Free Providence by Jamie McGuire

sighed.
    I pulled over to the side of the road and came to an abrupt stop. Realizing the situation I’d gotten myself into, I let my forehead fall hard onto the steering wheel with a thud.
    A flat tire on the side of an unknown road in the middle of the night was definitely a distraction.
    I shoved open my door and walked around to look at the front passenger-side tire. Seeing the rubber pooled on the ground, I raked my fingers through my hair.
    Fog blurred the street lights so my vision was limited. In quick strides I ducked back into my car to call Beth. At the same time that I remembered I had left my purse behind, it dawned on me that I’d also failed to bring my phone.
    “Nina! You idiot!”
    Logic overrode panic. The sun would rise in a few hours and I could flag someone down to use their phone. I turned the heater on high and let the dry air fill the cab. When it was too hot to breathe I flipped back the ignition and turned off the car. Just moments later, I tugged my coat tighter around me. It was going to be a very long couple of hours before sunrise; it didn’t take long at all for the stifling heat in the car to fade to mildly warm and then to an uncomfortable chill soon after.
    Three quick raps on my window sent me an inch off my seat. I whipped around to see a man in a puffy blue coat standing just inches away. My hand flew up to the lock as he leaned down to look in.
    “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? I could have carjacked you by now,” Jared said, grimacing at my pitiful efforts.
    I couldn’t speak, the fear sent adrenaline racing throughout my body and I experienced a dozen different emotions before I settled on relief.
    “Open the trunk so I can get your spare,” he said.
    I reached for the button and the trunk sprung open with a pop. Scrambling out of my car, I watched while he pulled out a jack and quickly assembled it, and then pulled out the spare tire, carrying it to his make-shift workspace. I’d always seen people rolling tires around, but Jared lifted it out of my trunk as if it were a grocery bag.
    He worked feverishly—as if he were being timed—pumping the jack, unscrewing the lug nuts and yanking off the flattened carcass of the old tire to immediately replace it with the spare. He repeated the process in reverse, tightening the lug nuts and spinning the tire. Once he finished lowering the car, he lobbed the flattened tire into my trunk, followed by the jack and tire iron.
    “Go home, Nina,” he growled. He slammed the trunk shut and then wiped the grease from his hands onto his jeans.
    “Jared….”
    “Just go home,” he said, avoiding my eyes. He turned his back on me, disappearing into the fog.
    “Thank you,” I whispered.
    I shook my head and scrambled around the front of my car, staring at the new tire to make sure I hadn’t imagined everything I’d just seen. My new, perfectly capable tire was fitted flawlessly to my car. I looked to the fog where Jared had disappeared and puffed. It was no longer an indefinite prospect that Jared was always waiting in the wings. I didn’t know why or how he was doing it, but he was watching over me.
    During the ride home my mind raced with theories and explanations. There was no way for him to explain it away. Jared had basically admitted to following me. Maybe that was why he was so irritated; I’d managed to get myself in yet another situation that he would have to make clear that he was nearby. I should have been panicking—anyone else would have repeated the word stalker over and over in her head—but I only felt an overwhelming sense of calm. Beyond the calm I was even more shocked to discover that I was flattered.
    Something else became clear to me: I had absolutely no common sense concerning Jared Ryel. I had become an irrational, ridiculous, sobbing fool and incredibly, he was still in my life. I didn’t care if he was a stalker or a miracle. The thought that he was always near me—that he could have