Free Million Dollar Road by Amy Connor

he’d almost hit her, a young, dark-haired girl clutching an armload of yellow, plastic Dollar General bags to her chest. Cursing under his breath, Con unsnapped his shoulder belt and got out to see if she was all right.
    â€œYou okay?” he called to her as he approached.
    When she didn’t answer, he commanded his legs, still trembling with the aftershock of his near miss, to walk back down Million Dollar Road toward her. The girl remained motionless, rooted to the spot as though she were planted in the gravel beneath the underwater gloom of the live oak trees.
    â€œHey, are you okay?” Con asked again, drawing closer.
    Her pretty rose-leaf lips parted; her green eyes were huge in her white face . . . her extraordinary, heart-shaped . . . face .
    Con’s eyes raked the perfection of it, noting that her pale, poreless skin was marred only by a small crescent-shaped scar through her right eyebrow.
    And Jesus, her body . Slim-waisted, slender, lithe as a mermaid clothed in a white tank top and short, frayed cutoffs, Con’s breath caught at the wonder of her thighs, the sweet curve of her calf, the remarkable architecture of her ankles, the high-arched feet in red rubber flip-flops.
    The girl shifted her stuffed Dollar General bags to one hand, pushing a cascade of blue-black hair behind a seashell ear.
    â€œI’m okay.” Those green eyes narrowed, those lips turned down in a lovely frown. Light and rippling as cool water, her voice trembled ever so slightly as she said, “Like you coulda killed me, you know, driving like your ass was on fire.”
    At that, Con’s lawyerly instincts woke up at last. “Well, now . . . I think you had a duty to walk farther off the road—legally speaking, of course. And,” he added quickly, “I was doing the speed limit.”
    The girl shrugged one white shoulder. “Sure you were,” she said. The tremble was absent from her voice now.
    Con found himself almost tongue-tied in the face of this girl’s self-possession, those amazing eyes appearing to see only a middle-aged guy in a fancy car trying to talk his way out of a potential lawsuit. If she weren’t so arrestingly lovely, that self-possession would be a challenge. Most men would pass on a challenge like this one, but not Con.
    In self-defense he offered, “Well, I wasn’t speeding. Really.”
    The girl shrugged again, re-grouping her plastic bags with a sharp rustle in the country quiet. “Whatever, okay? You didn’t hit me. I get it.” She turned away from him, ready to resume her walk down Million Dollar Road. “Just slow down, okay?”
    It seemed as though the afternoon’s sunlight faded. Quick, Con thought. Do something, you idiot. Don’t let her go!
    â€œHey. Uh, listen,” he said loudly.
    She paused, that gorgeous, disinterested face turning to look back at him over one shoulder.
    â€œCan I give you a ride at least?” The corners of Con’s mouth lifted in his trademark smile. “It’s a miserable afternoon for walking, anyway. I could give you a lift, get you out of the sun.” He paused. “And those bags look heavy,” he added. “C’mon. I’m safe.”
    The girl seemed to think it over for a moment, as if weighing his offer of a ride against resuming her walk in the stifling heat.
    â€œYou sure?” she said cautiously. “Like, I don’t know. Maybe.”
    Now that’s better, Con thought. The girl didn’t seem overly anxious at the notion of accepting a ride from a stranger who, five minutes before, had nearly killed her with a Lexus.
    She said, “I’ve got another mile to go from here, just up the road from the alligator farm. I guess . . . I maybe could.”
    Upon hearing the words alligator farm, Con seized the opening.
    â€œSGE? Great! I’m headed there anyway. I’m Con Costello.”
    They were walking toward the Lexus now and the