“Push this car off a cliff,” Shauntelle muttered as she pulled up the strut that supported the car hood and stood back, her arms crossed over her chest as she fought down the panic.
“You can’t do that, Mommy.” Margaret sounded frightened.
“Just having an automotive temper tantrum, honey,” Shauntelle assured her very sensitive daughter. “I’m not driving it anywhere. Besides, there’s no cliff handy.” The road they were on had only three people living on it. An older couple from Calgary only used their summer house from June to September. Carmen Fisher, the manager of Walsh’s Hardware and the T Bar C, was another resident, and then there was the Cosgrove Ranch.
Carmen was working today, so she wasn’t home. And it was the end of April, which meant no one would be at the other house either.
That left the Cosgrove Ranch, a couple of miles down the road.
Not an option.
“Call Grandpa,” Margaret suggested, getting out of the car and walking around to the front to join her mother.
“Grandpa and Gramma are working.” And she was not putting any extra pressure on them.
She didn’t have any cousins or relatives she felt comfortable calling out to the back of the beyond. Nor did she have AMA, so phoning a tow truck meant she had to pay for it herself. And what would that cost?
“Guess we’ll have to walk to the highway,” she said. Some of the deliveries consisted of meat pies, and though they were in a cooler with ice, she didn’t know how long they would stay fresh.
“Will we have to hitchhike?” Millie asked.
“At least it’s not hot today,” Margaret, ever the practical one, said. “So we won’t get too thirsty.”
Her daughter was right. A soft breeze swirled past them, tossing up stray leaves and pushing away the stinky smoke still drifting from the engine. A few geese honked overhead, the first harbingers of spring. Shauntelle shivered, pulling her sweater closer around her as she weighed her options. The highway was a few miles back, and neither she nor the girls had adequate footwear. They were all so excited for spring that they had put on flip-flops.
“I hear someone coming!” Margaret called out, shading her eyes against the midafternoon sun.
Hope rose in Shauntelle’s heart as she heard the muted rumble of a vehicle. Maybe it was Carmen Fisher.
“They might stop,” Margaret said.
“I sure hope so,” Shauntelle said.
The sound of the vehicle grew louder, and then a large, jacked-up, cherry-red pickup truck crested the hill and came swooping down toward them.
Obviously not Carmen Fisher.
“I hope the driver sees us,” Millie muttered, stepping closer to her mother’s car.
Shauntelle hoped so too.
And then, thankfully, the truck slowed, geared down and coasted to a halt right behind her car. Shauntelle eased out a sigh of relief, but behind that came a niggle of unease. This didn’t look like the kind of vehicle an elderly couple would drive.
Then she saw the driver, and her unease morphed into fury.
Noah Cosgrove stepped out of that ridiculously fancy truck, the sun glinting off his collar-length dark hair, his eyes narrowed, a leather jacket hanging on his broad shoulders and dark jeans hugging narrow hips. He looked dangerous and threatening.
Shauntelle took a step back, shielding herself with the hood of the car, her growing rage boiling up in her soul. Noah was the last person she wanted to see.
Because of Noah Cosgrove, her brother had died.
* * *
“Hey there. What’s happened to your car?” Noah grinned at the twin girls who stood beside the obviously broken-down vehicle. They were thin, gangly and utterly adorable with their high ponytails, matching pink T-shirts and black leggings.
“It’s smoking,” one said, her eyes wide. “And Mom is trying to fix it.”
“I don’t think she knows how,” the other said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Do you think you can?”
“Maybe.” As he looked at the girls, a memory rose to the surface. Twins in Cedar Ridge were not common.
And then his heart thudded in his chest.
Of all the people to run into on the road to his mother’s place, why did it have to be Shauntelle Dexter, Josiah Rodriguez’s sister?
He gave himself a moment to fight the too-familiar guilt, straightened his shoulders and walked around the car. Shauntelle stood by the hood, arms clasped tightly over her chest, head held high, her brown hair drifting over her shoulders. Her flush-stained cheeks were sprinkled with freckles, and her blue eyes were narrow with anger. Clearly she knew precisely who he was.
“Hey, Shauntelle,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. Nonthreatening. So far her reaction was the same as the one he had received only half an hour ago from Shauntelle’s parents at the Shop Easy when he stopped there for gas and some pop. They were both working today, and while Selena Rodriguez acted reasonably civil, it wasn’t hard to see Andy’s fury.
“Hey, yourself,” was all she said, her tone abrupt.
“So. Car trouble.” He sucked in a quick breath and looked into the engine, the acrid smoke telling him everything he needed to know.
“Yes” was her clipped reply.
He gave her a cursory glance, but she was glaring at the engine ticking loudly in the ensuing silence.
“So what happened?”
“It started making a clunking noise and then it got louder.”
“Can you fix it?” one of the girls asked, poking her head around the hood.
Noah shook his head. “Not with what I’ve got in my toolbox. I’m guessing the engine seized up.”
“That sounds bad,” the other girl said with a frown.
Noah took a closer look at the girls, surprised he hadn’t seen the similarity between them and their mother previously. Of course, he’d had no reference point until he realized they were Shauntelle’s daughters.
“It is. But let me see for sure.” He flashed them a grin, then looked more closely at the engine. That’s when he saw the quarter-sized hole in the engine block. He shook his head in dismay. “Sorry. It looks like a rod went through your engine. It’s toast.”
“So it’s done?”
The rusted-out car looked like it had many better days behind it and none ahead. “Probably,” he said, wishing he could give her better news.
Shauntelle pressed her hands to her mouth, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry. Not that he blamed her. From what he knew about her, she’d had a lot to deal with.
In the past two years she’d lost her husband, moved in with her parents and then, to bring it all to a tragic trifecta, lost her brother only a year ago.
Noah shoved that memory down. Josiah Rodriguez had been working for him when he fell to his death off a scaffold. And no matter how many times Noah went over the situation, how many times he tried to remind himself he wasn’t to blame, he still felt at fault. He should have trained Josiah better. He should have been at the job site that day instead of chasing that other job, trying to make a few more bucks and keep his huge crew of guys busy.
“So where were you headed?” he asked, fighting the blame and self-loathing that always accompanied thoughts of Josiah. “Can I give you a ride?”
“That would be