Love Sign

Chosen initially as a honeymoon getaway, Wildwood was a downstate bed-and-breakfast with cozy cottages off in the pines. She prayed it would prove the perfect hideaway to the plot her new novel, which hereto was not stewing so well.

Shelby lifted her eyes to the shelf on the wall facing her computer. Her Bible was there, and five teen novels with her own name on the binding. If not for the meat-and-potato necessities of the real world, she would be writing full-time.

Shelby packed light and pulled her game face from her cosmetic bag, beginning with sunblock. Hazel eyed and fair skinned, she burned easily if she spent much time outdoors. While that hadn’t been a problem in some time, her new laptop computer gave her options, sunshine among them. Feeling more composed, more focused and better equipped to cope, she donned a pair of trendy platform sandals and pearl earrings. Shelby finished her coffee standing up before stuffing projects from work into an oversize book bag. Anesthesia, should her own fiction fail her.

A fresh breeze whisked through Jackson Signs South. It diluted the blended odor of dust, engine grease, sweeping compound and banner ink. Jake Jackson hit the remote. The overhead chain-driven door shuddered up the track. Jake shifted the fifty-foot ladder truck into gear, then braked for his twelve-year-old niece, Joy, who blocked his way with her skinny arms outstretched.

He cranked down the window. “You trying to get run over, blondie?”

Straw-haired and freckled, Joy wrinkled her nose at the outgrown nickname. “Just checking your brakes. Is Mom around?”

Jake jerked his thumb toward the back room where his oldest sister, Paula, was bending neon. “Thought you’d be in the field.”

“Mr. Wiseman never showed up. We waited an hour.”

“Something must have kept him.” Jake anchored the stack of service orders on the seat beside him with a phone book. “Move it or lose it, kiddo. I have a bank job waiting.”

“How about a ride home?” Joy asked.

“Okay,” Jake agreed. “Update your mom first, and let’s go.”

Joy flung her hoe on the back of the flatbed crane truck, trotted into the neon room and was back in short order. “Can we swing by the sign first?”

“What sign?” Jake played dumb.

“Dad’s sign.”

Jake was concerned over Joy’s johnny-come-lately fascination with her absentee father, Colton Blake. Fifteen years ago Colton’s image had gone up on the billboard on the outskirts of Liberty Flats after Wind, Water and Sky Outdoor Gear chose him for their advertising campaign. Clad in jeans, flannel, leather boots and a distinguishing red voyager cap, the Voyager, as Colton was dubbed, had become a North American icon in the intervening years—all due to that one billboard image of him paddling a canoe along a wilderness stream.

“Satisfied?” Jake asked as they cruised past.

“Thanks,” Joy said, attention riveted on the bigger-than-life portrait of the father she had never met. “Uncle Jake?” she began. “Dad has a right to know about me, don’t you think?”

“It’s not my call,” replied Jake.

Joy flopped against the seat. “You’re a big help.”

Jake took her mood shift in stride. She had been underfoot since she could crawl. But then with Colton gone and her mother sharing the sign company partnership, where else would she be?

The interstate highway gave way to a fair-size city 150 miles south of Chicago. Shelby spotted a bank from the off-ramp. A lighted message board spelled out generous savings rates—the decimal point was missing.

A sign truck turned into the lot just ahead of her. It rolled to a stop and parallel parked at the curb in front of the bank. The driver cut the motor and climbed out, a lanky, wide-shouldered, long-waisted man in jeans and T-shirt, dark glasses and a baseball cap.

Shelby circled the lot once before finding a space. She searched her shoulder bag for her traveler’s checks, only to remember they were in her suitcase.

The sun was hot and climbing as Shelby opened the trunk. She grabbed her suitcase, returned to the front seat to retrieve her traveler’s checks from within, then locked the car, leaving the suitcase on the seat with her laptop.

The sign serviceman was up on the back of the flatbed truck raising his hydraulic ladder as Shelby approached the curb on the heels of a heavyset fellow in painter’s garb. “Better buy CDs. The rates are about to take a dive,” the sign man called to the painter.

“Go home, Jake, you old spoiler, you,” replied the grinning painter, then held the door for Shelby.

Waiting in line, Shelby’s attention strayed inward to that place where stories were born. First, a name. Something catchy for the heroine. She entertained a dozen possibilities in the time it took to cash a traveler’s check and let herself out again. The ladder on the sign truck stretched to the roof of the building. Shelby cut around the truck, off the curb and onto asphalt.

“Look out, lady! Stay back!”

Shelby pivoted to see the sign truck’s hydraulic ladder swing away from the building, leaving the sign man on the roof, waving, shouting a warning. Alarmed, Shelby leapt back onto the curb and watched the unmanned ladder sweep the air twenty feet above the parking lot. All at once, the boom toppled. It came down like a limb in an ice storm and unbalanced the truck. The truck tilted, then fell over on its side. The boom crashed into Shelby’s car with a stomach-turning crunch of steel and shattering glass.

When the dust settled, what lay beneath the crane more closely resembled a crumpled soda can than a car. The air fizzed out of a tire, rupturing the caught-breath silence. Shelby wheeled around, tipping her face to the sign man hunkered at the edge of the roof.

“It’s never done that before,” he said, peering down at the damage. “Some kind of malfunction…”

“You or the crane?” Shelby cut in.

“Toggle switch, I’m guessing.” He shifted to his feet and planted his hands on narrow hips. His sunglasses and the brim of his cap shadowed a tanned and wary demeanor. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

It was a car, not a human being. Or a relationship squashed like a bug. As Shelby struggled with herself, the young man palmed his cap and dived tanned fingers through short-clipped sun-bleached chestnut waves. “I hate to ask. But could you help me down?” he ventured. “There’s a rope there—fell off the deck.”

“Deck?”

“Truck deck,” he amended, pointing.

Shelby cast the less-than-stable-looking truck a doubtful glance. “It won’t roll over on me, will it?”

“It shouldn’t.”

Peachy. The rope had fallen on the pavement when the truck spilled over. Shelby gripped her purse under one arm and picked up one end of the rope.

“Can you throw me one end?” Sign Man called from the roof.

Shelby gave it a go. The rope uncurled like a striking snake. It climbed half a story, then dropped and nipped her on the noggin. Her second effort was better, but unsuccessful. She put her shoulder bag down on the curb.

A pickup truck pulled into the parking lot. The man inside assessed the situation and climbed out. “Anyone hurt?” he asked.

“Just my car,” said Shelby ruefully.

“Here, let me,” he said, and took the rope.

Relieved, Shelby backed out of the way and dusted her hands.

The man coiled the rope a few times and tossed it skyward. Sign Man caught it and anchored his end. The muscles in his arms bunched as he eased himself down the rope and to the ground.

He was thirtyish, clean-shaven with strong shoulders and tall enough so that Shelby had to look up. The sunglasses still screened his eyes. He pressed his lips together, and dimples emerged then went into hiding again as he shifted his attention to the man who had come to their aid. With tanned and capable hands, he slipped the sunglasses from his face and into his T-shirt pocket as he thanked the Good Samaritan.

“The hydraulic lever stuck. I figured the crane would circle around and come back to me,” he explained. “I didn’t think about it jerking the truck over.”

“Did you set your outriggers?” asked the other man.

“Just on the driver’s side. I know better. I got distracted and broke my own rules.” Sign Man’s glance shifted to Shelby. His eyes, a striking blue, enhanced prominent cheeks. His jaw sloped to a nicely carved chin that jutted slightly as he asked, “Are you in a hurry to get someplace?”