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suddenly sick and tired of depending on others for her meal ticket, and so she raised her chin with determination and gave him a negative shake of her head. “Thanks for buying my lunch, but really, I’ll be fine.”
    Cam frowned and looked as if he was going to protest but then glanced at his watch and pushed away from the car. “Okay, well, good-bye, then. Have a safe trip to wherever you’re heading.”
    “Thanks,” she said and gave him a weak smile. It was weird, but although she barely knew him, it felt odd to be saying good-bye. She felt a pull that she didn’t quite understand but chalked it up to her need to lean on someone for help. Well, from here on out she was going to fend for herself!
    “No problem,” he said and after giving the roof of her car a pat he nodded and turned around. Once again Mia felt a sense of loss as she watched him walk away, while absently acknowledging that he had a really nice butt. After a moment she stuck the key in the ignition and said a prayer that the car would start. “Yes!” Mia said when the engine turned over, but she frowned at the stubborn check-engine light. She decided to look for a repair shop of some sort and see if the car was okay to drive, but her answer came in the form of dark smoke seeping from beneath the hood. “Smoke can’t be good,” she said to the hula dancer but then spotted a sign at the end of the block that read, FRED’S TIRES AND REPAIR . The car choked and sputtered, and by the time Mia made it to the corner, smoke was billowing out from under the hood. As soon as she pulled into the parking lot of the repair shop, she grabbed her purse, tugged the hula dancer from the dash, and hopped out of the car. If the car was about to go up in flames, there was no time to save her suitcase!
    Mia ran toward the entrance and pushed the front door open. She frantically looked around before spotting a small worn sign taped to the counter that read, RING BELL FOR SERVICE . She pounded on the bell, making it ding over and over while she looked out the window at the smoking car. Finally, an ancient-looking little man clad in grease-stained work pants and a blue shirt that said FRED in scripted yellow meandered through the door, causally wiping his hands on an orange towel.
    “All right already, you can quit your dingin’,” Fred said in a good-natured tone. “How can I help ya, little lady?”
    “Oh.” Mia pulled her hand away but then gestured toward the window. “Fred, I think my car is going to blow!”
    “Blow?”
    “Explode!”
    “Ya don’t say.” Fred peered out the window but didn’t seem to be all that alarmed.
    “And my suitcase is in there,” she urgently added, hoping Fred might rescue her clothes for her. Although from the looks of him it would take both of them to heft it from the trunk of the smoking car.
    “Did your car quit on ya?” he asked in that slow drawl. From talking to walking, everyone in Cricket Creek seemed to go in slow motion.
    Mia gave him a jerky nod. “Yes, it just . . . died.”
    “Probably locked up your engine. Put any oil in it recently?” Fred asked, but when Mia merely blinked at him, he shook his nearly bald head. Tufts of hair stuck out above his ears, making him look like Yoda. “I’m guessing not.”
    “So, just what does the engine locking up mean?” she asked in a small voice.
    “That you need a new one or this one rebuilt. Let’s go take a look-see.”
    “But it could blow any minute!” She had a mental picture of the car bursting into flames like something out of an action film. She and Fred would go flying backward and both be knocked out cold! And she would surely scuff her shoes. The hula dancer’s head bobbed back and forth as if saying, “Don’t do it.”
    “Na . . . ,” Fred scoffed as he walked around the counter and over to the door. He had an odd gait, as if his knees would no longer bend. “You coming?” When he held the door open for her, she reluctantly followed