Page 2 of Falling Hard
“Thanks. I’m sure we will.”
Daniel started crying in the checkout lane, and nothing Ellie could say or do comforted him. Daisy, who adored her brother and was an empathetic little girl, started to cry, too. Ellie was tempted to join them. She debated opening the acetaminophen and giving Daniel a dose right here in the store but decided against it. Daniel didn’t like taking medicine, and fighting with him in public would only upset him more.
“He’s sick,” Ellie explained to the woman in line ahead of her who turned and frowned at the kids.
The woman—a stranger—looked away without a word.
Five minutes later, Ellie pushed the cart out the front door and back into the snow, wind biting into her skin, fat flakes blowing almost horizontally. She pushed the cart through a couple of inches of accumulation to the car and got the kids buckled into their car seats. “We’re going to be home soon, and I’ll give you some medicine to make you feel better. Okay, Daniel, sweetie?”
She wrapped his favorite blanket—a blue baby blanket—around him, then put the groceries in the trunk. She would have to scrape off the windshield, but she wanted to start the car first and get the heater going. She opened the driver’s side door, got into the front seat, turned the key in the ignition and…
Nothing.
She tried again, but the engine didn’t make a sound. “Damn it!”
She closed her eyes, fought an impulse to cry.
You can’t cry. You’re the adult, remember?
She had jumper cables in the back. If she popped the hood and took out her cables, someone would see and offer to give her a jump. This was Scarlet Springs, after all. People helped each other here.
She pulled on the hood release, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold, fighting a wave of dizziness that had her leaning against the vehicle. Slowly, she made her way to the trunk and retrieved her jumper cables.
“Need a hand, ma’am?”
She turned and found herself looking at a dark parka, the man who wore it towering over her. She looked up, recognized him. He was one of the volunteers with the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. Someone had told her that he’d served as an Army Ranger. She’d seen him around town a few times. She hadn’t been able to help but notice him—especially that time she’d seen him standing shirtless on the pier at the reservoir.
Pecs. Aneight-pack. Obliques.
Hey, she could still tell a hot guy when she saw one.
“Thank you so much. My car won’t start. I’ve got my twins in the backseat. One of them is sick.”
He took the jumper cables from her. “Get back in the car where it’s warmer. I’ll give you a jump.”
Relief and gratitude washed through her. “Thank you.”
She sat in the driver’s seat and shut the door, looking over her shoulder at the kids, both of whom were quiet now. “We’ll be home soon. This nice man is going to help us get our car started.”
She watched as he strode through the snow to a dark SUV and climbed inside. He drove toward her and parked his vehicle nose-to-nose with hers. Then he climbed out again, raised her hood, and got to work connecting the cables.
When they were in place, he walked over and bent down next to her window, snowflakes on long eyelashes. “Try starting it now.”
He had a touch of a southern accent, though she couldn’t place it.
“Okay.” She turned the key.
Nothing.
How could that be?
The man fiddled with the jumper cables, then motioned for her to try again.
Still, the car wouldn’t start.
Ellie closed her eyes, fighting despair. She didn’t need an expensive car repair on top of everything else right now.
When she opened her eyes again, he was standing beside her window. “It’s not your battery, ma’am. If it weren’t dark, I’d poke around and try to figure out what’s wrong, but I can’t see much, especially not with snow falling like this. Why don’t I drive you and your kids home? You can worry about the car later.”
