“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. He enjoys—” she smiled widely, happily “—picking me up.”
Dylan laughed at the innuendo, mostly to hide his reflexive wince of discomfort. Didn’t matter how much he liked Gavin, Haley would always be his baby sister. Some days he still saw her in pigtails. “I’m sure he does.”
After saying their good-nights, he walked outside and strode toward his parked car, which he’d left in the very back part of the lot. Cold wind smacked against his face in waves, so he tugged his coat collar up and over his jaw for protection. The air held the icy-crisp sharpness of winter, making it difficult to believe they were easing into spring.
He was about halfway across the parking lot when he heard the coughing, choking, sputtering sounds of an engine desperately trying to turn over. A stranded customer? Probably. A local, he’d guess, since tourists tended to rent vehicles, and typically those cars were newer and didn’t emit cries of impending death when started.
Stopping, he waited and hoped the engine would fire to life and he’d be free to go on his merry way. But nope, no such luck. The sputtering continued in growls and grunts, the gap in between each cough growing systematically longer by several seconds. In a matter of minutes, Dylan guessed, the car would become completely unresponsive.
Ah, hell. This he did not need.
But because his folks had raised him to lend a hand when one was needed, he switched his direction. Maybe the car just required a jump, which he could do without too much effort. If not, he’d lead the stranded person inside and wait with them until a tow truck arrived.
He approached the car—a decade-plus-old Chevy Malibu, he now saw—and grimaced at the now grinding, winding-down sound of an engine giving up the ghost. The driver needed to stop his attempts, because no amount of key turning and gas-pedal pumping was going to do the trick. And while he hated to admit it, he had serious doubts that the issue was the relatively simple matter of a battery requiring a jump.
This night seriously did not want to end.
Hungry, tired and...okay, irritated, Dylan paused mere inches from the car as recognition hit. His heart dropped clear to his stomach, because naturally, the person sitting behind the wheel frantically twisting the key in the ignition was none other than the too-skinny tall brunette who had consumed his thoughts for the majority of the evening. Chelsea.
And behind her, stretched out on the backseat, curled up in a blanket—and from his vantage point, apparently asleep—was her son, Henry. Dylan swore under his breath, knowing instinctively that she hadn’t found a hotel and that her convoluted plan was to spend the night in this behemoth of a car that now refused to start.
No heat. No safety. No nothing. Just an unprotected woman with her young child, sleeping in their car in a strange city on a cold, windy night with nowhere else to go. And his irritation climbed to a whole new level.
Striding forward, he raised his fist and knocked on the driver-side window. She froze before looking at him through the glass, her expression stricken at his sudden presence. Which meant, despite the glow from the parking-lot lights, she hadn’t seen or even sensed his approach. Pushing out a breath, reining in his annoyance, he gestured for her to roll down her window.
After a moment’s hesitation, she did.
“That car is dead in the water,” he said before she could utter a solitary syllable. “And even if it wasn’t, you can’t sleep there. It isn’t safe.”
“Who said I was sleeping here?” she responded, her tone strong and defensive. Well, he couldn’t blame her for either. As far as she knew, he was a bad guy. “And I always have trouble with the car when it’s cold outside, but I’m sure it will start. So we’re fine.”
She thought she was fine? Dylan bit back the curse he almost muttered and shook his head in resignation. He downgraded his hopeful nine hours of sleep to an adequate seven and jammed his hands into his coat pockets to fend off frozen fingers.
In a measured, calm meter, he said, “The last thing you are is fine.”
“The car will start.” Her chin firmed in stubbornness. “It’s just...temperamental in cold climates.”
“Uh-huh.” Weighing his next move, he thought of and discarded several reasonable arguments. He did not want to cause her undue alarm, but he also wasn’t about to walk off and leave her and her kid alone. “If you think you can get that car to run, I’ll wait right here while you do,” he said. “Then, since you said you’re not sleeping here, I assume that means you have somewhere else to go, so I’ll drive behind you to ascertain your car doesn’t become...temperamental again and leave you stranded.”
“You can go. I’m good,” she said hurriedly. “None of that is necessary.”
“In my book, all of it is necessary. Or,” he said, hoping he was wrong about the sleeping-in-the-car business, “I can call you a cab. You’ll be on your way in no time. Your choice.”
“No. I... The car will start.”
“I don’t think it will.”
She didn’t respond, just turned the key again...and then again...to no avail. “Come on,” she murmured before trying a third time. This attempt yielded a sharp, whining gasp.
“Don’t try again,” he warned. “Just—”
Chelsea swore and twisted the key once more. Nothing. Not a cough or a whine or a hack. Her shoulders trembled and she inhaled a deep breath. Several seconds elapsed before she looked at him, and when she did, her eyes were shiny with the promise of tears. Oh, hell.
“I didn’t find a hotel I can afford,” she admitted in a quiet, defeated voice that matched every inch of her body language. “And maybe the car won’t start until it warms up some tomorrow, but we’ll be fine. I have a ton of blankets and...and...”
“Get your son and get out of the car,” Dylan said before the promise of tears became a reality. That, he knew, would be his complete undoing. “I’ll carry whatever else you need. But you’re sure as hell not sleeping out here tonight.”
Doubt and fear clouded her gaze, her voice. “That isn’t a good idea.”
“Do you have a better one?” No response. Dylan counted to three, and then to five. He understood, even admired, her reluctance. But something had to give to change the status quo. “Look,” he said, “I get it. This is an awkward situation and you don’t know me from Adam, but you’ll have to trust that my only goal here is to get some shut-eye. That won’t happen if I leave you and your son on a friggin’ cold night that will only get colder. Let me help. Please.”
“I appreciate your kindness, but...” She squinted her eyes in assessment. Of him and, probably, the veracity of his words. She gave a quick, decisive shake to her head. “It’s a generous offer, but I have to decline. It’s better, I think, if we stay here and wait for morning.”
“That’s—” He clamped his jaw shut before uttering the word idiotic. She was, after all, only trying to remain safe. She wasn’t going to budge and he wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave her and her kid out here alone, vulnerable to the weather and other unpredictable, possibly dangerous, factors. “All righty, then. You win,” he said, settling on the one remaining, uncomfortable-as-all-get-out alternative and pointing toward his parked car on the other side of the lot. “If you won’t come with me, then I guess I’m bunking in my car, as well. I’ll just bring it over here.”
“You can’t do that,” Chelsea said. “That’s...extreme and—”
“It’s the only thing I can do,” he said, his irritation climbing even higher. “You get to decide what you’re doing, and I get to decide what I’m doing.