Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
I stopped myself and remembered the advice my mother gave me when I bought my first car. Right up there with making sure that I always had emergency supplies in the trunk in the event of breaking down, her big emphasis was on not flooding the engine. If I couldn’t get the car to start, I shouldn’t try to turn it over and over and over, and I should never force it because I could end up making the entire situation even worse. I just needed to be patient, take a couple of breaths, and leave time between each attempt.
When I opened my eyes, I looked to the side and noticed the man watching me over the hood of his car. There was a polite but puzzled expression on his face, like he was mildly concerned about what was happening inside my car but didn’t want to come across as rude.
“Just ten more minutes,” I muttered to myself. “We are ten minutes from the farm. Let’s just get there.”
I took a breath and tried again. Nothing.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, I dropped my forehead forward onto the wheel and let my shoulders sag. I was hanging like that in self-pity for a few moments when the sound of someone knocking on the window beside me made me jump.
4
JASON
The stupidly cute girl that I held the door for going into the gas station seemed to be having some problems.
She had blushed deeply when I held the door open for her and then again when I caught her eyes around the hood of my truck. She was attractive, there was no doubt about that, but there was also something else about her. A bouncy cuteness that I had never really encountered before. Not ditzy—I knew ditzy. Charlotte had some college friends that I met who would barely qualify for ditzy and were instead something less coherent than that.
No, this girl seemed smart and capable, just… bouncy. But that bounce had seemingly been stricken from her now. She had her head leaned down on the steering wheel, and the occasional clicking noise from the front of her car seemed to indicate she had a dead battery.
Her head was on the wheel, and her eyes were shut. She looked sad, defeated. And I didn’t have any specific timetable to be at Carter’s. The least I could do was see if I could help the poor girl out.
I crossed over the middle section with the pumps that separated our cars and leaned down to look in the window from a few feet away. I didn’t want to startle her, but she seemed unaware that I was there. Rather than just stare at her until she noticed me, a surefire way of freaking her out, I tapped on the glass.
I motioned for her to roll down her window, and she pushed the button. It didn’t move. I hung my head as I laughed. That pretty much gave it away.
The girl in the car sighed heavily and opened the door, her drink falling out and hitting the ground. I grabbed it before it could roll away and held it out to her. She was still sitting in the car, but her legs were outside of it now, and I couldn’t help but glance down at them. She was wearing shorts, and she had long, slender legs. They looked soft and smooth.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “And thank you for grabbing my drink.”
“No problem.”
“I think my battery might be dead.” Her face screwed up to one side as she tested the words out. She was guessing, and it showed.
“It sounded like it,” I said. “I could be wrong, but usually that clicking noise is the battery.”
“Ah. I know nothing about cars.”
“Well, I’m not a mechanic, but I think it’s the battery, and for that, you don’t really need a whole lot of skill. Unless it’s all the way dead, I guess.”
“Can it be part-dead?” she asked.
“You mean can it be jumped?”
“Oh, that’s what that means,” she said, realization dawning on her face.
“Yeah, your battery could just be a little bit dead. Happens sometimes if you leave it idle with lights on or something.”
“Oh. Yeah, I do that all the time. I left the interior light on when I went inside because I was looking for my purse.”
“If I can jump it, we might get it back on the road again.”
“That would be amazing,” she said. “Could you? I would be so grateful.”
“Sure. I can do that. Hang on and let me pull my truck around.”
“Okay.”
I went back over to my truck and turned on the ignition, revving it and then lining up the hood of my truck with the hood of her car. I hopped out, leaving my engine running.
“Hey, won’t that kill your battery?” she asked.