by Merry Farmer
She was close to hyperventilating, frozen to her spot beside her broken-down car, when the sedan’s door opened. A plain sneaker hit the gravel on the side of the road, regular old jeans showing between the sneaker and the car door. Not Italian wing-tips, not a mafia tailored suit. Denise was still close to peeing herself with terror, though.
“Hi.”
She blinked, snapping her mouth shut—she hadn’t even realized it’d been hanging open—when a mild-looking Asian guy stepped out of the car. He did indeed wear jeans and a long-sleeve, button down shirt—lavender—over a plain white T. Did the Chinese mafia wear jeans and sneakers?
“Need some help?” He shut his car door and strolled toward her. He had a cute smile…for a gangster.
“Please don’t kill me!” Denise blurted before she could stop herself.
The Asian guy stumbled to a stop. His eyes went wide, then he laughed. “I swear, I’m not a ninja.”
Denise was so embarrassed that she covered her burning face with her hands. Obviously he wasn’t a ninja or a gangster or anyone other than a nice guy who had pulled over to help her, and here she’d gone and dorked out on him. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered through her hands.
“It’s okay.” The guy took a few more steps toward her. She peeked through her fingers to find him smiling. He had a warm, friendly smile. And kind eyes. And…and really firm arms. In fact, he was pretty much gorgeous. He held out a hand to her. “My name is Hero.”
She dropped her hands from her face. “Really?”
“Yeah.” His laughter put her at ease. “Well, Hero is short for Hiroshi. Hiroshi Yamaguchi.”
Denise gasped as she took his hand. “Oh my gosh, are you related to that famous figure skater? I love her! She’s the best ever!”
“No.” Hero managed to laugh without making her feel stupid. He tilted his head down almost bashfully. His thick, black hair slipped close to his face, and he flicked it back with a jerk of his head. The gesture sent tingles straight through her, some of them ending up in unmentionable spots. “No figure skaters in my family. Just a lot of nerds.”
“Nerds?” Denise’s brow flew up. But he was so cool.
“Yeah, well, my dad is a mathematician. My uncle is a lab specialist working with cancer researchers, and I’m a systems engineer.”
“A what?” Crap. He was going to think she was stupid now because she had no clue what that was.
“I design stuff,” he explained with a shrug. “I just got a job working for Paradise Space Flight, over in Haskell.”
“Oh, yeah! I’ve heard all about that place. Everyone around here is excited because it’ll bring in new jobs and stuff for us. Haskell isn’t that far away.”
“I was going to ask about that. I’m on my way there now.”
Yet another twist of embarrassment hit her stomach. “Sorry I got in the way of your trip.”
“It’s no problem.” He nodded toward the open hood of her car. “What going on here?”
Happy that she didn’t have to talk about things she didn’t quite understand, she bit her lip and glanced toward her car. “Honestly, I have no idea. I was driving a friend out to a spa near here, and when I got back on the highway, it just went kaput.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Sure.” The fact that a cool spaceship guy like him was willing to help at all put a smile on her face. “I’m Denise, by the way,” she said as she walked with him to the front of the car. “I live in Culpepper. I work at the salon there, if you happen to need a haircut.”
Instantly, she winced. What a stupid thing to say. If he didn’t already think she was a moron, he would really think so now.
But instead he said, “Really? You can cut people’s hair?”
“Yes?” she answered uncertainly.
“That’s really neat. I always wanted to be able to do something like that.”
They stopped in front of the car. “What do you mean?” Denise blinked. “You make spaceships, right?”
He chuckled. She loved the sound of his laugh, the fact that he laughed a lot. “Well, no, not directly. I know a lot of things. Abstract things, like math. But I don’t actually know how to do all that much. I think it’s neat that you have a real-life skill.”
She felt her cheeks flare pink. A hot Asian spaceship designer was telling her that she was cool. She must have fallen asleep at the wheel and was dreaming now. Better still, he was watching her with a kind of sparkle in his eyes, as if he might actually like her. No, as if he might actually be interested in her.
He shook himself out of whatever thoughts he was having and turned toward the car. “Okay, let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on here.” He rolled up his sleeves, uncovering forearms that were every bit as buff as she’d thought they might be from looking at his shirt. “Was it having any problems before it died?”
He leaned forward to look into the engine. His shirt pulled tight over what had to be pretty spectacular pecs. His back wasn’t half bad either. Did he work out? Did nerdy spaceship guys work out? Maybe he really was a ninja in spite of what he’d told her. She caught herself wondering what he would look like in one of those Jackie Chan action scenes, dripping with sweat, fighting off a bunch of bad guys.
“Denise?”
With a gasp, Denise shook herself out of her thoughts. She really shouldn’t have gone there anyhow. “Oh. Right. Yeah, there was a lot of black smoke coming out of the tailpipe right before it died. And even though I was flooring it, it just went slower and slower until it stopped.”
The twinkle in his eyes said he knew her thoughts had been on something other than the car. Her voice faded away at the end of her explanation, and she blushed furiously. His answering grin only made her blush and giggle harder.
Oh my gosh, were they flirting? She hadn’t flirted with anyone since high school, definitely not since she’d put on the extra weight.
“Sounds like you’re burning oil.” He straightened, his grin wider than it should have been as he delivered that kind of news. “And if hitting the gas isn’t getting anything done, there might be a fuel line problem somewhere. I don’t think you’re going to be able to get it running again anytime soon.”
Through her giggly, fluttery twitterpation, the problem that presented hit home. Her smile faded. “Oh. Shoot. I need to get home before my daughter gets home from school.”
“You have a daughter?”
Did he seem disappointed? Had she just wrecked things?
No, wait. There was nothing to wreck in the first place.
“I do,” she said with a smile. “Destiny. She’s fifteen now and a freshman at Culpepper High. She should be a junior, but she had mono in sixth grade and had to repeat the year, poor thing.” She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. “But still, I can’t believe I’m that old.”
“You don’t look old enough to have a daughter in high school,” Hero said, crossing his arms and leaning his hip against the front of her car.
“I got pregnant during my senior year, and…” She let the explanation fade away. How could she go and admit something like that to a hot, sweet guy she’d just met? “I shouldn’t be telling you all of this. We just met.”
“It’s okay,” Hero said. “I’m used to it. Apparently, I’ve got the kind of face that makes people want to spill their guts. Or spew their guts.”
Denise giggled. “Definitely not spew.” He was seriously cute, after all.
An awkward silence fell between the two of them. Hero finally broke it by saying, “Here. We can use my cell phone to call for a tow-truck. Do you happen to have the number for one?”
“Yeah, I do. Culpepper is a pretty small town, and everyone knows everyone, which comes in really handy when you need pizza or an exterminator or a tow-truck.”
She was all ready to feel stupid over saying something ridiculous yet again, but Hero only smiled at her rambling sentence. He took out his phone, and as she gave him the number, he called the garage in Culpepper and
arranged for a tow-truck. And then he did something even nicer by standing there with her, chatting about how different Wyoming was from his hometown in Minnesota, while they waited for the truck to get there.
“Minnesota?” Denise asked, curiosity brimming. “I would have thought you came from California.”
“California?” He laughed. “Why?”
“Well…” She shrugged, suddenly worried that she was being a jerk and racially stereotyping him. “It’s closer to Asia? And you said you’re an engineer, and Silicon Valley is in California and all.” Oh my gosh, could she be any more of a moron?
“I’m fourth generation American,” he explained with a smile. My great-grandparents moved here from Okinawa around the turn of the last century. We’ve had plenty of time to migrate east.”
“I’m sorry I’m so stupid,” Denise blurted. “That was so inappropriate.”
“Not at all.” He shrugged. “It’s always interesting to find out where people came from. Like you? Where are your ancestors from?”
Denise shrugged. “I don’t know all of them, but I know my great-great-grandfather was one of the first ranchers out in this area. His name was Rex Bonneville, and apparently he caused a lot of trouble.”
“Ah ha! I knew you came from a family of troublemakers.” He nudged her shoulder as they stood side-by-side leaning against her car.
“I know, I know. I’m a terrible person,” she replied.
His expression dropped to shock. “I was just teasing,” he confessed.
“Well I’m not. I’m a horrible person. Or at least I used to be. My friends say I’m getting better.”
“Imagine that.”
She glanced up at him, surprised by the excitement in his tone. And his smile. And the fact that he was still standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her and hadn’t run off screaming. “Imagine what?”
He shrugged. The motion rubbed his upper arm against hers in a yummy way. “I’ve never met a horrible person before. You’re my first.”
“Ha!” She meant to be sarcastic, but it was way too easy to smile as he said it. It was way too easy to feel completely at home in Hero’s company. Her heart beat faster, and she couldn’t keep the blush off her face. She needed to pull herself together.
“No, I mean it. I’ve never met a horrible person before,” he went on. He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “I bet you I still haven’t met a horrible person.”
They made eye contact. There was so much kindness, so much interest in his eyes that Denise’s knees went all wobbly. How slutty would she be if she tried to kiss him?
She didn’t get a chance to find out. A truck honked behind them, jolting them both out of whatever exciting, unlikely moment they’d tripped into. They turned in unison to see the tow-truck approaching.
The next twenty minutes were spent explaining things to Gus, the guy who owned the garage and drove the tow-truck, and getting her car hooked up so that Gus could drive it back into town. Denise described her car’s “symptoms” to him, and to her surprise, Gus seemed to know exactly what the problem was. He promised to take a look at it as soon as he could, first thing in the morning, and to give her a call as soon as he had a plan of attack to fix it.
“Do you want to go with him to the garage or do you want me to drive you home?” Hero asked as Denise and Gus wrapped things up.
Denise’s jaw dropped. “But you’re on your way to Haskell to start your new job. Do you really want to drive me home?”
“Why not?” Hero’s grin came back in full force. “I don’t actually start work for another week and a half. Culpepper is close to Haskell, and since I planned to get to know the area anyhow, I could do that with you.”
“Really?” She knew she shouldn’t be so stunned, but it was so rare that anyone did anything nice for her, and Hero was the coolest guy she had ever met, hands down.
“Absolutely.” His smile was killer too. That lock of unruly hair of his was delicious as it slid down into his face. It made her want to brush it back, brush her fingers through all of his hair, and touch his face all over.
Whoo boy! She was a goner, all right!
“Okay. If you don’t mind, then, I’ll ride back with you.” Her heart fluttered a thousand times faster than usual. She pivoted to Gus. “You okay with taking my car in alone?”
Gus—who was old enough to have watched every chapter of her pathetic life—winked. “Sure thing, honey. I’ll give you a call when it’s ready.”
He headed back to his truck, and Hero walked Denise to the passenger door of his mafia car, holding the door open for her. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had been so considerate. Better still, his car smelled good—like leather and fast food. She couldn’t help but smooth her hands over the seat after he shut her door and walked around to the driver’s side.
“This is exactly why I thought you were some sort of Chinese mafia guy when I saw you driving up,” she said as soon as he was seated and ready to go.
Hero laughed, and once again, Denise was mortified.
“My ancestors were Japanese, actually,” he said as if she hadn’t just stuck her foot in her mouth. “But I like the idea that I look that tough.”
“Well, you don’t look tough, but your car does.”
He laughed even louder. She realized her mistake and buried her face in her hands.
“Oh my gosh. See? I told you I was a horrible person. I can’t even get one conversation right.”
“I don’t mind.” His smile stayed firmly in place as he pulled out onto the highway and drove on. “In fact, I kind of like it.”
“You can’t possibly be serious.” She shook her head and sighed, then added, “I’ll tell you when to turn off. We live pretty close to the highway.” And then. “How can you possibly like it when someone repeatedly sticks their foot in their mouth?”
Hero shrugged. “I like how you speak your mind. You don’t hold yourself back. I work with a lot of guys, and women, who have problems expressing themselves. There’s this one guy who I’m going to be working with, Denny, who I swear didn’t say a single word through the entire orientation weekend we had last month.”
“Yeah, well, it’s better than having verbal diarrhea.”
“I don’t think so.” He peeked sideways at her while still trying to keep his eyes on the road. “People who say whatever they think don’t have anything to hide. You can trust them.”
“Ha!” Denise began to relax into her seat. “You can’t trust me.”
“The fact that you told me I can’t trust you makes me think that I can trust you even more.”
She shook her head. “I used to be a huge gossip. I stabbed people in the back. I made fun of the unpopular kids at school. For a while there, I was really nasty to the people who came in into my salon. I was so mean to Chastity Culpepper when she first came to town.” She snapped her mouth shut in time to stop herself from saying that was because she had a crush on Chris Culpepper and hoped he would go out with her instead of marrying someone out of the blue. “Wow, you really are the kind of guy people can say anything to. I’m sorry for dumping on you.”
“Really, it’s okay.”
“But I was such a horrible person.”
Hero made a non-committal sound. “Then it’s a good thing I never met that person.”
“What? You did. I’m sitting in your car right now.” She added, “You can turn off at this exit, then turn right,” as they neared Culpepper.
“You’re sitting in my car,” Hero said. “But the only Denise I’ve ever met is a funny, cute, interesting woman with cool pink hair.”
Denise’s heart pounded. She touched the strand of pink she’d put in her hair just last week so that it would match the bridesmaid’s dresses for Elvie and Evan’s wedding. “That’s really nice of you to say. A little too nice.”
“Why is it too nice? I met someone I like. If you’re someone different than who you used to be, shouldn’t you give yourself a chance to identify as this new p
erson? We are never just the people we were in the past. You’re only that horrible person in the present if you choose to be now, and to me, it doesn’t look like you’re choosing to be horrible. Quite the opposite.”
Denise could have been knocked over with a feather. She’d never thought about it that way. She’d been trying so hard to be a new, better person. But only now, with Hero saying so, did she realize that she had to believe she was that new person if it was going to stick.
“You’re right,” she said, simple as could be. Simple, and yet how hard was it to see yourself as someone new?
“And furthermore,” Hero went on, pretending to be more serious than his eyes indicated he was, “I would very much like to stop over in Culpepper to have dinner with this new, nice person that you are.”
“Really?” She was definitely having the best day of her life, broken-down car and everything.
“Of course.” He snuck a look at her as they stopped for a red light just off the highway exit. “Know any good places to eat?”
For a second, Denise’s mouth just hung open. She couldn’t believe she’d just been asked out on a date…because someone thought she was nice. There was a first time for everything.
“There’s Bob’s Burger Barn,” she suggested. “It’s quickly becoming a favorite spot around here. Turn left at the light.”
“Which light?”
She laughed. “There’s only one light in Culpepper.”
“Only one?”
“Yeah, and that was a big deal.”
“A traffic light?”
“It took ten town council meetings, three separate subcommittees, and four public hearings before they installed it, and it’s only there on trial right now,” Denise explained as Hero chuckled. They turned, and she said, “There. My house is the fourth on the right.”