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.“I can.I can do this.I’m a woman and I can handle a little flat tire.” There had to be directions in the owner’s manual, right? “Directions are good.Directions I can do.”After retrieving the book, she flung the door open and stepped away to survey the situation.The rear driver’s side tire had more than flattened; the damn thing lay in shreds.Some on the road, some still hanging on to the wheel in vain.“Fuuuudge.” She stomped to the trunk, flipped it open, and stared into the abyss.There had to be a tire somewhere.Her dad had once changed a tire on their old olive green station wagon when she’d been a little girl.She remembered standing on the side of the road holding her mom’s hand, her pigtails flapping in the breeze, while her dad jerked on some kind of pole he’d attached to the nut jobber thingies on the wheel.She also remembered her mother covering her ears as her dad created a whole new language Anna had never heard.The thought made her smile as she reached into the trunk and lifted the corner of a piece of carpet that seemed to hide something round beneath it.And voilà.El sparo tire-o.A lifty thingamabob too.One of those poles also.Anna searched the handbook index for changing a tire, found the page she needed, and read up on how to get the spare and parts out of the car first and foremost.Having succeeded, she set about loosening the lug nuts—as she’d discovered they were called.“Yep.Two minutes and I give up.”Her hands burned from gripping the wrench so tight, she swore she would have blisters.She’d cry if she thought it would help any.But no.There’d been no traffic on the road, and why would there be? It was still early in the afternoon when people were still at work.She was going to have to hoof it.Make the boys come and help her out of another mess.All on top of groveling for a bed to sleep on in the interim of finding her own place.If the look of the darkening sky was anything to go by, she could only hope she made it to the house before the rain did.She threw everything back in the trunk, slapped it closed, grabbed her purse and phone, locked the car, and took off.The downpour started about five minutes into her clipped pace, making the road a squishy, soggy, slippery mess, and cooling the air temperature about fifteen degrees.“You hate me, don’t you?” she yelled into the sudden wind-driven rain.“What the hell did I ever do to You?” She jogged as best she could, splashing into already forming puddles and doing her best to recreate the language her dad had mastered that day changing their wagon’s tire.She was a soggy pile of pissed off mess by the time she reached the house.Anna shivered, squeezed out about a gallon of water from her T-shirt, and lifted her hand to knock.Time to suck it up and be a big girl.She would stay only until she found another place.She fully expected her knock to be greeted with gloating and the I-told-you-so’s too.As if they knew she’d come to them eventually.Only nothing happened.Silence was the only answer she got.Except the bolt of lightning that struck so close behind her, every hair on her body stood on end, scaring the crap and a girlish shriek out of her and plastering her to the door.The crack of thunder that followed made her ears ring and tears well in her eyes.He really was out to get her.Shaking now, she pushed the doorbell, hoping beyond hope they just hadn’t heard her, and then pressed her ear to the wood, hoping to hear movement behind it.Nada.It seemed no one was home.And why would they be? Marc would still be at the school and Colton was probably out solving a murder or something.She was stuck.In a thunderstorm of epic proportions it seemed, when another bolt lit up the gray early afternoon, followed a split second later by its thunderous clap.Her shoes made a sucking noise as she plodded over to the porch swing she’d hung there the first summer.Exhaustion hit her the second her butt hit the wooden slats of the swing, and she did her best to ignore the way water squished out of her jeans, and set the swing in motion with her toe.She fished her phone from her purse and laid it next to her.It literally dripped with water, and with her current luck, the damn thing would be ruined.That would well and truly suck squirming dog maggots since she really didn’t have the funds to replace it right now.Seriously.She was losing her ever-loving mind.First the news of the house, then getting pulled over and semi-arrested—to her mind anyway—having her car impounded, losing her apartment, being unable to find anything close to her price range anywhere near the school, the flat tire, rainstorm, and finding out she may be the mate of two shape-shifting werewolves had Anna’s patience hanging by a teenie, weenie thread.One with the capacity to break at any second.“This sucks
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