Chapter 1
“Itold you you were out of your damn mind, didn’t I? I said, girl, you must be tripping. But did you listen? Nooooo!”
Sienna Trinidad was speaking out loud, but the truth of the matter was that the person she was berating with such vitriol was none other than herself. Two days ago, she had gotten it into her head to fly into France via Calais, rather than flying directly into Nice or Marseille like any normal sane person would have.
And she had decided to drive all the way from the north-west coast of France down to the south-east. Although she had been to France innumerable times, — to visit her best friends and for work — she’d always flown direct on private planes. That had gotten a bit repetitive, all that luxury and stuff.
“Rent a car,” she mumbled mockingly. “Make it a road trip. See the countryside.” Ugh. Now she was stuck at the side of the road in a little village called Malijai, in the Provençal Alps, giving a flat tire the stink eye.
Great. Now she was stuck here, without an inkling as to how to get herself unstuck.
Not that she had anything against Malijai. Sienna was sure it was a perfectly nice little town if you had literally nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon, and figured you’d take the kids out for a spin. Maybe get ice cream and gaze into the depths of the Bléone river. Visit a château or two, take lots of photos and post them to your Insta.
You could do anything here, she lamented, but use your cell phone. This entire area seemed to be a dead spot. Maybe it was so boring that not even the cell phone signals felt like hanging around, because her phone was registering exactly zero bars. She couldn’t even call for roadside assistance.
“Here I am, a busy woman with things to do and places to be, staring at a goddamn flat tire, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do.”
Argue aloud with herself like a lunatic, apparently.
This was supposed to be a stress-free vacation. Her escape from the mess she’d made of her personal life. Two breakups in the last year were more than a woman could stand. Not to mention the pressures that came with being her own boss and managing her different income streams.
Exhausting.
When Sienna discovered that she’d sunk back into her teenage habits of pulling on her hair and excessive snacking, she’d snagged the chance to help Jacyn with her babysitting dilemma. But, before taking up her duties, she wanted a few days to travel through France and take time to reflect on her life.
Hence this hare-brained escapade.
Hence this damn, stupid,blankety-blankflat tire!
Kicking the tire in a fit of temper, she realized too late that 1) she was wearing open-toed high heels, so the tire had kicked back and her toes were not happy about that, and that 2) these were damn expensive shoes, probably worth more than the tire on this piece of crap hunk of rental.
She put her hands on her hips and looked up and down the quiet country road. Only one car had passed her, and for some reason the driver had thought it would be neighborly to give her an encouraging honk rather than stop and offer help.
Cussing like a Viking, Sienna prepared her tools and equipment to change it herself. And by ‘tools and equipment’, she meant her camera and tripod. She was, after all, a vlogger, and if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to turn her every misfortune into a click-worthy event.
Once that was set up and focused on the offending tire, she proceeded to drag out the tool kit. Listening to the clanking of the metal objects inside, Sienna contemplated that they might as well be tattoo equipment or dental tools. For all she would know how to use them.
“You’re a warrior, girl,” she reminded herself. “And warriors wage war. Even if it is just against a goddamn tire.”
To her chagrin, the spare tire was under the floor of the trunk, rather than stuck to the lid or nailed to it or chained or bolted or whatever car designers with a lick of common sense did. It meant she would have to drag her full set of designer suitcases out of the trunk and rest them down in the dirt, of all places.
Which set her off cussing again. The cussing grew louder when she discovered that as she dragged the tire out of the gaping depression in which it was nestled, it had brushed against her butter-colored pantsuit, leaving a grimy black mark she doubted even the best dry cleaner in Aix would be able to remove.
Well, shit.
Putting on her game face, Sienna began engaging her invisible audience via the camera, briefly describing her predicament, rolling her eyes extravagantly and bravely setting about her task.
Sienna laid out all the metal doohickeys in a row, some long stick-shaped things with pointy flat and rounded edges. Another contraption she was sure people who knew about cars called a ‘tire jack’, and many more items.
All she had to do was put them together.
No biggie.
Question was, did she jack the car up before or after she began loosening the lug nuts? And in what direction did you turn them? What did they say, righty-tighty, loosey-goosey? And once you had them off, what did you do?
Sienna unleashed a stream of words that would have gotten her banned from several social media platforms. She gave the camera an apologetic look. She’d have to edit that out later.
“Ça va, madame?”