Time Thief

ONE-2

“You’re not the only one who’s had a few years on her,” I told the car while I touched the wires together.

A few sparks, a puff of acrid electrical smoke, and Eloise’s engine coughed and sputtered to life.

I sang while I drove out of the southern Oregon town that nestled up against the Cascade mountains, interrupting myself periodically to swear at the logging trucks that barreled out of the wilderness, their swaying loads of freshly cut trees annoying me on many levels. Not only were the truckers arrogant with their “we’re bigger than you and thus you have to give way to us” attitude, but I hated the clear-cutting that went on in the interior of the state, even if the lumber companies had a stringent replanting policy.

“The forest belongs to everyone, you road hog!” I bellowed at one truck when it came whipping around a curve, straddling the center line of the road, and causing me to jerk the wheel to the right, sending poor Eloise onto the shoulder, where the passenger side was forced to endure the savagery of a long stretch of wild blackberry bushes before the car came to a shuddering halt. “I’ve got your license plate number! I’m going to turn you...Well, drat, no, I didn’t get the number. Bastage.”

It took me a few minutes to get a grip on my jangled nerves, but at last I stopped shaking and tried to start the car.

Eloise gave a few oily coughs, backfired twice, and lapsed into an ominous silence. I swore to myself. “Great. Stupid logging trucks picking on innocent little Bugs. Well. Only thing for it is to get out and see if you’re truly stuck or just being cranky.”

I crawled over to the passenger seat, intending on exiting the car the same way I entered it (which was pretty much my only option), when I realized that in my haste to avoid being squashed flat by the logging truck, I’d run the car right off the tiny dirt shoulder and into a dense wall of blackberries. There was no conceivable way I was going to climb out of the window into that, even assuming I could shove the blackberry vines back enough to escape the car.

“Crap.” I sat back down in the driver’s seat and considered the door to my left. Due to the fact that the door itself didn’t work, it was tied on tightly from the outside. Likewise, the window had been cemented into place, since the mechanism that managed it had long since given up the ghost. “Well, I guess I’ll have to go out the back.”

The little car shook as another logging truck whizzed past, the wind from its passage sending my shoulder-length hair whipping around my face when I peeled back the duct tape holding the thick, clear plastic that stood in place of my rear window.

I was halfway out the window, swearing to myself as I tried to reach behind me and disentangle the bit of my shirt that had somehow been caught on the twisted window frame, when a car passed me, slowed, stopped, then, with blithe disregard to both laws of the road and common safety, backed up until it was stopped behind me.

“Problem?” the man who got out of the car asked as I struggled with the tangled wad of shirt behind me. I was half in the car, half out of it, one hand braced on Eloise’s sloped rear while my legs kicked around inside.

“Yeah, my shirt is caught on something and I can’t...ow! Son of a b***h, Eloise!”

“My name is Gregory, not Eloise,” the man said with a voice filled with humor. “Perhaps I can help.”

“Sorry, I was swearing at my car, not you,” I answered, releasing my hold on the twisted cloth, and leaning forward, sucking the blood off my punctured finger. “Be careful. The metal’s jagged just around the top, and it’s sharp.”

The man reached in alongside my hip, sliding his hand up and onto my butt.

“Whoa, now!” I jerked to the side, my legs kicking again as I tried to escape both the caught shirt and the butt groper. “That is totally uncalled-for! What sort of a man takes advantage of a snagged woman to cop a quick grope?”

“Sorry,” he said, quickly moving his hand. “I didn’t mean to...er...grope. I’m just trying to locate...Ah, this must be it. Hold still, or I won’t be able to unhook the material.”

I twisted around to glare suspiciously at the back of his head as he bent into the empty window, but he must have been telling the truth, because he didn’t attempt any more unsolicited touching. The shirt gave way as he released it.

“Oh, thank you,” I said in relief, intent on sliding forward down Eloise’s rear. Two strong hands under my arms caught me instead, pulling me out until I was upright on the road. “Oh. Er. Thanks,” I repeated.

“My pleasure. I don’t mean in reference to touching your a*s, although that was very nice. In a wholly accidental way.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not the way to make friends or influence people,” I muttered, spinning around as I tried to see the damage to my favorite gauze blouse. I finally twisted it around, grimacing at the dirty hole now present in the back.

“Would it be rude of me to inquire why you were climbing out the back of your nonexistent rear window?” the man asked.

I sighed and released the shirt, then turned my attention to my butt-groping savior. One look at his curly blond hair, Californian surfer-dude good looks, and mischievous blue eyes had my mind going blank for a few seconds.

Gently, he reached out and pushed my chin upward until my mouth closed. I blushed, ashamed that I’d been gawking so brazenly.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, wondering how the hell one man could be so handsome and not have a harem of women traveling around with him. Maybe he was gay? No, in that case, the harem would be male. I shook my head. No matter what his s****l preference, this man was so handsome, it just wasn’t possible that he was there at that moment, standing by the side of a little-used road in the backwoods of southern Oregon.

“Why are you shaking your head at me?”

“You’re not real,” I said. “You can’t be real. Unless America’s Sexiest Male Models is filming at Crater Lake, or something like that. Because otherwise? No. It’s just not possible.”

He laughed. He had a nice laugh, baritone with just a hint of huskiness. “I assure you that I am very real. Although I do thank you for the compliment. At least, I think it was a compliment.”

“Oh, it was.”

He laughed again, which relieved the awkwardness of the moment, then suddenly jerked me to the side as a large Land Rover with a boat in tow hurtled past us, far too close to the shoulder for safety. “i***t American drivers.”

“You’re not American?” I asked in surprise. He certainly sounded West Coast to me.

“I was born in a very small town in what is now Romania, actually,” he said with a little bow. “My name is Gregory Faa. And will you give me the pleasure of knowing your name?”

He had absolutely no accent, but the way he put words together did sound a bit foreign. Or at least, very upper-class. “Kiya Mortenson. Sorry I gawked just then. I wasn’t expecting to be rescued from the depths of Eloise by a Romanian supermodel.”

“I’m not a model,” he said with another smile. “I take it that your car has broken down?”

“Well,” I said slowly, following him when he went around to the front of the car. “With Eloise, it’s not so much a case of breaking down as it is running on a hope and a prayer, but yes, we got run off the road, and she stopped and won’t start again. Oh, the engine is in the back on a VW Bug. Are you good with cars?”

“Not particularly.” We moved to the rear of the car. In silence, we both contemplated the workings of Eloise’s motor. “I can give you a lift into town, though. I’m sure you can get someone to tow the car there.”

“Ew. Tow truck.” I bit my lip and tried to calculate how much money, if any, was left on my credit card. My bank account was sorely depleted due to Lily having to return to work, and thus not paying me for my covert fill-in job. “Um...yeah. Maybe I’ll just let her rest for a bit. Sometimes she will start up if she’s had some time to recuperate from trauma.”

A large RV lumbered past us, narrowly missing hitting Gregory’s shiny red car. He c****d a light brown eyebrow at me. “I wouldn’t risk leaving my car on this road, even if it was”—he glanced over my shoulder to where Eloise sat—“temperamental. It’s not safe.”

I eyed his sports car. “I don’t suppose if we had a rope, you could tow me into the nearest town? Or maybe just to a pullout spot, if there is one on this road?”

“No,” he said gently, taking me by the shoulders and pushing me toward his car. “Jaguars do not tow other cars. Get in, and I will take you down the road to the next town. It’s not far, three or four miles at best.”

“But, Eloise—”

“It will take us ten minutes at the most to get to town. We must hope that your car will be safe for the time it takes for the tow truck to fetch it.”

Limply, I allowed him to seat me in his car, all the while mentally chastising myself for not standing up to this handsome Good Samaritan. It wasn’t like me to be a doormat for any man, but here I was sitting silently, guiltily enjoying the mingled (and heady) aroma of leather seats, expensive car, and sexy man as he whisked me away.

“Were you on your way to your workplace when you had car trouble?” Gregory asked politely a few minutes later. Fir trees that lined the narrow road whipped past us on the right side, leaving the impression of a green blur that was punctuated now and again by sharp, craggy rocks that jutted out of the earth and jabbed pointy fingers to the sky. To the left, off and on through the dense trees I caught a flash of silver light, indicating a stream or perhaps one of the lakes that dotted this area.

“I wish. I’m unemployed at the moment. I was helping out a friend, but that ended kind of badly; hence I’m on my way home. I live near the coast, so it’s important that I be able to get Eloise started again.” I gnawed my lower lip for a few seconds, not wanting to ask the question uppermost in my mind, but not seeing much of a way out of it. “Do you think a tow for Eloise would be much above fifty bucks? If it’s only a couple of miles, that is?”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I shouldn’t think so. A bit on your uppers, are you?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, that was a Briticism. I take it that you’re a bit short of ready cash?”

“And unready cash, and cash that will never have a chance to be ready because frankly, it doesn’t exist, and probably never will.” I sighed. “My unemployment ran out a few months ago. The job market is crap for someone who has no marketable skills other than the ability to coax a forty-five-year-old car into running long past its normal life span. You don’t happen to know of anyone who’s looking for a secretary or receptionist or something like that? I can type and answer phones and file if needed.”