A Cry in the Dark (Carly Moore #1) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,3
kindness of strangers. But this time the breakdown felt a lot more like carelessness than fate.
Why hadn’t I thought to check the oil? It would likely cost more money to repair the car than I had in my shiny new bank account. My stomach twisted into a knot.
“I understand if you don’t trust me to work on your car, what with you being a captive audience and all,” he said. “If you prefer, I can tow it into Greeneville, but I can’t do it until tomorrow.”
“How much?” I blurted out.
He hesitated. “It’s a haul down there,” he said with a frown. “An hour from my shop. I’d have to make it worth my time, which would include the trip back.”
“I understand,” I said, then repeated, “How much?”
“Three hundred.”
Shit. But he didn’t seem like he was trying to screw me over, and I didn’t see the point in having the car towed to a bigger city, where everything was likely to be more expensive.
“Or I could tow it to Ewing.” He paused and rubbed his chin. “That would only be about an hour and a half round trip for me, so let’s make it two hundred.”
That wasn’t much better.
“Maybe you’d rather call someone to come get you,” he said. “You can use my radio since your phone probably doesn’t work up here.”
He could have been asking to make sure I was really alone, but I didn’t think so. Although I certainly wouldn’t call myself the best judge of people—I’d gotten myself into this situation by trusting the wrong people—I admired his sense of integrity. It made me want to trust him. Or maybe it was my desperation influencing me. “No. There’s no one close enough to call.”
He nodded. “I saw the Georgia plates, so I didn’t think so, but didn’t want to presume.” He turned to look out at the view, soaking it in for a moment, and shifted his weight. “There’s another option.” He turned back to face me. “I can call a deputy sheriff to pick you up and take you to Ewing. Then you can figure out what to do about your car later.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “That’s your cheapest option at the moment. You’ll still have to tow the car, but it will give you time to figure everything out.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“No. No sheriff,” I said a little too quickly. A deputy might ask for ID, and while I’d been assured my new identity was solid, I wasn’t ready to test it quite yet.
Some of the warmth faded from his eyes, but he nodded. “Okay. That option’s off the table. Do you need a minute to consider the others?”
“No,” I said, feeling nauseated at the amount of money I was about to hemorrhage, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. “Just tow it to your garage.”
“I’ll do my best to keep the cost of the repairs as low as possible.”
Call me stupid, but I believed him.
Chapter Two
He gestured toward the car. “It’s going to take me a few minutes to get it loaded. If you have anything you need to get out, you’d best do it now.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, my nervousness returning. “I have a suitcase in the trunk.”
He grabbed the keys out of the ignition, then walked around and opened the trunk, barely exerting himself to heave out my suitcase.
I’d lifted that bag. I knew how heavy it was, which meant his jacket was covering up some impressive biceps.
I shivered, partially from cold but also from the realization that this man could easily overpower me. I held my purse tighter. I had a gun, but could I bring myself to use it? It was one thing to shoot cans off fence posts, and a whole other thing to shoot a man. If I needed to pull it out, I hoped the threat would be enough to get my point across.
He must have seen something on my face—again—because he cast me a wary look as he walked to the truck, holding the nearly fifty-pound bag as though it were a roll of toilet paper.
Yep. He definitely worked out.
“It’s a good thing we’re getting you out of here now,” he said, glancing up at the sky before lowering his gaze to mine. “They’re saying it might snow.”
“Snow?” I hadn’t paid any attention to the weather. Smart, Carly. Way to drive into the mountains with the possibility of snow, though to be fair, if my car hadn’t broken down, I suspected I