Page 17 of Chasing Amanda

“Okay.”

He shot a look her way. “Do you know what to scream?”

“Um, ‘help’?”

“No. Never scream help. People will either think it’s a joke or they’ll take it seriously and won’t want to get involved. Scream ‘fire.’”

“Why?”

“People like to see fire. They come running.”

“So people should run from fires and run to help when someone calls for it, but you’re saying⁠—”

“It doesn’t matter what people should do. It matters what they will do. Pepper spray. Press the alarm. Scream ‘fire.’ Okay?”

Not that it was complicated, but she repeated the instructions to herself. “Got it. And that’ll make me safe?”

He pressed his lips together but said nothing.

She pulled her purse from the floor and dug through it for her keys.

“Leave the pepper spray in your coat pocket, please. It takes too long to find it in a purse. I have no idea what’s in those things, but I’ve seen women dig through their purses for ten minutes looking for lipstick. You won’t have ten minutes.”

She added the new key chain to her existing key ring.

“You should always have your keys in your hand when you’re on the street. Keys make decent weapons.”

“I usually have them in my pocket when I’m on my way home, especially at night.” She dropped them in her purse. “I assume they’re okay in my purse for now?”

“You’re safe with me.” His voice was warm and sweet, a hot mocha on a chilly day.

She slipped the pepper spray into her coat pocket. “Satisfied?”

He smiled. “You won’t need that with me, either, but better safe than sorry.”

Mark took the exit toward the beach.

She wasn’t the type to take off with some guy, even if he had saved her life and looked like Superman’s big brother. She wasn’t the girl who ignored her friends’ advice and got in a car with a stranger and drove away. On the other hand, Mark had given her a weapon she could use against him. So that meant something, right? Unless he just liked a challenge.

She was being silly. If not for the weird circumstances of their meeting, she wouldn’t suspect Mark of anything nefarious. He’d been kind to her. He’d bought her lunch and items to aid in her self-defense. She had no reason not to trust him.

He cleared his throat. “What are you studying?”

“Culinary arts.”

“Oh yeah? You want to be a chef?”

“Since I was a little girl.”

“How come?”

She settled back in the seat, relaxing. “The first time I attempted to cook something, I wanted to surprise my parents. I was eight, and I’d overheard my father say he loved chocolate and peanut butter. I waited until my mom wasn’t paying attention. Then I got out a big bowl, filled it with peanut butter, added chocolate chips, and stirred. It was really hard to stir.”

His warm brown eyes twinkled. “I can imagine.”

“Then I dropped the batter on a cookie sheet like mom did with cookie dough and popped it in the oven. I think I’d preheated it to two-fifty. That seemed boiling to me.”

He chuckled, and she laughed too.