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“How about we just agree we saved each other, and we don’t owe each other anything?”
“Deal. Now, do you want to stay downstairs and be Little for a bit, or do you want Daddy to take you upstairs and—”
“Upstairs,” she said, hopping off his lap with a wide, wicked smile on her lips. “Definitely upstairs.”
“As you wish, babygirl.”
THE END
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CARLY’S SECOND CHANCE DADDY PREVIEW - CHAPTER 1
It hadn’t taken long for her to grow bored with the interstate. As a child, she’d been the epitome of the ‘Are we there yet?’ cliché during long road trips. And by ‘long’, she meant anything more than a half an hour on the road. Apparently, she wasn’t much better as an adult.
Which was how she found herself far off the beaten path, several hundred miles and a two-day drive from the only home she’d ever known when her car began to shake. Then lurch violently forward before the engine simply gave out right there on the side of the road.
“Well, fuck,” she muttered, turning the key and yanking it from the ignition. “What are we supposed to do now, Toby?”
The well-loved stuffed dog in her passenger seat simply stared back, unblinking. Toby was great for many things, including endless bouts of middle-of-the-night tears, but he wasn’t a whole lot of help when it came to offering suggestions. He just sat there in the passenger seat, watching her intently, waiting for her to come up with a plan.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, she scanned their surroundings. Not only were they a good way off the interstate, they seemed to be a good way from… everything. The road they were on was fairly straight and flat, making it seem as though she could see for miles and miles.
And there was a whole lot of nothing, stretching out as far as she could see in every direction.
Shit.
Grabbing her phone from the cup holder, she tapped the screen and stared at the dozens of icons, silently debating the best choice of action. If she called her dad, he would come running to save her. But he was back home in Nebraska, so even if she wanted him to come and rescue her, she’d still need to find somewhere to stay for a few days until he could come rescue her.
More to the point, she didn’t actually want him to come. It felt too much like admitting defeat, and there was that little voice in her head whispering that if she went running back home now, she’d never find the courage to leave again.
“Dad is out, which means Mom and everyone else back home is out. So that leaves whoever is nearby.” Which, as far as she could tell just then, was nobody. “Maybe there’s a gas station nearby. Worth a try, right Toby?”
Taking his silence as agreement, she opened the map on her phone and searched for a gas station. Thank god she at least had cell service out here. And, much to her relief, the map showed a gas station a little over a mile away. Maybe they had a tow truck, or at least knew somebody who could come cart her little car down to the station.
She hit the button to call the gas station, and after about five rings she was ready to give up when a gruff, obviously annoyed voice answered. “Hello?”
So much for that famed Southern hospitality she’d always heard of. “Hello. Hi. Ah, I’m broken down on the road, about a mile away and—”
“Hello? Anybody there?”
Dammit. Pulling her phone away from her ear, she glared at the single tiny bar in the top right corner of her screen. “Hi, can you hear me?”
“Ma’am, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. You’ll need to call back.”
When the call ended, she let out a short, frustrated scream. “Forget it! Toby, we’re walking. Come on.”
Fueled by her growing anger at the situation, she grabbed the little white dog and settled him inside the cavernous tote bag she used for a purse. Donnie had always teased her about it, but it had proven handy over the years, especially when there’d been so much paperwork and stuff to haul everywhere. Not to mention the dozens of bottles of medications he’d needed towards the end.
Tears blurred her vision and she wiped angrily at them as she reached for the door handle. “Get a grip, Carly,” she muttered to herself. “Crying on the side of the road isn’t going to fix anything. Grow up.”
Her resolve to walk to the gas station wavered the instant the car door swung open. Heat, heavier and more oppressive than anything she’d felt in her life slammed into her with the force of an NFL linebacker. It was oh so tempting to climb back into the relative coolness of her car and just wait to see if someone came along.
But without air conditioning, the heat would turn her car into an oven within the hour. And since she wasn’t particularly keen on being roasted alive, she forced herself out of the vehicle.
It didn’t take long for her to come to the conclusion she was going to be baked like a turkey either way. How did people live like this?
