Pete regarded me for a drawn-out moment. “I’m fine, but you should continue drinking—you were likely on your way to dehydration.”
“I hate to break up this special moment,” Ranger cut in from the front, “but I’m rather tired of the country life. And we better get Little Annie Oakley home before her father tries to gun us down in the street.”
Pete grabbed my purse from the backseat and tossed it to me. “It is time to get you home,” he agreed. “But first, call your father and let him know you’re all right.”
I clutched my mother’s purse to my chest, looking up at Pete with grateful eyes. “Thanks for savin’ it.”
An exaggerated ahem sounded from the front seat. “Actually, you have me to thank for that one, Glasses.” Ranger picked up something from the console and dangled it between his forefinger and thumb. “But your signature glasses didn’t fare so well, I’m afraid. Probably for the best . . . I don’t think they really did much for you.”
Pete looked up from wiping a blood smear off his face with the hem of his shirt. “What the hell’s wrong with you, man?”
“What’s wrong with me is I’m out here in the middle of Kill-Me-I’m-So-Bored-Nowhere with a cut lip and a throbbing shin, compliments of your country bimbo over there!” Ranger daggered a finger at me.
How dare he! I was mad enough to go toe to toe with him again. I’d surely lose, and brutally so, but if I managed to get in a couple of shots, it’d be well worth it. I lunged forward while “I’m not a bimbo!” shrieked out of me.
Pete grasped me around the waist.
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . then it’s a goddamned duck!” Ranger seemed unaccountably angry, capable of anything. I was secretly glad Pete was holding me back, because not only was Ranger huge, he was also deranged.
“Can’t you just take me home? . . . I only live a ways down the road,” I confessed.
“We will,” Pete said evenly, “after you’ve called home to explain you had car trouble tonight, and that’s the reason you’re tardy. That will buy us some time to get you cleaned up. If we take you home in this condition, we’ll have the Texas Rangers after us.”
That actually sounded like a good plan because my father already knew my car wasn’t doing well. And two strange guys driving me home, scratched up and disheveled in this outfit, would likely get us all shot. I stiffly nodded my head and waited for an offered phone, but Pete didn’t volunteer his. Instead, he busied himself with a metal first-aid kit, rummaging through extracting contents as expertly as a surgical nurse.
At the point he began unrolling medical tape and tearing it smoothly with the edge of his teeth, he looked up, suddenly aware I was staring dumbly at him and not in the process of making a phone call. I colored hotly then made an expression as if to convey that I was merely waiting for a proffered phone. In truth, I was momentarily so mesmerized by his deft movements and sensuous mouth that I totally forgot what the plan was for a few seconds.
A look of annoyance crossed his face. He sighed and dropped the kit with a clunk to hand me my woven bag again. “Aren’t you going to call?”
“Uhh . . .”
Ranger gave a short, humorless laugh. “Dude, you can be so clueless. She doesn’t have a cell phone.”
“Oh.” Pete looked back at my pink face, a little stunned. “I guess that makes sense now,” he said more to himself than anyone else.
I was still waiting for one of these goons to whip out one of theirs, when I noticed them exchange loaded glances. “I know . . .” I said, trying to tamp down my sarcasm. “How about I just borrow one of yours?”
This caused two self-assured, well-spoken guys to splutter and mumble out two different excuses simultaneously. It would have been gratifying to see these two falter so spectacularly, but the news they were delivering didn’t exactly tickle my funny bone. According to Pete, we couldn’t use his phone because it was out of battery power. And from Ranger, well, he’d lost his during the frantic chase down the alley.
I was feeling dubious on both accounts.
First of all, two guys in a Hummer loaded with well-stocked coolers and first-aid kits weren’t likely to run out the door without their phone chargers. They were more prepared than Eagle Scouts on steroids. Even Ashley-Leigh managed to keep hers handy, and she was no Girl Scout. Secondly, I highly doubted Ranger’s story, because if he bothered to stoop down in the dirt to retrieve my broken glasses and battered handbag, then he sure as heck would go back for his own cell phone.
They were selling it, but I wasn’t buying it. Plus, my gut told me they were both lying through their perfect pearly whites. And Mama always told me to trust my gut. And I always trusted my mama. I harrrrumphed a little under my breath, crossing my arms. I couldn’t exactly call them out on their lies though, could I? I was still miserably at their mercy.
My eyes flicked back and forth between two sets of guilty eyes. “Well that’s inconvenient,” I said.
Ranger narrowed his eyes at me. “Let’s see here: no cell phone, water, Band-Aids, or Mace . . . You weren’t exactly prepared tonight, were you, Glasses?”
Loathe as I was to admit it, he had a point. Having no comeback, I relegated myself to glaring at him. Pete intervened again before our glaring contest escalated into all out war. He swiftly scooped me up and set me down on the seat facing the open door. His beautiful, battered face was all I could see now as he got to work.
“Actually,” he said, applying a thin layer of cream to my knee, “we should drive back to town to call anyway. I need to hit a pharmacy to get some Arnica for the swelling on my face.” I suddenly had trouble swallowing. “And you can use the bathroom to clean up. I’m also quite sure you can use the phone there.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Ranger started up the Hummer with an abrupt roar.
“Fine.” I snatched the tape from Pete’s hand to finish dressing my own wound.
“See? She’s back to being feisty when she doesn’t get her way,” Ranger said.
Pete just shook his head like he was put out with both of us. While I scrambled into the backseat, he took his rightful place in front. Then, cracking a plastic bag back and forth with quick precise movements, he laid it over his eye. After a jolting plunge into a ditch to turn around, Pete removed the icepack long enough to address me while I went sliding around the backseat. “Better buckle up,” he advised.
I felt terrible about his face but stubbornly refused to apologize. Instead, I complied quietly, and we headed back to town, speeding along faster than was healthy on blind country roads. Nobody seemed to be in the mood to talk again. Gravel pinging the bumper and some clanging going on in the back were the only sounds. Ranger turned on the radio, and I half expected to hear an Amber alert put out on me already.
A long, weary sigh escaped me. I would’ve been home by now if it hadn’t been for these two accosting me and dragging me off against my will. Then another voice came unbidden to say, I might not be here at all if it wasn’t for these two.
Confused and exhausted I slumped in the backseat, eyes half closed. A blinking red light coming from the console caught my attention. Cell phone? If the light was still on, then surely it had enough battery power to make one little phone call. I had just leaned forward and snatched the phone when a ninja hand clamped down on mine, forcing me to drop it. Stunned, I looked up to see Pete staring me down from behind his icepack.