Stop The Wedding!: Night Driving / Smooth Sailing / Crash Landing

“I could blame it on my military training, but I won’t.”

“Contrite and taking responsibility? I guess this means I have to forgive you,” she answered, softening already.

She was so easy. She had every right to stay mad at him, but the truth was she hated hanging on to resentment. It was so much easier to forgive than pout.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “I do have control issues.”

She fake-gasped. “Shocker.”

His lips pulled straight back in a wry smile. “The army psychologist said it was because my mother abandoned me, but I don’t believe in that blame-it-all-on-your-mother mumbo-jumbo. Fact is, I can sometimes be hard to handle when things don’t go my way.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I’m working on it. Forgive me?”

Hey, if he had the guts to admit when he was wrong, she had the grace to accept. “Water under the bridge.”

They were traveling deeper and deeper into endless cornfields and they hadn’t passed one single vehicle in the past fifteen minutes they’d been on the one-lane road. The sun was slipping toward the horizon. She suppressed the urge to turn around and go back the way they’d come. Only road construction waited for them back there. This was her bluff to snap Boone out of his grumpiness and she was stuck with it.

Hell, she wished she could turn the car over to him. Give the man the control he longed for. Sit back, relax and not have to worry about the trailer she was hauling behind her. But that was out of the question.

“How’s the knee?” she asked.

“You don’t have to keep asking about it. You’re not my mother or my nursemaid.”

“Don’t get all defensive. I’m asking because I feel guilty for bouncing you all over the interstate.”

“I’ll live.” He shifted in his seat.

She sneaked another quick glance at him. He looked amused and that surprised her. “What is it?”

“You should have seen the expression on your face when you left that highway.” He chuckled. “All iron will and sheer determination, plowing over that median come hell or high water.”

What do you know? She’d made him laugh. It hadn’t been her intention, but she’d managed to make him laugh. Pleased with herself, Tara returned his grin.

“You’ve got spunk, Duvall. I like that about you.”

“Wow. Another compliment. I’m stunned.” She was teasing, but her heart gave a little hop.

“I’ve got a few more,” he mumbled.

“How lucky can a girl get? What else do you like about me?”

“Your smart mouth. That’s another thing.”

“You like my smart mouth?”

“Oh, yeah.” His gaze was fixed on her lips.

Her gaze was fixed on his eyes fixed on her lips. She wasn’t watching where she was going, didn’t see the board lying in the middle of the road, but she heard it.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Felt a jolt.

Followed by a rapid-fire popping sound. Once. Twice. Three times.

The car lurched, swerved. Startled, it took a moment for Tara to figure out what had happened.

Blowout.

Fudge crackers! She’d had a blowout.

Boone swore under his breath and he was already unbuckling his seatbelt.

Tara pulled over as far as she could on a one-lane dirt road with cornfields on either side. Simultaneously, she and Boone opened their car doors, but she was out before he was. He had the metal knee brace to contend with.

She walked to the rear of the car. Not one blown-out tire. Not two. But three flats. Both back tires of the Honda and one of the tires on the U-Haul were swiftly going flat. Hands on her hips, she went to investigate the heavy board lying behind the trailer and discovered a heavy two-by-four studded with nails.

Boone swore. He’d come around the opposite side of the trailer looking completely disgruntled. “Is the whole damned world against me?”

Tara shrugged.

He held up a finger. “Don’t say it. Don’t tell me Jupiter is in retrograde or—”

“Mercury,” she said. “It’s Mercury.”

“I don’t give a damn if it’s Pluto. The planets did not cause this.”

“Then what did?”

“A board with nails in it.”

“That’s small-picture thinking.”

“What?” He shoved angry fingers through his hair, managing to appear both disgruntled and devastatingly sexy.

“On the surface, it appears that a board with nails caused our misfortune, but how did that board get here? On this particular one-lane road, just when we happened along? I mean, what are the odds?” She argued. “Bigger forces are afoot.”

“You really believe in this zodiac stuff?”

“I do.”

“What the hell does retrograde even mean?”

“Moving backward.”

“So Mercury is moving backward?”