Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
It was karma. It was karma, and I knew it, for thinking ugly things. At least that’s what Yuki would say… if it was anyone other than Kaden I was wishing shitty things upon.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I wrapped my fingers around the wheel and tried to shake it with a “Oh, fuck youuuuuu.” Then I tried to shake it again. “Fuck!”
I was so busy yelling at the steering wheel that I barely heard the knock on my window.
Mr. Rhodes stood there, eyebrows slightly up.
Yeah, he’d heard me. He’d heard it all. At least I’d had the windows up. I hadn’t been paying attention and didn’t notice he was still home.
Peeling my fingers off the stranglehold they had on the steering wheel, I swallowed my frustration and opened the door slowly, giving him time to back up. He took a single big step, giving me a view of a red cooler in one hand and a travel coffee mug in the other. He was even better looking up close and personal in daylight, I realized.
I’d thought his jaw and brow bones had been a masterpiece when I’d creeped on him before, but now, just feet away, they still were, but the gentle cleft in his chin got added to the list.
I’d bet if he was in a game warden calendar, it would sell out every year.
“…didn’t work?” he asked.
I blinked and tried to figure out what he was talking about since I’d zoned out. I had no idea. “What?” I asked, trying to focus.
“Telling your car to fuck itself didn’t make it turn on?” he asked in that same level, hard voice from a week ago, both of his thick eyebrows still up.
Was he… joking? I blinked. “No, she doesn’t like being bullied,” I told him, deadpan.
One eyebrow went up a little higher.
I smiled.
He didn’t smile, but he did take a step back. “Pop the hood,” Mr. Rhodes said, flicking his fingers toward himself. “I don’t have all day.”
Oh. I reached inside and opened it as he set his cooler down and his coffee, or whatever was in there, on top of it. He went straight for ducking under the hood as I circled around to stand beside him.
Like I knew what I was looking at.
“How old’s your battery?” he asked as he tinkered with something and pulled it out. It was a dipstick. For the oil. There was some on it. I was pretty good at getting it changed on time. I figured it couldn’t be that.
“Um, I don’t know? Four years?” It might be more like five; it was the original. The Joneses had given me so much crap for not trading my car in every year like they did. Fortunately for me though, Mrs. Jones hadn’t wanted me driving around a car under their last name in case I was pulled over, so I’d bought it on my own. It was and had always been all mine.
He nodded, attention focused on my engine, then took another step back. “Your terminals are corroded and need a clean. I’ll give you a jump and see if that’ll get you going until you get it fixed.”
Corroded? I leaned in, coming in to step beside him, just inches away, and peeked inside. “Is it that white stuff?”
There was a pause and then, “Yes.”
I peeked at him. He had a really nice voice… when he wasn’t snapping out words like a whip.
Up this close… I guess he had to be six-three. Six-four. Maybe a little taller.
Why was this guy not married? Where was Amos’s mom? Why was I so nosey?
“Okay, I’ll get it cleaned,” I said brightly, focusing before he got irritated with me for checking him out. I could just do it from upstairs tomorrow.
Mr. Rhodes didn’t say another word before he headed toward his truck. In no time at all, he pulled it up alongside my car and then farted around in the back cab before coming back with jumper cables. I stood there and watched as he hooked them up to my battery and then opened his own hood and did the same.
If I was expecting him to stand there and talk to me, I would’ve been disappointed. Mr. Rhodes went and sat in his truck… but I was pretty sure he was looking at me through the windshield.
I smiled.
He either pretended not to see me or decided just not to smile back.
I stood there, looking at my car’s engine like I recognized some of it when I damn well did not. After a minute, I leaned in and snapped a picture of the cables hooked up to my battery, just in case I ever had to do it. I should get an emergency kit while I was at it. I still needed to get bear spray.
What could only have been a couple minutes later, he hung his head out of the window. “Try her now.”