LITMIR.BIZ

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rush.”

      “Before you go...” He wrapped her up in a big hug and said, “I love you, Caitie.”

      It was exactly what she needed. Her dad always knew just what to say and do to make her feel better. “I love you, too, Dad.”

      She let herself out the back door into the sizzling August heat, crossed the alley behind the restaurant and climbed into the beat-up Ford compact she’d bought her senior year of high school. The driver’s side mirror was secured to the door with duct tape and there was a hole in the dash where the radio used to be, but after all this time it still ran—albeit barely. It took a couple of tries, but the engine sputtered to life and she blasted the air conditioner, which, at its best, spit out air that was more lukewarm than cool. She shut it off and cranked her windows down instead.

      She pulled out of the alley and turned left onto Main Street. Her parent’s farmhouse, where she was staying, sat on an acre of land a mile north of town. Caitie’s great-grandfather, Winston Cavanaugh, who had built the house in the early 1900s, used to own the largest farm in the county and until the Great Depression was one of the wealthiest men in town. But his son—her grandfather George Cavanaugh—having no desire to work the land, sold off all but the one acre her parents now owned and built the diner. Caitie and her younger sister would one day inherit all of it, and would undoubtedly sell it. New York was Cait’s home now, and her sister, Kelly, who was attending college in California, was making noises about moving to the West Coast permanently after graduation. Of course, with Kelly, one never knew.

      Caitie headed down Main, her car sputtering and coughing it’s way past the pharmacy and the thrift store, the post office and the ice-cream shop, marveling at how little things had changed in seven years. She had been home for Christmas and Easter, but she usually avoided venturing into town. Too many memories. Too many questions to answer if she ran into someone she knew.

      She passed Joe’s Place, a newer, log cabin–style building on the edge of town. The scent of tangy smoking meat was drifting on the air. She flicked her blinker on to swing left onto the county road, but as she made the turn, her car choked and wheezed; then the engine died. She rolled to a stop dead center in the intersection.

      She cursed and banged the steering wheel, mumbling, “Please, not today.”

      She jammed it into Neutral and turned the key, pumping the gas. “Come on, baby, just one more mile.”

      The engine caught, then roared to life, only to die again before she could get the gear into Drive.

      Seriously? As if this day hadn’t been miserable enough already.

      After several more unsuccessful attempts that only managed to suck whatever juice was left in the battery, she dropped her head against the steering wheel. Sweat beaded her forehead as the temperature in interior of the car skyrocketed.

      A car passed, maneuvering around her, and the driver—an older woman Caitie didn’t recognize—honked her horn, looking annoyed. Did she honestly think Caitie deliberately stopped in the middle of an intersection? Two more cars went by, their drivers offering her sympathetic smiles, but neither stopped to help. So much for small-town hospitality.

      Leaving the car in Neutral, Caitie got out to push it out of the intersection, but pushing and steering simultaneously wasn’t as easy as it looked. The soles of her tennis shoes kept slipping on the hot asphalt as she rocked the car, and sweat poured down her face, stinging her eyes. The county road was on a slight decline, so if she could just get the car moving, getting it onto the side of the road should be a piece of cake.

      She gave one mighty shove that she knew she would feel later as her back and shoulder muscles screamed in protest. But the car started to roll. Slowly at first, but as she completed the turn onto the county road, it picked up speed as the road dipped down. Her intention was to hop back into the driver’s seat and maneuver it onto the side of the road, but she lost her footing. She slipped and went down hard, wincing as her bare knees and palms hit the hot asphalt.

      Unfortunately the car kept on going.

      She scrambled to her feet, but it was too late. She watched in helpless disbelief as the car accelerated and veered to the right, kicking up dust as it hit the shoulder. Then it plunged into the ditch dividing the road from Mr. Johnson’s cornfield and with a sickening crunch of metal landed ass end up.

      The situation was so ridiculous, she didn’t know if she should laugh or cry or pinch herself to wake up from this horrible nightmare.

      She walked toward the wreck, her knees stinging, her back aching. Yet she felt oddly detached, as if she were watching the situation unfold from outside her own body.

      She was a few yards from the car when she heard another vehicle coming down the road behind her. Maybe this time someone would stop to help her.

      The patrol car passed her, slowing as it reached her car. The driver made a sharp U-turn, swung onto the opposite shoulder and parked.

      With the sun reflecting off the windshield she couldn’t make out the occupant. Please God, let it be anyone but him.

      The door swung open, and she watched in dismay as Nate unfolded his large frame from the car.

      She mumbled a curse and thought, This really is not my day.

      Chapter Two

      When he’d left the diner that morning, Nate had vowed to avoid Caitie whenever humanly possible. But when the call came in about the car stalled in the intersection, he’d had no idea it would be her.

      He would have driven past and kept going, but this was a matter of public safety, and as an officer of the law he had an obligation to stop and assist her. Though how she had managed to get her car from the intersection to the ditch was a mystery.

      He radioed for a tow, then got out and crossed the road to Caitie’s car. It sat nose down in a tangle of weeds and grass in the ditch. Caitie, looking alarmingly disheveled with her sweat-soaked hair and clothes and bleeding knees, limped over and joined him.

      Suddenly his bad day didn’t seem so horrible after all.

      Shoulders slumped, looking tired and defeated, Caitie stopped beside him, gazing down into the ditch at what was left of her car. From what he could see, the front end was in pretty bad shape but probably fixable. Although, considering the age of the car, it hardly seemed worth it. Honestly, it was a miracle it still ran at all.

      “You look like hell,” he told her.

      Without taking her eyes off the car, she said, “Thanks for noticing.”

      “Are you okay?”

      “Define ‘okay.’”

      “Are you in need of medical assistance?”

      She shook her head. “I’ll live.”

      “So, you want to tell me what happened?”

      She shook her head again and said, “No. Not really.”

      “I need to fill out an accident report.”

      Her attention shot to him. “It wasn’t an accident.”

      “You put your car in a ditch on purpose?”

      She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Of course not! It died, and I was...pushing it out of the road.”

      The mental picture almost made him smile. “Got away from you, did it?”

      Her deadpan look was the only answer he required.

      As much as he wanted to believe she deserved it, wanted to feel vindicated, she looked so damned defeated he couldn’t manage anything but pity. He’d been so busy not looking at her in the diner, he hadn’t noticed the dark circles under her eyes, or that she was thinner than he’d even seen her. Her wrists looked bony and her collarbones jutted out.

      But whatever she’d suffered, or was still suffering, she’d brought it on herself.

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