Page 144 of Sweet Temptation

“Because we’re on the wrong road. You need to turn around,” Summer informed me.

I was afraid she was right. I didn’t like her being right about this, even if it was her fault we were lost. “Where did I miss the junction?”

“I don’t know. You’re driving.”

Worst navigator ever.

“Andre?” she said, like she was waiting for him to pipe up in her defense.

“I’m staying out of this one,” he said, for once sensing when to keep his mouth shut. He was probably too busy white-knuckling it in the backseat to argue with us.

We bottomed out on another gnarly pothole and I decided to slow down to a barely moving crawl. “I’m turning around.” I started to turn left to pull a U-turn; it would probably take a ten-point turn on the narrow road.

The left front tire loped into a nasty hole. I gave it gas and steered us out.

We’d barely got traction again on the actual road when we dropped into another one. There was a sick crunch of metal, and since we were now twisted across the road at an awkward angle, we got stuck.

“Are we stuck?” Summer said.

“We’re not stuck.” I gave it gas again, flooring it, and we rolled up out of the hole, tires spitting gravel. “See, we’re—”

My voice was drowned out by an ugly crunch, a squeal-groan of metal on metal… and a strange thunking feeling. The whole car shook with it.

We came to a dead stop.

I tapped the gas, tentatively, and nothing happened. Tires spun in gravel, the car groaned, and we went nowhere.

“Holy Jesus,” Summer said.

“Bro,” Andre said. “What happened?”

I put the car in park.

“Well, this is gonna cost me,” Summer muttered.

“I’ll pay for it,” I grit out.

Andre was already climbing out of the back. “Hang on. I’ll check it out.” He went around the front of the car. He stood in the headlight beams, leaning down to look under the front of the car, as I asked myself where my life had gone so fucking wrong.

One minute you’re retiring your services as a bodyguard and heading home to your quiet, empty apartment with your cold, dead heart neatly intact… and the next you’re trying to play hero to a woman who staunchly refuses to want to need you, and would rather get stuck on a remote road in the dark in the middle of God-knew-where than actually listen when you advise her not to come here in the first place.

Andre strolled back to my window, taking his time. That didn’t seem like a good sign.

I didn’t even want to ask. “How’s it look?”

“Well, one tire is like this.” He held his hand up, vertically. “And the other one is like this.” He held his other hand parallel to the first one—then tilted it at a forty-five degree angle. “I’m not really a car guy but I’m assuming that’s bad.”

“You’re telling me,” I growled, “we broke the fucking axle?”

Beside me, Summer sighed.

I engaged the emergency brake and got out of the car. I wasn’t really a “car guy” myself, as in I probably couldn’t fix one on the side of the road if there was anything worse than a flat tire, but that obviously wasn’t good.

“What’s this we?” Summer demanded, getting out of the car. She came over and joined us at the front, hunkering down to look under the car with us. “You broke the axle.”

“You said you know this route like the back of your hand.”

“It’s a logging road,” she said. “Did you or did you not ‘grow up on the west coast of Canada’? You have to slow down,” she enunciated, like she was speaking to a young and very unintelligent child. Then she stood up and muttered, “Advanced driving skills, my ass.”

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