He had to be kidding. A tow from the little town she'd passed would be expensive.
"Who's gonna come all the way out here tonight?" she asked. "Plus, I'm dead broke."
"Well, you can't stay out here." Was that her imagination, or was there a little bit of the same desperation she felt leaking out of the man.
"It's fifteen miles to Sutter's Hollow," she said. "You want me to walk? In the dark?"
"What about your family?"
"Don't have any." It wasn't a lie. She didn't have any family that would help her.
Even in the dim light from the flashlight, she could see a muscle jumping in his cheek. He ducked his head and mumbled something too low for her to make out.
"Get out of the truck."
She bristled at this order. She wasn't walking down those winding dirt roads in the dark.
"You're not sleeping in your truck. You can stay the night. Tomorrow morning, I'll drive you to town. You're on your own from there. And you better figure out a way to get your truck off my land."
"Really?" She grabbed her backpack and guitar from the passenger floorboard and then juggled both on her lap as she rolled up the crank window. The door made an awful metal creak when she moved to hop out. She caught the cowboy's wince in the dim light from his flashlight.
"That truck is older than you are."
"I know. Ain't it great?" She tried to cover up her nerves by giving the hood an affectionate pat as she shifted her backpack onto her shoulder. Maybe he wouldn't see how white her knuckles were as she clutched her guitar. "She was my mom's. Back before I was born."
He mumbled something else. Maybe he had a mumbling problem. Or maybe he just didn't like her.
"Just because something is old or needs work doesn't mean you give up on it," she said.
He sent her a sideways glare but didn't say anything else. She followed him toward the sad old farmhouse, careful to keep a good yard between them.
From the porch, his farm dog wagged its tail.
Seeing it helped settle the nervous energy jangling through her. Animals were a true judge of character. The farm dog was lean but groomed. It's teeth were good. And it was friendly.
Maybe she couldn't trust herself to judge a man's character, but she'd grown up on a ranch. She could trust the dog. It wasn't as if she was going to sleep a wink anyway. Might as well be warm inside instead of freezing in her truck.
Why had he done that?
Cord trudged up the porch steps, the girl two paces behind him. Molly.
He should've kicked her off his property, not told her she could stay the night.
But he'd felt sucker punched when he'd spotted her in the cab of that old truck, her face white and pale. Her mad scramble had echoed the panic he'd seen in her eyes. And not just a normalyou gave me a frightkind of scared.
Something had happened to her. Probably whatever had caused the shadow of the bruise beneath her jaw. She'd hidden it earlier with the fall of her hair, but tonight he'd seen it as she'd thrown up one hand as if to protect herself from him.
He remembered feeling that frightened. When he was thirteen and the police had come knocking. Then riding with West in the back of the cop car. Not knowing where they were going to end up.
He wasn't a saint by any stretch, but his conscience wouldn't let him leave her to fend for herself tonight.
Hound greeted her on the front porch of the farmhouse, where Cord had left him.
The dog nosed into her leg, and she dropped a scratch behind his ears.
And then Cord couldn't delay any longer. He opened the front door.
She followed him in. He kept his expression blank but he could imagine what she was thinking.
