could be doing to help.”
Nate almost smiled at the blatantly obvious statement. “So I gathered.”
She shot him a look—either admiring his dry wit, or wishing he’d fly out the window at the next bump.
She nearly got her wish.
The truck lurched on its chassis as if she’d slammed on the brakes. “Son of a—”
“Jolene!”
But her foot was still on the accelerator. She whipped her focus back to the road as they plowed through a sluggish patch of newly formed mud.
“Damn!”
“Look out!” Instinctively Nate’s hand snaked out to grab her shoulder and steady her. His bum knee thumped against the dashboard, but the sharp shot of pain that radiated through the joint was nothing compared with the heart-stopping images of certain tragedy that flashed through his brain.
Mangled truck.
Pregnant woman screaming in pain.
Dead baby.
“Ah, hell.” Nate blanked his mind to the past and future and concentrated on the here and now. Three thin lines, marking a barbed-wired fence, loomed into view and he braced for impact. “Turn it!”
“I am!”
Nate grabbed the wheel between her white-knuckled fists and jerked it to the right, matching the tires to the skid. As soon as they hit solid brush and harder ground, they spun left.
Jolene’s shoulder bumped his chest; their heads nearly smacked. But together they regained control of the fishtailing vehicle and steered their course back between the ditches. Muddy water sprayed up onto the windshield, blanketing their view for a split second before the wipers cleared a visual path. Gravel ricocheted beneath the floorboards.
They bumped over ruts and flattened them, created new ones in the soupy sandtrap of parched dirt that had soaked up too much rain. But they were slowing. Gaining traction. Going straight. In control once more.
Jolene tapped the brake and finally brought the truck to a stop in the middle of the road. “Ooh!” She ground the gear into Park, pounded the wheel with her fist, then sat up straight in her seat.
Nate released the wheel and slowly leaned back, keeping his hand on her quaking shoulder, just in case something more than temper or panic had put the splotches of color in her cheeks. “You okay?” he asked.
Her chest rose and fell in quick, deep gasps. But with a jerky determination, she smoothed a long strand of hair behind her ear and nodded. She darted him a sideways glance of clear true blue. Another good sign. “You?”
“I’m fine.” His knee twinged, making a liar out of him. But he ignored it. “The baby?”
She shrugged her shoulder from his grasp. “He’s fine, too.”
Stubborn woman. Would it kill her to accept him as an ally? At least in the taking-care-of-people department?
Nate’s breath eased out on a weary sigh. When he inhaled again, he breathed in the home-baked smells that clung to Jolene’s hair and clothes. Simple. Clean. Wholesome. It was a bit of a challenge for his jaded frame of mind to be this close and maintain his annoyance with her reckless behavior. He untwisted his seat belt and sank back onto his side of the cab. “Should I even ask about the truck?”
With the efficiency of a cockpit crew, she checked the buttons and dials on the dashboard, shifted the truck into Drive and tried to straighten the steering wheel. “It feels like I’ve screwed up the alignment. Damn, damn, damn!” she muttered on three different pitches. Her burst of temper dissipated on a soft breath. “Sorry. You didn’t hear that.”
“Don’t apologize…”
Nate’s voice trailed off when he realized she wasn’t excusing her frustrated curse to him. Her head bowed and she slid her left hand down to gently rub her belly. She was apologizing to the baby.
As he listened to her coo maternal words to the life growing inside her, something tender and slightly awestruck curled inside him, soothing the frayed remnants of his concern like the steady drumbeat of rain against the roof of the truck. Protective feelings were nothing new to him. He’d long been his sister’s staunchest supporter, as well as big brother to a dozen other female friends over the years, because listening and watching and fixing problems came easily to an old soul like him.
Only, he wasn’t feeling quite so patient or wise around Jolene Kannon-Angel. Despite her tough talk and tomboyish exterior, there was something utterly feminine about her sweet nurturing instincts, something more vulnerable than foolish about the risks she was willing to take for others—something that spoke to him.
But he couldn’t say he was feeling brotherly toward her. He felt compassion, sure. Frustration, definitely.