“Em.” He smiled, tugging at a strand of her hair. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Are we okay?”
“Very okay.”
“Really?”
“Yes, why?”
“It’s just that you got over me pretty darn quick.”
He laughed, and patted his chest. “Fickle heart, remember?”
God, she loved him. She cupped his face. “Be safe.”
“And you take it easy on yourself. As in try to get into the slower pace or something.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Don’t worry. Soon enough you’ll be back in your big, crazy city, and this will all be just a bad dream.”
A bad dream. And a good one…She watched him go, heading off into the wild forest willingly. Happily.
Darling, what’s YOUR day long trek?
At her mom’s words in her head, she sighed. The question was valid. What was there in her life that made her as at peace as Spencer had looked just now?
That the answer was a big, fat nothing didn’t help.
God, she was tired of herself. “And you too, mom.” She got back into the truck, taking a quick glance at the lodge as she drove off, wondering what Stone was doing.
Was he still in bed? The bed she’d been in last night, panting his name, leaving nail imprints in his ass—
Above her, the sky opened up with a bright burst of lightning, accompanied by a sonic boom that had her nearly leaping out of her skin. Startled, she jerked to a stop right in the middle of the road. The rain started up again, pummeling the truck in tune to her pounding heart.
She looked out the windshield.
There was nothing on this stretch of road, just trees, trees, and more trees. Oh, and two ditches running alongside.
Her gut clenched but she put the truck back into gear. This weather wouldn’t have stopped Stone, and it wouldn’t stop her either. She hit the gas, but in the past few minutes, the road seemed to have turned into an instant muddy swamp.
Not good.
Tightening both hands on the wheel, she concentrated on staying on the road and not sliding off into either ditch. She was doing good too, but then something hopped out of the driving rain and bounced across the road right in front of her truck. A deer. She hit the brake as the thing vanished into the trees, and the truck’s wheels lost their tenuous grip in the muddy road, slipping, hitting a rut and jerking her off the road—
Right where she didn’t want to be—into one of the ditches.
Chapter 16
Stone drove like a bat out of hell, hoping it wasn’t bad.
“Jesus, man.” TJ tightened his seatbelt. “Slow down. She didn’t say there was a three alarm fire. She said she’d driven into a ditch.”
Stone tried to peer ahead through the fog and rain but visibility was nonexistent. He and TJ had been talking to Cam on iChat, having a grand old time, laughing at Cam’s recollection of him taking Katie zip-lining across the rain forest, and how she’d screamed her way through it.
Then they’d heard Harley on the radio say she was responding to a truck in the ditch between Wishful and the lodge, and Stone had hung up on Cam.
Because there’d only been one truck on that road today—Emma’s. And so no, regardless of the fact that the level headed TJ had a point, Stone didn’t slow down. A mile later, he was glad as he came to a stop just behind Harley, who had pulled up just in front of them.
Emma had indeed gone into the ditch. The truck was grounded on its belly, the front wheels firmly in the muddy ditch, the back wheels no longer touching the ground. Emma stood to one side, out in the driving rain, an arm wrapped around her middle, the other shoving her wet hair out of her eyes
Harley moved toward Emma. “Good one.”
Emma turned and looked at her. “You’re roadside assistance?”
Harley, in a ski cap and coveralls, nodded. “Until I pass my finals,” she said proudly, then turned to look at the truck. “So you’ve introduced yourself to the ditch, up close and personal. Let’s un-introduce you.”
“It got the better of me.”
“Happens to all of us at least once. You hurt?”
“I—” That’s when she noticed Stone and TJ and closed her mouth. Harley turned and looked, caught sight of TJ, and swore. “She called for roadside assistance, not an audience.”
TJ’s usual smile was nowhere in sight. In fact, his scowl matched Harley’s. “We heard the radio call go out and thought maybe you could use some help muscling the truck out of the ditch. We thought maybe you’d appreciate the help.”
“This is my job, Wilder.” Harley accompanied the statement with a finger in TJ’s chest. She was a full foot shorter than him, yet somehow managed to look down her nose at him. “So back off and let me do it.”
TJ lifted his hands in surrender, and looking unaccustomedly irritated, stepped back.
Stone left those two to their tempers and looked at Emma. “Are you really okay?”
“Yeah.”
Behind them, small but mighty, Harley didn’t appear at all daunted by the task ahead of her as she went around to the back of her truck and began to pull out a large set of chains. “If you want to you can wait in the cab of my truck,” she said to Emma. “It’s dry, at least.”
“I’ll help.”
Harley looked over Emma’s pinstriped trousers, silk blouse, and light cashmere sweater. “That would be great, except I think your outfit probably cost more than all of my clothes put together. I’ve got this.” Harley’s sharp eyes narrowed in on what Stone had also narrowed in on—Emma holding her ribs. “Really. You go sit.”