Cheryl Harper - Winner Takes All

To keep this trip on the right track, she needed to cling to the first Daniel, the one who’d seen countless pimples and the horrifyingly bad perm she’d had at sixteen. She would explain to everyone that he was a good friend, nothing more, and then she’d find a new and exotic man in romantic Paris.

Convincing herself that he was only a good friend might make all the difference back in Holly Heights, too. Maybe she’d take the men who sat across from her on dinner dates more seriously.

In a flash they were rung up, checked out and back in the car. “You know, for a guy who’s trying to raise money, you haven’t pushed your luck. Shouldn’t I be bankrolling my own junk food habit?”

She opened the bag of chips and offered it to him.

He took a handful of chips out, started the truck and said, “Don’t worry. I’m putting it all on your tab.”

The truck lurched as Daniel made the turn on to the dusty gravel road, and she gripped the handle above the door again. He laughed and glanced her way, so she pasted on a confident expression. “Oh, I’m not worried. Thanks to the Big Star lotto, I can cover the tab.” A hard jounce shook her across the seat, and she grabbed the bag of chips before it could sail on to the floorboard. The bumps in the road and the crackle of gravel under the tires were loud so Stephanie shut up and held on.

“This more like what you expected?” Daniel asked as he slowed to pass a woman walking beside a donkey. The woman raised a hand to her straw hat.

“It’s still pretty flat. That’s not what I pictured.” She glanced in the side mirror to see the dust cloud fall between the truck and the woman, dimming the bright colors in her wrap.

Daniel pointed over the steering wheel. “Not for long. We’re going up.” They drove quickly past a small town that seemed nothing more than deserted strips of small homes made of concrete-block walls and tin roofs, crossed a trickle of water that might be a stream on some days, and started winding their way up the mountain. At the first insane hill, Daniel flipped off the air conditioner and rolled down the windows. “This is when the khaki might come in handy. If the dust gets too much...”

What? Let me know? Too bad for you? She wanted to know how that sentence ended but she was too busy biting her lips to ask.

Stephanie was doing pretty well with the whole “faking being totally okay with this speed” thing until he wedged a knee under the steering wheel to twist off the cap of a bottle of Inca Kola. “Here. Try this.”

Instead of shrieking at him to concentrate, she studied the bottle.

Calm, Stephanie. He’s watching you, waiting for you to freak out and prove him right. Proving him right this early on will make the rest of the trip impossible.

Glass bottle. Cold yellow liquid. How bad could it be?

“Put both hands on the wheel and I will.” She took the bottle and very obviously waited for him to comply. When he did, she put the bottle to her lips and took a tentative sip. “Mmm, that’s good.”

She handed it back and tried not to think about how sharing a bottle was the kind of thing a happy couple might do.

“Definitely worth taking a chance on the unknown now and then.” Daniel nodded, tilted the bottle back. For a split second Stephanie was distracted by how good he looked with those muscles, that cold drink and the satisfied sigh. Then she remembered the speed and the road.

Enough was enough. Nagging would confirm his suspicions that she should have been left in a cushy hotel in Lima. But there would be no fun in saying “I told you so” if they were both dead. “Please slow down. The medical personnel for the area is in this truck so if we crash...”

“No worries. We’d never survive the drop.” Daniel’s lips were twitching as she gasped out loud. “Come on. This is fun, right? And beautiful.”

Daniel pointed and for the first time Stephanie noticed the amazing stretch of mountains ahead of them. Also, the curving road that seemed to completely disappear. The sheer wall of mountain marked one side of the road that was just wide enough for one car with a complete lack of rail on the other side that might prevent them from taking a long drop. Like, a very long drop. Where was the bottom of that fall?

She expected Daniel to comfort her with dry statistics on how few people died by plunging over the side of the road. Brushing off her concern and the real danger took some getting used to.

A cold drink might be the only thing to save her, so she fished a Coke out of her convenience store bag. The first sweet sip was calming.

“What do we do if we meet another car?” Stephanie asked and bit back a frightened squeak as gravel spun under the truck’s tires.

“Negotiate. Very carefully. You’ll see.” His certainty didn’t reassure her.

That’s what she’d been afraid of.

Was he trying to frighten her back to Lima? One glimpse of his face convinced her that this was his normal. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

If he’d wanted peace and quiet for his drive to Alto, he was totally going to get it. She couldn’t have made inane conversation about sports teams and weather if her life depended on it. She was too busy swallowing back pleas to slow down and be careful. Be more careful. Please be more careful.

Then the truck lurched, headed for the wall instead of the drop and Daniel cursed. Before she could gather her breath to scream, before the movie of her life began to flash in front of her eyes, he had the truck stopped. “Flat tire.” Instead of shouting it like it might be the thing that spelled the end, his voice was flat with annoyance.

As though a flat tire while clinging to the side of a mountain was the same as a hangnail.

Here it might be.

Stephanie glanced wildly over both shoulders as if something might have changed in the two seconds she’d had her eyes squeezed shut. “Here?”

Daniel rested his chin against his chest for a second and then handed her his bottle. “They hardly ever happen on nice, level spots, especially around here.” He slid out of the truck, and she put both bottles in the cup holders before she inched her way out between the truck and the dusty mountain.

“But you know how to fix it?” Her fingers ached and she realized she’d tangled them together in a tight ball. At this second, in this place, she was as equipped to change that tire as she was to fly back to Lima. Eventually she might figure it out, but not before they were flattened into more Peruvian dust.

Daniel wrapped both hands around hers, the ones she didn’t know she was wringing like a true damsel in distress, until some of his calm and warmth seeped through her skin. He’d always been able to do that, break through her worry and give her some peace.

“Relax. This is business as usual. I can change it. Haven’t I always kept you safe? You and the other Holy Horrors have trained me well. Big brother to the rescue again.” He tilted his head to catch her stare, and they stood there for a long minute. “We’ll get the tire fixed in the next town. Everything is fine.” She matched every deep breath he took and realized that, although he was a brilliant doctor, this ability he had to convince her that everything was going to be okay made him the best.

Then she understood what he’d said. Big brother. Except he wasn’t and the way he saw their relationship hadn’t changed at all.

But she had.

Or she could if she wanted to, and this trip was her shot to show him and prove it to herself.

Starting right here, on the side of this mountain, where they both might be pulverized together if they didn’t get a move on.

“Okay. What can I do to help?” Now that she was breathing properly, she was ready to do whatever she could to get them moving again.