Riding the storm - By Julie Miller Page 0,19
young woman’s outstretched hand.
“I am now. Can you help us?” Though breathless with panic, the young woman didn’t show any obvious signs of injury.
As Nate rounded the hood of the truck, it was impossible to tell if the streaks of mascara running down her face were from tears or the weather. But one thing was clear. Spots of rain had already dappled the back of Jolene’s overalls. Another few minutes outside like this, and she’d be just as wet as the bride. He needed to assess the situation and get them out of there as quickly as possible.
“You guys lost?” he asked, including the equally young man in a mud-splattered tuxedo who was climbing out of the ditch to join them. The kid seemed to be moving fine, under his own power. He carried a tire iron.
Nate felt no threat, though. Without the glare from the windshield, he could get a look at the dinged-up compact turned sideways in the ditch, its front fender pointed up at the sky, its back tires mired in the mud. He could make out what was left of a skid trail, now a trough of mud and gravel.
A flat tire. A blowout, most likely. The kids were lucky they hadn’t rolled the vehicle.
The bride jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at her groom. “Ask Wes. This was his idea of a shortcut.”
“Now, Cindy, when you saw how backed-up the highway was, you agreed with me.”
“I didn’t agree to this!” Cindy crossed her arms and leaned toward Jolene, giving her a conspiratorial, only-a-woman-could-understand glare. “I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon in San Antonio right now.”
The kid named Wes reached out to touch her. She stiffened and he pulled away. “C’mon, honey. I said I was—”
“Either of you two hurt?” Nate asked, cutting them off before the argument really got started.
Though the kid was caked in mud and streaked with grease, when Wes held out his hand, Nate took it. “No, sir, Officer. We popped a tire and ran off the road. I was just trying to change it.”
He’d been trying for some time, by the look of things. Nate held on long enough to assess that the gold ring was real, and that the wrinkled, musky tux had been slept in or stayed up all night in even before he’d torn and stained it trying to fix the tire. These kids were newlyweds, all right, if not terribly bright ones.
Nate wiped his hand clean on the side of his leg. “First of all, I’m a paramedic, not a cop. You don’t have to call me sir. Secondly, we’re already on a call. If neither of you are seriously hurt, I suggest you wait in your car and we’ll call a tow truck to come help you out ASAP.”
“Sorry, sir. I mean…sorry.” Wes’s cheeks actually turned pink beneath the shaggy brown hair that mud and water had plastered to them.
“There’s only one tow truck in Turning Point,” Jolene informed him. “Riley Addams’s rig. And he’s one of the volunteer firefighters who works for Dad. Dad’s going to want to keep him on hand in case there’s a fire or injury emergency.”
“What about the sheriff’s department?”
Jolene shrugged. “You heard the dispatch. Most of them are busy directing traffic into town.”
Nate propped his hands on his hips. Just dandy. More screwball Texas organization. But if these two were old enough to get married, then they were mature enough to accept some responsibility. He schooled his patience and offered a plausible alternative. “Maybe you could just sit tight, and we’ll pick you up on the way back—after we check Mrs. Browning’s condition.”
“I’m not spending another minute with this twerp!” Cindy argued.
“Honey, you agreed with me this morning—”
“That was three hours ago.” She whirled around and stamped her silver-sandaled foot in the mud. “Before the rain. Before my gown was ruined. Before your brother’s stupid car fell apart on us.”
“That wasn’t my fault!”
She spun back to face Jolene and Nate. So much for maturity. “We’ve been planning this wedding for two months. You’d think he’d at least have the sense to make sure his own car was running.”
“It was running last night.”
“First, my beautiful sunrise wedding gets ruined by this stupid weather. Then the car doesn’t work. And by the time we left Chapman Ranch, the highway was packed with people headed for Turning Point. So Wes took a detour. Now we’re stuck. No hotel. No hot tub.” She glared at her husband. “No honeymoon.”
Wes looked embarrassed and exhausted.