DRAMA NOVEL ONLINE Taken: Chapter 2
Harper was thirty miles from the Maryland border in the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, when her right front tire exploded.
The sound, as loud as a rifle going off, drowned out the top-fifty station. The car jerked to the side, yanking the wheel out of her hands as it lunged across the center stripe.
She slammed on the brakes, pulling hard to the right, and came to a rest on the muddy shoulder. For several seconds, she sat frozen behind the steering wheel as the panicked tempo of her heart slowed while Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” blared and crackled in her speakers.
And then she started to curse.
It had been a bad day. A very, very bad day, which had started off with a call from her shift manager, who had wanted to fire her even though she’d arranged for her absence with the diner owner a week before.
It had gotten worse when the big party for her grandmother’s eightieth birthday had devolved into a shouting match between her sister Christina and her cousin—and worse still when the cops arrived just as Harper stepped between the two and was rewarded for her efforts with her sister’s punch, which missed their cousin by a mile to land squarely against Harper’s cheek with enough force to leave her with a tender eye.
Harper had managed to talk herself out of a charge of disorderly conduct and had left the party in a furious black mood, damning her entire family—okay, except her grandmother—as she tore out of the drive.
And now this.
“Why’d you have to go and crap out on me now?” she asked her car.
But she couldn’t be mad at it. The ’68 Buick Skylark was her baby, and she spoiled, petted, and coddled it.
And in return, it broke down, seized up, smoked, and just now, tried to kill her by throwing her into oncoming traffic.
Harper sighed. Well, the tire really was her fault. She was flat broke after helping out her deadbeat ex-boyfriend—which she’d done for a month before she’d realized that he really never was going to try to get another job as long as he had her to mooch off of. So she hadn’t had the money to replace her tires even though she knew they were getting bald. Anyway, she didn’t want any old cheap tires for her Baby. It deserved only the best. And she couldn’t afford the best, yet, so she hadn’t gotten any at all.
She just couldn’t resist a bad boy, even when the ‘boy’ in question was her car….
Harper put the parking brake on and killed the engine but left the radio blaring. She leaned across the wide bench seat to crank down the passenger window so she could to listen to the music as she changed the tire, then popped the trunk. She got out of the car, pausing to squint up and down the two-lane county road hopefully, wondering if there might not be some helpful guy in a pickup who might want to lend a hand.
She heard the sound of traffic in the distance. But of course, there was nothing in sight.
Just my luck, she thought. She was perfectly capable of changing a tire herself, but she wouldn’t refuse a white knight, if one came along.
Or a black one, for that matter.
She shrugged and set to work pulling out the full-sized spare and dropping it in the grass next to the flat tire, surveying the damage for the first time.
Crap. The old tire was just shredded. Gone. She hoped she wouldn’t need a new wheel. She got the jack and lug wrench and tossed them next to the spare. She pulled off the hubcap—an original spoked model that she’d bought to restore the car to its former glory—and slotted the wrench into place. She pushed, but nothing happened.
Damned pneumatic tire-changing tools. They tightened the nuts so hard they locked up sometimes. Well, Harper knew one way to deal with that. She shifted the position so that the wrench was parallel to the ground, then stomped it with all her weight.
The lug nut gave, and she smiled in satisfaction. She was no rail. She was big, just like her personality, and she knew how to use her body—around cars, around horses, around the kitchen, and with pretty much any problem that needed solving. And there were plenty of men who appreciated that about her—the big boobs, full hips and butt. Too bad she kept going for the losers.
Harper recognized the purr of a motorcycle just as the second nut loosened. As she bent to fit the wrench over the third, she realized the bike was stopping. She peered down the length of the car just as a man in motorcycle dark brown leathers stepped around it.
He was tall, with ropes of muscles over his spare frame and a three-day scruff of a beard. His face was heartstoppingly handsome—young but tanned and already slightly weathered, just the way she liked them. His grin when he saw her was distinctly predatory, and he pulled off his sunglasses to reveal delicious amber eyes and shoved them into the pocket of his jacket. Big, rawboned, and as hot as sin on a three-day bender.
Hel-lo.
“Nice view,” he said, his gaze resting on her rear, which was still pointed skyward as she bent to push the lug wrench into place.
No kidding.
“You going to help?” She cocked her head at the tire. “Or are you just here to admire?”
He leaned against the side of the car. “Looks like you’re doing fine.”
She snorted and stood, folding her arms and cocking a hip. His eyes flickered down to her cleavage. She knew full well that her posture drew attention to it, and she smirked back at him.
“You could at least pretend to be a gentleman. You’re more likely to get what you want that way.”
His gaze raked across her, taking in her dangling earrings and small nose stud, then coming to rest briefly on the small butterfly tattoo on her inner arm. The tattoo covered up another mistake—the initials of her high school boyfriend she’d gotten on her eighteenth birthday, the boyfriend who had already been cheating on her with her so-called friend. Even then, she’d known in her heart of hearts that guys always leave. She’d just been naïve enough to think that maybe if she pretended they didn’t, it would make a difference.
“I doubt it,” he said.
But he stepped forward, taking her place and loosening the last few lug nuts with quick, efficient motions. Harper planted her rear against the hood, quite deliberately in his peripheral vision.
Harper might have a habit of jumping in too quickly, but this was fast even for her. She wasn’t often quite so interested so soon.
She gauged him again, taking in the rugged jaw and chiseled nose and cheekbones.
Okay, never ever.
All things considered, though, maybe the day wasn’t going to turn out so bad, after all.
He looked up at her. She could break her heart on that hard jaw. “Jack.”
“Harper,” she said.
His smile was slow and lopsided. “Get me the jack.”
Damn. She scrambled for the jack to hide her blush and handed it over to him.
“So, what’s actually your name, then?” she said, raising her chin. “Unless you want me to call you Jack. ’Cause that works just fine for me.”
He scratched his nose, regarding her with amusement still glittering in his eyes. “Levi,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows at him. It fit in a kind of cowboy-country-boy sort of way. “Nice.”
He slid the jack under the front of the car, and she pushed away as he raised it. He spun the lug nuts and slid the bolts out one at a time, handing them to Harper without a comment. The wind ruffled his short hair, medium brown with just a touch of auburn where the sunlight glinted off it. He pulled the wheel off, not appearing to notice the weight as it came free of the axle, then slid the new one on just as easily.
He held out a hand without even looking at her, and Harper put a bolt in it, then the nut.
“Where’re you from?” Harper asked, handing him another.
Again, that wolfish look, the gaze that saw too much. “Around.”
Wouldn’t he like to eat me up.
“And where are you going?”
“North.” He held out his hand, and she put the last nut and bolt in it.
Damn. She was heading the other way, back to Baltimore. She wouldn’t mind taking a detour for him, though. He was way too interesting to just let him buzz out of her life as quickly as he came in.
Now that she was standing, she could see his motorcycle, a dozen or so feet behind Baby. Some exotic model—it was probably worth twice her car’s value, maybe more. Her heart sped up at the mere thought of the kind of speed that machine could muster. Maybe she could get him to take her for a spin. She loved motorcycles. Not as much as her Baby, but she didn’t love anything as much as her Baby.
He tightened the last lug by hand before lowering the jack.
“That’s a pretty hot bike. Think you could take me for a ride?” she asked.
He raked her with his gaze, still spinning the jack to lower it. “Tempting. But no.”
“Going to be late?” she prompted.
“Late.” He seemed to find the word amusing. “Yeah, something like that.”
He slid the jack out. Harper hauled the wheel back to the trunk and heaved it in, sad scraps of rubber dangling from the wheel. Scowling, she stuck the jack in after it. She wasn’t used to getting shot down, not by a man who was so clearly attracted to her.
She leaned against the car again as he used the lug wrench to give each nut a final tightening, then slapped the hubcap on.
Dammit. She knew that she interested him, and he sure as hell interested her. Why was he giving her the brush-off?
“I could drive along with you. You could get to where you were going, then maybe we could hang out,” she said.
He grunted as he stood, the wrench dangling from his hand. He flashed his white teeth at her. “You won’t be able to do that.” He turned away and walked to the back of her car.
“Why not?” Harper pushed off the side of the Skylark and trailed after him, bristling at his easy assurance.
He tossed the wrench into the trunk and closed it, continuing up the left side of the car. Standing near the driver’s door, he turned to her, treating her to the full effect of his smile.
“Because, Harper, I’m taking your car.”