“I’m Darius, by the way,” he said as he passed the driver’s-side window.
“Kate.” Her tone was much friendlier now, probably because he was doing what she wanted instead of droning on about mud and purposely annoying her. “Be careful near the road, I saw a porcupine right before you showed up. I really appreciate you doing this. Do you want me to get out and help?”
He hid another smile at her obvious reluctance to do any such thing. She’d mentioned her lack of mud boots. He could only imagine the expensive shoes that probably went with that jacket.
“It’s all right. One of us needs to be at the wheel. Following my directions,” he added.
“Of course. When a knight in white armor appears, it’s bad form to argue with him, I suppose.”
“Shouldn’t that be ‘knight in white Armor-All’?” he murmured as he knelt down to insert a block under the front driver’s side tire. “Being a truck,” he added in case his dumb joke wasn’t obvious.
But she wasn’t one to miss a joke, clearly. She gave a surprised laugh. “That’s not bad.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said dryly. “Always good to keep your rescue victims laughing.” He stood up and gave the block a kick to make sure it was solidly wedged in place.
“You rescue people often?”
“Yes. It’s a full-time job.” Literally, it was. Not that she knew that. “Especially in mud season.” He passed around the hood of her car to the passenger side. She unrolled the window so they could keep talking.
“See, that’s the kind of thing that gets to me. What kind of place has a mud season? Why are people okay with that? Why do people voluntarily choose to live in a place where you have to jump from snow boots, which are unattractive enough, right into mud boots, which are somehow even less appealing?”
He nudged the passenger-side block into place. “You seem awfully worried about shoes.”
“Just go ahead and call me shallow. I don’t mind.”
He stood up and smiled. “So long as you promise not to mace me.”
She pulled a funny face at him. “It’s bear spray. And no promises.”
“Are you always this prickly when someone’s trying to help you out?”
She paused, cocking her head as if she had to think about that one. “Well, I can’t really say. Generally I don’t need help. And if I do, I just pay the person for it. It’s a cold, cold world out there, Darius.”
“Is it?”
He moved to the rear of the car to install the remaining blocks. He put them behind the tires so the car couldn’t roll backwards.
“Sad to say, it is.” Her grave tone piqued his curiosity. He got the feeling she was referring to something specific. “I don’t want to crush your illusions, Knight in White Armor-All, but most people are crap. Even more to the point, most men are crap. So I suppose I haven’t perfected my help-receiving manners because it just hasn’t come up very often.”
He finished his task and stepped to the side. “I’m going to overlook that insult to my gender. At least for now. Want to give it a try? Nice and gentle on the accelerator.”
She turned the key in the ignition and fired up the engine. The car rolled forward, the weight of the front end pressing the forward blocks into the mud. He held his breath as the tires fought for purchase on the wood. Should he have put more blocks down? He hefted the extra length of two-by-four that he’d brought over. A little more wood ought to do it.
And that way they could continue their conversation. Maybe he’d even find out why she was so cynical when it came to men in particular, and people in general. Not that he disagreed, entirely. People could be crappy. In his case, that included a couple of women. More specifically, his ex-wives.
The car lurched forward and slid from side to side in the muck. A rooster tail of mud slammed across Darius’ pants, even though he tried to jump back in time. The Saab climbed onto the gravel with a squeal. As soon as she’d made it all the way out of the mud, Kate hit the brakes.
“You did it,” she called to him. “Thank you so much!”
He shook mud off his right pants leg, like a dog. Damn, now he was going to have to change before he drove out to the Moose. That meant he was probably going to be late for his gig. “No problem,”