Me
This afternoon.
Ryan
How long?
Me
ETA for a service truck is five hours. Apparently, they’re very busy today.
Three dots appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared, then nothing.
He never texted back.
I laid the driver’s seat back and closed my eyes. I didn’t want some well-meaning serial killer to see me in here and stop to offer help when he really wanted to make a sweater out of my body. I had dry skin. I wasn’t an ideal sweater candidate.
Geez, I really need to stop reading Whitney’s books.
I tried to put roadside serial killers out of my mind, queued up an audiobook on my phone, and slumped in the seat. Naps were always a good idea.
The constant rocking of the car as vehicles whizzed by on the highway made it impossible to fall asleep quickly. I had just dozed off when someone knocked on the window.
Had it been five hours already?
I paused the audiobook and elbowed my way into a sitting position.
I would know that ass anywhere. Ryan stood with his back pressed against the car, keeping an eye on the traffic as he knocked.
I rolled the window down. “What the hell are you doing here? And how did you find me?”
Ryan glanced over his shoulder. “You gonna let me in or are you gonna make me stay out here and become roadkill?”
Reluctantly, I unlocked the doors. Ryan eased around to the other side of the car, then paused, assessing my tire.
I checked the roadside assistance app, hoping they were right around the corner.We have your location. The estimated time a service technician will reach you is two hours.
Great.I looked into the rearview mirror and spotted Ryan running back to his car.Running.Apparently, a flat tire was what bested the legendary Ryan Ford.
Thank God. I was nearing feelings territory, and I hated it.
And then he turned around.
Those tattooed muscles bulged as he hefted a tire out of the backseat.
Not a spare. A full-blown, brand-new tire.
I heard the thump as he set it beside the blown tire, then headed back to his car and came back with a jack.
I wiggled across the seats and slipped out of the passenger’s side door, safely onto the grass. “What are you doing?”
Ryan looked up from where he was kneeling beside the tools. “Changing your tire. You’ll still need to take it in to get them aligned and rotated, but it’s safer than trying to get back to the city on a donut tire. Those aren’t supposed to go more than fifty miles.”
“I know how to change a tire. I usually have a spare. I just left it back in?—”
Ryan stood and wiped his hands on his gym shorts. “Willow.”
“What,” I clipped as reality set in.
