ONE
A Few Weeks before Christmas
On the Side of a Mountain
Kristen
I stared at the flat tire and considered my options.
“Can’t call Dad,” I said aloud, as I chewed on my thumbnail. “He and his broken leg are the reason I’m here in the first place. Can’t call Ethan because he’s got that city council meeting, which is why he couldn’t pick me up from the airport and I had to rent this stupid car in the first place. Of course, I could attempt to change the tire myself. Dad taught me when I got my license. But I’d been sixteen the last time I did this. Good bet I’m probably pretty rusty. Can I look up a YouTube video?”
“Uh, excuse me.”
I screamed and jumped at the sound of the deep voice behind me. I whirled and could see a set of headlights through the dark and falling snow.
“Sorry,” the voice, coming from the direction of the car, said again. “I tried to let you know I was here, but you were…talking to yourself pretty aggressively there.”
I’d had my back turned, and with my headlights still on I hadn’t seen the approach of the other car’s headlights behind me.
“Why didn’t I hear your car?” I snapped.
“It’s electric,” explained the deep voice. “Uh. Sorry?”
“Stay where you are,” I shouted at him, even as I saw him pull away from the car to approach me.
He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but that meant nothing. He’d taken two steps toward me, and as dark as it was, I could still see he was huge. Like, over six foot, two hundred pounds huge.
“I have a gun!” I screeched.
“Whoa! Okay, sorry, lady. I’m backing away right now. Just going to get back in my car and go. Good luck…with everything. Whatever.”
Shit. I wanted to scare him, not frighten him away. The truth was I had no chance of changing a tire on the side of this mountain and the snow was starting to fall really, really hard, so the odds of more traffic coming by here, seemed pretty long.
“I mean…I have pepper spray. Just pepper spray.”
I could see his head tilt to the side like he was trying to make sense of me.
“Okay, fine. I’m a woman alone at night, on the side of a mountain and you just crept up behind me in your car…”
“It’s electric. It doesn’t make sounds.”
“And I freaked out a little,” I finished. “That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“Sure. I saw you pulled over, your hazard lights were on, and I thought I could help. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“I suppose. Can you change a tire?”
“Yes. But I need to approach the car.”
“My name is Kristen,” I told him. “I’m telling you that not to introduce myself, but to make you understand I’m a person. I’m humanizing myself in case you’re a psycho killer.”
“Lady, I’m pretty sure of the two of us, I’m more afraid of you right now. But if you want to back up a few steps so you feel comfortable, I’ll change the tire and let you get on your way.”
I did back up. The trunk was open because I’d checked first to see if there was a spare before I went through the list of people I could call before attempting to change the tire myself.
I stood by the front of the car while he inspected the trunk. I could see him better now, illuminated by the headlights of his car now. Large. Broad. Jeans, flannel shirt. Thick beard.
He screamed Colorado. Almost predictably so.
