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“What’s wrong?” Gus’ voice filled with worry. “Megan?”
“I’m here. I think my tire is flat.” The last thing I needed.
“You have roadside service, don’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course, I do. Casey insisted on it, but I took a class on basic car maintenance and I know how to change a tire, Gus.”
My friend chuckled softly, and I could almost see her shaking her head at me. “Okay. Call me when you’re all done so I know you’re okay.”
“Aye, aye Captain.” With a smile, I ended the call and pulled onto the shoulder. The sky above was getting darker by the second, the clouds moving swiftly. The storm would be right on top of me any minute now.
Better hurry.
I pulled my shopping bags from the trunk and tossed them onto the backseat so I could remove the spare tire and all the tools needed to change it out. It started out easily enough; I walked myself through each step as the voice of my teacher, Ryan Branson, echoed in my head. The first two lug nuts came off with a little bit of elbow grease.
And then the rain started, and everything got messy.
Slick.
Impossible to maneuver.
The rain started lightly at first, just a bit of a shower that slowed me down a little. Then it came down a bit harder, turning the dirt on the shoulder to mud. My foot slipped once. Twice. The third time, I had enough.
“Dammit!”
I knew I could change this flat. I’d taken classes on just about everything when I returned to Jackson’s Ridge after culinary school. Casey wasn’t around and I couldn’t afford to spend all of my hard-earned money paying people to do jobs I could myself. So, I had learned to change my oil, fix a flat, make basic home repairs—everything a modern, independent woman needed to do to save a bit of cash.
And now, those skills had failed me, thanks to a little bit of water.
“Okay, maybe not so little.” The sky chose that moment to open up and dump all over me. “Dammit, again!”
I put everything back in the trunk as fast as I could, but by the time I slid behind the wheel, I was soaked from head to toe. Shivering and covered in goosebumps, I called roadside assistance with chattering teeth.
Two hours—that’s how long I’d have to wait on the side of the road with rain pouring down, visibility limited. Unacceptable. I thanked the woman on the other end of the call for her time and put my name and number on the service queue. They would be here to help.
Eventually.
Another look at my phone showed that I’d missed a few calls from Casey. He always worried when I drove the back roads between Jackson’s Ridge and the city, because he was a worrywart.
“Hey, babe, how’d surgery go?” He was operating on the VIP client today and even though he was at the top of his field, I knew my husband worried. “Is it a pop star?”
“No comment,” he answered, a smile in his voice. I could just picture the way the OR lights danced in his blue eyes. “How was shopping?”
“Great,” I told him absently, my gaze fixed on the utter blackness in all directions. The road wasn’t particularly well-lit and that had never bothered me before because I usually made a day trip out of shopping in the city. Now, though, things seemed a bit more ominous.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I rushed to assure him before I realized that wasn’t the truth. “Well, not nothing, it’s just a flat tire. I tried to change it myself, but it’s so dang wet out here that I couldn’t get a proper grip on anything.” I wrapped both hands around the steering wheel and waited for the words I knew would come next.
“That’s why we pay for roadside assistance.”
Yep, those were the words.
“I know, and I called them when it became clear I couldn’t do it myself. But the rain has caused all kinds of trouble on the interstate.” I added a little emphasis to the last word to make sure he didn’t rush in to remind me that I should have taken the interstate. “They said I’d be stuck out here for two hours. Two hours, Case!” I repeated with a grunt.
“It’s just two hours, not a lifetime, Megs.”
“Same thing out here in the dark with rain coming down in buckets.” Headlights appeared in the distance, the first car to come around in thirty minutes. I held my breath and waited for the car to zip past me, eager to get out of the bad weather, but the vehicle slowed and then stopped. “Oh, wait, someone is stopping. Looks like a good Samaritan is going to save my tail today.”
“Megs,” he groaned and I rolled my eyes while my husband acted like I was a naïve little teenager who didn’t know bad things happened in the world.
