“And that’s okay with you?”
“For now it is. I told you I’m planning to find a place of my own as soon as a teaching position opens up at one of the elementary schools within a thirty-mile radius of the ranch.”
“I’m sure there are teaching positions in the bigger cities. Dallas. Houston. San Antonio. Austin.”
Of the cities he had named, Dallas was the closest to the ranch. Yet at the time she had earned her degree, even an hour had seemed too far away. She had been so glad to be back among her family, safe in the close and loving circles in which she had been raised.
She had justified her return by telling herself they needed her there, but she’d known even then that she had needed them more. “I guess I’m just a homebody. Like Shane, I’ve seen no need to live far from the ranch.”
“Are you going to imitate your brother and build a house on the other side of your parents?”
She was making an effort not to get defensive. Kyle was just taking a little revenge on her, pelting her with personal questions in retaliation for her doing the same to him. “I don’t think that’s a very practical option. But I’m sure I can find something in the vicinity.”
“When you grow up,” he murmured.
“Now you’re just being a jerk,” she informed him with a toss of her head.
He laughed. The deep, rich sound sent a rush of heat through every inch of her body. It was a good thing, she thought rather dazedly, that he didn’t do that very often, or she would be a quivering puddle on the floorboard by the time they reached the ranch.
Molly didn’t suggest stopping in Little Rock to visit her aunt and uncle. Though Lindsey would be annoyed, Molly doubted that Kyle was in the mood for a sociable visit with her relatives. He was ready to get her safely delivered to the ranch so he could quickly get back home, she assumed.
They made it as far as Hope, Arkansas—almost halfway between Memphis and Dallas—before something went wrong with the car.
“Are you kidding me?” Kyle exploded in frustration when the engine made a funny popping sound, then died. He tugged frantically at the steering wheel, guiding the rapidly slowing vehicle safely to the side of the freeway, avoiding being hit from behind.
“What’s wrong?”
“Damn engine just quit.” He turned the key, resulting in nothing but further frustration.
“You can’t start it again?”
“Do you hear it running?” He reached beneath the dash to release the hood lock, glanced in his side-view mirror to check traffic, then opened the driver’s door and got out of the car.
Molly watched through the windshield as he opened the hood, obscuring himself from her view for a few minutes. She knew absolutely nothing about car engines, but maybe Kyle knew enough to fix whatever had gone wrong. Could be a loose wire or something, she thought optimistically. Maybe all he would have to do would be to jiggle something or tap on something or…
He dropped back into the driver’s seat with a disgusted expression that put an end to that hope. “I can’t fix it.”
“I don’t understand. I never have trouble with my car. I have the oil changed every three thousand miles, I use good quality gasoline, I watch all the dials and gauges. I know it has sort of high mileage, but the only thing broken is the radio.”
“A broken radio doesn’t keep it from running.” Biting her lip, she studied him as he stared out the windshield, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Do you think it’s really bad?”
“I don’t know. It looks like we’re going to have to call a tow truck and have it taken to someone who can answer that.”
She reached up to rub her temples, feeling dazed by this latest misadventure. It was almost as if someone didn’t want her to get back to the ranch. “Kyle, I’m—”
He cut her off with a slash of his hand. “We’ll handle it,” he said.
She sighed and dug in her purse for her cell phone.
They wouldn’t be reaching the ranch that evening. They wouldn’t even see the Texas state line. It took more than an hour to have the car towed to a garage that was open on a Sunday afternoon, and then nearly another hour of boredom in a grubby waiting room to find out that the situation was as bad as Kyle had feared.
The timing chain on Molly’s aging little import had broken, and the garage didn’t have a replacement on hand. It would be late the next day before they could get on the road again.
Her expression stricken, Molly straightened the stack of year-old magazines she had been reading to pass the time while Kyle paced and stared impatiently out the single, wavy-paned window. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Everything keeps going wrong.”
“It isn’t your fault,” Kyle admitted a bit grudgingly. As much as he might have wanted to place blame for the mishaps of the past few days, he had to concede that Molly hadn’t intentionally hurt her leg, nor had she been able to predict the car trouble. It wasn’t fair of him to take his frustration out on her. “You’d better call your brother and tell him we’ve bee
n delayed again.”