She realized her brother was yelling her name through the cell phone. “Sorry, Shane. We’re about a quarter mile past Stu’s turnoff. Better send the ambulance.” She pressed the off button on her brother’s tight voice and stuffed the phone into her pocket, where it immediately began vibrating again. She ignored it in favor of the man inside the vehicle. He’d touched his forehead. Was staring at the blood his fingers came away with.
“Unlock the door,” she said loudly again.
He eyed her. Sat forward a little, only to grimace. She read his lips easily enough. Swearing. She chose to take that as a good sign. His arm slowly moved and she heard a soft snick. He’d unlocked the door. She yanked hard on it to get it to budge and wedged her leg inside when it did. The stressed window crumbled into fine dust and a rush of warm air came out at her as she worked herself in, reaching straight across for the ignition.
She turned the key.
The laboring engine fell silent.
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought for certain he could hear it. She looked at him and realized that she was practically in his face. His… very attractive face, what there was she could see beneath the bloody smears. She hurriedly shifted, putting space between them, kneeling awkwardly on the seat beside him. The stubborn door was practically crushing her leg and she shoved hard on it with her snow boot to keep it open.
“Who the hell taught you how to drive?” His voice was deep, even if it was little more than a murmur.
She tried not to cringe. “My father, Beau Golightly.”
The man shifted, groaned a little, and she gently pressed her hands against his shoulder. “You shouldn’t move. There’s an ambulance on the way.” She dragged her sweater sleeve down over her hand from beneath the edge of her coat and gingerly pressed it against his temple, blotting some of the blood.
He closed a surprisingly strong hand over hers, staying the movements. “I don’t need a bloody ambulance.”
“Well, you are bloody,” she returned, carefully sliding her hand from beneath his. “Literally.” Even as she voiced the observation, she heard a siren whine. “My brother Shane is probably burning rubber to get here, too. He’s the sheriff.”
For a moment the driver looked irritated. But he said nothing. Merely unclipped his seat belt and peered out the windshield at the mangled hood of his car. “You’re joking about the Golightly thing, aren’t you?” he finally asked.
She frowned a little. “No. And I know how to drive just fine.” Defense came belatedly, but at least it came. “You were the one playing Speed Racer.”
His lips twisted a little. “Not anymore,” she thought she heard him mutter. But it was hard to tell since the ambulance’s siren was earsplitting in the moments before it wheezed to a halt. She finished backing out of the car and looked over to see Palmer Frame, and his latest sidekick, Noah Hanlan, slip-sliding down into the ditch. The ambulance waited on the shoulder up above them.
Palmer’s gaze traveled over her. “You hurt, Hadley?”
She shook her head and waved her hand toward the driver where Noah was making his way. “He is. He’s—”
“Fine.”
“—bleeding. A lot.” She ignored the clipped comment from inside the wreck and moved out of Palmer’s way. The tan SUV her brother drove screamed up the highway, and she sighed a little as she climbed up the embankment once more. It took some doing, since she kept looking back over her shoulder to see how Palmer and Noah were progressing with the injured man.
The EMTs had produced a crowbar and had worked the door open wide enough for the driver to get out. Standing, he was just as tall or taller than Palmer, and that was saying something. But he was standing, which meant he couldn’t be too bad off, right?
She hoped.
A part of her heard the crunch of tires, a fast stop. Shane’s tight voice muttering her name more like a curse than a prayer.
The driver had shaken off Palmer’s assistance, she noted. He’d planted his feet in the snow, hands on hips as he surveyed his car.
Very fine hips. Verrry fine rear—
“Hadley!”
She closed her eyes, whispered another quick prayer for patience—her tenth that day, at least—and stuck out her hand toward her brother. The ditch was getting more slippery by the minute and the late-afternoon temperature seemed to be dropping by chunks. “Help me up.”
Shane’s voice might have been annoyed, but his eyes were sharp with concern as he pulled her up the rest of the way to the road. His hands clamped on her shoulders as he examined her face.
Relief filled his eyes though his stern expression didn’t relax much. Evidently satisfied that Hadley was unharmed, he let go of her and headed into the ditch, pulling out the small notepad he carried in one of the pockets of his shearling coat. The sheriff, back at work.
Hadley shivered, wishing her own wool jacket were as warm as her brother’s. But she’d bought her jacket because of its pretty pink color, not because of its ability to keep the cold at bay. It was one of her ridiculously few frivolous purchases.
The three men were now staring at the car, looking as if they were in mourning or something. Well, the car did look pretty sad. It was old to start with, though the paint job—on the rear of the car at least—looked in perfect shape. She, however, was more concerned about the driver and his injuries than the front bumper that was now kissing cousins to the windshield wipers. For heaven’s sake, it was just a car. And the man was still bleeding. She could tell, because he’d swiped a hand over his forehead, and more blood oozed out to replace what he wiped away.
She stomped her way back into the ditch, tugging at Palmer and Noah. The men were EMTs, not car mechanics. “Don’t you think you ought to be seeing to him?” She looked up at the injured driver.
Snowflakes were catching in his thick hair. And he had ridiculously long black lashes, she noticed again, when he turned his gaze toward her. Steely blue. Until then, she’d never really known what that term defined, even though she’d used it herself when she was writing.
Now she knew firsthand. And… well. Hello.
She swallowed and took a step back, only to have her boot sink about a foot into the snow. Off balance, she felt herself falling, but the man shot out a hand and grabbed her upper arm to catch her. “You don’t know much about being careful, do you?” he observed.
Instead of falling ignominiously back on her tush, she’d ended up leaning against him. And what a him he was. Her vivid imagination immediately tripped along the path of whether or not his body was as solid as it seemed beneath the leather bomber jacket he wore.
She planted her feet more securely, pushing herself upright. Men like him did not look at women like her, particularly when said woman had helped send his car crashing into a tree.
“I wasn’t speeding,” she pointed out, yet again. But her conscience bit at that. She didn’t know if the man had been speeding or not. She’d been too preoccupied with her darned fool brothers and their unwelcome interest in her nonexistent love life.
Shane, Palmer and Noah were still dolefully shaking their heads over the crumpled car. “Um… maybe it’s escaped everyone’s notice, but you are still bleeding there.” She waved her hand generally in his direction. Then happened to notice the fingerprints he’d left on her coat. Bloody fingerprints.
He noticed, as well, and grimaced a little. “Sorry about that.”
She exhaled, impatient with the lot of them, and turned away. Climbed up the side of the ditch again and strode to the back of the ambulance where she yanked open the rear door. She grabbed a container of wipes