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“Hey, that’s my line.”
“Ha ha.” I rolled my eyes at her. “You are so cheesy. Reece is rubbing off on you.”
“I know,” she said, sighing happily. If she didn’t sound so genuinely damn happy, I would’ve gagged. She’d dealt with her load of terrible, so I wouldn’t begrudge her finding herself an actual good guy.
Even if he did happen to have an evil twin.
“I don’t have time for a man right now, anyway,” I said. “I’ve got this wedding to pull off and…” I trailed off momentarily before finishing strong, “a house that’s just my own to find.”
“That’s right, cause my girl’s gonna take over the world!”
“Hell yeah, I am. We both are!”
And then I turned on the radio and cranked it up as we sang along at the top of our lungs.
Chapter Three
RUTH
I was feeling less enthusiastic and optimistic the next day as I stood on the side of the road glaring down at my phone and sweating out every single particle of water in my body under the scorching Texas sun.
It was just my luck that I ran out of gas on today of all days. And that lever on the gas indicator had just bottomed out outta freaking nowhere. I’d swear I just glanced at it and it had been at a fourth of a tank!
Granted, that glance might have been yesterday… before I’d driven Charlie and me over to the ranch and back, but still. Back in the day Betty woulda been able to get me twice that distance on a fourth of a tank.
I held a hand over my eyes and glared down the road, then grabbed the door to the truck and climbed back inside if only to get out of the sun. It was hotter than an oven in the fires of hell inside, though, even with all the windows down. It was supposed to rain later today—a big storm, but it hadn’t swept in yet.
Why the hell hadn’t I gotten on a bus and ridden out of this town the moment that tornado swept my family’s house away, I’d never know.
I was in the hill country and cars passed, some even slowed, but I waved them by. I’d called Charlie and she was coming by with gas.
But when the familiar truck slowed down to a stop behind me and a lanky figure climbed out, it definitely wasn’t Charlie. By his rigid posture and the permanent stick up his ass, I knew it wasn’t Reece either.
I got back out of my car, hands on my hips. “Why’d they send you?” I glared at Jeremiah as he pulled out a gas can from the box in the back of his truck bed.
His eyes narrowed. “Oh, believe me, I have better things to be doing than rescuing you.”
“Rescu—” The gall of this guy. “Well, give me the gas and your chivalrous act for the decade can be over and done with.” I reached forward and tried to grab the gas can out of his hand, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Why don’t you just sit back and let me take care of it. Considering what happened with the paint can last night, I’d hate for this gas to accidently end up all over the ground instead of in your tank.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Did you have to go to jackass school or does all this charm just come natural?”
He shook his head as if I was the one being childish. God, I wanted to grab him and just shake all his superiority out of him. But I guessed the quicker he got the gas in my engine, the sooner I’d be done with him. So I stepped back and let him open my gas cap, align the nozzle, and upend the can.
“This isn’t much, but there’s a station a couple miles down the road. You’ll need to stop there and fill up all the way.”
“I know,” I said. God, did he think I was an idiot?
“And you should keep a better watch on your tank. It’s best to always refill when you hit a fourth of a tank, otherwise sediment from the gas can start to build up at the bottom of the—”
“Thanks, Mansplainer, I got it,” I said as the noise of the gas glug glugging finished and I could finally yank the gas can out of his hands and roll my gas cap back on. “You can go now.”
But he just stood there. “Let’s just make sure she starts up.”
I rolled my eyes but shoved the gas can back toward his chest. He took it and I climbed up into the truck’s cab and shoved the keys inside.
I turned the keys and the engine sputtered. But didn’t catch. What the—
