“Kelsey, can you grab the lug wrench in the back? Just be careful not to knock over the candy. I’ll deal with checking out the spare once I see if I can even get the lug nuts off.” Assuming this old van even has a spare.
Kelsey, a pretty girl with brown hair and bangs, meets my gaze, eyes wide. “You can change a tire?” the twenty-one-year-old asks.
I manage a laugh, or else I might cry in frustration. “I’m going to try.”
When I was young, my dad, before abandoning my mother, older brother and me, was a car fanatic.Always have a lug wrench in your car, baby girl. It’ll save you any time you have a flat.Not that a ten-year-old knew anything about changing tires, but I hung on my daddy’s every word until one day he didn’t come home. After that, I gave up on learning about cars, but I knew what I had to do from a class I took in high school.
Accepting the lug wrench from Kelsey, I kneel down by the tire once more. When all my strength won’t turn the nut, and I try all four of them, I groan, rise to my feet, and kick at the tire in annoyance.
“Pretty sure that won’t help,” Kelsey says, just as I mutter an obscene curse thanks to the pain shooting through my foot.
I’m in so much agony, I barely register the car stopping, then pulling into the open spot in front of my van until a large man approaches us, making me aware we are two women alone on an empty street in the dark.
Using the wrench as my defense, I hold it up in front of me. “Don’t come near us.”
“Relax.” He steps to the side until he’s underneath a streetlamp, the glow illuminating his features. “Do I look like a killer to you?”
I study him, a handsome man with dark brown hair, in a wool coat with his tie visible. “Ted Bundy was handsome, too.”
He grins, and my heart skips a beat. My God, he is good-looking. A dimple beside that amazing smile winks at me, and body parts I thought long dead come to life.
“Thank you… I think?” he says with a shake of his head. “Or not. Look, you obviously need help.” He strides past me, ignoring my weaponry, and kneels down by the tire. “What about roadside assistance? Did you call?”
I glance at his obviously expensive coat, and note his suit beneath and brand-name shoes. “Umm, does this old hunk of junk look like it comes with roadside assistance?” I shoot him a look of disbelief. “Some of us can’t afford luxuries, and AAA is definitely a luxury.”
From somewhere behind me, Kelsey, who was silent, laughs out loud.
When he doesn’t immediately reply, I brace my hands on my hips and study him, wondering why he stopped in the first place. “Listen, I appreciate the fact that you tried to help, but I’ll figure something out.”
He slowly rises to his feet. “Do you have a spare? You must if you were trying to take this one off.”
“I assume I do, underneath all the baskets I just loaded into the back.” I hear the frustration in my voice and fight back an inkling of defeat. I’m not going to fall apart over a flat tire and ruined plans.
“You assume?” He shakes his head and strides around to the back end of the van, glancing inside and muttering a curse.
“There’s no obvious spare in here, so we’ll have to unload all this to see what’s underneath. What is all that anyway?” he asks.
“Candy. Homemade.”
“Interesting.” He raises his eyebrows, his gaze going from the sweet treats in the back to my face before he speaks. “Jason Dare,” he says, extending his hand.
“Faith Lancaster.” I place my hand in his, and the heat of his skin sizzles against my palm.
“Nice to meet you, Faith.” He curls his fingers around mine and lingers longer than is necessary for a handshake. Long enough for my body to tingle with awareness before he releases me.
“And this is my intern, Kelsey,” I say.
The other woman smiles at him but doesn’t shake his hand.
“What do you do for a living?” I ask in a husky voice I barely recognize, my entire body still hyperaware of that one brush of his skin.
“I own a nightclub. Club TEN29. Have you heard of it?” he asks.
I shake my head. I never go out to party at night, so what would I know about the club scene? But this man looks like he fits into it, with his sexy tousled brown hair that he probably paid a fortune to get cut so it fell just that way.
“Oh my God! My friends and I have been dying to go, but there’s always such a long line to get in,” Kelsey says, her excitement tangible.
She was so quiet, I almost forgot she was here.
