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with him.
    What he hadn't done yet was apologize to her. So far the moment hadn't been right.
    "Fun party," he said to break the silence.
    "Yes." Her voice was cool, colder than the temperature outside.
    One mile down, nine more to go. He'd be lucky if the inside of the windshield didn't frost before they got to town—that's how cool she was toward him. Like an ice queen.
    But he knew differently.
    He remembered how warm she could feel, how hot she'd made him when they'd been teenagers. No, she wasn’t a cold woman. Far from it.
    He smiled; he couldn't help it.
    "What's so amusing?" she asked, her focus on him now.
    Damned if he didn't find her perusal of him unsettling. "Just thinking about how different you seem from the girl I once knew."
    "That girl is gone." The words were flat.
    "Too bad."
    She shifted. "Too bad? You didn't like that girl. You left that girl at the altar, remember?"
    "Oh, I liked her," he said. "Too much. What I didn't like was how that girl stole my common sense and made me lose focus. I was all about career then. You were all about fun."
    "So, you're a control freak," she said, as if that made perfect sense. "I get it now. I rocked your tidy, perfect world."
    He laughed. "I guess you did."
    She smiled. "Well, I guess that's something."
    "Tawney, I—"
    Pop!
    Gunshot! Rick's fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He fought for control of the Jeep. His heart raced. The Jeep bounced, veered. He braked, hard. The Jeep skidded off the road into a snow drift and stopped.
    Short gasps left him. Terror froze him. He couldn't separate now from the past.
    "Rick?" Tawney said. "What happened? Rick? Talk to me."
    He swallowed, his eyes on the dashboard, on the soft blue glow of the instrument panel.
    "God, what's happening?" Tawney cried, panic in her voice. "Rick!" She shook his arm. "For God's sake, what's going on? Snap out of it." She slapped his arm.
    He flinched, the slap catching him where his injury had been. He dragged his mind back to the present. There were no victims, no metallic taste of blood in his mouth, no shrieking sirens. Blinking, everything zoomed into sharp focus. The dashboard clock, the speedometer set at zero. With effort, he let go of the steering wheel and put the Jeep into park before turning off the engine. Only then did he look at Tawney.
    Her eyes were wild, her breath as labored as his.
    "What happened?" she asked. "Did someone shoot at us? If so we need to get the hell out of here."
    "No," he said, reality and sanity returning at the speed of light. "I think we blew a tire."
    "A tire?" she repeated weakly. "We have a flat tire?"
    "I think so." Rick removed a flashlight from the glove box. "Wait here." He exited the Jeep, taking a second to steady himself. He thought of the gun under his seat, but his gut told him he didn't need it. He'd overacted to the noise, the pop of the tire bringing back that night. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD. He'd been warned this would happen; that he'd be caught off guard.
    Man, he was as screwed up as ever. Shit.
    The left front tire was buried in the snow drift. Around the other side, he saw the front right tire had blown. He rapped on the passenger window. "Flat tire." He had the back open now and was already removing the jack. "I'll have it fixed in a jiffy."
    She was out of the Jeep now. "What can I do?"
    "Nothing. I'm a whiz at tire changing." It was life he couldn't handle. He ignored the hard ache in his gut and got to work. What was Tawney thinking? That he was a nutcase? Or worse?
    "Okay." Tawney crossed her arms over her chest. "What was that about anyway? You seemed spooked, like you didn't even hear me."
    "I don't like loud noises."
    "You're a bouncer in a bar. You used to be a cop; Star told me. I don't think noises are the problem."
    He placed the hubcap on the ground, unable to think of an appropriate response to her statement. Thankfully, she didn't press him.
    Rick made quick work exchanging the blown tire for the spare.