Page 7 of Echoes in the Storm
Duke
What kind of mechanic’s shop closes at three in the afternoon? The only one in town, that’s what. Turns out the arsehole cop knew what he was talking about.
The silhouette of the branches above me dance across the stars in the sky as I lie on the roof of the car, weighing my options. I could walk into town—however far that is—and try for a room at some cheap motel. But then that leaves the vehicle out here all night with nobody to watch it, and I know what these country roads are like. It’s some scene straight from aMad Maxmovie: the car enters dusk as one complete unit and remerges at dawn as a stripped former shell of itself.
My brother may be a jerk, but that doesn’t mean I need to be one, too. I can at least make sure he gets his investment back in as best shape as I can. Would be a whole lot easier to do if the fucking driveshaft hadn’t decided to obliterate on me, but it is what it is.
I already pushed my luck with the cop, only just managing to talk my way back out of the handcuffs. Seems that a few friendly remarks about the current rugby season is enough to sway any red-blooded male around. By the time he released my hands, he’d already mapped out half his fantasy team and was asking me for my picks on the semi-finals.
I got let go with a warning on two conditions: one, I don’t eye-fuck his cousin again, and two, the car is off the roadside in the next twenty-four hours. Seems even he isn’t so confident it’s safe to leave it out here, calling it a “distraction” for bored youth.
Which brings me to the only logical solution: sleep in the car and wait out rescue in the morning.
Fuck my life.
The dark and I don’t mix. It’s the exact reason why I lie here with the torch on my phone turned on, draining the battery while I do my utmost to pretend I’m not attuned to every creak and scratch of the trees around me.
In my mind, it’s not a matter ofifthere’s a threat; it’s a matter ofwhere.
As though my prayers have been heard, the sweeping arc of headlights brings the branches above me to life in an array of lush greens and yellows. I push up on my elbows and spot the hottie’s BMW paused at the end of her driveway. The brake lights go out, and the reverse lights come on as she slowly eases back onto the road. I shift around on the roof until I’m seated on the front edge, my legs over the windscreen, and watch as she brings the coupe to a stop nose-to-nose with the HQ. Seems it won’t bemyfault if I’m caught looking at the cousin then, after all.
Without breaking my line of sight from her, I reach behind me and pat around on the steel until I locate my phone and then switch the torch off. Her door opens, and a black boot hits the ground before she completely emerges from the car.
“Hey there,” I call out, pressing my phone into my palm until it hurts.
She shuts the car door and steps toward me. “Do you need some help?” Fuck me—the voice is as gorgeous as the woman herself.
“You could say that.”
Tingles spread through my hand as I grip the phone to the point of near crushing the case. The guy I picked the car up off? Piece of piss to deal with. And the cop? Easy enough, given the interaction took place in the daylight. But when the moon is dim, concealed behind a bank of lazy clouds? Fuck my night time anxiety.
“Have you broken down?” The woman frowns, walking around the hood to the driver’s side. The long cardigan she wears billows around her legs as she moves, her silvery grey hair tucked up in a loose bun beneath a baggy black knitted hat. I narrow my gaze on her, confirming what I thought as the headlights catch the metal—her nose is pierced underneath like a damn bull.Different.
“I called the shop in town for a tow, but they were closed.” I run my eye over the curve of her arse, the swell of her tits highlighted by the light behind her. “Your cousin helpfully advised I’d have trouble getting a truck that late in the day.”
She stops walking as I slide down the windscreen and shuffle across the hood to hop to the ground. “Yeah. Archie has to get his kids from school. Things have been tough since he became a single dad, but he does what he needs to.”
“Sounds like a busy man.”
“He is.” She tips her head to the side, clearly checking me out as her gaze drops to my feet and then climbs back up. “Shane didn’t give you too much trouble?”
“That the cop’s name?”
“Yeah.” She chews on her bottom lip before saying, “He can be a bit intense sometimes.”
Understatement.“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“So …”
“So?”
“You planning on camping out here overnight?”
I grimace and rub a hand over the back of my neck. “Not saying anything bad about your town—”
“But?”
“But I’d rather not leave the car sitting out here in the open all night, so I don’t really have much of a choice.” I chuckle, nudging the nosecone with my boot. “Even if it is a piece of shit.”