IF I’D BEEN smart, I would’ve sent Gray down to the gas station to fill up my car for me before sending him and the kids home. Even with the hand controls I’d had installed, an able-bodied person could drive my car. They just had to pretend the stick I used for both acceleration and braking wasn’t there. Apparently, I had been in too much of a hurry to get rid of him, though, because the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.
That was why I was now pressing the Assistance button on the gas pump at the first open station I’d come to. Not many of them were open in this weather. I’d often seen snow coming down like this when we’d lived in Wyoming, but never here. For Oklahoma, this was practically a blizzard.
A crackling male voice came on over the intercom. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, that’d be great. I need to fill up, but I’m in a wheelchair. Can someone come pump for me?”
Nothing but static. For a long time. I pressed the button again.
“Sorry, miss. I’m trying. No one else came in today because of all this snow, and I’ve got a line of people…” His voice trailed off, and I could hear the beeping of the register in the background.
“Never mind. I’ll manage.” It wouldn’t be the first time I pumped my own gas. I just wasn’t looking forward to dealing with my chair in this cold weather. I’d rather stay inside my car.
“You’re sure?” the guy asked.
“Positive.” By the time he managed to get out and help me, I could be done and out of there.
As fast as I could, I assembled my wheelchair and transferred myself over to the seat. Then I dug a credit card out of my wallet to use in the pump and dumped my purse and keys on the driver’s seat. Only then did I realize the machine had a message scrolling across it in flashing neon green: PAY INSIDE, CARD READER OUT OF SERVICE.
Lovely.
The thought of putting myself and my chair back in my car, driving to a different pump, and doing it all over again wasn’t my idea of a good time. I grabbed my purse, set it on my lap, and took off across the lot to prepay for some gas.
A bundled up woman was racing out as I reached the door, and she held it open for me. I made my way to the end of a line that had to be seven or eight deep.
Then I realized Dmitri Nazarenko was in front of me, holding a red gas can.
“Think we’ll get enough to take your snowmobile out or something?” I asked him.
He spun around and, once his shock at finding me there wore off, glared at me. “It’s for snow blower. Helping neighbors.”
“What a guy,” I teased, winking up at him.
He turned around and ignored me.
“I’m heading over to my brother’s house. They want me to join them now so I’ll be there for Christmas. You know this is all going to turn to ice before long, right?”
“Was here last season, too,” he grumbled after a moment. I noticed he didn’t bother to face me when he spoke.
“Is Sergei still around?” I asked, determined not to be swayed. I had way too much fun digging at this man. “You didn’t leave him in the car, did you? Those titanium legs get cold—”
“Sergei flew back to Russia. Home to his family.”
“I guess you don’t get enough time off to go back to see your family, huh?”
“Sergei is my family.”
The way he said it, I was almost positive he meant that Sergei was his only family. Despite my intention of poking the bear, a piece of my heart broke for him.
“Are you spending Christmas with Hunter and Tallie, then? Or one of your other teammates?”
The line thinned in front of us, and he moved forward without responding.
“What, so does that mean you’re staying all by yourself?”
“Going to blow snow for neighbors,” he said. Then he got to the front of the line and passed some bills into the cashier’s hand, mumbling a pump number. As soon as he was done, he took his gas can and headed for the door.
“Merry Christmas, Nazarenko,” I shouted at his retreating back.
“Schastlivogo Rozhdestva,” he called over his shoulder.
I wheeled up to the counter and passed the harassed-looking cashier my card. “Can you put twenty on pump ten?”
He glanced out the front windows, squinting into the snow. Then he shook his head and looked at some monitor that was angled in such a way I couldn’t see it. “There’s no vehicle at pump ten, miss.”
“Pump ten,” I said. “The one I buzzed you from a few minutes ago. Gray Chevy sedan.”
He shook his head again and scanned the monitors some more. “There’s no gray Chevy out there. There’s no vehicle at pump ten.”
Of all the insufferably stupid people… Fuming at his idiocy, I snatched my card out of his hand and wheeled myself back outside, ready to get back into my car and keep driving until I got to the next gas station.
Only he was right.
My car was gone.
My car, with thirty thousand dollars worth of modifications to make it accessible, might as well have just vanished into thin air. The mods had cost me more than the car. That thing was my lifeline. It allowed me to live on my own, without the need for people to constantly help me do every tiny thing.
In shock, I shoved my hand into my coat pocket, digging for the keys. Nothing. Checked the space in my purse where I would have put them. Not there, either.
Then it hit me. I’d tossed them on the seat along with my purse when I’d taken out my card to pay. But once it was clear I needed to go inside to pay, I had only grabbed my purse. The keys had been sitting there, just waiting for someone to come along and take them. And my car.
“Well, fuck! Goddamn fucking piece of shit,” I shouted, causing a few people to turn and stare from their gas pumps. I tried not to curse like that under normal circumstances, but this didn’t quite fit into the normal category. Didn’t want to slip up in front of Gray’s kids. I was supposed to be the awesome aunt, but he wouldn’t let me be around them too much if I started cussing like a sailor.
Nazarenko was just pulling away from another stall. He stopped in front of the store when he saw me and rolled down the passenger-side window of his vehicle.
“Where’s your car?” he demanded, his voice gruff. “It’s cold.”
Pretty sure I already knew how cold it was, thanks. I had to fight down the urge to roll my eyes at him. “I think some asshole stole it.” Because I was a freaking idiot.
WHO THE FUCK steals a disabled woman’s car in the middle of a snowstorm? I’d been in that car. It wasn’t like the asshole could’ve gotten in and missed the fact that it had been modified.
I didn’t want anything more to do with London Hawke—I’d told myself that I shouldn’t have to deal with her again after that night a week ago—but I couldn’t leave her sitting there in her wheelchair.
Grinding my jaw together, I leaned across the seat and opened the door for her. “Get in.”
“Why?” she demanded. Clearly, the damned woman was determined to be obstinate about everything.
“Because it’s cold as balls and car is stolen. Get in.” I put my car in park and got out to help disassemble the wheelchair and put it in the backseat. It wouldn’t be as easy to maneuver things to lift it all behind her without the modifications she’d had made to her car, so I assumed she’d need some help.
She glared at me when I reached her side, but she lifted herself into the seat. Maybe she had some sense, after all.
“Tell me how to take it apart,” I said.
Instead of telling me, she pushed a few levers and took the wheels off herself. I put the wheels in the back and then the body of the chair, then shut the door and returned to the driver’s seat.
She was still glaring at me. Damn, but she was hot when she did that.
I drove out of the parking lot and turned right, with the snow coming down harder than ever. Snow had never bothered me any, but it was like a unicorn around here—such a rarity that people acted like it had to be all in their ima
gination. I’d learned last season just how stupid these people could be when it came to winter weather. I’d hoped to do my business and get home before the roads got too bad, and before too many of the stupid people were trying to get wherever they intended to go for the next few days, but it didn’t look like that would happen.
“Wrong way,” she said. “You need to turn around and go left.”
“Police station is this way.”
“I want you to take me to my brother’s house.”
“Need to file police report.”
“I can call them to report it.”
I supposed she had a point about that. Not that I’d ever admit it to her. I found an open lot and used it to turn around. “Then call. And tell me where to go.”
“Just get on the highway and stay on it for a while,” she said, taking out her phone and dialing a number. She explained what had happened to the officer on the other end of the line. Within a few moments, she’d hung up. “They said to get home first and then call to file the report. They don’t want people out in this.”
We were still on the service road, about to enter the on-ramp, when I saw all the brake lights up ahead. Then a car on the highway swerved to avoid hitting someone in front of them and ended up in the ditch.
“Maybe not the highway,” I said.
“The highway will be safer than the side streets.”
“Don’t think anywhere is safe.”
She sighed, but then she pointed me toward another street up ahead. “Try taking a right at the light.”
The light turned red before we reached it. I carefully braked, but without snow tires, we slid a lot more than I would have liked. The car came to a stop before we ended up in the intersection. A big pickup truck that had been waiting at the light had a hard time getting enough traction to move, and once he got started, he almost slammed into us.
“How far your brother lives?” I asked. My house was only a couple of blocks away. The sooner I could get back there, the better. There were too many people in this city who didn’t know how to drive in this stuff, and I wanted to be as far away from them as I could get.
“He’s about four miles northwest,” London said. “Takes less than ten minutes, in good weather.”
But this wasn’t good weather. Even if I managed to get her there safely, the return trip to my house was going to be treacherous.
“Not sure we can make it there,” I said. “How far is your house? Might be better to just go home.” I fully expected her to argue with me, to try to convince me we’d be just fine and I should take her to her brother’s house anyway.
“Half a mile. But my keys were in the car. I can’t get in without busting a window or breaking down the door.”
That wasn’t going to happen. No way in hell would I leave her alone in a house with cold air coming in, let alone one where she couldn’t lock the door for protection.
I turned to look at her, hating myself more with each second that passed for what I was about to suggest, but I couldn’t see any way around it.
“Need to take you back to my house,” I said. “It’s close. We can get there.”
Between the angry tic in her jaw and the glare drawing her eyebrows together, there was no chance she would agree. She hated this as much as I did. Maybe more. But then she sighed and shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s just hope we don’t kill each other before we thaw out.”
EVEN THOUGH IT took almost thirty minutes to get to Nazarenko’s because of how heavily the snow was falling and how many cars were stuck—giving me ample time to think about the situation—nothing could have prepared me for what I encountered when we arrived.
The problem? His house was a split-level. That meant stairs to get just about anywhere in the house. In fact, I’d never been inside a split-level house that had a bathroom on the same floor as the living areas. They were usually upstairs with the bedrooms, and maybe down in the basement area.
This wasn’t going to end well.
“I’ll have to carry you inside,” he said as he turned into the driveway, pressing the button to open the garage door.
That much was clear. There were six steps leading from the sidewalk to the front door, and now that I could see into the garage, I could see it was the same leading into the house from there.
“Any chance I can stay on one floor once I’m in?” I asked, holding on to some tiny shred of hope that I wouldn’t have to rely on him to constantly carry me everywhere in order to get around. I didn’t do well without my independence. I’d learned to get around in my wheelchair sooner than the doctors had expected, and I’d been adapting to whatever the world threw at me ever since, finding a way to live my life as normally as possible.
He shook his head. “No bathroom on main level.”
Yeah. Exactly what I expected. I tried not to sulk.
After he closed the garage door, he shut off the engine and got out to cross in front of the car. I undid my seat belt and opened the car door, determined to do as much as possible on my own. “I should warn you,” I said, flashing my eyes up to meet his. “I weigh more than it looks like, and I’m not a fan of letting anyone carry me. Ever.”
“Should I let you crawl?” he asked, his sarcasm dripping. He took a step back and waved toward the steps. “Be my guest. Do it yourself.”
It was a tempting offer, but I kind of liked the idea that he was as uncomfortable about this as I was. I scowled and raised a brow, angling my body so he could better manage it.
“It’ll be a bit like carrying dead weight,” I joked, even as he put an arm under my knees and lifted me out of the car. I stretched my right arm across his shoulders and tried to carry as much of my weight as I could. That drew us closer together, though, and he tensed.
“Just be still,” he demanded, all his sarcasm giving way to agitation.
I grinned and twirled a finger through his long hair. “Is the hair hiding something, too? Like the beard?”
“Leave hair alone,” he groused. He looked like he wanted to bat my hand away, but his were both otherwise occupied with trying to carry me.
I released the hair in my fingers, but I wasn’t done picking at him. Not yet. Grinning, I reached up with my other hand and delved into the tangled, wiry strands hanging from his chin. Only they weren’t as wiry as I’d expected them to be. They were almost soft. I kind of liked the feel of his beard against the soft skin of my palm. “You know, we’ll probably be holed up here for days, just the two of us. That’s a long time to try to keep a secret from me.”
He glared at me for a moment, kicking the car door closed. Then he stomped into the house and deposited me on the couch before returning to the garage for my wheelchair, not giving me an answer.
Yeah, this was going to make for a very interesting Christmas.
AFTER WE ARRIVED at Nazarenko’s house, I called the police again and officially filed a report.
They made sure to inform me, multiple times, that while they were taking my stolen car seriously and would investigate as soon as possible, the current weather situation in the state would be occupying all available resources for the time being.
Not really a surprise. It didn’t matter, in the short term, because whether I had my car or not, I wasn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future. In the short span of time from when I’d left my place, gotten to the gas station, left there with the cranky Russian, and arrived at his house, the weather had deteriorated at a rapid pace. I was perfectly aware just how much of a mess everything was right now, thank you very much.
Once I was done with the police, I put in a claim with my insurance company. Whether they ever recovered my car or not, chances were high it would at least need some repairs. I only hoped the thief didn’t screw with my hand controls, if they did leave my car somewhere. Neither the police nor the insurance adjustor seemed to think it likely I’d ever see that car again, though, and if I did, it wouldn’t be in usable condition.
Then I called my landlord,
Dan, to inform him my keys had been stolen and I needed the locks to be changed. He said he’d get it done, and once I came home after the holidays, I should stop in at his house next door for the new key.
Finally, I called Gray to fill him in. He didn’t take the news so well.
“I’m coming to get you,” he said, once I’d finished explaining the situation.
“No, you’re not. You said it yourself this morning. Going out in this weather is a suicide mission in this part of the country.”
“So you’re just going to stay with a stranger for however long it takes for the city to thaw out, huh?”
“He’s not a stranger.” Strange, yes. But not a stranger. I’d had coffee and dinner with him before. That was more than enough to realize Dmitri Nazarenko wasn’t a threat to me. He might not be the most pleasant person to be around, but he wouldn’t do anything to harm me. “It’s not ideal, but it’ll be fine.” And if I kept repeating those words enough to convince my brother, maybe I’d eventually start to believe them, too.
“I don’t like this, London.”
“She’ll be fine,” I heard Dad say in the background, and I stifled a grin even though neither of them could see me. “She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I think we should all know that by now.”
“Exactly what Dad said,” I agreed. And if anyone should have that drilled into his head by now, it was my father. “Look, we have electricity. We’ve got heat. He has a fireplace, too, so even if the power lines go down, we should be able to stay warm.” If he had firewood…something I hadn’t bothered to ask yet. “And I’m sure there’s food in the kitchen.” At least, I hoped there was. And that he knew how to prepare it, since his kitchen wasn’t designed to be wheelchair-friendly. I doubted I’d be much help. “It’s not like it’ll be forever, and there are a lot worse places I could be stuck.”
I shuddered, thinking about what might have happened if I’d let Nazarenko take me to the police station, like he’d intended at first. What would they have done with us once we realized we couldn’t leave, put us up in some of the empty jail cells? Not my idea of a great time.
Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Page 5
