Page 4 of Fallen Angel
Once more, his gaze traveled over her. Then he angled his head as he looked through her windshield at the smoke rising from her engine, visible even in the downpour. “How long have you been here?” His deep voice sent chills up her spine.
“Ten minutes,” she said nervously.
“Then you still have a long wait. Pop your hood. Let me take a look. If I can get you back on the road, I will; otherwise, I can take you to the nearest garage.”
She gazed into his deep-set, blue eyes. He had a tan complexion, a broad forehead, a strong angular jaw-line, and full, wide lips. God, how she wanted to say yes to him. She had no desire to stay out on the roadway another moment. Still, even gorgeous men could be serial killers.
“Damn it,” she cursed under her breath.
His lips lifted in a sideways smile. “What was that? I didn’t catch what you said.”
She held her tongue a moment longer and continued to meet his gaze, but despite his breathtaking eyes and her desperate, not to mention already dangerous, circumstance, her fear won out, as always. “No…no, thank you,” she stammered.
He lifted a thick, black brow at her. “You know you could get killed out here, right?”
Damn the sluggish and half-assed roadside assistance people!
She swallowed. “I appreciate your concern.”
He looked at her for another moment before he shrugged. “If you change your mind before I’m out of ear shot, beep your horn.” He walked slowly back to his car as if to give her the chance to come to her senses. But all too soon, her would-be savior climbed into his Jeep and drove off.
Dammit! Come back here, she wanted to scream.
She sat there under the constant battery of rain and traffic for another fifteen minutes before the police showed up. At first, the officer told her she couldn’t park there. Again, she was forced to swallow the words—no shit. Instead, she explained her car wouldn’t start and roadside assistance was on the way. The cop looked at her sternly before returning to his car.
Her knuckles somehow blanched even whiter from her grip on the wheel. Was he going to write her a ticket? Was it somehow illegal to break down on the Zakim? She waited, watching the officer, her whole body beginning to ache from the tension. Then flashing blues caught her eye in the rearview. Another cop had pulled up behind her. She watched through her mirror, waiting for the officer to step out of the car, but he stayed put. She realized then that she had earned a police barricade for breaking down on the busy bridge. Her shoulders eased a little. She closed her eyes and rested her head back. What felt like hours later, though in reality was less than ten minutes, a tow truck slowed alongside her car. Now, two of the four lanes of north moving traffic were taken up—all because of her and her crappy car.
“This is humiliating,” she muttered as she watched the traffic slow to a crawl on the far-left lanes.
She held her breath, wishing for the tall man with the gray hoodie to jump down from the tow truck, but instead an older, ungainly man started toward her. He was certainly tall, but she likely out-weighed him with her one hundred and thirty pounds. Despite the police presence and the choir of car horns, the man walked sluggishly toward her. She glanced at the nametag on his loose, grey jumpsuit as she leaned forward and popped the hood. “Please, let Larry start my car,” she prayed to God, the universe—anyone who might hear the desperate plea of a girl whose checking account was overdrawn. Then she stepped from the car.
“Pop the hood,” Larry barked at her over the rain, horns, brakes, and sirens. The scent of salt and vinegar chips on his breath assailed her senses, overpowering even the stink of exhaust and oil.
“I already did,” she said lamely, wishing she was anywhere else in the world.
“That dump shouldn’t be on the road,” some asshole shouted as he slowly cruised by, while Larry disappeared beneath her hood with a portable jump starter.
“No shit!” she yelled after him, unable to stop herself. But she paid for her outburst. Immediately, her anxiety worsened. She fought the urge to climb into the backseat of her unworthy car to hide from the world.
A couple minutes later, the tow truck driver motioned for her to come over. “Gonna have to bring it in. Grab your things. You can ride in my truck.”
She could barely see his eyes through the thick lenses of his rain-splattered glasses. She grabbed her bag and dashed from her car to the passenger side of his truck and pulled herself up into the seat. After her car was secured behind them, her less-than-dashing hero climbed in next to her. One of the cops held back the traffic to let them in.
Finally, she and her car were getting off the bridge.
“Which one?” the driver asked.
She cut him a sidelong glance, noticing that he had not cleared the raindrops from his glasses. Resisting the urge to ask him if he could even see the road, she asked, “Which one…what?”
“Which garage?”
She chewed her lip and looked down, for the first-time noticing her foot was on an empty bag of chips—the source of the offensive smell that was twice as potent inside the cab of the truck. She forced herself to forget the odor and her ever increasing anxiety over how much it was going to cost to fix her car, to think about the man’s question.
She liked the guys a couple blocks down from her apartment. It was where she always went to get her oil changed. The manager was cute and nice and never made her feel like a moron because she didn’t know what a piston was. But she certainly wasn’t going to ask Larry to tow her car to Dorchester.
“Umm…the closest. Right, because the longer you drive the more I pay?” she asked.
“That’s how it works.”
