Hilary Fields - Bliss

No one had told her buying a car was such hard work.

Then again, it probably wasn’t such hard work for normal people. But Sera had been struck with an attack of circumspection, balanced uncomfortably against the deep, dark desire to do something truly dumb. For an addict, accustomed to acting on impulse and regretting it later, it was like stomping on the gas and brake pedal simultaneously. Her adult, sober mind knew the smart thing to do. But her lizard brain was demanding its due—loudly.

The lot was full of perfectly nice cars. Her budget and business needs demanded a perfectly nice car. But she didn’t want a perfectly nice car. She wanted a badass car. Or maybe a truck. A big, honking pickup truck with scary, nubbly tires that came up to her waist and a corrugated steel bed just begging for a dusty old dog, hopefully wearing a bandanna around its neck and panting up a storm. It would bounce up and down dirt roads just like trucks did in commercials, spitting gravel and roaring. It would cart tons of whatever the hell it was asked to cart (never mind that Sera’s desserts were so light and airy the biggest cake in her repertoire barely weighed ten pounds). And it would say, loud and clear, “I am not a wimp. Put that shit right out of your mind. I am a confident, strong, undefeated woman. And I am every bit as badass as my truck.”

In the course of trying to talk herself out of this impractical longing, Sera had driven half the cars on the lot. Half of those were too expensive—far beyond the range of a baker just beginning her own business. The other half were divided into the practical—yawn—and the even more practical—coma. Subarus, Sera had discovered, were apparently the vehicle of choice among the green-chile-eating set. “Hippie liberal Dukakis–voting cars,” she could hear Blake’s voice in her head, clear as a bell and disdainful as always. He had driven a succession of flashy BMWs throughout the time Sera had dated him, looking down that long, aristocratic nose of his on “rice burners,” as he dubbed the whole range of modest, unassuming Japanese automobiles.

Almost, but not quite enough reason to buy one.

While Serafina had no problem with hippies, liberals, or those optimistic enough to have supported Dukakis, she simply wasn’t finding anything that spoke to her. Her aunt and Hortencia had had the good sense to step back after the first hour or so, when their well-meaning suggestions (“Oh, you don’t want the dark blue one, dear, you’ll roast!”) and helpful hints (“Baby-Bliss, you can’t buy that one, it barely has a backseat. How will you get your rocks off in a car like that?”) hadn’t brought Serafina closer to a decision. They’d retreated into the cool of the dealership’s interior. Sera could see them through the glass, pretending to be fascinated by a display of Chevy Tahoes that positively dwarfed the two women.

Asher had hung in there with her, however, even through several abortive test drives. Sera glanced at him, then quickly away, her cheeks flushed from more than sun. She’d seen how he clenched his knuckles white on the armrest a few times as she had taken a curve too quickly in an unfamiliar vehicle. But he’d maintained his cool, not commenting on her questionable driving skills. He hadn’t tried to influence her decision either, though she rather wished he would. Otherwise they might both grow old here. Even the leathery, sunglass-clad salesman had wandered off after a while, sensing he wasn’t going to hook this fish anytime soon.

“Damn it,” she muttered. “I can’t do this.” She turned back to Asher, looking up at him with a grimace of apology. “I’m sorry for wasting your time, Ash. I guess I’m just not ready to buy a car after all.” Stupid tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes, and Sera pretended it was just the sun, shading her face with one hand to hide them from the tall Israeli. “We should collect the ladies and go, I guess.”

Asher stopped her with a hand on her shoulder as she began to trudge toward the dealership. “Bliss,” he said. Then he put a hand under her chin and lifted her face to meet his gaze in a way that would have been patronizing coming from any other man, but was impossibly hot when he did it. “What is it you really want?”

Aside from you?

“I don’t know.” Sera shook her head to dissipate the tears before they could fall. She plunked her hands on her hips and took in a deep breath, not wanting her landlord to see her so vulnerable. Experience had taught her it was a poor idea to let the male of the species catch her anything less than fully composed. Then she blew out the breath, deciding to let him in, just a little bit. “You know what, Asher? Actually, that’s not true at all. I know exactly what I want, I just don’t think I should want it.”

Asher merely looked at her with one brow quirked, not helping, not judging. His hand had fallen away from her face, but she could still feel its heat against her skin. Would probably be feeling it when she tucked herself into her lonely bed tonight.

Sera sighed. She’d better fess up. “It’s stupid. But I want… that one.” She pointed.

The car of her dreams sat on the edge of the lot, exiled with the used—excuse her, “pre-owned”—cars. It was not cute. It was not fuel-efficient. And Sera was fairly sure it wasn’t even an automatic. The powder blue pickup was at least a decade old, rusting around the edges, and absolutely perfect.

“The Dodge Ram 2500?” Asher sounded a bit incredulous.

“Is that what it is?” Sera was already drifting closer to it. Up close, it was even bigger, and she could see that someone—clearly not at the factory—had painted jaunty flames along its haunches. Man, this baby has it all, she thought. Big-ass tires? Check. Massive engine? If the hood was anything to go by, a whole herd of draft horses probably lived under there. Canine-friendly bed? Sera peeped up and over the flank of the blue beast and saw someone had left a blanket with some ready-made dog hair already on it. Never mind that she didn’t even have a dog. Maybe Asher would let her borrow his when Silver got old enough. She looked back at the Israeli, who had followed her to inspect the monstrous truck.

“I must be crazy to even consider this,” she murmured.

“Quite possibly,” Asher agreed.

“I mean, you practically have to wear a Stetson to even get behind the wheel of this beast,” she continued.

“I’m sure we can borrow one for the test-drive,” Asher replied. “I believe I saw a gentleman wearing one enter the dealership just a few moments ago. I bet he wouldn’t mind…”

Sera swatted Asher’s arm, her mood swinging dizzily with his teasing and her own swelling case of the fuck-its. “C’mon, Ash, you’re supposed to be talking me out of this.”

“Is that what I’m supposed to do?” he asked, feigning surprise. “I was under the impression I was here to help you buy a car.”

“A car, yes. A monster truck I probably can’t even drive, no.”

“You can’t drive? Ah, that explains a lot…”

Sera shot him a dirty look, then spoiled it with a rueful smile. “Well, I mean, of course I can drive. I passed my test and everything; I have a license—thanks to Pauline. I just never got that much practice living in New York City, you know?”

“What does Pauline have to do with your driving license?” Asher wanted to know.

“She gave me the advice that helped me pass my road test,” Sera said, uncomfortable now. Why did you have to bring that up, big-mouth? she chided herself.

“And what advice was that?” Asher’s eyes were alight now.

She squirmed a bit. “Well, I was really nervous the day I had to go take the test. I must have been seventeen or so. So I asked my aunt what I should do. She said, ‘I only got one piece of advice for you, kiddo.’” Sera imitated her aunt’s intonation with the ease of a lifetime’s familiarity. “‘You wanna pass your test, wear a tight shirt.’” Sera shrugged. “It worked.”

“I can see why it would,” Asher said, eyeing Sera’s cleavage, showcased by her V-necked white tee.

Sera flushed. You’re probably reading him wrong, Sera, she told herself. That, or you’ve been in the sun too long. He is not flirting with you. “Yeah, well, anyhow… I don’t really drive that much, but I always had this fantasy…” She should really not be discussing fantasies with this man. “This, dream, rather. That one day I’d have myself a really, I don’t know… unladylike… car. And that I’d totally own it—master it, if you know what I mean.” Sera rambled to a halt.

Asher’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “I think I do. And speaking of ‘mastering’…” He stepped closer to Sera, and for a moment she had the crazy idea that he was going to snatch her into an embrace like some sort of movie brigand… until he reached around her and levered open the truck’s enormous steel door. “I think you should take your fantasies seriously, Bliss. Why else have you come here, if not to live your dreams?”

The abyss yawned, tempting. Sera took a leap…

Up, and into the truck’s cab.

Oh yeah. The view from up here made her feel instantly more badass. Taller. Stronger. And prepared to take a whole lot less shit. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Her heart rose, and she couldn’t resist beaming down at her landlord.

“I’ll go get the keys from the salesman,” Asher said.

It was a bare half hour before sunset when Sera roared down the gravel-strewn road toward Asher’s house in Arroyo Hondo, proud owner of a 1999 Ram with one hundred and fifty-seven thousand miles on it. Pauline and Hortencia, lips zipped against leaking disapproval, had headed home in the Subaru, leaving Sera to give Asher a ride back to his house.

Which she was doing to the best of her ability.

Thank God Asher had had all that military training, she thought. Had he not, his nerves might not have survived Sera’s maiden voyage in the truck she’d named, with some irony, “Cupcake.” But all things considered (and a few chamisa bushes notwithstanding), she’d done pretty well, following Asher’s instructions to the little community tucked away in the hills just south and east of Santa Fe proper. With the small part of her attention not engaged in keeping the one-and-a-quarter-ton truck on the rutted track, her eyes took in the environs—rolling hills, endless vistas stretching nearly a hundred miles into the mountains that limned the horizon like construction paper cutouts in varying shades of gray and blue, the clouds above orange and purple and rose with imminent dusk. Short piñon trees and scrub brush characterized the landscape, which felt somehow both wide open and strangely sheltering. Then Sera turned her attention back to the road, which was a bit too twisty for gawking greenhorns to take for granted.

At length, with almost no new scratches on her not-exactly-direct-from-the-factory paint job, they turned down Asher’s drive. Sera’s face broke out in a grin—one part pride that she’d wrangled Cupcake into doing her bidding, one part delight at the sight of the place where Asher lived.

The patio alone was worth the price of admission. Native stone paths embedded in fine gravel twined whimsically between garden beds bursting with lavender, rosemary, and sage bushes, forming a graceful trail leading guests to the front door. The door itself was an intricately carved Balinese design of birds and flowers, mellowing into obscurity against warm adobe walls. Beside it, a rustic portal of weathered poles gave shade where it leaned against the side of the house, several bird feeders swinging from its upper reaches. A ladder to nowhere—a phenomenon Sera saw nearly everywhere in Santa Fe—angled itself against the wall farther toward the back of the house. A brick-paved porch encircled by a low adobe wall created a welcoming space for an outdoor meal or a quiet moment of contemplation. All this Serafina took in with a sweeping glance that told her her landlord’s home was something special.

Sera’s breath caught as she turned the clunker carefully into the guest parking slot, trying not to slay any shrubbery as she muscled the truculent truck around the gravel turnabout. The turning radius on the old behemoth was… less than ideal. But she got the darn thing in Park and it either stalled out or turned off, she wasn’t sure which—and didn’t much care. She let out her breath in relief.

“Made it!” she said brightly.

Asher gave her a look she couldn’t quite place. Then he leaned over, across the gear shift, and dug one hand into her hair. He pulled her close to him, making Sera gasp, then planted a kiss…