ERE WE ARE. KINGDOM CITY ON THE LEFT," ERNEST SAID as he stuck his arm out the window, giving a hand signal for a left turn. "This is Main Street."

A thrill went through Diana. This was Cole's home, and she tried to absorb everything about it. The downtown district comprised ten blocks of businesses and stores, including the Capitol Theater in the center, which was flanked by a drugstore and a hardware store. Across the street was The Hard Luck Café, a Farmers Insurance agency, the Kingdom City Bank, a bakery, and three variety stores that seemed to carry everything from tape recorders to horse saddles.

Ernest let her off at The Hard Luck Café to use their pay phone, but to Diana's disappointment, Cal's line was still busy. She'd already ascertained that Kingdom City had a taxi service, so she resigned herself to that.

As they pulled up at a stop sign in front of Wilson's Feed and Grain, however, Ernest shifted his toothpick to the other side of his jaw. "You got any other ideas about how to get where you're going?"

"Yes, I'm going to take a taxi."

"It's busted." As proof, he nodded meaningfully toward the parking lot in front of Gus's Repair Shop, which was nearly blockaded by vehicles waiting to be repaired. In the front row, parked parallel to the curb, Diana saw a white Mercury sedan with its hood up and the word TAXI printed in black on the door.

Ernest had already made it clear that he wasn't available to take her to Jeffersonville, so at the moment, Diana's choices seemed to be limited to hitchhiking or standing on a corner with a fistful of money in her hand, asking passing vehicles to give her a ride. Neither one seemed safe. "Ernest," she said in a voice of helpless femininity, "I'm really desperate, and I just know you can think of something. Is there someone around here who would rent their car to me?"

"Nope."

"I'd be willing to pay very generously."

Until then, Ernest had not seemed to fully comprehend the magnitude of the problem or to be personally concerned with finding a solution, but at the words "pay" and "generously," his entire demeanor underwent a distinct change. "How much does a regular rented car cost you?" he asked, slanting her a speculative sideways glance.

Diana remembered signing a charge slip for a Lincoln Town Car she'd rented in Dallas for several days. "Two or three hundred dollars, I think. Why? Have you thought of a car I could rent?"

"I know just the ticket!" he announced with startling enthusiasm as he slammed down on the clutch and brake pedals, and swung the old truck into Gus's repair yard, stopping behind the taxi and blocking part of the driveway with his back fender. "I'll go see what kind of deal I can make for you."

Diana was so grateful she nearly patted his arm as he slid out of the truck, leaving the door swinging on its hinge.

In a gratifyingly short time, a man emerged from the cinder-block building. He was wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue work pants with a grimy rag dangling out of a back pocket. The oval patch on his shirt pocket proclaimed in red letters that he was "Gus." As he walked, he pulled the rag from his pants and began wiping his hands. "Pleased to meet you, miss," Gus said a little uneasily. "Ernest says you're interested in the Ford, and he's bringing it around."

From the rear of the building, Diana heard an engine crank followed by a mechanical cough and sputter, then silence. Another attempt to start it brought success, and Diana opened her purse, hoping Gus took credit cards. "There he is," Gus said.

Laughter and horror left Diana gaping at a rusted orange pickup truck that was, if possible, in even worse shape than the blue truck she'd ridden in to Kingdom City. It was coated in a thick layer of dirt, with the front bumper tied on with a rope and the passenger window held together with duct tape. Speechless, she watched Ernest climb out of the truck, his expression pleased. "You're joking," she told him. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"You buy it!" Ernest exclaimed as if that should have been obvious as well as exciting. Stretching his arms out, he lifted his hands palms up in a gesture of absolute jubilation. "You buy it for five hundred bucks; then you keep it or sell it back when you leave."

Diana knew she was trapped, but she couldn't believe this was her only solution, and the idea of paying five hundred hard-earned dollars for a rusty, filthy, disreputable pile of orange junk was almost more than she could bear. "I can't believe that thing is worth five hundred dollars."

"She's solid as a rock," Ernest said, displaying a remarkable ability to overlook details such as loose bumpers, a headlight that was hanging by its electrical wires, and the taped-together glass.

Diana had no choice and she knew it. "I'll take it," she said in a small, miserable voice, reaching into her purse for her credit card. Still silent, Gus took the card and walked into the shop. He returned a few minutes later with a charge slip for her to sign and a handful of cash. While Diana signed the ticket, Ernest pitched her suitcases into the back of the orange derelict in the driveway; then he came around to make certain the proceedings were successfully concluded. "That does it, then," he said, and to Diana's confusion, she saw him hold out his hand to Gus, who then counted out $490 in bills into it.

"Where's my other ten bucks?" Ernest said, scowling.

"You still owed me for that tire."

Belatedly sensing a scam, Diana rounded on both men. Since Gus had never urged her to buy the damned truck in any way, she put the blame solely on Ernest and shifted her narrowed gaze to his impenitent, leathery face. "Do you mean to tell me," she said in a low, indignant voice, "that you just managed to foist your own car off on me?"

"Sure did," he said with a grin. Then he added insult to injury by nudging her in the side and confiding, "I'd have taken two hundred and fifty dollars and been glad to get it."

Inwardly humbled, Diana looked him straight in the eye and told the larcenous old man a lie she hoped would keep him awake nights. "Yes, but I'd have paid a thousand dollars." The expression of dismay on his face was so comical and so satisfying that Diana's temper cooled considerably even before she heard Gus's choked laugh.

Ernest followed her around to the driver's door and held it open while Diana climbed gingerly onto a filthy, torn, vinyl seat; then he closed the door for her. The steering wheel seemed enormous, but Diana got a good grip on it; then she felt for the brake pedal with her toe and the gearshift with her hand. Her foot encountered three pedals, not two, and when she looked at the gear lever, she saw a diagram instead of nice little letters indicating Drive, Park, and Reverse. A stick shift. Her heart sank.

"Betcha can't handle a standard transmission, can you?"

"Certainly," Diana lied, looking over her shoulder while her heart bumped nervously. The only way out of the crowded lot was to back down the driveway, which sloped downward to the street. Pretending to wait for two mothers carrying babies to walk behind and past her, Diana glanced at the diagram and tried to remember the trick associated with using the clutch and the brake that Doug had taught her when she was sixteen.

Satisfied that no one was behind her, she shoved at the clutch and yanked on the gearshift, wincing at the metallic screech of gears; then she released the clutch with a jolt that made the truck shake and she slammed down on the accelerator. As the truck careened backward and gathered speed, Diana steered frantically, and Gus yelled a warning over Ernest's roar of laughter, but somehow the truck landed safely on the street, pointed in the opposite direction. Pride and common sense made Diana decide to circle the block, rather than turn it around.