Free One Night In Reno by Rogenna Brewer

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER ONE
     
    “ Come on, come on,...”  Jenny Albright coaxed the old Ford Fairlane off the road and coasted to the nearest pump at the Fernley 76 off US Alternate 50.  It seemed inevitable both her gas tank and her luck would run dry in the Nevada desert.
    More precisely, her luck had run out seven years ago along with Josh’s father.  Which was nothing compared to losing her job, home and sense of security all in one day. 
    Six dollars and twenty-one cents.
    The total sum of everything she had left in this world. 
    Except for Josh.  Jenny set the car in park and stole a glance at her sleeping six-year-old son and his beagle curled up on the backseat among what was left of their material possessions.
    Dark lashes fluttered against flushed cheeks.  She leaned over the seat and brushed the hair from his forehead.  Buster shifted against her boy with a protective puppy sigh Jenny felt all the way to her soul.
    They’d never had much, but as she inventoried what was left; a garbage bag full of dirty clothes, a laundry basket filled with toys, and an overnight bag packed with a few essentials, she felt beyond despair.
    Jenny counted the change again from the dumped contents of her purse on the seat beside her.  Four crumpled dollar bills and $2.21 in change--mostly pennies. 
    At the last rest stop they’d made a game out of searching ashtrays, floor boards, seat cushions for anything they could find.  That’s all they’d come up with.  Now as she tallied the last of their limited funds, it didn’t seem like much of a game.
    Josh hadn’t eaten all day.  She hadn’t eaten since she couldn’t remember when--maybe since before they’d left Colorado.  But they’d coasted in on fumes and the nearest city and hope of a decent paying job was still some thirty-five miles up I-80.
    “Well, that’s it then...”  She’d put five dollars in the tank and hope it would get them that far.  The rest would go toward finding something to fill Josh’s tummy.  Since she’d caught her son sharing his last sandwich with Buster, she knew the pup already had her fair share.
    Jenny got out and pumped gas, quickly rolling over her limit.  “Darn it.”  She hung up the nozzle.  Like everything else about their current circumstance there was nothing she could do except pay the price.
    She felt a pang of maternal guilt as she cracked the window and locked Josh in the car with Buster.  She’d be able to keep an eye on him through the convenience store’s plate glass windows.  If she woke him now he’d wander the store wanting what he couldn’t have.  That seemed crueler somehow. 
    A dollar and change would only go so far.
    Once inside she realized just how impossible the stretch.  Maybe they’d get lucky and find a grocery store handing out free samples since today was Sunday.  That was one of the reasons she shopped during the busy weekends back home.  Her paycheck had never kept them in style, but at least it put a roof over their heads.  As it stood, she’d spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.  Jenny settled on a pint of milk as having the most nutritional bang for her buck, chocolate because it would at least seem like a treat to Josh.
    “After you,” a masculine voice insisted as they stepped toward the register together.  He wore jeans and a denim shirt to go with that rugged sound.
    “Thank you.”  Jenny glanced in his direction, but avoided eye contact.  He didn’t exactly smile back, but he had nice even teeth and she thought maybe brown eyes shaded by a ball cap with some sort of eagle emblem and ST-11 stitched across it.  She had no idea what that meant.
    “Five, oh-six in gas?” the middle-aged clerk asked, punching in the number when she nodded. 
      “And this.”  She set the milk on the counter.  “Are you hiring by any chance?”  The panic button around his neck might have given her pause if she wasn’t so