Page 3 of Love, Lies and Sleigh Rides
“I’d say,” he said when he spotted the problem. “You’re going to need a tow.”
She nodded since she’d already come to this conclusion.
“Where are you headed?” He pulled his phone from his pocket, not looking at her, and pulled off a glove to poke at the screen. His hand was tanned.
“Hendricks. For a meeting.”
“Do you want the bad news or the worse news?” He put the phone to his ear.
Fallon looked skyward in exasperation. Of course there was no good news. She shrugged.
“The bad news is Bart is probably backed up until Sunday pulling people out.”
“Bart?”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes but instead some distant point over her shoulder. “Bart Oltman. He owns the garage in Hendricks.”
Understandable, but it didn’t make standing out here in the freezing cold any easier. “And the worse news?”
“I’m guessing you have a bent tire rod under there. And I’d bet Bart doesn’t have one of those laying around.” He scanned the sky. “Weather like this? It’ll be a few days at least before he gets the parts from Duluth.”
Dread seeped into her already frozen bones. “Days?”
“Hope you were planning to stick around for a while.”
“I wasn’t.”
He finally looked at her, a passing glance, before he took the phone away from his ear and punched in some more numbers.
“I can give you a ride into Bart’s. At least you can wait inside where it’s warm.”
Her fingers were already going numb. She’d forgotten her gloves on the dash.
“I’d appreciate that.”
Fallon heaved a sigh as she made her way back down the embankment to her car to grab her valuables and lock it. Meanwhile, her good Samaritan got back into his truck to wait for her.
But when she opened the passenger door of his truck, Fallon scrutinized the impossibly high seat from where she stood. There was no way her wool skirt would allow her to climb up there without hiking the thing up to her hips again.
Her face flamed. “This is really embarrassing.”
He leaned over, cocking his ear toward her as he held on to the balloons by their trailing silver strings. “Excuse me?”
“Can you look away for a second? I can’t get into the truck without…not…I have to lift my skirt a little.”
Despite her mortification Fallon almost laughed at the look on his face. His attention diverted to her lap momentarily before he jerked upright, his eyes popping, and turned away so abruptly there was athudwhen his forehead met the driver’s side window.
“Tell me when,” he croaked.
Fallon checked the road before she inched up the skirt. Luckily, there was a handlebar to grab, but the truck was still ridiculously high even with the running board to give her a boost.
“Almost there.” She fell across the seat while looking for something to pull herself upright again. Her legs flailed while her feet struggled to find footing somewhere inside the truck.
I can’t even think about how I look right now.
Thankfully, this guy was true to his word. He was as far against his door as he could go, still looking through the window.
Finally, her foot found the space under the glove compartment and she braced herself there while pulling herself upright. She yanked down her skirt and pulled her coat over her knees again. “Okay. I’m good.”
