Page 4 of Mechanic's Charming Bride

The hood is hot to the touch as I pry it open and turn the prop rod to keep it open. Smoke pours out, practically choking me as I wave my hands around my face.

I’m no car expert, but I’m pretty sure engines aren’t supposed to do that.

Gathering up my long skirts, I wobble over to the other side of the car and slip my upper half in through the window to retrieve my phone.

Looking at the time, I’m surprised that I’ve been on the road for more than an hour. Checking my phone, I see that I’ve got a ton of missed calls and texts from my family and from Frank.

My heart squeezes as I scroll through the texts my dad sent, all of them asking if I’m okay and where I’m at.

I feel bad about ditching without telling him, but I couldn’t run the risk of running into Frank or his mother and getting talked into walking down the aisle when I damn well knew that doing so would end in regret.

Typing out a quick apology to my dad, I tap ‘send’ and wait for the icon to stop spinning. But it doesn’t. After staring at my phone for a good minute, I pull down on the drop-down menu and notice that I’ve got absolutely zero coverage.

“Fuck me…” I mumble.

Now what?

Moving around to the backside of my car, I look up and down the long stretch of highway and see literally nothing.

What kind of people don’t travel on a Sunday?!

Did I manage to drive myself all the way out to farm country?

Fear starts to settle in my bones.

Breathing out slowly, I reason with myself. Someone has to drive this way at some point, right? I can flag them down and ask them to take me back into whatever town’s close by and call my dad from there.

But what if they don’t?

I groan and move back around to the front of my car where the engine is still smoking.

Maybe the smoke signal can signal a nearby helicopter passing by…

Just then, I spot something in the distance. Peering around it, I notice a car coming towards me.

“Oh, thank God.” I mutter and quickly hook the ends of my train up to the bustier in the back. Now it’s no longer dragging on the ground or having to be thrown over my arm like some kind of ridiculous fur wrap.

After slipping my phone back into my pocket, I move around to the other side of my car and begin to jump up and down and wave.

“Hey!! Over here!!”

As the vehicle grows closer, I can see the shape of it—unmistakably a tow truck.

What are the chances! Maybe today’s luck is really starting to look up.

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.

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