Page 1 of No One But You

Chapter 1

Kora

“What the fuck?” The familiar ride down the back country road turned into bumpy, out-of-control chaos as my car, which was perfectly fine a second ago, suddenly swerved and veered all over the road.

I slid to the shoulder, jammed my foot on the brake, and slammed the gearshift into park. “Damn county roads filled with potholes the size of craters. When are they finally going to pave these terrible pieces of shit?” I slammed my hand on the steering wheel, opened the door, flung the rhetorical question into the open field, and jumped out of the car. Someone had to inspect the tires.

As I suspected. Front passenger tire. Flat. As a pancake.

I stood with my hands on my hips and kicked the now worthless tire. “Dammit. I’m gonna be late for my hair appointment.” With a strong exhale, I reached into the back seat of my SUV and grabbed my phone. I needed to let Summer know I’d be late.

My phone rang and rang, but no answer. “Dammit, Summer.” I clicked the call end button and sent a text to my best friend for life, Darlene. She would be at the salon. Her son James had spent the night with his grandma, who was also my aunt, Tonya. Tonya—I don’t use the aunt—spent her Saturdays bothering her best friends who own the salon, so Darlene was meeting her at Shear Perfection.

She could give Summer a message.

I was staring off over the pasture and watching cows munch the grass when the phone notified me of an incoming text.

I glanced at my phone. “What the hell?” It wasn’t Darlene. It was a text informing me my last message wasn’t sent. I gritted my teeth as my face heated, and it wasn’t because of the humid morning we were already dealing with this late in May. It was my skyrocketing blood pressure. Who wanted to be stuck on the side of the road in Bumfuck, Egypt, and in this heat?

I stalked around the car, held my phone high, and gave it an evil eye. Still no bars. Of course not.

“Dammit!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. There was nothing around. Nothing. Except birds, cows, and a rabbit hopping across the field.

The cows stopped munching the grass, and the rabbit even stopped hopping to stare. “What? Am I bothering your busy day?”

“Moo,” the cow responded as he chewed his cud without a care in the world, and the rabbit hopped off.

“See? I figured as much.” I trudged to the rear of my black Nissan Rogue and opened the hatch to get to the spare as a memory hit me.

Shit.

I wouldn’t see a tire unless I got lucky and my father had helped me out. I lifted the floor panel slowly and squeezed my eyes tight. As soon as the panel was all the way up, I wedged my eyes open slowly, hoping I would see a tire where the spare tire should be. I stared into the abyss of the undercarriage and no such luck. It was empty.

Last December, I went out Christmas shopping and needed more storage for all the gifts I was going to purchase. I had a feeling they wouldn’t all fit in the back seat and trunk. Yeah, I know it was a little overkill, but my cousin, Bryson, is married to Darlene, and they have the cutest little boy, James. I can never say no to him, so to make sure I had the space, I took the spare tire out of the car—who uses it anyway—and had more space to stash presents.

I glanced up at the cloudless blue sky and at the sun already shining hot and bright at nine in the morning and shook my head. I could hear my father discussing—as he never yelled—all the reasons why taking the spare tire out of the car was a bad idea. I could also hear him reminding me to put the tire back in the car “in case of an emergency, and you hit one of the many potholes on the county roads.”

“Damn, I always knew he was able to see the future.” I slammed the hatch closed and peeked at my phone again. Still no bars. This was the one dead zone between my place and downtown, and I was about ten miles away from the nearest house.

I could walk. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d walked the roads to town.

The air was getting thick with humidity, and sweat had already formed at the nape of my neck. I pulled my hair up in a high ponytail, leaned in the car, and plucked the emergency scrunchy from around the gear shift.

This was an emergency.

My stringy, straight, auburn hair would get nasty quick. I twisted the ponytail into a loose bun on top of my head, leaned against the hood of the car, and sighed.

It was so damn hot—desert hot.

If this was any indication of what kind of summer we were going to have in Tennessee this year, I’d better be prepared for anything, and in this moment, I was so not prepared. I left in a rush this morning, running late as usual, and didn’t grab a water bottle or even a second cup of coffee. Death by dehydration suddenly became a possibility, and walking the ten miles to the nearest house was out of the question. “Where am I gonna get water?” The brown cow who had his head in the grass munching next to the electrified fence stopped pulling up grass, gave me a glance, and went back to munching.

How rude. “Fine. Don’t share your water source, cow. See if I sacrifice my hunger next time I’m at a barbecue and have a choice between a burger or chicken. I promise you. I’m eating that burger.”

The cow eyed me with disdain.

God, I must have really been losing my mind to be arguing with a cow. Maybe dehydration didn’t take as long as I’d thought.

A loud, rumbly growl, along with the sound of gravel crunching, caught my attention. “Wonderful. Help from the calvary. No thanks to you, cow!” Yeah, I hollered at the cow. It was hot, he was rude, and I was thirsty.

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