Repair Me (Kin #1)(2)
Author: Jennifer Foor

I kept turning the key, with no result.

After slamming my hands against the steering wheel until I was in physical pain, I searched for my phone. It had been flung around somewhere inside my car. Once I found it, I realized that I had no signal.

“Fuck my life!”

Once I’d considered that the fox wasn’t out there somewhere waiting to give me rabies, I grabbed my purse, phone and my keys and started to walk out to the road to try and find enough of a signal to make a call.

I thought it would be easy. About a half mile later, while soaked in my own funky sweat, and seriously thinking about stripping down to my bra, I finally got one bar. Unfortunately, my phone still wouldn’t connect. “Shit! How the hell do rednecks communicate?” I was so frustrated!

I didn’t know what to do. Not a single car had passed by me and I was losing hope of getting to the beach. I’d made it halfway back to the car, when a pickup truck came into view. Without regard for my safety, I ran out into the road and started swinging my arms around.

The old, beat up red truck pulled over as I ran up to it.

A wrinkly elderly man, who looked like he hadn’t seen a bath in months, rolled down his window. “You lost?”

“Hello, sir. My car broke down a little ways down the road. Do you think you could call a tow truck for me? I can’t get service out here.”

He lit up a cigarette and blew smoke out of the window in my direction, while he looked down at my tits. I immediately felt uncomfortable and crossed my arms over my chest. I was so glad that I hadn’t taken off my tank top.

“Why don’t you get in and I’ll take you to the shop. We can come get your car later.”

I backed away from the truck. “No offense, but I don’t know you.”

He rolled his eyes and started to laugh. “Have it your way!” The engine revved and he pulled away from me, leaving me standing there in the hot sun.

What was I supposed to do? I wasn’t about to climb into some stranger’s vehicle!

A little while later, after I cried for more reasons than just my car, I heard the sound of an engine. Shockingly, I noticed the same pickup truck pulling over to the side of the road. I jumped into my hot car and locked the doors, feeling like he was there to rape and kill me.

It could happen!

By this time, I’d already sweated through my white tank top, revealing my pink polka-dotted bra. I rummaged through the clothes in the back seat, but came up with only two pair of shorts. After throwing them back behind me, I wiped off the increasing sweat from my chest and prayed that I wasn’t about to die.

As the guy approached, I finally willed myself to look up, and I realized it wasn’t the old man. This guy was built and he was hot.

“Do you want help, or not?” His voice was raspy and I noticed his perfect teeth hidden beneath his greasy, stubbly face.

I rolled down my window halfway. “My car won’t start!”

He scratched his head and looked around. “Maybe it’s because you drove it into a field.”

Was he getting flip with me? “I was trying to avoid a fox that was in the road. Sue me for being a nice person.”

He laughed and put his hands across his chest. “Yeah, we tend to carry old ladies groceries around here. If an animal’s in the road it’s called dinner.”

I scrunched up my face. “Eww!”

He looked back at his truck.

“I ain’t got all day. If you want help, I’m afraid this is all you’re goin’ to get.”

His southern drawl was sexy as hell. If this was my last moment on earth, at least a good looker was going to end it for me. “What about a tow truck?”

“Look, the tow truck is gettin’ new tires. I can take you back to the shop and come and get your car once the tires are on it.”

I was still reluctant to trust someone that I didn’t know. “Can’t you just call someone else?”

He scratched his head and took the bottom of his t-shirt, pulling it up to wipe the sweat off of his face. While he was doing it, I stared at his rock hard abs that were about as perfect as abs could get. When his shirt dropped, so did my jaw, because he’d caught me looking. “See somethin’ you like?”

“What?” I played dumb. “Gross! No! So, how about that call?”

He leaned on my car and got close to the half-opened window. “There’s no other company to call. The next closest place is about seventy miles from here. If you start walkin’ now, you could probably get to a payphone by tomorrow mornin’. If someone like you could survive a night alone out here, that is.”

I put my finger on the electric window button. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

He started walking away, saying something under his breath as the window slowly closed. I was scared, but desperate. I wondered if I could get to town and jump out of the truck without being injured.

I figured he was just playing when he started walking away, but when I heard that old truck coming back to life, I began to panic. He was really going to leave me there, stranded.

I grabbed my things and went running toward the road. “Wait! Please!”

He leaned out of the truck to peer at me. The slightest smile formed in the corner of his lip. “Change your mind?”

I hated this guy.

I really hated him.

Ford

It was a hot summer and working with my alcoholic father made it unbearable at times. My good-old dad had managed to chase away my mother and drink himself into a stupor every night since. I can’t remember one single day since I was a little kid, that my dad didn’t have a can of beer in his hand. He’d even shown up at my graduation half -lit.

I couldn’t blame him for giving up after what our family had gone through in the past year. Losing someone else ripped him to shreds. It was the reason that I had to come home. He couldn’t handle things and the bank was threatening to take everything we owned, our business and our home, away from us.

Since I’d been back, every day had been the same. I did my job and crashed at night, thinking about my broken heart and the piece of it that was never going to be fixed. Losing a family member before they even had a chance at a life is a terrible thing. One day they were there and the next they were being put into the ground.

I half expected my father to give up on everything. For the first couple of weeks, while I moved my things back into the apartment, he was a mess. My aunt was the reason the man had food on the table to eat. She brought him something every day before going in to work at her restaurant. Being my father’s only close sibling, I think she felt it was necessary to care for him, even when he refused to care for himself.