Read Heartbreak, Tennessee for Free Online

at two in the
morning?”
    “You really don’t get
it, do you?” Amber said, exasperated. “Small towns aren’t like other places,
Sheryn. Certainly nothing like Chicago or Nashville. You know, maybe it was a
good idea to come here after all, so we can see how long you last. There’s nothing going on here. You’ll see—it’ll
drive you crazy. I’ll bet we’ll be on our way back by tomorrow night.”
    “Oh?” Sheryn said, a
flicker of interest in her eyes. “OK, we’ll make a bet. I’m not only going to
last all week, but I’m going to love it—and the town is going to love me,
too.”
    “You’re on,” Amber
said, grinning. “If you still want to go through with this crazy scheme at the
end of the week, you win. I’ll—I’ll bake you one of my Bailey’s chocolate
chip Oreo-crust cheesecakes. But if you cave in, you drive home. And we don’t
stop at a single Dairy Queen.”
    “Oh, no,” Sheryn
moaned in mock horror. “Guess we’d better get to work, then.”
     
     
    Mac paused for a
moment to wipe away the perspiration beading at his brow, squinting at the old
Mercury V6 outboard he was working on. Damned if he could figure out what had
blown the spark plug out of the cylinder head, charring the foam insulation. It
had wintered under cover right on the lot, and Junior Wilkes had tuned it up in
the spring. Junior might be young, but he was one of the hardest-working and
smartest guys in the shop. When this particular boat had come back, Mac decided
to take a look at it himself.
    He took one more look
at the work laid out before him and concentrated...and then he had it. Hadn’t
Mercury had a problem back in the seventies with the aluminum alloys used in
casting their blocks?
    Satisfied, Mac made a
mental note to tell Junior what the problem was. Bad news for the owner of the
outboard, but on the other hand he’d gotten some fine years out of it. Mac
could sympathize with anyone who held onto an old, reliable piece of equipment,
getting to know its temperament, caring for it to ensure a long life.
    That was how it should
be.
    When it came to boats,
there’d never been a problem he couldn’t track down. His father had made sure
of that. Whenever Mac was ready to give up on a repair, his father was there,
ready to ensure he kept at it. Often, it was true, Pete McBaine motivated with
threats and curses, but it had been effective. Many nights found Mac at work in
the shop long after everyone else went home, knowing he wasn’t welcome at his
own house until the work was done.
    And on the few
occasions when it wasn’t...Mac winced, the memory of his father’s heavy belt
causing his back and shoulders to tense up in a leftover response to that old
pain.
    Still, if the old
bastard hadn’t ridden him so hard all those years, Mac might not have had the
guts to plow through the rough times since he took over the shop. It had been
touch and go there for a while, with barely enough money coming in to cover
expenses and payroll. But the tougher things got, the harder Mac worked. Without
the lessons that his father had planted, the shop would be nothing more than an
abandoned building, and Mac would probably be pumping gas.
    So engrossed was Mac
in tinkering with the outboard that he had tuned out the sounds around him. Besides
the sounds of men at work, music played in the busy but neat cinder block room.
The guys usually had the radio on WCAD—”Country All Day”. A few of them
loved singing along, belting out their favorite tunes in voices more
enthusiastic than lyrical. Even Mac had been known to join in once in a while.
    Straightening up and
stretching his cramped limbs, Mac grinned as the voices of his employees rang
out when the latest Sheryn Sawyer hit came on the radio.
    “Listen to that! Isn’t
that Sheryn?”
    “Yeah, I hear the lady’s
going to be a neighbor.”
    “Hey, Mac, soon you
won’t be the biggest employer in town!”
    Mac’s smile wavered a
little. “That gal’s got quite a