Dakota unhooked her seatbelt and unlocked her door. She turned sideways to exit the car, but her legs refused to support her. Suddenly a strong male hand reached down to help her and practically lifted her out of the vehicle. His muscular arms supported her for a long moment while she tried to gather her wits about her.
“I asked if you were all right. Can you hear me?”
The voice sounded even more impatient, which made Dakota’s temper flare up. “How do you think I am, considering the fact that you just slammed into the back of my car? Can you give me a minute to catch my breath?” she asked without a hint of her normal graciousness.
She glared at the man and found herself looking into his chest. She had to angle her head up to get a look at his face, which was obscured by his baseball cap and a pair of Cazal sunglasses. He was tall, too tall for her taste, and had big shoulders that were apparently carved out of the same granite as his big hard arms. For some reason this annoyed her even more and she jerked away from his grasp, making an exaggerated show of brushing off her blouse where he’d touched her.
“Look, lady, I’m sorry about what happened, but it was an accident. I don’t think there was much harm done,” he offered.
Dakota shoved her glasses up on her nose, a habit she had when she was upset, and right now she was boiling mad. “We’ll just let the police be the judge of that, shall we?” Without another word she stalked to the end of her beloved HHR and frowned when she saw that the left taillight was broken and there was a sizeable dent in the rear end. She glanced at his monstrous Cadillac Escalade and made an ugly face when she saw that the behemoth of a vehicle didn’t have a scratch on it. Figures, she thought viciously. She was about to dial 911 on her cell phone when the stranger spoke again.
“There’s no point in calling the cops because this accident happened on private property. They’ll tell us to exchange information and go on about our business,” he said in what sounded to Dakota like a condescending tone of voice. She was about to say something scathing when she noticed that the driver of the vehicle was a young, gorgeous woman. Slender, fair-skinned with short reddish curls and a look of horror on her face, she was hardly more than a girl and looked much too young for the big hulking man standing next to her.
She abruptly turned and walked to the front of the car where she dug around in her tote bag for her ever-handy notebook and pen. She wrote out her name, address, cell phone number, office number, the name and number of her insurance company and also got out one of her business cards. She thrust them at him and handed him the notebook so he could give her the same information. While he scribbled in the notebook, she cast another unfriendly look at the driver, who was, if she wasn’t mistaken, crying. Lord love a duck, Dakota thought angrily. It’s bad enough that she’s out with a man old enough to be her father, as soon as she does something stupid she starts bawling. Just pathetic.
She was so busy glaring she didn’t see the man offer her the notebook back. “Lady, are you sure you’re all right? We can take you to the emergency room or something because you don’t look so hot,” he said.
Dakota jumped slightly because she’d all but forgotten the man was standing there. She snatched the notebook back and said she was just fine. “I don’t need to go anywhere but home, thank you. I expect to hear from your insurance company tomorrow.” Without even a nod to him, she turned and got in the car, bending over slightly as she did so, affording him a good look at her voluptuous fanny. She happened to look in the rearview mirror and saw him staring at her with a big smirk on his face. It was all she could do not to back up and run over the big oaf. How dare he laugh at her because she wasn’t an anorexic size-zero like the little twit in his truck?
“See, Cha-Cha, that’s why I despise pretty men. They always think they have the right to judge women because of how we look. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we have to offer, they look at the outside only. Big macho doody head,” she muttered.
Cha-cha had heard it all before, chapter and verse. She was still upset about the small collision and was much more interested in getting out of the death trap on wheels her mistress seemed to love so much. “Mrrrroowww,” was all she had to say.
“Okay, baby, okay. We’ll be at our new house in a little while and I’ll cook you a nice little steak, how’s that?”
She continued to croon to the cat until Cha-Cha settled down into a nap. But Dakota’s mood wasn’t so easily gotten over. She was still pretty hot over her welcome to the Windy City. She hadn’t been in the city limits for a good ten minutes before she’d got rear-ended and had had to witness the same kind of mess that had caused her engagement to crash and burn. If Chicago was full of the same kind of men as D.C., she didn’t think she’d like it here one bit.
Nick Hunter leaned against the driver’s side of the Escalade and watched Dakota pull off. He shook his head and rubbed his index finger in the deep groove of the cleft of his chin, something he always did when he was thinking. That woman sure was mad, he thought. And she’s fine, too.
He smiled a lazy secret smile that only he understood. Most men wouldn’t agree, but a pretty woman with a hot temper equaled passion in Nick’s eyes. A sudden push in his back broke his concentration. The driver’s-side door was opening and a long slender leg was emerging. Nick’s smile disappeared as he looked at the young woman scrambling to get out.
“Hold it. Where do you think you’re going, baby girl? You wanted to learn to drive a stick and that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
The young woman’s face looked even more dismayed and she gave him a fierce frown. “Uncle Nick, why do you insist on calling me that? I’m an adult, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Nick ignored her comment as he got back in the passenger seat and fastened his seat belt. “Well, put your narrow adult butt back in that seat and let’s get going. A little accident isn’t the end of the world, Ebony. If you drive a car you have to be prepared for these situations and you can’t let yourself fall apart. Close the door and turn on the ignition and let’s hit it.” He gave her a calm, uncompromising stare and she had no choice but to do as he said.
“If you weren’t my favorite uncle, I’d get out of this gas-guzzling monster and walk home,” she mumbled.
“Keep testing me and I’ll let you,” Nick answered with the grin that never failed to melt a female heart.
Ebony ignored him and concentrated on her driving until they reached her parents’ house, which took about ten minutes. She parked in the driveway and turned to Nick with a big grin on her face. “I did it! I’ll never do it again because it was a trauma from which I may never recover, but I did it!”
“Ebony, it was a fender-bender. A little bump, that’s all. Get over it,” Nick advised.
“But Uncle Nick, that lady was so mad! And I did smash up the back of her HHR, which looked brand-new. She was so mad at me, I could just feel it.” Ebony shuddered at the memory.
“She was mad because she was scared, baby girl. Getting bumped on the rear when you’re not expecting it can rattle you pretty good. She was just a little shaken up, that’s all.”
Ebony’s eyes widened and she tilted her head to one side. “You’re not just saying that because she was your type, are you?”
Nick cut his eyes at her before opening his door. “And what would you know about my ‘type’?” He stepped down and was halfway to the front door of his brother’s house before Ebony caught up with him.
“You
