Erin moved slowly onto the freeway where the traffic picked up slightly. Confident she could get them home now without any directions from Grace, Erin felt her shoulders relax in the drive.
“I can get to the local mall and check a few places, and if that doesn’t work, get to a bigger one in the valley.”
No sooner did Erin press the gas than she was hitting the brakes. The car didn’t respond as quickly so she pressed them harder.
They all jolted forward. “Sorry.”
Parker shrugged. “Stop-and-go traffic. What are you gonna do?”
Erin’s neck started to strain again. Ten miles an hour turned into twenty-five. To avoid jostling her passengers, she kept distance from the car in front of them and took her foot off the gas.
Again she hit the brakes. This time the pedal sunk farther down to the floor, then it caught. It was then that she glanced at her dashboard. The check brakes light was on. She tapped the dash. “That’s weird.” She tapped it again, the light flickered and went back on.
“Something wrong?” Grace asked.
“My brake light is flashing.”
“You probably just need service,” Parker said.
She pumped the brakes a couple of times. “They don’t feel right.”
Grace leaned forward. “Did you notice anything on the way down?”
“No, nothing.”
She sat back. “Well, brakes don’t go out that fast. Just get it in for service. Or ask Matt. He knows his way around a car.”
“I can’t ask Matt to work on my car.”
“Why not? He wants to work under your hood,” Parker said, laughing.
The rest of them picked up on the joke and started laughing.
Cars started to move.
“So how is he, Erin?” Mallory asked.
“Oh my God . . . no. Just don’t go there,” Grace whined.
Mallory laughed the hardest. “Everyone in this car is having sex with someone in your family.”
Erin saw Grace in the rearview mirror. The woman was squeezing her eyes shut.
“I’m the only one not having—”
Erin saw the red lights of the car in front of them, hit her brakes.
Nothing happened.
“Shit.” She hit them again and the pedal went to the floor.
“What?”
Frantically, she pumped them. The brakes weren’t working. “Hold on.” In a split second, Erin looked around them. Cars on both sides with nowhere to go and avoid a crash.
Metal hit metal, and someone in the car screamed. The airbags exploded and horns blared. The second punch came from behind and jolted them a second time.
Erin’s heart sped. She first looked to her right. Parker was coughing around the substance that had deployed with the airbag. Mallory was grasping her left shoulder but awake, and Grace was holding the top of her head.
Erin saw blood.
“Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Grace moved her hand away, saw the blood. “I think so.”
“You’re bleeding,” Parker cried.
“Just my head.”
Someone outside the car knocked on the window. “You guys okay?”
Erin looked around. The cars around them moved but the one in front and the one that hit them from the back were at a standstill.
Erin started to shake as adrenaline dumped and memories surfaced. “It wouldn’t stop.” Her breath came in short pants.
“It’s okay. We’re okay.”
“It wouldn’t stop.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Matt received the call from Colin. He heard the words the girls and accident on the freeway, and his blood pressure jumped. The next thing Colin said eased him slightly. They all walked away. Traffic was bad so they weren’t going at freeway speeds. But fast enough to hammer the front and back of the car when the car behind them couldn’t stop in time.
Much as Matt wanted to take his bike and swerve in and out of traffic to get to the hospital, he didn’t trust himself not to become part of the problem, so he took the truck.
Grace needed a couple of stitches. That’s all he knew.
Colin said he’d call the second he got there, and he was only a few minutes closer than Matt.
He white-knuckled all the way in. His phone rang as he was parking the truck.
“Are they okay?” He jumped out of the truck and double-timed his steps to the emergency room doors.
“They’re fine. How far out are you?”
“I’m walking in now.”
His eyes searched the lobby as he entered. Without a familiar face in sight, he approached the receptionist.
The hospital was in Glendale and not one he was familiar with. “My family was just brought in from a car accident.” He gave them Erin’s name and then Grace’s.
He was directed to a room in the far back of the department. A good sign no one was seriously injured. Matt saw Grace first. She was sitting on the edge of a gurney with a bandage on the left side of her forehead and laughing. On another gurney Colin sat next to Parker, his arm over her shoulders. She, too, was giggling. Mallory was in a chair to the side.
Erin sat in a corner, eyes wide, her lips in a straight line.
“You didn’t have to rush,” Grace said when she saw him enter the room.
“And miss the party? What are you laughing about? I thought this was a serious moment.” Matt moved to his sister and wrapped her in his arms.
“Grace was hitting on the doctor,” Mallory told him.
That sounded like his sister.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“I’m fine. Erin’s pretty shook up,” she whispered back.
He moved from Grace, around the gurney, and to Erin’s side.
She looked at him with a blank expression.
Matt knelt down and took her all in. Both her forearms were wrapped in bandages. He touched one and she finally spoke. Her voice wavered. “The airbag burned my . . .” Her voice floated off and she started to shake.
He carefully took both her hands in his. He could only imagine what she was feeling. What thoughts were racing through her mind.
“So what exactly happened?” Colin asked.
Matt listened while his eyes stayed on Erin.
“We were on the five. Traffic was crazy. Erin said something about the brake light,” Grace explained.
“They didn’t work. I slammed on the brakes. The car didn’t stop,” Erin said a little louder this time. Her eyes finally met Matt’s.
He squeezed her hands, realized that might hurt her arms, and eased up.
“Next thing we knew, the airbags were exploding and another car was slamming us in the rear,” Grace finished.
“Erin’s car is jacked,” Mallory said.
“But we’re all okay, and that’s all that matters,” Parker said. “It’s not your fault, Erin.”
“One of the other drivers tried to limp the car off the freeway and even he said the brake pedal wasn’t catching. They had to tow it.”
“Did you come in on an ambulance?” Matt asked.
Grace rolled her eyes. “They insisted, but I refused the backboard. I have no time to be tied down by your people,” she teased.
Matt wanted to laugh, but Erin was still staring out in space.
“I’m so sorry, guys.”
Another round of “It’s not your fault” ensued.
Twenty minutes later, a doctor came in the room. Matt had taken up residence behind Erin and kept his hands on her shoulders to make sure she knew he was right there.
Grace offered a smile to the fortyish-year-old doctor who didn’t seem to notice her attention. He introduced himself and shook both Colin’s and Matt’s hands.
The doctor pointed to Mallory first. “Your shoulder is going to hurt, but nothing is broken.” He turned his attention to Erin. “You’re not broken either. Looks like you have old fractures.”
Erin nodded. “I do.”
“I’m
glad you agreed to the X-rays. Swelling in these airbag burns can be pretty intense and might make you think you refractured something. Now you know.”
Matt kissed the top of Erin’s head when the doctor looked away.
“Stitches out for you in five to seven days.”
Grace smiled. “Should I come back here?” Her voice was breathy and hardly sounded like her.
Mallory started to giggle.
“Ah, no. Your regular doctor can do it without an ER visit.”
“That’s too bad.”
Matt noticed the doctor’s blush. He turned to Parker. “And it looks like the only one to escape without a scratch is the bride.”
“They gave me the most champagne. I didn’t tense up when we hit.”
“You guys were drinking?” Colin asked.
Parker patted his hand. “Only the three of us, and we finished the bottle before noon. Erin didn’t have a drop.”
All eyes went on Erin.
“One of the nurses will be in with your discharge orders in a minute.” He left the room with Grace watching his backside as he walked away.
“Good Lord, could you be more obvious?” Parker teased.
“I could slip him my phone number when I walk by as we leave.”
Erin offered a practiced smile but didn’t find the humor the way everyone else in the room did.
Colin pulled Matt aside before they walked out to the parking lot. “I’ll take the others back to the house. Are you going to take Erin back to your place?”
“If she’ll let me. If not, I’ll be right behind you. Try and get her to let me stay. She’s pretty shook up.”
“Thankfully she wasn’t drinking. That would have made everything worse.”
Matt couldn’t imagine.
They met back up with the women, who did a group trip to the bathroom, and walked outside. Matt kept close to Erin. He led her to his car and opened the door. “See you guys later,” he said as they walked past his truck.
Matt started the engine and waited for it to warm. “Erin?”
“I’m okay.”
No, you’re not.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I was driving. It was my car. If my brakes failed because I was supposed to do something with them, it’s totally my fault.”
He turned and leaned over the center console so she had to look at him or ignore him.
“How old is your car?”
“Four years. It was a lease return. I bought it used.”
That didn’t sound right to him. “So it was from a dealership?”
“Yes.”
“Were there any warning lights before today?”
“None.”
Matt shook his head and reached to take hold of her hand. “Then, hon . . . this isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known something was going to fail. Be thankful that you weren’t going seventy. This could have ended much differently.”
She turned to him and her eyes began to swell.
He leaned over and hugged her the best he could across the console.
Erin woke the next morning feeling like an 18-wheeler had run over her . . . twice.
Matt had insisted she stay at his place, and she was too emotionally and physically exhausted to utter an argument. And even though she felt guilty for being high maintenance with him, she knew being alone would result in nothing but self-degradation and blame of herself. And that wasn’t healthy.
She rolled over and found the other half of the bed empty. Matt had held her the night before and let her cry. Now her eyes were swollen and her head pounded. She needed aspirin and caffeine.
Wearing one of Matt’s T-shirts, she padded barefoot through his house, following the scent of coffee.
In a pair of shorts and without a shirt, Matt stood in front of his sink with his back to her.
Erin must have made a noise because he turned and smiled. “Good morning, beautiful.”
She ran a hand through her hair, winced at the discomfort in her arm. “I look like something the cat dragged in.”
He crossed the room and placed both hands on her hips. “Are you saying I have bad taste?”
She curled into him, set her cheek on his chest.
“I’m saying you may be a little blind to reality right now.”
He chuckled.
“How about some coffee?”
“Oh, God, yes.”
“You sit. I’ll get it.”
Erin did as he asked and watched him move around his kitchen. The simple domestic chore of pouring her a cup of coffee and mixing it up the way she liked was an oddity.
He handed the cup to her and sat across the table. “Did you get any sleep?”
The java swished in the back of her throat, making her sigh. “Yes. More than I expected.”
“You tossed and turned quite a bit,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“You don’t manage decent sleep when you work, so you should get it when you’re at home.”
He reached out and toyed with her fingertips. “I slept ten times better with you here.”
“I doubt that.” The second sip of coffee was better than the first.
Matt rolled his eyes at her comment. “We have a lot to do today.”
“We do?”
He stood and moved to his refrigerator. “Phone calls to your insurance company. Getting the information on where your car is. We need the police report. Is it totaled, or can it be fixed? Then there’s the trip to the rental car place.” He stopped looking for whatever it was he was searching for to look at her. “Do you have rental coverage on your insurance?”
“I have no idea.”
“Regardless. You’ll need a car.” He removed eggs and milk. “You can use my truck . . .” He stopped again, looked at her. “Have you driven a big truck before?”
“No.”
“Probably better off with a car, then. Trucks take some getting used to, and having another fender bender now will probably scar you for life.”
He had put a lot of thought into this. “It sounds like a long and frustrating day. You sure you want to be a part of all that?”
He set everything on the counter, turned, and leaned against it. “Does all that stuff need to get done?”
“Yes.”
“Am I taking something away from you if I’m helping you do it?”
“No.”
He tilted his head. “Do you want my help?”
She paused.
Matt waited. “Listen. From what you’ve told me, you probably weren’t given a lot of choices as to when, where, and what your ex-asshole was involved in. I never . . . ever . . . want you to think I’m pushing my ideas of how your life should be. I woke up this morning with a to-do list that needs to be tackled, and I’d like to help. Since I’m not working today, I’m available. But if you don’t want me to, I get it.” He stopped his monologue long enough to take a breath. “Well, I don’t get it, but I’ll respect it and step aside and wait for you to ask for help.”
Erin sat there holding her coffee and staring at him. By now he’d crossed his arms over his bare chest, and he was staring right back at her with a perplexed look on his face.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“Taking the time to not only figure out everything I haven’t even considered after yesterday’s freeway debacle.”
He uncrossed his arms and rested them on the counter behind him. “You’re welcome.”
“And for going the extra mile to consider what I might be feeling on a personal level.”
He flashed his charming smile. “There’s no point in you opening up and telling me everything you did if I’m going to carry on as if you didn’t have the past you’ve lived through.”
“Really, Matt. You’re five steps ahead of me here. All I was thinking was a cup of coffee and a good morning kiss.”
He took one step away from the counter, placed b
oth hands on the table in front of her, and pressed his lips to hers. “I forgot about the kiss,” he said, staring down at her.
“I may need two.”
He took his sweet time delivering her second request. “What’s the verdict?”
“We have a lot to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
There was more color in Erin’s face as they moved through the day. They’d gone to her place so she could get a change of clothes and call her insurance company. The car was in Glendale, but the station for California Highway Patrol was closer to them. They started with CHP, got stuck in a ton of their red tape, and left without a report.
By the time Matt laid eyes on Erin’s car, it was two in the afternoon.
It sat in the back of a collision repair center where it appeared to have been dropped the day before.
“Whoa.” Breath left Matt’s lungs like he’d been punched. He put an arm around Erin, thankful she’d walked away. The car had turned into an accordion.
“Is it possible it looks worse today?” Erin asked.
“You were preoccupied when it happened.” He ducked his head inside the open window and looked at the passenger space. The car had taken the impact in the front and the rear, but where the women had been sitting didn’t have collapsed metal inside. The safety mechanisms of the car had done their job.
“Hello?”
Matt and Erin both turned to see a man emerge from inside the repair shop.
“Hi,” Matt said.
“This belong to you?” the man asked.
“It’s mine,” Erin told him.
He glanced her way and extended a hand. “I’m Ed.”
They introduced themselves, and Ed continued talking. “I was going to call you in the morning if you didn’t. I’ve learned to give these a couple days to settle. Takes the insurance company at least that to get their act together.”
“Do you think it can be repaired?”
Ed nodded, then shrugged. “I haven’t looked into the weeds yet. Depends on how much of a hit the engine took. But even if it can be fixed, the question is how much and if the insurance company has to pay less to fix it or pay you off for it.”
“When will we know that?”
“I need to get it up on a rack. Now that you’re here I need some information from you and I can put a couple of my guys on it. I write a report and we wait for the insurance company to approve the repairs.” Ed scratched his head.
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