Free The Daddy Dance by Mindy Klasky Page A

that roared by, passing her on the left. One moment, she could dart a glance out at freshly tilled fields, at rich earth awaiting new crops. The next, a wall of metal screamed beside her, looming over her like a mountain. She thought that she was pounding on the brake, but she hadn’t shifted her foot enough; the pickup leaped forward as she poured on more fuel, looking for all the world like she was trying to race the semi.
    The surge terrified her, and she shifted her foot solidly onto the brake. At the same time, the truck cut back into her lane, close enough that the wind of its passing buffeted her vehicle. Kat overcorrected, and for one terrible moment, the pickup slid sideways across the asphalt road. She turned the wheel again, catching the rough edge of the shoulder, and one more twist sent her careening out of control.
    The pickup bucked as it caught on the grass at the roadside, and she could do nothing as the vehicle slid into the ditch at the edge of the road. Finally, the brake did its job, and the truck shuddered to a stop. Kat was frozen, unable to lift her hands from the wheel.
    Rye reached across and turned the key, killing the idling motor. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice thick with concern.
    “I’m fine,” Kat said automatically. I’m mortified. I nearly got us killed. I’m a danger to myself and others. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “How about you?”
    Rye eased a hand beneath his seat belt once more. “I’m okay.”
    “I’m so sorry,” Kat said, and her voice shook suspiciously. “I don’t know how that happened. One minute everything was fine, and then—” She cut herself off. “I could have killed us.”
    “No blood, no foul,” Rye said.
    Kat burst into tears.
    “Hey,” he said. “Come on. You can drive out of this ditch. We don’t even need to get the truck towed.”
    She nodded, as if she agreed with everything he said. At the same time, though, she was thinking that she was never going to drive again. She was never going to put herself in danger—herself or any innocent passenger. What if Susan had been with her? Or Mike, in his weakened state? What if, God forbid, Jenny had been sitting there?
    She fumbled for the door handle and flung herself out of the truck. Rye met her by the hood, settling his firm hands on her biceps. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “I can’t do this!” Her words came out more a shout than a statement.
    “You’ve just been shaken up. You know the drill—back up on the horse that threw you.”
    “I’m not a rodeo rider.”
    “No, but you’re a dancer. And I have to believe that you stick with adversity on the stage better than this.”
    She shook her head. This wasn’t dance. This wasn’t her career. This was—literally—life or death. She couldn’t think of working anymore for the day. “Please, Rye. Will you just drive me back to Rachel’s?”
    He looked at her for a long time, but she refused to meet his eyes. Instead, she hugged herself, trying to get her breathing back under control, trying to get her body to believe that it wasn’t in imminent danger.
    At last, Rye shrugged and walked around the cab of the truck, sliding into the driver’s seat with a disgruntled sigh. Kat took her place meekly, refusing to look at him as he turned the key in the ignition. The truck started up easily enough, and it only took a little manhandling to get it up the side of the ditch, back onto the road.
    Rye knew that he should press the matter. He should make Kat get back behind the wheel. She had to get over her fear. If she walked away from driving now, she’d probably never return.
    But who was he to force her to do anything? He was just a guy she’d met ten years before, a guy who lived in Richmond, who kept coming home to a little town in the middle of nowhere, because he couldn’t remember how to say no.
    Kat was the one who’d had the guts to leave for real. She was the one who’d gone all the way to New York, far enough