Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) Read Free Page A

sweatshirt over her head. “It’s going to get a little cold.”
    “We can run the heater.”
    “It only works when the engine runs, sweetie.”
    “Oh.”
    Melanie found the remainder of their road trip food and offered the last of the cheesy crackers and gummy bears to her daughter. Someone would come along, she told herself.
    She dialed 911 and pressed Send on the off chance the No Service notice was as out of order as her car.
    It rang once, and then went dead . . . Melanie tried a few more times before giving up.
    “Do you know where we are?” Hope asked with a mouth full of crackers.
    “River Bend is only a few miles away.”
    Hope wiped the sleeve of her shirt against the condensation on the window and peered out. “There’s a lot of trees.”
    Melanie found herself smiling. “Yeah. I missed them.”
    “Our trees are smaller.”
    “When I was about your age, I used to climb some of these trees.”
    Hope’s blue eyes grew wide. “You climbed a tree?”
    “Took a week to get the sap off my hands.”
    “I wanna climb a tree.”
    “My friend Zoe had the best climbing tree in the field by her house.”
    “You think it’s still there?”
    “Not a lot changes in a small town. My guess is, it’s still there and waiting for another little girl to climb it.”
    The pounding of the rain on the hood of the car intensified. Both of them looked up and Hope started to squirm.
    Oh, no.
    “Mommy?”
    Melanie closed her eyes . . .
    “I need to go to the bathroom.”
    As if on cue, the sky flashed and thunder shook the car.

    Melanie waited until Hope was squirming around the backseat before she shoved the both of them into their jackets and flung open the back door away from the road. Not that it mattered, no one had passed in the forty minutes they’d been sitting there.
    One foot outside the car and Melanie was up to her ankles in wet muck. A marsh more than a puddle sat right outside the door.
    She reached for her daughter and did her best to lift her away from the majority of the gunk. “We don’t want to leave the car, Hope. You’re going to have to pee here.”
    Hope squished her nose and looked as if she was about to object.
    The rain that was coming down in steady sheets picked up speed and Hope reached for her jeans.
    Melanie held Hope’s arm to keep her from falling and waited. A blast of cold air had her teeth chattering.
    She was about to encourage Hope to hurry when she stood upright and pulled up her pants. Rather than walking through the mud a second time, Melanie directed her daughter around the back of the car and helped her into the backseat.
    Instead of popping in beside her, Melanie moved to the driver’s seat and opened the trunk. They’d both have to change into dry clothes or spend their first week in River Bend sick with the flu.
    “Damn rain,” she said once Hope was out of earshot.
    She tossed Hope’s smaller case into the front seat and went back for the second when light flittered across the trees above her car. For a brief second she thought it was lightning, then the sound of an engine met with the lights.
    Melanie dropped her suitcase beside her when a twin cab, long bed truck took the corner a little fast.
    She shielded her eyes from the light with one hand and waved with the other. “Please stop,” she whispered to herself. And don’t be an ax murderer.
    Her heart kicked hard when the truck splashed up a puddle in the middle of the street, spraying her already soaked frame to the bone. Just when she was sure the driver of the truck was going to pass her by, she heard a screech of brakes, and the red taillights filled the dark night.
    “Thank God.”
    The words no sooner left her lips than the truck gunned in reverse and did a thorough job of ensuring not one inch of her was dry.
    The tall frame of a man stepped out and peered at her from over the bed of the truck.
    “I-I think you missed a spot,” Melanie chattered.
    “What the hell are you doing standing on the