She abruptly turned and walked to the front of the car where she dug around in her tote bag for her ever-handy notebook and pen. She wrote out her name, address, cell phone number, office number, the name and number of her insurance company and also got out one of her business cards. She thrust them at him and handed him the notebook so he could give her the same information. While he scribbled in the notebook, she cast another unfriendly look at the driver, who was, if she wasn’t mistaken, crying. Lord love a duck, Dakota thought angrily. It’s bad enough that she’s out with a man old enough to be her father, as soon as she does something stupid she starts bawling. Just pathetic.
She was so busy glaring she didn’t see the man offer her the notebook back. “Lady, are you sure you’re all right? We can take you to the emergency room or something because you don’t look so hot,” he said.
Dakota jumped slightly because she’d all but forgotten the man was standing there. She snatched the notebook back and said she was just fine. “I don’t need to go anywhere but home, thank you. I expect to hear from your insurance company tomorrow.” Without even a nod to him, she turned and got in the car, bending over slightly as she did so, affording him a good look at her voluptuous fanny. She happened to look in the rearview mirror and saw him staring at her with a big smirk on his face. It was all she could do not to back up and run over the big oaf. How dare he laugh at her because she wasn’t an anorexic size-zero like the little twit in his truck?
“See, Cha-Cha, that’s why I despise pretty men. They always think they have the right to judge women because of how we look. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we have to offer, they look at the outside only. Big macho doody head,” she muttered.
Cha-cha had heard it all before, chapter and verse. She was still upset about the small collision and was much more interested in getting out of the death trap on wheels her mistress seemed to love so much. “Mrrrroowww,” was all she had to say.
“Okay, baby, okay. We’ll be at our new house in a little while and I’ll cook you a nice little steak, how’s that?”
She continued to croon to the cat until Cha-Cha settled down into a nap. But Dakota’s mood wasn’t so easily gotten over. She was still pretty hot over her welcome to the Windy City. She hadn’t been in the city limits for a good ten minutes before she’d got rear-ended and had had to witness the same kind of mess that had caused her engagement to crash and burn. If Chicago was full of the same kind of men as D.C., she didn’t think she’d like it here one bit.
Nick Hunter leaned against the driver’s side of the Escalade and watched Dakota pull off. He shook his head and rubbed his index finger in the deep groove of the cleft of his chin, something he always did when he was thinking. That woman sure was mad, he thought. And she’s fine, too.
He smiled a lazy secret smile that only he understood. Most men wouldn’t agree, but a pretty woman with a hot temper equaled passion in Nick’s eyes. A sudden push in his back broke his concentration. The driver’s-side door was opening and a long slender leg was emerging. Nick’s smile disappeared as he looked at the young woman scrambling to get out.
“Hold it. Where do you think you’re going, baby girl? You wanted to learn to drive a stick and that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
The young woman’s face looked even more dismayed and she gave him a fierce frown. “Uncle Nick, why do you insist on calling me that? I’m an adult, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Nick ignored her comment as he got back in the passenger seat and fastened his seat belt. “Well, put your narrow adult butt back in that seat and let’s get going. A little accident isn’t the end of the world, Ebony. If you drive a car you have to be prepared for these situations and you can’t let yourself fall apart. Close the door and turn on the ignition and let’s hit it.” He gave her a calm, uncompromising stare and she had no choice but to do as he said.
“If you weren’t my favorite uncle, I’d get out of this gas-guzzling monster and walk home,” she mumbled.
“Keep testing me and I’ll let you,” Nick answered with the grin that never failed to melt a female heart.
Ebony ignored him and concentrated on her driving until they reached her parents’ house, which took about ten minutes. She parked in the driveway and turned to Nick with a big grin on her face. “I did it! I’ll never do it again because it was a trauma from which I may never recover, but I did it!”
“Ebony, it was a fender-bender. A little bump, that’s all. Get over it,” Nick advised.
“But Uncle Nick, that lady was so mad! And I did smash up the back of her HHR, which looked brand-new. She was so mad at me, I could just feel it.” Ebony shuddered at the memory.
“She was mad because she was scared, baby girl. Getting bumped on the rear when you’re not expecting it can rattle you pretty good. She was just a little shaken up, that’s all.”
Ebony’s eyes widened and she tilted her head to one side. “You’re not just saying that because she was your type, are you?”
Nick cut his eyes at her before opening his door. “And what would you know about my ‘type’?” He stepped down and was halfway to the front door of his brother’s house before Ebony caught up with him.
“You know what you like, Uncle Nick. You like them tall and thick and curvy and you like a woman with a head on her shoulders and some spunk. You know that’s what you like,” she said smugly. “Are you going to call her? You have her name, don’t you?”
Nick tried to close the door on her as she continued to bait him, but she was too quick for him. “Where’s that paper, Uncle Nick? The one with all her information on it?” She spied it in his shirt pocket and snatched it out, unfolding it and making a dramatic show of reading it aloud.
“Her name is Dakota Phillips…” Ebony’s face paled and she looked stricken. “Oh God, I smashed into the back of Dakota Phillips,” she said, with genuine distress in her voice. She collapsed into the nearest chair and covered her face with both hands.
Nick stared down at his niece, who looked as though she’d just committed a major crime. He took off his baseball cap, tossed his sunglasses into it and put it on an end table. “So who is she, baby girl? You’re actin’ like you ran over Rosa Parks or something.”
Plucking the sheet of paper from her nerveless fingers, Nick stepped over his niece’s long legs to sit on the sofa. He leaned back and stretched his legs out to watch her performance. Ebony was just like her mother, intelligent, emotional and dramatic. Luckily, she was sweet and loving like his sister-in-law so he indulged her little histrionics because he found them amusing. “Why are you so upset, Ebony? I keep telling you it was just a little accident. That’s why people have insurance, to protect them when things get out of order through no fault of their own. I’m getting ready to call my insurance company right now and her ride will be fixed in no time. No big deal.”
Ebony dropped her hands and found her voice. “Dakota Phillips happens to be the greatest writer of true crime stories in the country, Uncle Nick. She’s brilliant. She’s beyond brilliant, she’s a true genius! She’s won all kinds of awards and prizes and she even got a genius grant from the National Endowment of the Arts when she was like, nineteen or something. All of her books are on the New York Times bestseller list and three of them have been made into movies. She’s been nominated for an Oscar for an original screenplay and she even has a Pulitzer Prize. And I destroyed her car,” Ebony moaned. “She’s the whole reason I decided to major in journalism and I almost killed the woman!”
Nick looked deeply interested in her babbling. “A