Page 72 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
A vehicle approached, and a moment later a door slammed.
“Are you ladies okay?”
I craned my head around to see the driver of the farm pickup hurrying to us. The thick-waisted elderly man with a beard as gray as the flannel of his shirt wore a look of extreme concern.
“We’re okay!” I called through another batch of laughing tears. “We’re okay.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” he said, slowing his run with a look of relief. He waddled right up to my window and peered inside. “Ma’ams. You young ladies sure you’re okay?”
“Right as rain,” Charlene said, letting out a big sigh.
“Mmmm.” The farmer looked back across the intersection. “I saws the whole thing. Blasted kids and their giant pickups. No need for such huge things. Killing machines, they is. Probably didn’t even see you. Just racing off to wherever, uncaring of everyone around them. How unlucky that you hit that oil patch in the middle of the road there right when it came along.”
“Yeah. Very unlucky,” I said, thinking back to my arrival in town, when a red pickup had cut me off the road then too.
Once was a coincidence, but twice? My warning sense had gone off long before the truck appeared. Had this been on purpose? Was someone trying to kill me?
“We’d have been far more unlucky if Sylvie here didn’t possess a sixth sense,” Charlene said, patting my arm. “You braked right before that truck cut us off. If you hadn’t …”
I smiled awkwardly, trying to play it off as casual. “Maybe my subconscious saw the oil spill or thought I was going too fast. I don’t know, but I’ll take it. That’s for sure!”
“Me too,” Charlene agreed with a smile. Her eyes lingered on me for a second.
Did she know? How could she? I had been very careful to conceal my talent. Did she think I was a freak now?
“I’ll call you a tow,” the farmer said. “Get you out of here.”
I looked around. The situation wasn’t as dire as it had seemed in the moment.
“Do I need it?” I asked. The engine was still running. “I might be able to back up onto the road.”
“You took quite a jolt when you went up over the curb,” the farmer pointed out.
“I know.” I didn’t have a lot of money. “If I can drive it there, though, it’ll save me a tow.”
“True.”
The farmer backed up, and after tearing up a bit of grass, I turned the wheel and one of them caught on the curb. The car bounced hard again as it came back down onto the asphalt, but all in all, it still worked.
“You should really take it to a mechanic. I know a good guy, Mike, he’s got a little shop over on Elm.”
“I know the place,” Charlene said. “I can show her where it is.”
“Don’t put it off. You might do more damage if you wait,” he admonished.
“I promise, I will,” I said with a smile.
“And you’re sure both of you young ladies are okay?” His gray-green eyes were heavy with concern. “That was quite the scare.”
“We’re tougher than we look,” Charlene said with a big wink.
The farmer smiled and waved us a good day as I reversed the car across the intersection, unblocking it for the two other vehicles that had come along since, both occupants looking at us curiously as they went past.
“I don’t know about you,” I said once I was parked alongside the curb. “But I need some wine with those groceries now. Maybe a tub of ice cream.”
Charlene nodded. “Girl, I’m getting whatever you’re getting. We’re in this shit together!”
I smiled and put the car in gear, carefully ignoring the slight grinding noise as it shifted into first. I was really happy to be reconnecting with Charlene, an unexpected gift from a trip that had started out so badly.
