just to make ends meet while you’re looking for a real job. I’d be happy to give—”

  “I know you would,” she interrupted in a quiet, resolute tone. She’d had years of practice. “But I wouldn’t be happy taking money from you instead of making it on my own.”

  “Making it? You call driving some old clunker hundreds of miles making it? My God, Cat...”

  “It’s not some old clunker. It happens to be a very valuable classic automobile in perfect condition.”

  “All the more reason you shouldn’t be driving it all alone. Don’t you realize what could happen to you on the highway all by yourself day after day? Anything could happen, that’s what.”

  “Uncle Hank, anything could happen to me right here in my own apartment. That’s life.”

  “It’s also a good argument in favor of you moving back here to live.”

  “Oh, no,” she said with a small laugh. “I’m not going to get dragged into that one again. I like living on my own and I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself...at home and on the road. I know how much you worry about me, Uncle Hank, and I love you for it, but you have to accept the fact that I’m twenty-two, not five.”

  “It’s not easy,” he said, his tone rueful. “To me it seems like only yesterday you were five years old, running through the door with your knees skinned and your eyes on fire because the little boy down the street had pushed you off the swing.”

  “Are you forgetting that I pushed him back before I ran home to you?”

  Hank Hollister chuckled heartily. “No, I’m not forgetting.”

  “And I’d do the same today.”

  His laughter faded. “Today I’m not worried about you getting pushed off a swing.”

  “You don’t have to worry about anything, Uncle Hank. Truly. I promise you that I’ll be exceptionally careful and not take any chances. I’ll keep my doors locked and my emergency money tucked in my shoe. What more could you ask?”

  “Let me come along with you.”

  Cat wasn’t entirely sure he was joking. “Sorry, this is a solo mission, General. But if I was going to have a copilot, you’d be my guy.”

  “Don’t try to charm me, young lady.”

  “All right, I won’t,” she said, laughing. “Now go back to your chess match...and promise me you won’t worry too much.”

  He ignored her request and pressed her for more details about her new job than she wanted to provide.

  “Enough,” she said at last. “You practically have a moment-by-moment schedule of the whole trip. Now will you promise me you won’t worry?”

  “I promise you.”

  “Because I’m going to be fine. Really I am.”

  “I know you are, honey. You’re going to be just fine.”

  The general hung up the phone and stared at it in silence for a few minutes before returning to his study and his waiting guest. Cat was right. She was going to be just fine. He was as certain of that as he’d been of any mission he’d ever
undertaken.

  He had a very important mission in mind now, already formulated down to the smallest detail, but it was nearly an hour after resuming his chess match that he gave voice to his plan and sensed his opponent staring across the chessboard at him in disbelief.

  “You want me to do what?” Bolton Hunter demanded.

  General Hollister took time to move his knight before looking up.

  Damn his black heart, Bolt fumed silently as he realized that the brilliant move he had spent the past five minutes plotting had just been masterfully blocked. Of course, the old fox could afford to look up now. He’d no doubt settled upon his strategy for the endgame before he tossed this little bombshell of a request Bolt’s way.

  The general shook his head ruefully at Bolt’s disgruntled frown. “Land’s sake, man, you look as if I ordered you to kidnap a foreign diplomat.”

  “You once did,” Bolt reminded him.

  Hollister laughed quietly and clamped his pipe between his teeth. “I did, at that, didn’t I?”

  “Actually, I think I’d prefer that to what you’re asking me to do now. At least it’s more in my line.”

  “You don’t say?” Hollister responded, sitting back contentedly in his leather armchair. “I was under the distinct impression you’d lost your taste for that sort of thing.”

  Bolt was grateful the general had chosen to use the word “taste” rather than “stomach” or “guts,” either of which would have come closer to describing his take on his situation.

  “I have,” he said tersely. “That doesn’t mean I’ve developed a taste for doing busywork.”

  “Who said anything about busywork?”

  Bolt made an impatient gesture. “Busywork, running errands, what else would you call being asked to drive someone else’s car from Canada to Florida?”

  “I’d call it a favor,” Hollister replied with his usual calm. “A big one. You know how much my niece means to me and you know how impulsive and...headstrong she can be on occasion.”

  “Actually, since I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting your niece, I don’t know a thing about her.”