Chapter 3 #2
The inside of this car is a lot smaller than it looks.
I’m not sure how I’m going to get out now, to be honest. I can barely move my legs, let alone bend them enough to fit without feeling stuck.
My arms are crumpled up in front of me, shoulders hunched, and my chest nearly bumps up against the steering wheel.
“Contortion not your strong suit?” she jokes between bursts of laughter.
I lift my chin to scowl in her direction, but the top of my head smacks against the roof interior, earning me a few more uncontrollable giggles.
“Fuck this,” I mumble, blindly reaching for the keys while attempting to unfold myself out of the sad excuse of a vehicle.
“I should have got a picture of that. You looked like a full-grown grizzly bear trying to fit through a hollow tree trunk.”
I stare at her as she smiles with her perfect top row of teeth gleaming through the thick-falling snow. The stab in my chest after witnessing her amusement feels weird. I don’t get caught off guard by beautiful women. Usually.
But she’s something. I swallow hard, looking away from her and rubbing the side of my neck.
“So, what do we do now?”
My brows furrow. “We?”
She blushes, a light pink creeping across her cheeks. “I mean—what do I do now? It’s going to be completely dark soon. If my car doesn’t work . . . I don’t even know where I’m at, my phone has no service, I—”
She’s rambling. I run my hand over the side of my face, realizing the moisture is already beginning to freeze on the tips of my beard.
We probably shouldn’t stand out here much longer.
I can handle it, but her bottom lip is turning a shade of blue instead of the plump red I noticed when I first helped her off the ground.
“I could chance it,” she sighs. There’s not much confidence behind her words as she tries to conjure the right solution.
“Your fuel line’s fucked up and needs replaced. Could be something else, but that’s my guess. And the roads are just going to keep getting worse, even if you could drive it.”
“Okay.” She draws out the word. “Is there a hotel or something nearby?”
I shake my head.
“Maybe you could take me to the closest—”
I shake my head again, cutting her off before she gets too attached to the idea of going anywhere at all.
It’s not that I want to keep her here. I would have liked nothing more than to be alone all weekend.
I don’t like people encroaching on my space, no matter how pretty they might be.
I’m just not sure there’s any other possible option.
The thought of her staying at my house with nowhere else to go until the storm lets up makes me shove a hand in my pocket and shift my weight from one leg to the other.
I turn my head to look up the driveway. It’s long, and you can’t see the cabin from here, but I squint toward it anyway.
“No. Hell no,” she scoffs. “I won’t be staying with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I shrug a single shoulder, not looking forward to convincing her that it’s her only choice that doesn’t involve dying. Turning my attention back to her, our eyes meet.
“You said you don’t have cell service, right?”
“Probably shouldn’t have admitted that,” she mumbles.
I nod. “And your car’s beat to shit,” I point out.
Her shoulders drop, and she closes her eyes in frustration. “It’s not beat to shit. It’s just out of commission at the moment.”
“Right. Well, I don’t want you to be at my house any more than you want to. But I’m not about to leave you out here to freeze to death.”
She covers her eyes and takes a deep breath.
“What’s it going to be?” I ask.
She finally looks up at me, and after a minute-long staring contest, her teeth begin to chatter, and she nods in reluctant acceptance.
I’d let her think over it a little longer if we weren’t standing outside right now, but I’m not in the mood to keep talking while we’re in the middle of a damn blizzard.
I pocket her keys and walk toward her car to peer into the back seat.
“Got anything you need to bring with you?”
Soft crunches of snow follow me, and she answers my question while opening the driver’s side door and leaning in to pull a lever. “In the trunk.”
“Surely you don’t need to bring all of these for one night. Pick one,” I say with one hand resting on the top of the trunk. She moves to stand next to me as we stare at the pile of luggage.
“I need all of them,” she states with an edge of sass.
Not having the energy to argue, I get to work on carrying each one thousand-pound bag into the back seat of my truck. At least one of the five is relatively light. What’s packed into the rest of them, bricks?
“Be careful with those!” she squeals as I shove another one across the back seat.
When they’re finally loaded and I slam the door shut, I sigh and start thinking of all the ways I can possibly get her back to town first thing in the morning.
“Wait.”
“Shit,” I say as I almost run right into her. I had no idea she was standing so close behind me. “What now?”
“Please don’t be a serial killer. I know self-defense, but you’re too big to tackle. Just . . . promise you won’t lure me to your house to murder me. I have a really important event next month. I’ve been waiting for it for years and I have to be alive to attend. Obviously.”
I twist my expression and let out a huff. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Promise?”
The urge to roll my eyes is strong, but I understand that a woman isn’t being difficult by questioning a stranger.
I wouldn’t tell the truth if I did plan on killing her, but maybe some verbal reassurance will make her feel better.
I look her straight in the eye and lean forward for added effect. “I promise that I will not kill you.”
She narrows her eyes, studying me carefully, as if she can detect whether or not I’m telling the truth. I reach my hand toward her, and she backs away at first.
“Ledger.”
Her eyes soften as she realizes that I’m trying to introduce myself. A beat passes before she slides her palm into mine. She grips it firmly, and we shake on it.
“Izzy.”
We hold hands—I mean, shake hands, for long enough that the center of my palm begins to warm up. It isn’t until a gust of wind blows the hood off of her head that we each pull our hands back to our sides.
“Do we need to push it out of the way or can you get around my car with your truck?”
“I think there’s enough room to get past it,” I reply while walking around the front of my truck, jumping in, and turning on the passenger side seat heater for her.
I roll the window down when she doesn’t hop in after a few seconds. The look on her face has fear written all over it.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She nods, slowly, and I reach over the center console to open the door.
“Get in the damn truck before you freeze, Izzy.”
She whispers, twisting her hands in front of her, “Okay.”