one

“Did you see that?” Mike stamped the aggregate from the treads of his work boots. “What the hell?” His hard hat slammed into the barrier, his neck and shoulders rammed between the guardrail. Still on his feet, no bones broken, he ran straight at the roadster. Before he ripped the driver’s door off its hinges, the passenger door walloped against the curb.

The roadster screamed away up Princes Street, its roar drowning the bagpipes and show hawkers only long enough for Mike to hear a sob.

One purple shoe tottered on the edge of the construction zone. The other clung to the twisted foot of a bare-legged girl.
Adrenaline pumped hard through his system, flashes of his collision with a fast car on an Arizona highway drove his temperature sky high. “Who was that jerk?”

The girl didn’t hear him, too busy pulling the contents of her bag together, too busy pretending there was nothing strange about being shoved out of a car careening down an Edinburgh street where no cars were supposed to enter, too busy ignoring the stares of scores of tourists and the hulk of a construction worker standing over her.

“Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer, just gave him one of those model’s vacant stares, vaguely suggestive but too stupid to hold any lasting intrigue. Mike rolled his eyes and held out his hand to help her to her feet, wondering how anyone could walk on shoes with heels like needles.

She ignored his offer, pretended she didn’t see his big fingers waggling under her chin.

A couple of his work crew came up behind him, asking questions, forming opinions, telling her story. Mike reached down to grasp her elbow. She yanked away to stand on her own. If he hadn’t caught her, she’d have been in the pit.

She had the shortest hair of any girl he’d ever seen. “Whoa, now, lady. You’ve had a nasty shock.”

“I’m fine,” she huffed, pulling away and brushing her skirt. Short skirt. Nice legs. She bent to retrieve the shoe.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mike said, holding her arm to keep her from toppling after her shoe. “One of you, go after that, will ya?”

Jimmy jumped down and held the shoe up. Mike plucked it from his foreman’s hand. “Isn’t going to be much good to you, lady. Heel’s busted.”

She pressed two fingers to her lips.

“Who was that jerk?”

“Boyfriend. Whatever,” she said, holding out her hand, leaning hard on his arm. “Thanks.” She ignored all the speculation hissing around them. “Thank you.”

“Looks nasty.”

“What? It’s nothing.”

“That cut. You’ll need stitches.”

She looked down at her arm, pinched together by his thick fingers but still bleeding. In a breath, she was limp, collapsing like a piece of string. All he could do was clasp her under her arms and stop her from ending up a ragged pile at his feet.

For a moment, the girl hung from his arms with his crew staring at him. And he stared down at her pure, pale face wondering what had happened. He hoisted her legs over his arm and stalked toward the site cabin, barking at his crew. The few tourists who had seen the incident lost interest in speculating.
Jimmy ran ahead and had the cabin door open when Mike got there.

“Ambulance, Mike?”

“Maybe.” He cleaned most of the blood off her forearm so he could see the damage. “Where’s the nearest ER?”

“ER?” Jimmy screwed up one side of face, deciphering.

“Oh yeah. Casualty, right?”

“What else?”

“Come on, Mike, you’ve been here over a year and you still get pushed out of shape when we have a conflict of language.”

Mike ignored the Scotsman and wrapped a first aid kit bandage around her arm. His patient should have been groaning in protest when she came round but her eyes roamed around the room for a moment before she looked at him.

“What happened?”

“You, uh, fell out of a car.”

“What’s this place?”

“Site office. On Princes Street. Do you remember anything?”

“I remember.” She made a move to sit up, fell back against the arm of the grungy sofa. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Mike. What’s yours?”

“Jakki.”

She wasn’t communicative. He was curious. A pretty girl with nice legs didn’t just fall out of a car every day. He’d used ‘fell’ to encourage her to talk. She wasn’t talking. “You said the driver of that car was your boyfriend.”

“Former boyfriend.”

“I’m not surprised if he’s been shoving you out of speeding cars for a while.”

“What time is it,…Mike?” She wore a gargantuan watch but didn’t bother to look at it.

“Three fifteen. How do you feel now?”

“A little shaky. I’ll be all right,” she said, comforting herself more than reassuring him.

Mike leaned forward to exam her arm for a moment. She turned her head away. Thinking the sight of blood made her sick, Mike checked the field dressing. Doing its job but she’d be better off with stitches, something better than a wad of gauze. “I’m taking you to the ER.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want to end up with an ugly scar, do you?”

“Will I?” She turned her arm to look at the bandage, lost color from her face in seconds and was almost comatose by the time he handed her a glass of water. “I don’t like hospitals.”

“Me either but they’re a necessary evil in this case. Hold on while I get Jimmy to bring my truck around.”

She looked at him as if he’d appeared from some other planet. “No thanks. I’ll walk to the theater.”

“What theater?”

“Where I work. I should be there.”

“Lady, you’re nuts. You’re not going to any theater. You’re staying where I can keep an eye on you or to the hospital. That’s the deal. I’m calling the cops.”

“What? Why?”

“You were shoved out of a car or don’t you remember?”
Her face flamed. “I’m not stupid.”

“Never said you were. But your ex-boyfriend has some explaining to do.”

“You don’t understand,” Jakki said, pushing forward to sit up, dropping her feet to the cabin floor. “Where are my shoes?”

“Shoe. Right here.” He held out the flimsy contraption. “The other one’s broken.”

“Do you know how much these cost?” She accused him. “Do you have any idea—.”

“Listen, lady, I’m the good guy. You want to blame anyone, blame the jerk who dumped you in my construction site and sped off, right?”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“No? Well that’s just what he did and I’m taking you where you need to be. No argument.” Alpha male in full flux. Did he ever learn?

“I have an appointment. This is The Fringe, you know.”

“No kidding? Makes no difference to me, lady. You are in no condition—.”

“I have to be at the theater in an hour.”

“You’re crazy. You can’t even stand.”

“I have to be there.”

“What in hell is so important about that?”

“Obviously, you have never been called upon to perform professionally or otherwise.” She reached to slide into her one shoe, dizziness sending her back against the sofa. “Limping along the street doesn’t appeal to me right now, low on my list of accomplishments.”

“At last, some sense.”

“I have what it takes to be a professional.” A whisper. A plea.

“Hey, I may be a Neanderthal, but you’re in shock,… Jakki.”

Another look like he was from another world, probably wondering how he knew her name. Standing on her own for her first feat of endurance, she was teetering on the heel from the moment she straightened her legs, wobbling on one bare foot. His told-you-so folded arms didn’t offer any support when her backside landed on the sofa and she almost lost her lunch again.
“You don’t understand. I have to go. I have to be there.”

“Crazy. Listen, I’ll take you if it’s that important but first you’re going to let me check you over.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t go getting all huffy and offended, dollface. I’m not just your ordinary Joe.”

“I thought your name was Mark.”

“Mike.”

Her ‘whatever’ shrug went straight to the heart of the matter, like every man she’d ever met in her life claimed extraordinary individuality, hadn’t met one yet who measured up to his own imagination. Mike smirked, sat on the edge of the table and pulled her arm straight out.

“You need stitches.”

“No hospital. No doctor’s office. No chance.”

This girl was trouble, no doubt about that, but Mike had not found any reason for a jerk in a roadster to push her out of his car. He could think of a catalogue of reasons for pulling her in, starting with those long legs and not even close to ending with her buzzcut“You win, lady, but on one condition.”

She looked at him as if she knew exactly what that condition was, had heard it all before and was utterly indifferent.
“That cut on your arm needs attention. Let me see to it and I won’t insist on the hospital.”

She eyed him now as if he were a creature from the swamp, the Neanderthal he admitted to; skepticism and suspicion battled it out for a few heartbeats before she shrugged and raised her arm for inspection. Mike peeled back the temporary dressing, frowned, turned her forearm this way and that. Still holding her wrist, he dragged the green first aid kit across the table and rummaged around.

“Are you staying nearby?”

“Not far,” she replied, concentrating on the wall calendar.
Mike tore the packaging with his teeth and worked the butterfly bandages free with one hand. Her chin jutted upward but she never took her eyes off the photo of the girl advertising hardware, wearing a pouty look and not much else. A construction site guy thing, but Mike swallowed hard on what this girl might be thinking about him with barely-dressed women hanging over his desk. He lined the bandages up in the order he intended to apply them before he cleaned the wound of asphalt and grit.

“This will sting a bit.”

She shrugged and braced herself.

“It will be easier if you relax, Jakki.”

“That’s what everyone says, just before they put an electrode in your brain.”