Page 8 of Wilde Secrets

Not being the most confident driver in the rain, Harper slowed. It was taking much longer than she had expected to get to West’s house.

According to the map on her phone, she should be almost there, but the rain had poured down, reducing visibility to barely thirty feet. If she hadn’t felt such a press to get to her destination, she would have pulled over and waited for it to clear, but despite her better judgment she’d kept driving.

“Beaver Lane?” she muttered, slowing to read a street sign that was barely visible in the torrent that continued to pour from the sky.

“Nope.” She pressed on.

She’d passed through the little town of Cape Wilde not too long before. A Main Street with closed shops in painted timber and brick. Window boxes decorated the shop windows, making her smile. A bar was still open near the waterfront. The impression of a cozy, quiet coastal town was all she could take in with the downpour.

And now she was almost at her destination. Not much longer and she could rest. The thought was enough to make it worth pushing on.

“Come on. Beaver Lane has to be around here somewhere,” she said to herself, leaning forward to peer through the water running in sheets over the glass as the windshield wipers frantically battled against the downpour.

She caught sight of the word ‘beaver’ on a sign and smacked the steering wheel. “Yes!”

She turned the car a little too sharply for the wet road, the back end sliding. Harper squeaked, and feeling the loss of traction, she tried to correct by turning the wheel in the other direction.

The car straightened, and relief washed over her, but only for an instant as a line of trees loomed straight in front of her. She screamed and slammed her foot on the brake, but it was too late.

The little rental slid off the road, and Harper threw her hands up in front of her face. Screwing her eyes shut, she tensed up and held her breath.

The car plowed down a small embankment and headfirst into a tree, stopping with a sudden jolt that deployed the airbags. All the air whooshed out of Harper’s lungs at the impact. To add insult to injury, the hands she had tried to shield herself with connected with her face.

“Oof!” Harper’s eyes stung from the impact. She took a few moments to move her wrists, making sure they were not damaged.

It didn’t feel like she’d broken anything, and her shoulders relaxed with a sigh. Her head slumped against the headrest as she took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart.

The rain continued thundering down. One of the windshield wipers was bent and making an awful scraping noise as it slid back and forth across the glass.

She turned the wipers off, silencing the grating sound of metal on glass, and put the car into reverse. Hoping to back the little rental onto the road, she pressed down on the accelerator gently. The little car shuddered as the wheels spun in the mud. She tried again, pushing harder on the accelerator. The engine whined, then sputtered and stopped.

She turned off the ignition, and the interior light came on, masking any view of the outside darkness. Her reflection in the rear view mirror showed dark circles under her eyes, her usually straightened and tamed blonde hair a mess of frizzy waves.

She grunted, turning away from her reflection. There were bigger issues right now.

The airbags had begun to deflate, and she pushed them aside as she hunted for her handbag. It had slid from the passenger seat into the footwell, beyond her reach.

It took some maneuvering, but she grabbed it and found her phone in one piece.

“At least one thing is going right,” she muttered as she unlocked the screen. No reception and the battery was almost empty. She dropped the phone back into her handbag with a curse.

What was she thinking? She didn’t have West’s phone number anyway, and who else would she call?

She undid her seatbelt and twisted in her seat to look through the back window. The slope that looked so small from the road now looked like a mountain. It loomed behind the rental car in the dark, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat.

In this rain, it was unlikely anyone would see her car in the ditch—if anyone came out this way in a storm. No. The map showed the road had very few houses on it. Anyone with any sense would be home and out of this downpour.

Nobody was going to come along and save her.

She was all alone now.

The truth of her situation hit her. She was not a princess. This was not a fairytale. There was no knight in shining armor coming to the rescue.

Harper gritted her teeth. If she was going to get out of here, she was going to have to do it herself.

She reached for the door handle, but it wouldn't open. She jiggled the handle, pushing at the door.

Nothing.

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