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THE IDEA THAT SHE COULD have been hurt had him feeling more than a little raw. As did the knowledge that she had only called him because she had been on her way to pick up Ivy. He wanted her to call him for anything she needed.
When he pulled up behind her car, she was standing out next to it. Her red hair hung down her back in a soggy mess. Tyler blue eyes met his. Nate fought the urge to scoop her up and just hold her close for a minute or five hundred. “I’m beginning to think this car is cursed.”
“It’s past its prime. I don’t doubt it.” He didn’t say anything more. Perci couldn’t afford a new car, and he knew it. He knew exactly how much she made on the hour—and he knew where most of it went. Groceries. Bills.
To support her family. Even now that her sisters had married his brothers, they all still pitched in to support their family. He’d made certain, along with Levi, that her car was in the best shape he could make it when his youngest brother had offered to give it a tune-up for her. She didn’t know that Nate had helped, but he had. He’d even purchased half the parts for it himself. For her. “What happened?”
“I’m not certain. A belt, I think. But it’s the one that runs beneath everything, and I can’t see out here.”
“We’ll hitch it to my truck, and I’ll tow it back to your father’s ranch. I can get Matt out, and we’ll both take a look at it this weekend. In the meantime, Pan’s is still sitting in the drive.” His brother had bought her sister a small SUV. With Pan in Hollywood at the moment, it was just sitting there.
And it was a hell of a lot safer than Perci’s little car.
He made quick work of hitching the car to the back of his truck. It would have to be flat-towed. Not the best option in the rain, but they were only twenty miles down a mostly deserted road. Her father’s place was at the end of that twenty miles, and she had a few uncles and cousins in between. They shouldn’t pass too many other cars—and those they did would most likely all be Tylers.
Some of his tension lessened. He might not have liked many of her male cousins because of previous interactions, but he’d say this for them—they took care of each other. She’d have been ok.
It was just hard for him not to worry about her. To want to protect.
They climbed into the cab of his truck. He grabbed a blanket from the backseat and tossed it at her. “Cover up. I’ll turn the heater on. You look half drowned.”
“I feel half drowned. The car slid. It got a little hairy there.”
His tension flooded back. Nate tightened his hands on the wheel. “You sure you’re ok?”
She nodded. “I just don’t like driving at night in the rain.”
Because of her mother, no doubt. He hadn’t missed the cross standing above her car on that hill. “You’re ok, now, baby. I promise.”
He’d never meant anything more than what he said right then.
She visibly shivered again. Nate shocked the both of them when he pulled her against his chest and held her for a moment.
Thin arms went around him, and she pressed even closer.
“I know. Thank you for coming to get me.”
“Anytime you need me, I’ll be right here.” Nate looked down into Tyler blue eyes. “I mean that.”
His world shifted just a little to the left when he realized that having her in his arms was the most right thing he’d ever felt.
Perci had fast become his world, and Nate had just accepted it two hundred percent.