Page 52 of Big Daddy Mountain Man

“You beat me to it, princess. I was going to say that. But I love you, too.”

She blew him a kiss that he caught and put on his lips.

Amber just giggled and watched Daddy drive away.

After two more hours of elbow grease, the inside of the Collier cabin was looking even better.

“Still a long way to go,” she told Honey and Jazzie. “But we’re getting there.”

The stuffies grinned at her.

Amber’s eyes fell past the end table where they sat and all the way to the front wall. There, hanging on a peg beside the door, was the key to the truck.

“Oh, I really shouldn’t take that thing out for a test spin.”

The stuffies didn’t argue with her. But they didn’t try to talk her out of what she was thinking, either.

“I don’t really know how to drive,” she pointed out to no one in particular. “But how hard can it be? I mean, I remember that driver’s ed course. And it was all going to come back to me the other day had I been given more of a chance. I can’t help that the truck went crazy.”

She already had the keys in her hand before she even realized it. Honey and Jazzie were scooped into her arms, too.

“Sawyer said it was all fixed. What’s the harm in taking it out for a little test drive? Come on!”

A few minutes later, she was in the barn with her stuffies strapped in the passenger seat.

“We always buckle up,” she announced as she put her own seatbelt on. “Safety first.”

A voice deep inside told her she shouldn’t be doing this. She silenced it, though.

What was the harm?

With that in mind, she fired up the engine and grinned at the sound of it roaring to life.

“Sounds great! He really fixed it up,” she told Honey and Jazzie. “Hang on.”

She revved the engine several times, not knowing if she should or not. Seemed like she’d heard older vehicles needed that to get warmed up, but she didn’t actually know if that was true.

“Let’s go,” she said.

This time around, the vehicle didn’t lurch and chug. Instead, it ran smoothly and she was able to pull out of the barn with only a few touch-and-go incidents, but those were due to her lack of driving experience rather than any car trouble.

She kept her pace measured as she ventured further into the field.

“Not bad at all,” she said. “I don’t really need lessons.”

A quick glance at Honey and Jazzie confirmed that they were alright with her driving abilities.

“What’s that?” Amber asked, taking her eyes off the field for a moment to see what Sawyer had left in the passenger-side floorboard. “I hope he doesn’t need it.”

She couldn’t make out what it was and she sure wasn’t about to deliver it to him. He probably wouldn’t be happy if he knew she was driving. Besides, she didn’t know where on his property he was working. And while she was impressed with her driving skills, she wasn’t ready to go on mountain roads!

Whatever he’d left on the floor was rolling around.

“I better secure that before it gets damaged,” she said, bringing the pickup to a halt in the middle of the pasture. “Hang on, Honey and Jazzie. Just let me reach—shit! Shit! Snake!”

She had the wherewithal to grab the stuffies and pull them out of the still- fastened seatbelt before she jumped out of the truck.

Profanity and shrieks of terror poured from her mouth as she ran as far away from the vehicle as possible.

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