“Are you deflecting from the issue at hand?”
“It’s notyourissue,” I said, even more irritated than before. “I was managing just fine before you came along, thank you very much!”
“Stranded in the dark with a dead cellphone battery and a car that belongs in the junkyard?” His skepticism was thick. “Yeah. You’re right as rain.”
Shit.
I was so worked up, I’d momentarily forgotten about the dead cellphone situation. My cheeks heated as an embarrassed blush stole across them. Stoic as Superman, he watched it happen without saying a word. Then again, he didn’t need to — he had a way of making me feel flustered and foolish, just standing there looking at me.
Through sheer force of will, I adopted a bitchy tone instead of a mortified one. “Are the insults part of your chivalrous plans to save me?”
“Is the defensiveness part of your issue accepting assistance even when you clearly need it?”
This.
Freaking.
Guy.
I (begrudgingly) swallowed down my pride. The truth was, I did need help. And much as it pained me to admit… I figured I was better off accepting it from a cop than the bikers at The Banshee.
“Look, Highwater?—”
“Hightower.”
“I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Maybe that’s ‘cause you’re wearing sandals in October.”
God, he was annoying. “And I do appreciate your offer to help?—”
“Oh, clearly.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, I forced myself to sally forth. “I was merely pointing out that you’re not on duty.”
“Why does that matter?”
“You don’t have any obligation to help me, that’s all.”
“I like to think I’m the sort of guy who’d help anyone who needs it, assuming it’s in my power to do so. On or off the clock. Badge or no badge.”
He was either a bonafide saint or deeply sanctimonious. Seeing as I had about as much faith in men as I had in the almighty — which was to say:not very much at all— I was going with the latter.
“Fine. Have it your way.” I threw my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I just need to borrow your phone so I can call a tow. After that, you can be on your merry way. I’m good on my own.”
He was already shaking his head, rejecting my words before they’d left my lips. “No.”
“No I can’t borrow your phone? Or no you aren’t leaving?”
“No to both.” He stared at me unflinchingly, those blue eyes intent. “I’ll handle the tow. I know someone who can bring it to a local shop, get it checked out for you first thing tomorrow. If it’s fixable, he’ll fix it.”
I must’ve made some sort of face — one that looked, if I had to guess, like Edvard Munch’s famously horrified paintingThe Scream— because his own expression softened and the humor bled right out of his stare.
“Diagnostic is free of charge,” he said with a casual shrug, like it was no big deal. “The guy at the shop owes me a favor.”
Pulling in a breath through my nostrils, I tried not to stomp my foot on the ground like a melodramatic teen. What waswrongwith this guy? Why was he so damn determined to help a girl he’d just met? Surely, not out of the goodness of his heart.
No one’s heart was that good.