Chapter Three

Nate

I crank up the volume on my radio while good old Johnny Cash serenaded me on my way back from lunch, my fingers tapping on the steering wheel while I sling my other arm up onto the lip of the window to feel the hot sun beat down on my skin.

The warm summer breeze feels nice blowing in through the cab, kicking up a few loose papers I’ve got laying around. On days like this, I don’t mind driving around the sticks, even if it’s to drop off a few parts to a friend who’s trying to build his own bike from the ground up.

You’ll never catch me on one of those things. I’ve pulled too many people’s crotch rockets out from under a family’s SUV with the skid marks still fresh on the pavement to know that even if a gun were held up to my head, I’d still pick the gun.

I’d have better luck with it jamming than surviving a high-speed accident on a bike.

But that’s what comes with the territory when working as a mechanic with a flatbed readily available—I got to see all kinds of shit happen on the road. Luckily, most of the time my calls were flats or the occasional engine failure that needed to be taken back to my shop.

Other than that, it was—

“What the…” I see a cloud of smoke in the distance.

Speak of the Devil.

Lowering the radio, I step on the gas and merge over to the lane hugging the shoulder.

A little red sedan is pulled off on the side of the road with white smoke billowing out of the front hood. Cars like that are notorious for crapping out at the worst time, especially if the driver was ten miles into a 400-mile road trip packed full with seven bags of luggage and the family dog.

But that’s not what catches my attention—what does is the woman standing in front of it, jumping up and down with her hands waving in the air.

In a full-on bridal gown.

What the hell?

I blink a few times to try and clear the image from my head because I must be hallucinating. But no, sure enough, she’s still there as I let up on the gas and flick my turn signal to merge onto the shoulder.

She looks relieved when my truck comes to a stop, her veil billowing in the wind and making her look like some kind of angel out of a movie.

AJ has to be pranking me…

Only he would be sick enough to get one of his buddy’s girlfriends to come stage a scene like this just to record me and send it to all of our friends.

He’s kind of a menace like that. Harmless, but ridiculous nonetheless.

Pulling on my ball cap before popping open my door, my boots crunch against the pieces of asphalt and shards of glass still left over from a recent accident. I’m tempted to comment on it being a nice day for a wedding, giving a little bit of a nudge towards this potential prank, but hold back at the last second when I notice that she’s got no passenger in her car.

Why the hell is she out here all alone?

“Oh, thank god you’re here!” She drops her arms and heaves in a big, relieved breath. “I don’t know what happened. I had plenty of gas in the tank and I just got my oil changed a little while ago.”

Walking up to her, I notice that my height practically dwarfs hers.

She’s gesturing towards the propped-open hood of the car, saying something about the last time she’d gotten maintenance done, but I’m hardly hearing her at all.

Instead, my eyes automatically lock onto her face.

She’s gorgeous—like, really gorgeous. With soft features that are accentuated by her light wedding makeup, especially around her almond-shaped eyes. Her blonde hair is pinned back under her veil with a few curls framing her face, and the wedding dress she’s wearing hugs her slender frame perfectly.

Jesus, what’s a pretty thing like you doing all the way out here?

The next town isn’t for another 13 miles.

“—so, I tried airing it out but it just keeps smoking. I would pour some water on it to cool it down but I don’t have any,” she’s saying.

I pull off my ball cap in order to wipe my brow, feeling sweat starting to form there. I’m not even that warm, but this woman’s got me all hot and bothered and she’s barely said five sentences to me.

I glance down at her engine for a second. “Did it shut off or did you pull over and kill the gas?”

Her pretty lips form a pout. “Kind of both?”

Most likely it’s a blown gasket, then. I don’t exactly need to look at her paperwork to know that this car has seen some things, with how old the model is. The thing about beater cars is that they’re great for running into the ground while waiting for the next new model’s price tag to go down enough to finance. But once these things start kicking the bucket, the maintenance to keep them from exploding is ridiculous and not worth it.

Unless there’s some sentimental attachment, but then again, I only ever see that in dudes with too much time on their hands. Not a beautiful lady like her who shouts that she’s from the city with the matching necklace and bracelet that looks close to my monthly salary.

“Looks like it’s probably your coolant leaking from your radiator,” I say. “But I’d have to bring it back to the shop to get a good look at it.”

She’s nodding when I turn back to look at her. “Do you have one of those? A shop, I mean.”

Her eyes are eager as they lock with mine, causing my body to feel a rush of adrenaline.

Jesus, it’s like I’m a teenager and this is the first time I’ve ever talked to a pretty girl before.

“Yeah, it’s about half an hour that way,” I nod in the direction. “You want me to call a cab for you? Signal’s kind of busted out here, but I’ve got a radio in my truck.”

I can’t tell if she’s heard me wrong or is nervous that I’m going to leave her stranded on the side of the road, because instead of saying ‘yes’ or something to that effect, she tells me, “Yeah, yeah. That sounds good. We can go to your shop.”

“I can get this hooked up to my flatbed no problem.”

We walk back to my truck, her heels clicking loudly on the pavement behind me. “So, how long do you think it’ll take to fix?”

“Well, like I said…” Pulling open my door, I grab the clipboard I always keep tucked between the center console and my passenger seat. “I’d have to look at the whole thing back at the shop, but if it’s just the coolant then I can get it done probably by tomorrow. If it’s something else that’s going on, then it may take a few days.”

She looks absolutely crestfallen at the news. “Wait, a few days? Is there any way you can just patch it or something?”

Man, I feel bad. Maybe she was on her way to some destination wedding to surprise her fiancé or something, and this is completely crashing her plans.

“Not if you want your engine to explode.” I say, feeling bad. “But again, I’d have to look at everything else to make sure that’s the only thing you’ve got going on. You could have more than just the coolant problem.”

Like that timing belt for starters.

“Shit,” she mutters.

She brings her fingers up to her lips and taps the bottom one in a silent beat, a gesture that I rip my eyes away from watching. She stares at the forest surrounding the highway.

After what feels like forever, I ask, “You want me to give you a ride to your, uh, venue?”

Isn’t that what they’re called? The last ‘wedding’ that I went to was a buddy of mine’s who got married to his longtime sweetheart in their backyard. We had a kegger afterwards that resulted in most of us having the worst hangover of our lives the next morning.

Her eyes snap to me again. “Oh, no. It’s fine. Actually, can I hitch a ride to the shop?”

Her laugh reminds me of chimes in the wind. Pretty and dainty sounding.

”Sure.” I hand the clipboard to her. “You mind filling out the top of that while I get your car strapped up? Pen’s under the clip.”

She blinks, taking it. “Oh, yeah sure. Hey, thanks for this. I can’t believe you were just passing by. How lucky am I, right?”

Lucky indeed, I think as I head to the back of the flatbed to grab my straps.

But who’s the really lucky one?