1
KENDRY
The first wisps of smoke curl from beneath the hood like ghostly fingers reaching for the snow-filled sky.
I white-knuckle the steering wheel of my ancient Honda Civic, watching the tendrils thicken into billowing clouds that obscure my view of the snow-dusted pines lining Highway 12. My dog Merry whimpers from the passenger seat. As an Australian Shepherd she can sense things, like how my heart hammers against my ribs as I yank the wheel right, coasting onto the shoulder with a grinding protest from somewhere deep in the engine’s dying belly.
“No, no, no. Not now. Not here.” I throw the gearshift into park and turn it off with a groan, but the smoke keeps coming, darker now, carrying the acrid smell of burning rubber and melting plastic.
Twenty-five years old, and this is how my fresh start will end— stranded on a mountain highway in the middle of nowhere Montana, three days before Christmas, with nothing but a duffel bag of clothes, my camera equipment, a canine companion experiencing a freak out, and the shattered remains of my pride.
I should’ve known better than to think I could outrun heartbreak in a car held together by duct tape and wishful thinking.
I grab my phone from the cup holder.
No service.
Of course not.
Because the universe has apparently decided that getting dumped by the man I loved since I was seventeen wasn’t enough cosmic punishment for whatever sins I’ve committed in a past life.
Eight years.Eight years of birthday cakes and inside jokes, of Sunday morning pancakes and Thursday night trivia at O’Malley’s. Eight years of planning a future that evaporated the moment Derek looked at me across our apartment —his apartment now— and said, “I think we want different things.”
What he really meant was “I want different things.” He wanted Emma from accounting, who doesn’t smell like espresso and doesn’t have calluseson her fingers from adjusting camera lenses. He wanted someone who doesn’t still dream of making it as a photographer while slinging lattes to pay rent.
And in the end, he didn’t want… me
The smoke thickens, and my pulse spikes. I roll down my driver’s side window and then pop the door handle and stumble out into the December cold, my breath forms clouds that mingled with the ones escaping my car’s hood. Snow begins to fall in fat flakes that catch in my tight curls and melt against my anger flushed cheeks. Merry is well-trained and only sticks her nose out of the window.
Should open the hood? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?
Or is that exactly what I’mnotsupposed to do with an engine fire?
“Step back from the vehicle!”
The voice cuts through the wind and my panic. Deep and commanding enough that I obey before my brain has fully processed the words. I backpedal several feet, nearly slipping on the icy shoulder, and turn to find a large pickup truck pulling up behind my car, emergency lights flashing.
The driver’s side door of a massive pickup truck swings open and out steps a man who looks like he’s carved from the mountains themselves.
Merry jumps out the window and I reach out for her leash, but she’s already to him and he’s picking it up while she looks up with unmitigated admiration.
Her hero… but what is he for me?
The guy’s tall —well over six feet— with broad shoulders straining against a dark green jacket marked with a Forest Service patch that reads something I can’t quite make out.
Black… Simba… Pucks? No, it can’t be that. Black Timber Pimps? I hope it’s not that!
His hair is chocolate brown, silver strands catch the weak afternoon light and sparkle, and it’s cut short and slightly mussed, as if he’s been running his hands through it. Probably mid-to-late-forties, with the kind of weathered face that speaks of years spent outdoors, all strong jaw and serious eyes the shade of smoke.
His eyes lock on my car, assessing, even as he reaches back into his truck for a fire extinguisher, still managing Merry’s leash in one hand like he’s used to this.
“How long has it been smoking?” He hands off the leash. “Sit and stay.”
And she does, but so do I.
The stay… not the sit, although… I kinda like how he demanded it. Weird.
He’s already past me, his boots crunching on the gravel.
