Test Drive - Samantha Chase Page 0,61

area when we cross into South Carolina. We can stop there and just forget this whole thing.” With a loud sigh, he closed his eyes and slumped down slightly in his seat.

“And now you’re mad at me,” she huffed. “I told you, but did you listen? No! You would think you’d realize that I know more about myself than you do! Or that maybe you would appreciate that I was being protective of you and your car because that’s the kind of person I am. Considerate. Compassionate. And…and…thoughtful. Here I was all concerned about your feelings and you didn’t do the same for me. Wow. Just…wow. Thanks a lot, Levi.”

“Now who’s being dramatic?” he murmured under his breath.

“I heard that.”

Arguing with her was pointless. So instead he said, “Just…drive, Willow. The rest area isn’t that far away. I think we can do it without incident.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered if he was lying to himself.

And prayed that he wasn’t.

13

“Holy shit! Are we…are we alive?”

“I think so.”

“I don’t…I mean how…when…”

“I know. Think how I feel.”

Levi scrubbed a hand over his face as he looked around in dazed confusion. He reached for the door handle and immediately stopped. “I can’t get out over here.”

“Well, don’t think I’m going to move the car!”

Willow watched him swallow hard as he considered his options. “Okay, are you okay to get out?”

She nodded.

“You do that, and then I’ll climb over the console and move the car.”

“Levi, I’m…”

But he held up a hand to stop her. With nothing left to do, she slowly climbed from the car and took several steps back.

Inside the car, Levi was doing his best to twist himself into a pretzel to get into the driver’s seat and she cursed herself for making him do it.

They had driven by the rest area three and a half hours ago. She had settled into driving, and felt like it would be okay for her to keep going. About an hour into her shift, Levi had dozed off. It would have been mean to wake him up and really, there wasn’t any traffic and it was a fairly uneventful stretch of road.

So she kept going.

“Ugh…why did I keep going?”

The car door slammed, and she saw Levi moving the seat back to his position and felt bad all over again.

Everything was going just fine until she pulled off the exit at South of the Border. That was where they had agreed to stop and she was excited that she’d driven the entire way without incident. Levi was still asleep at that point and she figured she’d wake him up once she had parked.

The parking lot was crowded and Willow had been slightly twitchy as she maneuvered through the throngs of cars. She was confident that she could find a spot to park far enough away that she wouldn’t be near anyone else. Then someone beeped at her and she jumped, hitting the gas pedal hard and ended up pulling a stunt that belonged in a Dukes of Hazzard episode–she sped up, jumped a curb, and spun the car 360 degrees and ended up pressed up against a pair of eight-foot-tall roosters.

Good going, Willow…

She was afraid to see what the passenger side of the car looked like. No doubt it was all scratched up and damaged.

Oh, God…how am I even going to face Levi–let alone spend another full day of driving with him?

The car started to move, and Willow took a few more steps back to give him room. When he turned the wheel and started to drive away, she was convinced he was leaving her there. Tears stung her eyes, and within seconds, she was full-on bawling. She was in the middle of the parking lot and managed to stumble out of the way of other cars and found a place to sit.

Beneath the giant roosters.

Glancing to her left, she saw a man walking his dog, and before she knew it, the dog was peeing on one of the roosters.

This is it. I’ve hit an all-time low. Surely there is nothing worse than leaning against a filthy peed on rooster in the middle of a roadside tourist attraction 600 miles from home…

Leaning down, her hands covering her face, she bawled some more. How was she supposed to get home? She didn’t have her purse, her luggage, no money, nothing. Now she was going to have to call someone…Jen? Donna? Or, God forbid, her parents.

Oh, Lord…anything but that…

She could only imagine