Free Exception to the Rule by Doranna Durgin

and transfer her photos to her PDA where she could better study them and plan her stakeout strategies. Somewhere along the way she’d hit late afternoon, and darkness came early enough this time of year. So she’d closed the hatch and turned for the driver’s door, unimpeded by other cars in this far corner spot.
    That’s when she saw him coming. Weavingly drunk or sick, she wasn’t sure which—but then a breeze wafted her way and the smell of booze made her wrinkle her nose. Every town had one, she supposed. Even one as small as Mill Springs.
    She wasted no time ducking into the Taurus, happy enough to pretend she hadn’t seen him at all. But when she twisted in the seat to back out of the parking spot, she startled at the sight of his face pressed up against the back window, framed by his dirty hands. The rest of him wasn’t so clean—dirty hair, the straggly, untrimmed whiskers of someone who couldn’t grow a real beard ifhe tried, torn green flannel shirt and grease-stained jeans. Hard to tell age beneath it all.
    She straightened in the seat, briefly resting her forehead on the wheel. Random male stupidity. Just what she needed. When she turned to look again, he hadn’t moved. With both reluctance and growing impatience, she got out of the car and walked around behind it, leaving plenty of room between them. From here she could assess him better, see how much bigger he was than she, and that he carried relatively good muscle—the muscle of hard labor, when and if he found work. “I’m sorry, you have to move,” she told him. “I’m trying to leave.”
    “No, no, no,” he said. “You can’t leave.”
    “My groceries will spoil,” she said, wondering if some spot of practical reasoning might reach him. Of course, she also added, “And if you don’t move, I’ll have to run you over. I wonder if you’d get caught on the undercarriage?”
    It didn’t matter; nothing of what she said seemed to get through to him at all. More than drunk? Off his meds? “No, no, no,” he repeated. “You can’t leave. All the food stays here.”
    “What about him?” Kimmer pointed to a man loading two carts of purchases into his van. “Maybe you should go stop him. I’ve only got a few groceries here, after all.”
    That got his attention for a moment; he took a step away from the Taurus, frowning at the hapless victim Kimmer had chosen for him. She took advantage of his indecision by grasping the loose material of his sleeve between thumb and forefinger and drawing him closer to the van. “There,” she said, ready to dash back to thecar and escape. “All those lovely groceries…you should save them first.”
    It almost worked. Agitated, he shifted from side to side, a creepy motion that seemed ingrained. She wasn’t above leaving him to it—but the instant she eased a step away from him, he whirled and snatched her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh like talons.
    Anger, always buried not far from her surface, flashed to the forefront. No one handled her like that. Not anymore. And though she had the choice, knew she could still control the situation without escalating, she also had the ability to stop him.
    And she took it.
    As quickly as he’d grabbed her, she acquired his thumb, twisting it back. He gave a bewildered cry, buckling to the pressure, going straight down to his knees without resistance. In that instant she pivoted behind him, taking the arm with him and maintaining the angle on his thumb. Big, muscular and clueless…no match for little, quick and precise. “Aren’t self-defense classes nice?” she asked him. “Now, how about we get up and go to the store. Maybe they’ll know what to do with you, and then I can leave.” Groceries and all.
    “Not the food!” he wailed, consistent if nothing else.
    Kimmer sighed. “I really don’t have time for this. C’mon. Up you go.” She tugged upward on his hand, and he lurched to his feet. As a unit, they turned for the store.
    And