November Sky Read Free Page B

he was going too fast.
    It occurred to me then that it was extremely reckless and a bit stupid of me, a lone woman in the Upper Bavarian wilds in the middle of the night, to leave the relative safety of my car. Given how he drove, the guy could be wasted and could become violent. And even if he were lying in the car, badly injured and unconscious, what could I have done, given my complete absence of medical knowledge? It would have been smarter to drive for a few more miles until I had cell phone reception and then call the police. I cursed the lifelong helper syndrome that had put me in this precarious predicament.
    But it was too late for any of that. The injured sports-car driver jumped up onto the shoulder and walked toward me with long, energetic strides. I noted his clothes with some relief: jeans, a white shirt, and a light-colored jacket. He looked normal enough, not like a criminal or crazed ax-murderer. Of course, it’s illogical to judge a person by appearances. Take Ted Bundy, the American serial killer who raped and murdered about thirty women. According to all sources, he was an extremely good-looking, well-dressed, and charming man.
    I was worried that my intact physical condition was hanging by a thread because the rather nice-looking man in front of me looked absolutely furious. All I could hope was that he had some self-control and that his mother had drilled into him that under no circumstances was he to hit a woman.
    He stopped right in front of me, too close for my liking, and looked down accusingly—I was a good head shorter than him. I estimated he was in his late twenties. The aroma of his cinnamon-and-cedar-scented aftershave was the only pleasant thing about him at that moment. His angry eyes blazed, his lips formed a thin line, and I could tell by the way he clenched and unclenched his fists that he was absolutely beside himself. He stared at me as though I were a cockroach. Good lord! The guy looked like he was in great shape. He could knock me out with one swing if he wanted to. I was seized with the courage of desperation. Following the maxim that “offense is the best defense,” I snapped at him—sounding far spunkier than I felt—at the very moment he started to open his mouth.
    “Don’t you take your anger out on me! You can thank your stupid driving for this accident. Why are you speeding around like a crazy person? This is not the Nürnburgring Grand Prix! You’re damn lucky that only your car’s damaged and not you.”
    I jerked my head over toward his wrecked vehicle. A fire-engine-red Corvette didn’t look so spectacular lying on its roof, although I held my tongue about that. My surprise-attack strategy seemed to achieve the desired effect and I breathed a sigh of relief when the angry furrows on his forehead gave way to an incredulous but more composed expression. He was still mad but appeared to have gotten hold of himself enough for the threat of violence to disappear, although that didn’t keep him from getting very loud.
    “Only my car’s damaged? Do you have any idea what kind of a car that is? I’d never have wound up in the ditch without your ‘assistance’! It was you and your crappy four-banger blocking the road that made me swerve. Why the hell were you standing around in the woods in the middle of the night anyway? Were you waiting for somebody to run into your clunker so you could collect the insurance? Or maybe you were waiting for customers?”
    For a young man, his voice was astonishingly deep and booming. But I didn’t like the sarcastic tone or his insolent implication that I had dishonorable intentions. Now I was enraged. Was he really trying to pin the blame for his spectacular somersault on me? I interrupted him using my loudest voice.
    “My car is not a clunker but an almost-new Mini Cooper! And I was on the road because I had to brake hard to miss a deer a few seconds before. Not because I’m looking for johns, or whatever it is you’re