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A few moments later, I felt myself gaining some measure of control. My head leaned against the glass, staring at my keys, but no longer could tell if it was tears or rain streaming down my cheeks.
A tug in my heart made me almost break down again when I heard the rumble of an engine coming from behind. I peeled my face off the window and looked back. The rain was harder now, coming down like little bullets and stinging my face, falling in sheets that made patterns in the road. But I could see through them to the truck that was now parked behind me.
Bright white lights illuminated the back of my car, and I noticed the trunk had done some good damage to the back of the dresser. Just another thing, I guessed. The lights didn’t turn off as the door opened, and I waited to see who it was that had stopped. Knowing my luck, it would be some creepy dude, looking for an easy victim to pull into the cornfields.
Maybe I should lay off the murder documentaries for a while.
A boot came down below the door, and I waited for the rest of the body to follow. It took a second, like the person was struggling a little, then another boot joined it. When the door shut, in spite of everything, I felt my breath hitch a little.
A tall, gorgeous man shut the door and turned to look at me, smiling under his baseball cap. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans with his boots, pretty much the Texas Tuxedo as it were, but he made them look good. Tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, with a wide smile, he looked too good for the situation I was in. I briefly wondered if I had just passed out, or maybe even the car crashed, and I was having one of those coma dreams.
“Having trouble?” he asked, the drawl in his voice faint, but there.
All I could do was nod.
3
RYAN
“Having trouble?” I asked and immediately regretted it.
It probably sounded sarcastic. Here was this poor girl, absolutely soaked from the sudden storm, her car pulled off the side of the road with the hood open and smoke still billowing out despite the rain, and I was asking if she was having trouble. Of course she was having trouble.
Slowly, she nodded, and her eyes drifted up to mine. They were puffy, like she had been crying recently, but it was hard to tell. Her makeup was running down her cheeks, and she looked like a mess. Yet, even beyond all that, I could see her beauty.
Her eyes were sad, dejected. Resigned even. Like she had just given up on everything. I hated that look. An immediate surge of protectiveness roared through me, and I had the urge to rush over to her, pull her into a tight hug, and tell her everything was going to be all right. That I’d help her, and that she would make it through.
“What seems to be the problem, do you know?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“I don’t,” she said. “I have no idea. The car just stopped working.”
I doubted that. Cars don’t generally just stop spontaneously. Usually there is some build-up involved before they end up on the side of the road with smoke pouring out of them. But I didn’t want to start any of that, especially since this woman was obviously in a bad situation and needed help. She didn’t need me mansplaining things to her on top of it.
“Mind if I take a look?” I asked. “I’m no mechanic, but I might be able to see something.”
“Go right ahead,” she said. “Only issue is I also locked my keys in my car, so I can’t try to start it or anything.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, that explains why you’re out in the rain. Hang on.”
I went back to the truck and opened up the back seat. Below the driver’s seat in the back was an umbrella I always kept in there.
“Thank you,” she said as I opened it up and handed it to her.
“Sure,” I said.
I walked around to the front of the car and checked under the hood. Nothing specific seemed to stand out, and the smoke was seemingly coming from everywhere all at once. The only guess I had was a blown head gasket, possibly from a busted radiator. I fiddled around for a second, if nothing else other than to not seem like I didn’t know what I was doing, and then adjusted the cap on my head.
The rain was coming down so hard now that heavy drops were forming, sliding across the brim of my cap and then falling. Wherever this storm came from, it was meaning to put down a few gallons on us, and it was pretty silly to stand there and just get hit with it for no reason.
