Chapter Seven
“I’m not ready.” Rin groaned as she laid her forehead against the steering wheel. It had taken so long just to adjust the seat so that she could see over the steering wheel and still reach the pedals, that she had lost all her nerve. Of course, the sight of the packed down snow on the road didn’t help. “Maybe we should wait until spring to do this.”
Mike seemed way too relaxed in the passenger seat for someone who was putting his life in her hands. “Na, best to learn in the winter. If you can handle a vehicle under these conditions, the rest is cake.”
“But I like cake.” Rin said, looking back out over the winter landscape. “Cake is good. Let’s have cake.”
Mike let out a chuckle. “I’d suggest you drive us to the diner and we’d celebrate your fist outing with cake, but Lucy would probably kick you out just like Mrs. Tully did.” He reached across the seat and gripped her gloved hand in his, and Rin could feel the zing of electricity shoot up her arm despite the cloth between their joined hands. It felt so unbelievably good and, surprisingly, that connection gave her strength. Even more so when he said, “I won’t make you do this if you don’t want to, but I promise that I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
Rin stared at Mike for a moment. Hazel. His eyes were hazel and filled with so much sincerity that her courage immediately returned. With a nod, she turned back to the view outside the windshield, took a deep breath and started the car.
It took a few moments for Rin to become accustomed to the sensitivity of the gas and brake pedals – there may have been screaming – but she was finally driving a car. Cruising down the empty main street of town, Rin had the steering wheel in a death grip, her teeth clenched, and her chin almost resting on the top of the wheel as she scanned the road in front of the vehicle like a hawk, but she was doing it. She was driving.
“You’re doing great. You could even go a bit faster if you want. You’ve got this.” Mike said with a chuckle.
Rin shook her head but didn’t take her eyes off the road. Five miles per hour was a nice, comfortable pace; no matter what Mike might say. Five was a perfectly acceptable number. A safe number. This she could handle.
She had no idea how much time had passed, but before long, her tight grip on the wheel loosened, the muscles in her back eased, and she unclenched her backside and thighs. Mike must have noticed because she caught the flash of his smile in her peripheral vision. “That’s right, you’ve got this. You’re a natural.”
She didn’t quite agree that she was a natural, but now that she was finally beginning to relax, she was actually starting to have fun. She may have even upped her speed to just below ten miles per hour. Yup, she was a daredevil.
By the time Mike convinced her to attempt pulling into a parking space in front of the diner, Rin was grinning. Perhaps she’d grown a bit too confident. She didn’t anticipate braking on the slippery surface of the packed down snow in front of the diner. The car went sideways, only about a foot or so, but the sensation of losing control had her letting go of the wheel to throw her hands in front of her face and a high-pitched scream leaving her mouth while her foot stomped hard on the brake. It took her another moment to realize that, aside from the engine running, everything was silent. There had been no crunch of metal, no screams – aside from her own – and the car was stopped. She hadn’t hit anything. She was in fact, sitting in front of the diner, just slightly skewed from where she had originally intended to park.
“Are you okay?”
Rin turned wide eyes on Mike, who had placed a comforting hand on her arm when he had asked the question. To give him credit, he wasn’t laughing at her, or glaring at her for her foolishness, he simply looked concerned.
Once she nodded he let out a little chuckle. “You did great. A slide like that would make any new driver panic. Just do me a favor, okay?”
Rin nodded again, unable it seemed, to actually form words, and he continued. “Don’t take your hands off the wheel.”
Another nod, but this time her voice actually worked. “Got it.”
Mike ran his gloved hand up and down her arm. “You did great. I’m telling you, you’ve got this. You just need practice. Before you know it, you’ll be driving like you were born to it.”
Rin’s first thought was that she was never going to get behind the wheel again, but Mike’s encouragement helped squash it, and his next words restored the grin to her face when he nudged his chin in the direction of the diner and said, “Cake?”
Her chuckle was cut short when she remembered the goo she had slathered on her no longer aching muscles. “Do I still stink?”
Mike eyed her for a moment in consideration and then drew in deeply through his nose. “You smell great to me.”
Rin narrowed her eyes wondering if he was just being nice and then let out a huff of disbelief. “You’ve probably just gone nose blind to the scent.”
Mike grinned and opened his door. “Probably. Let’s go see if Lucy’s going to kick us out.”
Rin was grinning, imagining the customers inside wrinkling their noses as they caught a whiff of her. Then Mike opened the door to the diner and Rin caught the scent of something that had her throat closing off in fear. Bear. She could smell bear shifters. She was frozen for several painful beats of her heart, and she could barely pull air into her lungs. Run. Run away. Now. Run. Her brain was screaming at her frozen limbs and Rin suddenly lurched into motion. Without a word she ran past the skewed car that had brought her such delight, her feet slipping slightly on the road as she crossed but she refused to slow. Her vision locked on the bed and breakfast – her safety.
She could hear Mike calling her name, his concern evident, but she couldn’t stop, not even to explain. She needed to escape. Throwing open the door to the bed and breakfast, she slammed it closed behind her and raced up the stairs to her room. Another slam as that door banged shut as well and Rin finally collapsed on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, she tucked her head between them as memories bombarded her. The scent of the bear shifter – the Brooks’ right-hand man – as he muffled her scream with a heavy hand. The pinch of the needle jabbed into her neck as she was shoved into the back of a van. Then later, waking up in a strange place, disoriented and sick, only to be told the method in which she would be murdered and mounted in some hunter’s collection as a trophy.
Rin’s stomach rolled and she lost every bite of her breakfast on the floor.