The Road to Glory

Ebook by
PDAFiction.com

Copyright
ã
2001
by Blayne Cooper and T. Novan.

All Rights Reserved.

THESE CHARACTERS ORIGINATED in the deep dark recesses of Advocate’s (Blayne Cooper) and T. Novan’s minds, and thus belong to no one but us.

Sexual Content:
Oh, yeah. It’s in there. This is for all the folks who moaned about the lack of graphic sex in
Madam President
. Feel free to send cash. If you’re under 18, please move along. But everyone else is welcome to pull up a chair and enjoy. This story is intended for an adult audience only.

Violence:
Not too much.

Language:
Yes, there is some profanity. But don’t tell our moms, okay? Last time my mom bought that soap mechanics use with bits of stuff in it. I can still feel that grit between my teeth. And yes, I did brush.

Special Notice:
There once was a tale by Advocate called
The Story of Me
. In it, a woman named Randi poured her heart out about her stalker, Mac, to a pair of avidly listening squirrels in a city park. Is this a sequel? Nope. Do you have to read
The Story of Me
to enjoy and understand this one? Absolutely not. But you might get a little more out of this one if you go there first. Trust us, it’s mostly painless.

Acknowledgements:
To our beta readers, Midgit, R.S. Corliss, and Medora MacD — your assistance was invaluable. To the friends who read parts of this story and offered sage advice and compliments — we love you. We stick our tongues out in the general direction of the rest of you. And, of course, TN and I had a blast working together. After a break we will be starting the sequel to
Madam President.
But this was screaming at us first.

Comments/Feedback to:

[email protected]
and [email protected]

THE ROAD TO GLORY

T
HE STARS TWINKLED overhead as Leigh Matthews barreled down I-90 at a constant speed of seventy miles per hour. Despite the fact that it was nearly summer, the cool evening air had forced her to flip on her heater at the last mile marker. It had been a long day of driving and worst of all, it would start all over again — she glanced at her dashboard board clock — in less than six hours.

"What the –?" Leigh mumbled as an unexpected Day-Glo detour sign directed her off the interstate and onto a lonely county road. It was paved and well-marked but wasn’t as straight as the highway had been. Leigh reduced her speed to fifty-five. What little traffic there had been moments before thinned out to nothing, leaving the young woman alone with only the night and her radio for company.

As her truck’s cab grew warmer and warmer Leigh’s eyelids grew heavier and her breathing slower and deeper. She pushed shaggy blonde bangs off her forehead and leaned forward to fiddle with the radio.

"Sinners, repent!"

Leigh jumped.

"Let Jeeeeeesus into your heart!" the speakers blared.

"Aw, Christ. Is it
really
necessary to take all the fun out of being a sinner?" Leigh rolled her eyes, carefully steered around an enormous unidentified hunk of roadkill, and changed the radio station — somehow managing to do all three things at the same time. She hated A.M. radio, especially in the middle of the night and
most
especially in the middle of nowhere. Leigh had listened to all her books on tape, and her much-loved CDs held no allure at this late hour. She stifled a yawn and made a slow turn onto another road as another detour sign directed.

Why hadn’t anyone mentioned this detour? Leigh blearily glanced down at her silent CB radio. Disgusted, she’d flipped it off earlier when she couldn’t stomach another second of hearing how Big Bubby Bumboski had conned his portly, and clearly stupid, wife into believing he had an emergency run that would take him the better part of a week. Half the state knew he was going to meet his girl friend and their two sons. Bubby had gone on and on about how proud of the oldest boy he was. It seems Little Big Bubby had made parole just in time for the visit.

This second turn had sent her into an area even more desolate than the first, and Leigh began to wonder fuzzily if she’d somehow gotten lost. Her breaths began to lengthen again, and her head began to droop. Her eyes fluttered closed … just for a second.

Leigh’s head snapped up. Her eyes popped open at the sound of gravel under her wheels. Instinctively, she slammed on her brakes, kicking up a cloud of dust as the massive truck skidded to a halt along the side of the road.
Good thing I’m riding bobtail.
It would have taken three times the distance to stop with a full rig. Shakily, she clicked off the ignition and was surrounded by stony silence.

Leigh blinked dazedly, her heart pounding a mile a minute, adrenaline coursing through her veins. "Damn."
I fell asleep on the road?
I haven’t done that since I started driving!
She gazed out the large window at her surroundings. It was pitch black … almost. Leigh squinted bloodshot, baby blues as she peered down the road. Off in the distance she could see the faint glow of lights on a sign. "Thank you, God! A motel. I’m going to get a shower after all," she said to no one. Sure, talking to yourself was a clear sign of insanity. But then again, Leigh was pretty certain a truly insane person wouldn’t give a shit. So why should she?

Leigh had grown up on the road with her dad and knew that no matter how desolate an area seemed you usually weren’t too far from one of the thousands of mom-and-pop motels that lined America’s highways. They catered to truckers like herself and other weary, or just plain lost, travelers.

The young woman started up the engine again, and her cherry-red big rig rumbled to life, its high beams cutting through the darkness. Slowly, she pulled back onto the road, hearing the familiar sound of crunching gravel die away as her wheels found the pavement. By the time Leigh shifted from third to fourth gear it was already time to slow down again. She snorted at the flickering sign that read ‘ritz’s’. "Looks like I found the Ritz in the middle of the boonies. Who knew?"

Leigh pulled alongside the small building and pushed open the cab door. She was immediately greeted by a loud chorus of chirping crickets and the smell of slightly damp prairie grass. The wind tossed her hair as she jumped down onto the dirt parking lot. With every footstep she could feel her dreams of a hot shower and a big bed going up in smoke.

She wanted to stamp her foot in disappointment but somehow resisted the urge. A fit where no one could see it, after all, didn’t serve much purpose. Instead, she hung her head and scrubbed her face tiredly as she approached the building. This was no hotel. It was a diner. And — from the darkened windows and the dim outline of chairs propped up on the tables — a very closed diner.

With a slight growl, Leigh stalked back to the truck and climbed inside. She locked her door and then the passenger’s side door. Behind the two front seats was the thin curtain that separated Leigh’s workplace from her home. She kicked off her shoes, not caring where they ended up, and tugged off her lightweight denim shirt and bra.

A small but comfortable bed folded down from the back wall of the truck, and the tired woman flopped down gracelessly, not bothering to remove her blue jeans.

She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

*  *  *

Leigh’s eyes fluttered open and she moaned softly. "Noooo, it can’t be morning yet. Go away," she petulantly ordered the sun. But for some reason, the sunshine streaming through the windows rudely refused to obey her command. She slid on a clean shirt and grabbed the backpack that contained her toiletries.

Yawning, she rifled her fingers through her short, fair hair in a half-hearted attempt to make herself semi-presentable. But to be honest, right now she was more interested in finding a bathroom than looking pretty. Blonde or no, it wasn’t like she was going to be confused with that insane Martha Stewart anyway. Nature was calling. Loudly. Using her hand to block the sun from her eyes, Leigh stared up at the large sign on top of the diner. The place was called ‘Fitz’s’ not ‘ritz’s’; the top half of the ‘F’ being burnt out.

When Leigh’s gaze dropped from the slightly dilapidated sign, it landed squarely on a figure leaning back in a wooden chair, sitting in shadows outside the diner door. Her eyes widened slightly. The body was long and lean, dressed in beige cargo pants and a blue cotton shirt, its two booted feet propped up on a barrel.
Holy hot damn.
She tried not to stare but gave up on that idea immediately since she really did want a good look at whoever this was.

Please be a woman, please be a woman,
Leigh chanted inwardly. Another two strides and even through the light cloud of smoke that swirled around the body, a head of thick, short auburn hair came clearly into view. Leigh’s eyes dropped to the pale blue shirt, which was, she could see now, unbuttoned, with a crisp, white t-shirt underneath. Then …
cha-ching!
Bells that sounded remarkably like a cash register opening went off in her mind as she took in the vision of two well-shaped breasts and a slender neck. A tiny growl escaped her throat, and she strained to more clearly make out the features of the woman’s face.

Leigh stopped abruptly when a harried-looking father, holding the hands of two small boys, scurried past her and into the diner. "Potty emergency" was all the man said by way of an apology.

The woman in the chair took another long drag off her cigarette before tossing the stub into a butt can that sat alongside her. Then she brought a frosty, glass Coke bottle to her mouth and took a healthy swig. "Ahhh …" she hummed, smacking her lips with almost sensual pleasure.
Nothin’ like a little carbonation to burn away the mornin’ fuzzies
. Her green eyes tracked Leigh with idle curiosity as the short woman approached. She snorted and dropped one foot from the barrel, using the toe of her boot to scratch the belly of the cat that sat at the porch below her feet.
Lordy, it seems they’re letting runts truck nowadays.

Flea, a coal-black cat, groaned, causing the woman to chuckle. "Thirsty? You’ve had a hard morning of doing absolutely nothing. I’m sure you’ve worked up a powerful thirst."

From her position sprawled out on her back, Flea merely opened her mouth. The green-eyed woman finally tore her eyes from the blonde and casually leaned over to pour her Coke directly into Flea’s waiting mouth.

As Leigh stepped onto the diner’s porch, her jaw sagged at the spectacle. She was so engrossed at the sight of the beautiful woman, not to mention the feline lapping up a continuous stream of Coca Cola, that she didn’t even see the door in front of her swing open. Until it hit her right in the face.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" The woman in the chair jumped to her feet just as Leigh was knocked backwards, landing on her bottom with a resounding thud. A cloud of fine dust kicked up around her, and she coughed weakly as her world spun.

A short, heavyset man, who looked to be pushing sixty, came barreling out of the diner and immediately dropped to Leigh’s side. He swallowed nervously, patting her back gently as she coughed again and tried to fan away the dust with erratic hand movements. "Are you okay, miss?"

Leigh had one hand cupped over the eye that was throbbing with her every heartbeat. She could already feel it swelling shut. "I um … I think so." She looked intently at the man, her brow furrowing. "And do I need to tell it to your twin, too?"

He glanced at the empty space next to him where Leigh was pointing. "Oh, boy. I’m so sorry." The man offered her his hand, helping her stand. "I’m Pete."

"Hi, Pete. I’m –" she momentarily faltered as the diner, not ten feet in front of her, began to blur.
I’m going to pass out?

"Whoa there, miss." Pete, who was dressed in white pants, a blindingly white t-shirt and a green apron with ‘Fitz’s’ emblazoned across the chest, wrapped a supportive arm around Leigh. "We’d better go inside and get some ice on that eye. Breakfast is on the house." His gaze flickered over to the tall woman. "Fitz, were you just going to leave her here in the dirt?" he asked grumpily.

"Bu –"

"And I thought you were going to fix that burned out sign." Joe shook his head. "I should fire your –"

"I’m fine," Leigh cut in, trying to get a better look at this Fitz woman, but now her good eye was tearing so much she couldn’t see much of anything. "Really. I was just really to take …" She paused and her mind worked silently as she tried to rephrase what she was going to say. "Umm …"

Pete grunted knowingly and offered, "There’s a washroom inside. C’mon." He pulled open the door, and Leigh was immediately assaulted by the delicious smell of sizzling bacon and coffee.