Hit and Run (Save the Date #2)

Chapter 1 Anna

ONE

ANNA

“Ihaven’t had sex in months, Mel! Months!

” I squint my eyes, as if doing so will help me see through the steadily falling snow.

I purse my lips, too. That oughtta help.

And to top it off, I turn the radio down.

Despite the ‘Breaking News!’ alert about a third jewelry store heist in as many weeks, with a suspected trio of bandits now millions of dollars richer than they were this time last month.

I have important things to say, and not a lot of time to say them in, as my phone teeters at a pathetic three percent battery life. “I’m a healthy, needy, twenty-nine-year-old woman, Melanie. I enjoy the chemical benefits one experiences with an orgasm.”

“Anna, I—”

“Dopamine!” I flip my wipers on, shoving the incessant white powder from my windshield. “Oxytocin. Serotonin.”

“You’re just saying words.” My best friend in the entire world, my ride or die, the soon-to-be-bride for whom I’m maid-of-honor for in barely a week’s time, rolls her eyes at me. “You’re not that hard up, Anna. Geez.”

“Endorphins are good for my brain! Sex is considered a full-spectrum workout, did you know that?”

“Of course she knew that.” Nicolas Ramos, that charming, handsome, almost-married fucker, laughs on their end of the line. “Mel knows all about the endorphins, Anna Banana. In fact, she rates her daily full-spectrum workout ten outta ten.”

“Nick!” Mel grunts. She probably hit him. “You can’t say things like—”

“Bragging is not cute, Mr. Ramos.” I glance over at my beeping phone and gulp at the pathetic one percent battery warning. Holding the steering wheel in one hand, I lean across the gearshift and feel around the dark floor for my charger cord.

Instead, I find candy bar wrappers. Empty soda bottles. Deposition files. All the things a normal twenty-nine-year-old woman would keep in her car.

“Boasting typically leads to a nasty case of karma, Nicolas. You’re getting married soon… and you know what they say about married women.”

“What?” He laughs.

I swear, I catch the sound of his lips doing things to Mel’s face.

“What do they say?”

“To stop fighting with my best friend?” Mel growls. Then to me, “To stop bickering with my husband?”

“They say arrogance leads to unmet expectations, and married chicks typically close shop once the marriage license has been filed at the local courthouse. I’m a lawyer; I know all about divorce rates.

There it is!” Triumphantly, I wrap my fingers around the charger cord and straighten in my seat, thrusting my hand into the air.

Swinging my eyes across to my phone with a wide, goofy grin plastered on my face, I open my mouth to add something zing’y and witty to my Nick Ramos smackdown, only to find the screen black and the whole device shut down.

Dead.

“Dammit.” I ignore the radio presenters’ muffled voices as they finish their news piece and transition us across to a dumb Christmas song instead, and steering with my knees—like all intelligent, multi-faceted, millennial women can—I grab my phone and jam the charger cord into the bottom.

Tossing the device down and bringing my focus back to the road, I trade my knees for my hands and lock eyes with a man in the middle of the street.

Then we collide.

With a throat-aching scream piercing the air, I slam my feet to the brake pedal, grip the steering wheel with both hands, and watch, horrified, as the guy flips onto my hood with a world-shifting thump, and over the roof—roll, thud, roll.

Like a sack of fucking potatoes, he bounces off my rear window, clips the trunk, and as my car comes to a skidding stop, the poor sucker crashes to the ground with a stomach-turning thud.

Glowing red all over—Please be red because of my taillights, please be red because of my taillights!—he lies flat on his back, his arms and legs splayed wide, and white fog floating around his body. Please don’t be the holy spirit come to take him away!

Oh. My. God.

Panting frantically, I hear the thunder of my pulse in my ears. Mariah’s song. My engine’s perfect purr. Even my vibrating phone, now that it has power again.

And the man’s groan.

A pained yelp bursts from the depths of my chest, then my brain catches up and propels me into action.

I shove my door open and lunge to the left, only for my still-secure seatbelt to lock me down.

I cry out, desperate and anxious as my hands shake and my heart speeds out of control.

Frenzied, I unsnap my seatbelt and throw it to the side, gasping as the metal buckle smacks the outside frame of my car.

Nausea builds in my throat, bubbling and nasty. Burning and mean.

I don’t know how I manage it, how my knees hold me up, but I stumble onto the otherwise empty road and into falling snow that insists on soaking into my hair.

“Oh my gosh, mister… I’m…” I race toward the man dressed all in black.

Not like Tommy Lee Jones suited from head to toe.

But black pants, a black puffer jacket, a black beanie pulled to his eyebrows, and what may be a black eye, already blossoming on his face.

Shaking, I kneel by the man’s too-still form and place my fingers against his neck. “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.” Why didn’t I pay attention during that first aid course in high school? I blink-blink-blink blinding tears from my eyes. “I can’t find a pulse.”

I shift my fingers and search the road for help. Any ambulances nearby? A medical examiner, maybe?

“M-mister?” I look him up and down and take stock of the mess I made; bleeding nose, gravel-rash from his temple to his jaw, and his left arm, pointed in a direction not entirely copacetic with how I’d expect a normal, functional appendage to go.

“Please don’t be dead,” I moan. “Gen Pop won’t work out for me. ”

He grabs me with lightning-fast reflexes, wrapping his hand around my wrist, and then he moves my fingers about six inches to the left. “Pulse is over here, silly.”

“Agh!” Screaming, I jump to my feet and shake my arm like his grip is a fucking spider on my hand. Still, he’s stronger than me, so he pulls me back down and grunts when my free hand slams to his probably-tender stomach. “Oh my gosh.” I hyperventilate. I wheeze. “Y-you’re alive!?”

“You’re loud.” His forehead wrinkles, visible under the shift of his beanie, then his eyes open—slowly, torturously—revealing a pair not necessarily brown, but not some other color, either.

Which makes no sense at all.

They’re milky and light, like coffee on a Sunday morning with way too much milk added in.

His not-exactly-brown stare scans my face all over, from the top of my mahogany hair, tied in two braids to keep loose strands out of the way, down to my wildly pulsing throat.

I’m going to prison. Probably. “A-are you okay?” I groan. “That was pretty freakin’ bad.”

“You hit me?”

Never admit guilt! Come on, Anna. You know what to do! “Uh…” I swallow the nauseating lump of grossness in my throat. “Y-yeah, I did. But it was an accident.”

His lips curl into a small grin, wrinkled and—surely—moving exclusively because of the shock taking control of his central nervous system.

“Are you an angel?” he murmurs, his words almost a drunken slur.

“I wished for you, which probably makes this one of those Christmas stories where my angel teaches me to be a better man.” He digs his head back and uses the snow as a pillow. “You’re pretty as hell.”

“I’m not an angel!” I yank free of his firm grip and plop onto my butt, bumping his poor ribs as I bring my knees up and rest my elbows on top. “You’re alive. I’m not going to prison.” It’s gonna be fine. It’s fine! “Oh my God. I won’t miss Mel’s wedding.”

“Uh…” He pushes up with his good arm. Fuck me, the other dangles at a wholly unnatural angle. “I understand this is a tough time for you, but I don’t suppose you could set your crisis aside for a sec and pay attention to me, could you?”

“I’m sorry… I…” I drop my legs to the side and bang the poor bastard with my knee. “Shit!”

A pained hiss sprints along his throat.

“I’m sorry!” I spring to my knees, condemning the uncoordinated weapons to the frozen road so I can’t hit him anymore, then I place one hand under his elbow. Good one, Anna! That’ll fix it. “Tell me what you want me to do. Please, could you—”

“I didn’t realize Christmas angels were supposed to drive like they stole a hundred and one Dalmatian puppies.

” With a pained grunt, he twists to the right and places his hand on the ground, his bleeding knuckles becoming beacons amidst the crisp white snow.

He’s a mess of dirty scrapes. Torn jeans.

A bubbling goose egg on his forehead. Oh God.

I’m in so much trouble! “That’s a reckless driving charge,” he moans.

“Even angels’ve gotta follow the law, don’t they? ”

“Ar-are you okay?”

He focuses on his breath for a beat. One in. One out. Another in. Another out. His tongue darts forward, licking his dry lips, then he scrunches his eyes shut and pushes to his knees.

Oh God.

Swaying, he forces his left foot into place. Then the right.

Scrambling up after him, I hold his arm and pray he doesn’t collapse and make this way, way worse. “W-what do…” I swallow the puke-flavored spit lodged in my throat. “What do you want me to do?”

“Not drive like a maniac?” He extends to his full height, straightening his back and expanding his chest. He must be six and a half feet, easily towering over my five-four.

A long line of blood rolls from his nostril, cutting a track over the swell of his lips and through the short stubble under his jaw.

The guy is large. Like, a wounded-bear-in-the-woods large, and I’m the dummy all alone with him on a dark, deserted road.

“Um…” Danger, Will Robinson. Danger! “I-I should get my phone… call an ambulance.” I take a step back and release his injured arm. “If you could just—”

“Argh!” He wraps his meaty palm around my wrist and yanks me back in, his eyes firing with anger. Pain. Fear. Maybe a little impatience. “Fuck!” he groans. “Don’t let it go.”

“But it’s… it’s…” I gulp. “Broken, probably. We need help.”

“Not broken.” He drags my trapped hand along his arm and down to his elbow, wordlessly forcing my palm beneath the point, then bringing my second hand up, he sets it on his bicep.

His extremely muscular bicep. “Hold on tight.” He grits his teeth, the skin around his lips paling despite the liquid ring of red circling the plump swells.

“I’m gonna turn that way.” He pokes his thumb to the right.

“You’re gonna stay really fuckin’ still.

” He pats my bicep-holding hand. “Don’t let go. ”

“But—”

“If you release me halfway through, it’ll be way worse.”

“No, wait—”

“Hold on like your life depends on it.”

“Mister! Stop—”

“Dean.” He flashes a wide, arrogant grin. For just a moment in time, his eyes glitter with kindness. With happiness. Perhaps even a little flirty-ness. “My name’s Dean Warner.”

“Uh…”

“And you are?”

“Anna?” God, why do I say it like a question? “Anna Maxwell.”

He closes one eye, squeezing it tight. “And just so’s I know I’m not seeing things; did you just hit me with a…” He peeks past me and stops those not-brown-eyes on my pride and joy. My baby. My whole life. “A Plymouth Road Runner? Nineteen-sixty-seven?”

“Sixty-nine, actually.” I gulp. “Why?”

“It’s sexy. Now get ready, Anna Maxwell.

” He cups my face with his hand—the one not attached to a bum arm—stunning me into silence and stroking my cheek like it’s entirely normal to do such a thing with someone you met literally three seconds ago.

“Don’t let go of my arm. And don’t call an ambulance.

” He draws a long, noisy breath in preparation. “I’ll walk this off once we’re done.”

“What? Wait!”

He spins, his roar matching my scream, and the deafening POP of his arm slipping back into its socket echoing amongst the trees. Then he drops to his knees, his face turning a nasty shade of green. “Fuck.” He presses one hand to the snow and heaves. “Gonna take a nap for a sec. Back soon.”

“No, wait—”

Splat!

He face-plants onto the road with a pained grunt.