Page 4 of Promised Adventure
“We can get your van off the side of the road, and I can take a look at it in the morning if you want. I’m not a professional, but I know a thing or two about vehicles. You can stay the night in my guest room, and we’ll get you all sorted out tomorrow morning.”
He hesitated, and the protective side of me was proud that he didn’t immediately accept a stranger’s offer. I didn’t have bad intentions toward him, but that couldn’t be said for the next stranger who extended him help.
I let him trust his gut and think it over. A part of me wanted him to say no so I was reassured he wasn’t the type of guy who’d carelessly accept help from just anyone, but the other part of me hoped he’d agreed so I’d have the peace of mind knowing he wasn’t sleeping in his cold van right outside my property. Based on how he was bundled up, I’d dare say he had no heating source inside his van, and the temperatures were pretty nippy tonight.
Those wide eyes peered up at me, probably trying to judge my character. I wondered what he saw. A gruff giant of a man wholooked like shit from the lack of sleep and overwork these past few weeks from scrambling to secure this project?
I scratched my unkempt beard self-consciously. It’d grown out longer than I preferred, and the coarse, curly hair tickled my palm.
Finally, the man nodded and said, “If you’re sure it’s not an inconvenience?—”
“It’s not an inconvenience,” I immediately answered, though there were a hundred other things I should be doing tomorrow instead of agreeing to help a stranger with his van. Now, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more.
“Okay, then. Thank you,” he said, his face lighting up with a smile that was almost too blinding in the darkness. It did something to my chest.
Stir up the heartburn from overworking, maybe?
“I’m Wren,” he said suddenly with his hand outstretched.
“Jordan,” I grumbled and accepted the handshake.
This man matched his name perfectly. His small frame and even the way he spoke carried a musical lilt that tickled my ears in a pleasant way.
As our hands touched and a tiny tingle of electricity flowed through me, I knew there was a lot more to this man than the eye could see.
Chapter Three
WREN
One thing you had to learn fast in foster care was how to judge people correctly, and I’d say I was decent at seeing a person’s character.
It was the same the first time I wandered into Sweet Buns and met Caleb. Something inside of me told me that Caleb wasgood, and that was the reason I’d applied for a job there. And now I got the same feeling when Jordan made his offer. My gut hadn’t steered me wrong so far, so I decided to trust it again.
Jordan quickly hooked Marge to the back of his truck. I felt bad that I mostly stood there and watched instead of helping, but honestly, holding the flashlight up for him was probably the only thing I could do without being a hindrance.
Afterward, I hopped into his truck as he towed me and my van a few feet down the road I’d been stranded on. True to his word, a mailbox was hidden, almost out of view, right until Jordan turned onto a small path beside it.
“I thought I was at least an hour’s walk away from anyone else out here. I can’t believe my car broke down right outside your property,” I spoke absentmindedly. “Do you live out here all by yourself?”
“I do, but my brother’s property is adjacent to mine just over there.”
He pointed in a direction to his left, but all I saw were thick shadows of trees.
“You have just enough nature separating your houses so you’re not right under each other’s noses, huh?”
That earned me a soft noise that sounded like a mixture of a snort and a chuckle. I glanced over to study his profile.
He was a giant of a man, who’d easily towered over my five-foot-eight, with a scraggly, curly beard covering half of his face. That, along with the deep, dark circles under his eyes, told me this man desperately needed rest, but even still, the exhaustion on him couldn’t mask his highly rugged handsomeness.
A few minutes later, Jordan parked outside a little cabin. I should be worried this was a horror movie in the making. I mean, c’mon, a dark cabin in the woods? But the place I assumed was his home had none of the foreboding feelings of a crime scene waiting to happen. Instead, it was more charming than anything else.
When we pulled up, the cabin’s automatic lighting system highlighted the gorgeous porch that wrapped around the entire cabin.
I was admiring the place and the work that had to have gone into it when Jordan suddenly appeared beside me.
“You want to get anything out of your van?” he asked and gestured to where he’d already unhooked Marge from his truck.
I quickly went to retrieve my most important item—my vlogging camera—and my backpack, which had mytoiletry bag and a change of clothes.
