Page 6 of The Playboy and the Waitress

“Dage.”

“Jenna, we're not discussing this. Lock your car and get in now.”

I close the hatch and hit the lock button then slide back into the seat of his car. The doors are not even all the way closed when he takes off. I grasp onto the seat as he takes a sharp right out of the parking lot.

“Hold on!”

I can’t hold back the scream that leaves my throat when I see the truck coming right at us from the side. Apparently, redneck Roy is still pissed as his truck only misses us by inches. I feel Dage shift gears and I'm immediately pinned in the seat, the truck falls quickly behind. After a few miles, I feel Dage start to slow the car down.

“I believe I lost them, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back there this evening.”

“I have to go back. My car is there, and I have to open in the morning.”

“I’ll take you home tonight and pick you up in the morning.”

“Dage, I can’t ask that of you. Hell, I'm just a girl who serves you your food. You don’t owe me a thing.”

He pulls over to the berm of the road stopping the car. “Look, I'm not doing this because I feel like I owe you something. Those guys are out of control, and they are looking for any reason tonight. I'm not going to take the chance of one of them waiting for you at your car, or even worse, them following you home. Right now, you are safe and that should be worth a little bit of inconvenience for either of us. I will get you to work on time in the morning, you have my word.”

I bite my lip and look out the door. I hate depending on people… Worst case if he doesn’t show up I can take Dad’s old truck in the barn. “Ok, thank you.”

“That was hard for you, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’m that person that feels like if I don’t do it myself it doesn’t get done. It’s hard to hand over control to someone else. I have been taking care of myself for quite some time now.”

He doesn’t say a word, simply puts the car back in gear and eases back into traffic. “What way?”

“I don’t live over here in Kentucky. You need to cross the bridge into Ohio, I live about twenty miles out of town. If you want to just go get a coffee and wait a little while, I'm sure they will find better things to do than wait on me. I sort of live in the middle of nowhere and I know it’s quite the drive.”

“Jenna, we are going to get one thing straight this evening. First of all, you need to relax. Second of all, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you, just because you thought you were an inconvenience. Third, have you seen what I'm driving? I have this because I enjoy driving it. So, twenty miles down a dark road with the radio on and a pretty girl in the other seat isn’t a hardship for me.”

“Uhhh huh, you say that now. Until a deer jumps out in front of you, or you rip one of these ground effects off on a pothole you didn’t see in the road.”

“It’s just a car, Jenna, it’s not more important than your life,” he snarls back at me.

I didn’t know what to say back to that, so I simply relax back into the seat watching the scenery go by. He effortlessly shifts through the gears, following the directions to my house. The sound of the motor purring as he weaves his way in and out of the curves on this last stretch of road is quite enjoyable.

I’ve always been a car girl.

CHAPTER4

“You see that guardrail up there with the red reflector? That’s the beginning of my driveway. If you want to drop me off there, that will be fine. I really don’t want you taking this car down my gravel driveway.”

“Jenna, it's two in the morning and you think I drove all the way out here just to drop you at the end of some random road?”

“I will walk the pasture to the house, no one will mess with me once Brutus knows I'm in the field.”

“Brutus?”

“He is a Black Angus bull. I'm his favorite human.”

“You have cows?”

“I rent the pasture out to some of the local farmers.”

He turns down my driveway and I cringe when I hear gravel hit the fender. “Really I would prefer to walk, Hell even if you want to walk with me that’s ok, but I don’t want you tearing up your car.”

“Jenna, the car has an undercoating. Gravel is not going to destroy it.”

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