Fender Bender Blues Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Fender Bender Blues

  by

  Niecey Roy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Fender Bender Blues

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Niecey Roy

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Champagne Rose Edition, 2013

  Print ISBN 978-1-61217-741-0

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-742-7

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my husband,

  for putting up with me through this journey.

  To my family,

  for believing in me.

  To my friends,

  for putting up with all my writerly drama.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to:

  DJ Hendrickson, my editor,

  for working so hard on this book.

  The Wild Rose Press

  for being such a great publisher to work with and making my dreams come true.

  Donna Sturgeon

  for critiquing my book and not being afraid to tell me what wasn’t working.

  Casse NaRome

  for critiquing the first few chapters of the book and encouraging me to keep going.

  The ladies of Prairieland Romance Writers

  for giving me the inspiration to reach for the stars and answering all of my questions.

  Chapter One

  “You are not coming home without a job,” Rach muttered to herself and swung the dated sedan around in her townhome parking lot to face the street.

  So she felt like crud and had a kink in her neck, those were small discomforts in light of the task ahead—finding the perfect job, maybe even her dream job, if such a thing existed. She would prove to her parents and anyone else who had their doubts about her current circumstance that she, Rachel Marie Bennett, failed social worker, had a plan for her future.

  Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” blared through the speakers from a mixed CD of her favorite songs as she rolled out of the parking lot at a crawl, reaching up to tilt the rearview mirror just so. She whipped open a tube of lip gloss to apply a generous swipe. Opportunities were endless when armed with lucky lip gloss.

  The blare of a car horn assaulted her ears, and she slammed on the brakes. The crunch of metal on metal sounded at the same time the impact jolted her body and she sucked in a quick breath.

  Rach squeezed her eyes shut and whispered, “I’m fine. The car is fine. Everything is fine.”

  She took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves then opened her eyes.

  “Lucky, my ass,” she huffed, and threw the car into park. She glared at the tainted lip gloss still clutched in a shaky hand and tossed it to the floor where it dropped between a candy wrapper and a fast-food bag. Smoothing wavy auburn locks back over slim shoulders, she leaned forward to assess the damage through the windshield.

  The car sat in limbo halfway out of the parking lot with a shiny blue Camaro eating the driver’s side front fender. The sports car looked as if it had driven off a dealership lot and straight into her car.

  All signs pointed to her fault. She wiped clammy palms on her pants legs and summoned a brighter thought—at least she had full coverage. Her dad would gloat about it later. He’d been needling her to keep it instead of swapping for the cheaper liability, all to save a few hundred bucks a year.

  With a sigh, she pushed her car door open to face the music. When she shoved it shut behind her, the unhealthy sound of protesting metal made her frown. A quizzical glance at the fender showed it bent in at the doorjamb. No wonder she’d had a hard time pushing it open. “Just perfect,” she muttered.

  Any optimism she had for a lighthearted insurance card exchange went up in smoke when she met the eyes of the man staring at her from the other side of the Camaro. She took in his handsome face and sharp features, the neat, tawny hair trimmed close to his head, and endless broad shoulders tucked into an expensive dark gray business suit. He reeked of money and ego—and restrained anger.

  Not a good combination. She sighed miserably. Ready to apologize, she stepped forward and lifted her hands. “I am so—”

  “I hope you have insurance,” he interrupted with a growl, and she dropped her hands. A muscle twitched in his well-defined jaw, still looking very GQ despite the grimace he wore. His linebacker body was planted in a rigid stance, as if he were holding back a few swear words.

  Offended by his jerkiness—she hated growly guys, they were right up there with shitty jobs—Rach adjusted her purse strap over her shoulder and taunted, “It would really suck if I didn’t.”

  Exasperated, he strode around the back of his car and she took a step backward. She bumped into the side of her car, and with nowhere to go, she plastered on a tight smile. Since he didn’t react well to sarcasm she decided to cop the funny stuff and held out her insurance card without another word. The man yanked it from her fingers and she bit her tongue.

  Peering at it as if he doubted its authenticity, she fought the urge to tap her shoe. Finally, he looked up at her with reproachful, cornflower blue eyes. “You weren’t even looking. You could have hurt someone.”

  She didn’t need this. She’d be hearing the same lecture from her mom later. Rach glared back at him. “Thank you, Mr. Driver Safety Educator. Now give me your insurance information and we’ll be on our way. Un
less you want to call the cops.”

  God, she hoped not! She had a way with cops wielding traffic tickets—they brought out her snotty side and when that happened they happily wrote out the pink slip. A ticket on top of an insurance claim would be a disaster. Especially without a job.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when he shook his head.

  “Forget it,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is private property—your car’s mostly in your parking lot.”

  He seemed upset by the fact no one would be hauling her away in cuffs. Rach glanced at his mangled bumper and supposed it was understandable. The car had been immaculate before...well, before she’d pulled out in front of him. She felt awful. Rach blamed it on the lip gloss. Apparently she’d overestimated its worth.

  She decided to try the apology again, but he interrupted her with, “I’ll be calling this in today.”

  He handed her a card from his wallet.

  Rach rolled her eyes and swallowed the apology. She stuffed the card into her purse, deep down where it joined the crumpled papers, ATM receipts, and junk mail. Turning her back on his pissy attitude, she yanked her car door open and pretended not to hear the sad noise it made.

  “Great, nice to meet you, you’re very charming, have a wonderful day,” Rach articulated and wrenched the door shut behind her.

  He stood glaring at her with his hands in his pants pockets, as if considering a reply. After a moment, he shook his head and stalked around his car to the driver’s side. She gave him a simmering stare before backing up. As the vehicles disengaged, a loud screech of bending metal broke the quiet of the morning, sending birds fluttering in surprise from the surrounding trees. There was a tug as her car dragged his bumper along with it, sounding a high-pitched scraping noise across the pavement.

  Horrified and unsure of what to do, she floored the accelerator. The car shot out of the parking lot sideways and jumped the curb. A look in the rearview mirror showed the man standing in front of his car holding the front clip in his arms. He wasn’t smiling.

  To keep the depression at bay she did the only thing fathomable in her situation—she hit the Buster Burger drive-thru for fast-food therapy. Rach ignored the curious stares of fellow drive-thru motorists who were no doubt wondering if the other person’s vehicle had fared better than hers. She told herself not to worry so much as she took the bag and cappuccino from the college kid at the drive-thru window, but the knot in her stomach would not go away. She had just wrecked her car. Her insurance would most certainly skyrocket after this event.

  “It’s okay. Really. The rest of the day will be better.” She needed to stay optimistic while dropping off résumés, except the pick-me-up speech did little for her nerves.

  Rach’s last job hadn’t been horrible, but she wasn’t interested in being a file clerk for the rest of her life. After three months of working in a basement with no windows and only filing cabinets for company, Rach had given her notice. For an entire week she’d lazed around her apartment, slept until her eyes hurt, and watched sitcom reruns. A much needed vacation—that’s what she’d told herself the downtime had been. Now, it was time to get back to reality.

  Another month without any income rolling in would put a major dent in the savings she’d worked so hard for. If she didn’t find a job in the next three months, she would have to move in with her parents. A twenty-seven year old woman did not pack her bags to move into her parents’ basement. That would be a blow to her ego she would never overcome. I’m a college graduate, for Pete’s sake!

  Rach parked the cappuccino in the cup holder and picked up her cell phone to dial her best friend. When Leah answered, Rach told her, “I was just in a car accident.”

  “Oh my God! Are you okay?” Leah screeched into her ear. Something crashed to the floor in the background and Rach winced, sorry she hadn’t been more specific.

  “Just a fender bender with Angry Hot Guy. I’m fine.”

  “Oh. Okay. Angry Hot Guy, huh? So what happened?” The clippers resumed buzzing.

  Leah owned her own hair salon. She had employees. Rach had played around with the possibility of going to beauty school so she could work for her best friend, but she didn’t trust herself with scissors and someone else’s hair. The one time she’d attempted to cut her own bangs she ended up with a hack job, which Leah managed to feather into a decent hairdo. Rach hadn’t played with hair since.

  “I was applying lip gloss,” she stated simply.

  “Ah, lip gloss.” Leah chuckled. “Dangerous stuff.”

  Rach finished off the breakfast burrito, disappointed the tortilla had been nuked a few seconds too long. She crumpled up the wrapper and stuffed it back inside the bag. It joined the discarded lip gloss on the floor. The inside of her car resembled her life—a complete catastrophe. People who’d known Rach her entire life wouldn’t recognize the mess that surrounded her. They weren’t alone because she didn’t understand it, either.

  “I know it. They should put warning labels on those things. Anyway, it was his fault.” Instantly, guilt ate at her for the lie—damn conscience, anyway—and she admitted, “That’s not true. I wasn’t looking”

  “I’m sorry, Sweetie,” Leah sympathized and Rach could hear the frown in her voice. “Listen, I want you to meet him now.”

  “The Greek god?” Rach teased, amused at the nickname Leah had given her new crush. “What’s going on with that, anyway?”

  She could imagine Leah shrugging on the other end. “We’ve been texting.”

  Rach grinned and turned at the stop light. “Have you gone on a date with him yet?”

  “No. We haven’t seen each other since he showed me the apartment last week. Just talking, you know. Anyway, tonight he’s showing his brother a house just a few blocks from your place, actually. I want you to go with me. I’m a little nervous since this is only the second time we’ve seen each other. But he’s the one, Rach.”

  Rach rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. You know I don’t believe in that crap. But I’m there. Text me the address.”

  “You’re the best! I’ll see you after I get off of work. Guess he’s showing his brother the place about 5:30, so don’t be late, okay?” Rach almost hung up, but Leah said, “And you don’t believe in it now, but you will.”

  Rach smiled. “Yeah, yeah, true love and all that mumbo jumbo. I’ll see you tonight. Love ya.”

  Rach hung up and turned into the empty parking lot of the first business on her list and hit a pothole. She parked in front of the squat, light blue building with glass windows lining the front side. She killed the engine and grabbed her briefcase off the seat next to her, packed full of freshly printed résumés. After climbing out of the car, she smoothed her pants and adjusted her blouse, knowing she looked killer in the pants suit she’d only worn once before quitting her last job.

  Two steps toward the entrance to Copy Masters, “We Master You Faster,” she stopped dead in her tracks. The front fender was beyond repair, smashed in at least five inches over the wheel-well with a silver emblem crimped into the metal. An ominous hissing sound came from under the hood, which she hadn’t noticed on the drive over.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She fished inside her purse for her car keys and used a key to jimmy the emblem loose. With a disgusted grunt she tossed the sad looking piece of metal inside the purse.

  Taking a deep breath, she pasted on a smile.

  “Here we go, Bennett. This one’s all yours,” she cheered herself on, and went inside.

  Chapter Two

  Craig Larsen’s secretary raised curious brows as he stormed past her desk.

  “Can you hold my calls?” He yanked open the door to his office. “I need to phone in a car accident.”

  She tsk-tsked with a wag of her finger. “It’s only a car. You have a million of them to choose from. You own a car dealership,” she said with a wave of her hand. “At least you aren’t hurt. Thank the good Lord for that, young man.”

  Craig sighed. He was
already exhausted and the day had just begun. “You’re right. Bad morning, that’s all. Turned off on the wrong street and a redhead drove out in front of me. Now my car is totaled. I shouldn’t have let my brother talk me into driving by another house. This is house number six. I’m beginning to reconsider being a homeowner.”

  Kathy waggled her eyebrows and grinned. “Redhead, you say?”

  Despite his sour mood, Craig leaned against the doorjamb of his office and smiled at his gray-haired secretary. “Yes, and a sarcastic brat. She didn’t even apologize.”

  “If you looked at her with that face you walked in here with, I wouldn’t have apologized either,” she admonished with a double tap of her pen on a message tablet. “You can be a bear sometimes, you know.”

  Craig closed his eyes and squeezed his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose. “I think I was a little hard on her. It’s all this stress with the damn lawsuit and Maggie’s been calling me to ‘talk’ every day, and then my car…I only had it for three damn days.” He opened his eyes on a sigh. “I might have taken it out on the woman.”

  “Might have?”

  Guilt nibbled at the back of his mind. He ignored Kathy’s accusatory stare and turned into his office. “Just hold my calls.”

  It took less time to report the accident to his insurance company than it had taken him to pry the insurance card from the woman’s fingers. And she took off with my insurance card. He shook his head. His insurance agent had promised to mail a replacement card right away.