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“What’s that?” she asked.
“I don’t have a car. My truck’s back in California.”
There was something she loved about the fact that he drove a truck in California. You could take the cowboy off the ranch, but you couldn’t take the ranch out of the cowboy. That was why he was here as a ranching consultant, she assumed.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can drive, or you can drive my car if you’re one of those guys who…”
She let her voice trail off. She didn’t want to sound like she had issues with a man who couldn’t let a woman drive.
“I’m definitely not one of those guys,” Landon said. “I love being driven around. It gives me a chance to rest. As long as there’s enough room in your car for me to stretch my legs out.”
“That might be a problem.”
She looked down at his legs. He was at least six feet tall, and she was only five-four. Her two-door coupe was perfect for her, but she’d found over the years that the guys she dated felt cramped in there. She even had one who refused to ride with her because he said her car made him feel claustrophobic.
“We’ll just give it a try,” he said.
His steps slowed as they came to the back of the trailer. Her little silver car was dwarfed by Christian’s gigantic truck. He seemed to have blocked her in.
“I might be able to talk Christian into letting us borrow his truck,” she said. “You’d have to drive, though. I’d be a nervous wreck trying to drive something like that.”
“I’m fine with your car,” he said. “Do you need me to get it out of this space?”
He gestured. By then, they’d started walking again and were gradually approaching her car. She shook her head, noting the texture of the ground beneath her feet. It hadn’t rained in at least a few days, so the dirt and grass were dry. She wouldn’t have to worry about her tires getting stuck or anything.
“Let’s give this a go,” she said.
She pulled her keys out of her purse, which she’d grabbed when she’d headed out of her trailer. She was already untying the apron strings behind her neck, and she tossed that and her purse into her cramped back seat before climbing in. She was belted in with the keys in the ignition before he’d even opened the passenger door.
“Are you ready to do this?” Audrie asked as she shifted the car in reverse and turned and looked at him, her foot firmly on the brake so the car didn’t move until she was ready for it to.
Her gaze locked on his in a long look that made it hard to breathe. Then he nodded and looked forward, reaching up to grab the handle above the window.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
6
Audrie was a fast driver. Not that Landon wasn’t up for an adventure. He loved a good rollercoaster ride. He’d even ridden a few mechanical bulls in his time.
But there was something about the curvy roads from Corbin to wherever they were headed that made it slightly scarier than those things. Or maybe it was the all too real risk that a vehicle would come around the corner and hit them head on.
Finally, they slowed, and Landon released his grip on the door handle. He’d let go of the bar above the window earlier in the ride. It was a little too obvious he was gripping that. The door handle was not quite as insulting.
“Here we are.” Audrie flipped on her turn signal.
Landon looked around. He didn’t see anything but trees.
“Where?” he asked.
She didn’t respond, but suddenly, on the right, the trees disappeared, replaced by a large sign with a road next to it.Windsong Outlet Mall, the sign read. There was an actual outlet mall all the way out here in the middle of nowhere.
It felt like the middle of nowhere, but maybe it wasn’t. In fact, as he looked around, he saw other shops and restaurants. A sign for an oil change place was clearly visible up ahead, and a popular fast-food chain was visible just beyond that. They’d only driven ten minutes or so and had reached civilization. Who would have imagined?
“I came here a lot as a teen,” she said. “I even worked in this mall briefly in high school.”
They were on the road leading into the mall by then, and he saw a row of stores facing them, but the stores went all the way back on either side. It wasn’t run down and abandoned like malls he’d seen in other small towns. No, this place appeared to be popular.
“I wouldn’t have expected this to be all the way out here,” he commented.
