Page 3 of Break My Fall

But her relationship status, or lack thereof, wasn’t a pressing issue. She was stuck on the side of the road in a dead Sprinter van with no cell service. It was January, and it was cold as whiz. Not that she had any idea what that meant. But that’s what she’d always heard. “Cold as whiz” meant that things were freezing.

Like her nose. And fingertips.

Both of which she needed. And her gloves weren’t in her coat pocket. Where were they?

She rested her head on the steering wheel. This was not how the day was supposed to go. Not at all.

The crunch of gravel on the road behind her pulled her to an upright position. A quick glance revealed flashing lights. A frisson of fear trickled through her until a closer look settled her. This was a Gossamer Falls patrol car.

She was safe.

Then Grayson Ward climbed from the vehicle and stalked toward her.

Maybe not.

Grayson Ward took his time approaching Meredith’s van. He had questions.

So many questions.

But the first one, the one that mattered the most, was answered when she opened her door and hopped out.

Something inside him settled at the sight of her. Uninjured, but with blue eyes flashing. He braced himself for what she would say.

Meredith Quinn wasn’t a petite woman. She was five-seven and there was nothing that would compel him to try to guess her weight. She owned a shirt that said, “You can tell I work out but also love pizza,” and that seemed like a perfect description. She had plenty of muscle, and she loved to go hiking, but there was also a softness about her—particularly in her face—that many people found compelling.

Not that any of that softness was directed toward him at the moment. “Are you following me? Did you put a tracker on my van?” She’d walked closer as she talked and now stood just a foot away. “How did you find me?”

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Why are you on the side of the road?” He had no idea how or why, but his question took the fight right out of her.

“I don’t know!” she all but wailed. “Everything was fine. I was cruising toward home, thinking about how my uncle Craig taught me to drive on this road, and then”—she reached back and patted her van—“Flossy started acting funny.”

Flossy? She’d named her van Flossy? “Define funny.”

“She jerked a few times. At first I thought something was in the fuel line.” She wrinkled her nose. “But now I’m wondering if something is wrongwiththe fuel line. Do you smell that?”

“Oh yeah.” He’d noticed it as soon as he got out of his car. “Smells like diesel.”

“Yes! And that makes no sense. I had a full tank before I left town this morning. I always fill up right before I come because”—she flung a hand toward her van—“getting stuck on the side ofthe road in the mountains is never a good idea.” She patted the van again. “At least it’s broad daylight.”

“Not a fan of the dark?” Gray attempted to keep his tone neutral.

“Not a fan of being outside alone in the dark. There are critters. Big ones. Small ones. I prefer to keep my distance from all of them.”

“Understood.” Gray looked at the van, then back to Meredith. “You keep an eye on the road. I’m going to see if I can figure out why you’re losing fuel.”

Gray removed his duty belt and laid it in his cruiser.

“Why aren’t you in your Explorer?” He never drove a regular Gossamer Falls cruiser.

“Because”—he grabbed a flashlight from the car and returned to her van—“my Explorer needed new tires.” Then he lay on his back and shimmied his body between the ground and the underside of the van. This was going to be the end of the shirt he was wearing. He managed to wait until he was well and truly under the van to ask, “Who needed their teeth cleaned so urgently this morning that you couldn’t wait for me to come with you?”

The silence that greeted him told him he’d done a lousy job in his attempt to be calm.

Shoes—completely impractical shoes—appeared in his line of sight. “For your information, itwasurgent. And it didn’t require your professional presence. I wasn’t hosting a clinic. It’s my day off, but Mrs. Frost called me at home at six thirty this morning. She had a toothache that had kept her up all night. She’s eighty-seven and everyone knows she shouldn’t be driving anywhere under any circumstances. Speaking of which, can’t you take her license? Isn’t that in your job description?”

Gray slid the flashlight between his teeth and found the fuel tank. “Not my jurisdiction.”

The words were garbled, but she must have understood because she responded, “Gotcha. And that means Kirby should do it, but he’s not going to do anything he doesn’t have to do. Mrs. Frost would probably swat him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper if he tried. She doesn’t suffer fools.”

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