and remodeling shop in Columbia and if AAA couldn’t make it, Alana could come get her in ten minutes. She hated bothering her sister, but sitting on a dark street with a wet weirdo behind her was just not a plan. Unfortunately, Alana didn’t answer her phone. She tried her house, her cell and her office to no avail. Crap. She’d just have to wait it out. Her heart rate had completely slowed back to its normal rate and she was now calm enough to rummage around the car to find something sharp and potentially lethal just in case she had to defend herself.
The rain showed no signs of letting up and the thunder and lightning continued, accompanied by winds strong enough to blow down more branches around her. A particularly strong burst dropped another huge branch, along with a power line—complete with scary sparks that flew in all directions. Lovely. After that display, the stranger returned with a determined expression.
She cracked open the window again and before she could speak, he delivered a speech he’d apparently practiced.
“I know you don’t know me well, but I promise you I only want to help you.” He held out his cell phone to her as he continued to talk. “My name is Jared VanBuren and I have the police on the line so that they can hear everything that’s going on. I explained the situation to them and they’re willing to listen in so that, if anything goes wrong, they’ll be here in like five minutes to arrest me and save you. Go ahead, talk to the dispatcher, he’s waiting.”
Alexis stared at the phone, and then directed her wide eyes to the tall, soaking-wet man who looked less like a vamp now. He looked more like a Samaritan. She took a deep breath and put the cell phone to her ear. This was turning into the strangest day she could ever remember and she knew without being told that she wouldn’t forget it any time soon.
Chapter 3
Alexis was feeling slightly silly for her distrust, but only a little. She talked to the dispatcher and was fairly sure of two things when she finished. One was that the police knew where she was in case things got weird, and the other was that this Jared VanBuren wasn’t going to do anything to her that would end up on the late news. She was actually feeling grateful to her Samaritan for his insistence on doing a good deed. It had been over ninety minutes since she’d called AAA and a tow truck had yet to materialize, but Jared, bless his heart, had attended to her tire with speed and skill. The rain hadn’t let up and she’d tried to keep him from drowning by holding her snazzy leopard-print Christian Dior umbrella over him as he worked, but he’d refused.
“Look, I can’t get any wetter than I already am, so you just sit in the car until I’m done. Better yet, get in my car so we don’t have to worry about the jack falling or anything.” He guided her to his Range Rover and helped her in, a nice touch considering the circumstances. Alexis had a real thing for a man with nice manners. She appreciated the dry interior of the luxury vehicle as she inspected the SUV. It was very clean and tidy, except for some papers in a folder on the dashboard. Nosy as she was, she was dying to look through them, but she restrained herself. She did wonder what Seven-Seventeen meant, though; she saw the words on the folder and tried to figure out what they signified.
Suddenly all her attention was focused on her car and the man fixing it. Jared let out a yell that scared her half to death and she scrambled from the Range Rover to see what had happened. She was greeted by Jared holding his arm, his very bloody arm.
“Heavenly Father, what happened?”
“The jack slipped when I was taking it off. It’s nothing,” Jared assured her.
Alexis took one look and disagreed vigorously. “That doesn’t look like nothing to me, far from it. I’m taking you to the emergency room.”
Ignoring his protests, she reached into the hatch and came up with a brand-new package of chocolate-brown towels intended for Sanctuary Two. Luckily she’d just gotten a shipment that afternoon. Quick as a cat she wrapped his forearm tightly a few inches above the cut and told him to keep his arm up. It was obvious they couldn’t drive her car because it was blocked by the fallen tree limbs. She wasn’t too sure about driving his gigantic Rover, but a police cruiser showed up just then and the problem was solved. Alexis didn’t have to explain much after the officer saw Jared’s condition and before he could insist it wasn’t necessary, they were all on their way to the nearest emergency room.
Alexis didn’t even blink at going into the E.R. with Jared. She hated hospitals, but he’d gotten injured on her behalf, so she felt as if she owed him. It wasn’t crowded, thank goodness, and the blood that was flowing freely from Jared’s arm had him in an examining room in no time. The nurse who got him situated informed Alexis that she could wait in the lobby but Jared protested.
“Family only, sir. She’ll be right out there in the waiting room.” The nurse was an attractive black woman in her forties and she was polite but professional and firm.
“She’s my fiancée,” Jared said calmly. “She’s the closest thing I’ve got to family and I’d feel much better if she could stay.”
The older woman, whose name tag read Honor Jackson, didn’t blink an eye. “In that case, she’s welcome to stay. Why don’t you take that chair while I get Mr. VanBuren ready for the doctor?”
After Mrs. Jackson situated Jared on the examining table and set up a tray with the instruments needed to suture the wound, she slipped out to fetch the doctor. Alexis had a chance to really look at her “fiancé” and she had to admit that he was a fine specimen of man. He was about six-five with blond hair, high cheekbones, a deep cleft in his chin and deep-set eyes that were a striking shade of blue. No, gray. Or were they green? Whatever color they were, they were mesmerizing. And he had a body that wouldn’t quit, she could see that quite plainly since Mrs. Jackson had helped him remove his shirt so it wouldn’t get cut off when the doctor started working on him. She was rather glad the shirt had come off because he had a spectacular torso; long and lean with smooth perfect muscles. Her eyes were so busy assessing his biceps and his abs that when he spoke it startled her.
“Hope you didn’t mind that fiancée thing. I just wanted company,” he admitted.
His voice was mellow and soothing like cognac on a cold night. To her surprise she wasn’t upset about his ruse. On the contrary, it seemed kind of sweet. Besides, to her mind it was her fault he was injured.
“No, I don’t mind. Of course, I’m going to hold you to it,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I’m expecting a ring before Christmas.”
His eyes widened with mirth and they laughed together. “As you wish. Big or huge?”
“The ring? Gigantic, in case I have to pawn it.”
He had a good sense of humor because he laughed again. They were still laughing when the doctor came in to inspect the wound. His name was Dr. Patil and he was the real down-to-earth type as he proved with his first words.
“That’s nasty. Looks like you nicked an artery in there,” he said as though it was the most normal thing in the world. “Hope you don’t do a lot of manual labor because you’ll need to take it easy for a few days. You’re going to have a lot of stitches.”
Alexis felt her stomach turn over. She really hated hospitals, doctors’ offices, blood, gore and anything close to it. And she’d feel really awful if he had to take sick leave from his job.
Jared just shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m opening a couple restaurants and it’ll be a few weeks before I have to actually do anything in the kitchen. I’ll be fine.”
Dr. Patil was busy cleaning the wound. “So you’re a restaurateur. Is this your first one?”
Jared winced as the doctor gave him a shot to numb the area in preparation for the sutures. “I have six. When these are finished, I’ll have eight, maybe nine because I’m thinking about putting one on Hilton Head.”
He winced again as Dr. Patil put another shot in the same area. “This is the worst part,” the doctor assured him. “In about ten minutes I’m going to stitch you up and you won’t feel