Count Your Lucky Stars •CHAENNIE•

Chapter 23

"It could be your mass air flow sensor."

Roseanne wrung her hands together and stared over Mr. Miller's shoulder as he poked around under the open hood of her car. Mr. Miller, Dad's next-door neighbor, was a recently retired HVAC repairman, not a mechanic, but his brother apparently owned a garage and-Roseanne hadn't known who else to ask for help. "Is that bad?"

Mr. Miller huffed. "Well, it's not good."

Her stomach sank. "Oh."

"But there could also be a problem with your fuel pump. A leak."

She stepped closer. Beyond knowing where to check the oil and where the battery was located on the off chance she needed a jump, the guts of her car were a mystery. Everything under the hood looked confusing, coils and wires and metal all covered in a sheen of grease. Mr. Miller could've told her that her thingamabob needed a new thingamajig, and it would have made as much sense as mass air flow sensor and fuel pump. "Is that bad?"

Mr. Miller grunted and craned his neck, staring at her over his shoulder with a grimace that knotted her stomach. "That's even worse."

"Fuck." She clapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry, Mr. Miller. I just-whatever it is, can you fix it?"

Or did she need to call someone who could?

"In my experience"-Mr. Miller ducked back under the hood, did something she couldn't see, and a low groan came from the belly of her car, making her wince harder-"you can fix just about anything."

Roseanne gulped. There was probably a worthwhile metaphor buried in there somewhere, a lesson to take away about the power of positive thinking or hard work or endurance or something, but she really just wanted her car to start so she could fix her actual problems.

"Do you know what time it is?"

Mr. Miller pointed across the driveway to where his chest of tools lay open. His phone rested atop a grease-covered rag. Roseanne felt a little weird touching someone's phone, but hey, he'd offered. She pressed the home button. 11:08. A little under two hours before she had to be at the venue. The drive was forty-five minutes, an hour to be safe.

Roseanne stepped back over to the car and leaned her hip against the front bumper, nibbling on her thumbnail. "I have a wedding rehearsal I have to be at in Seattle by one." Mr. Miller said he could fix anything, but could he do it in under an hour? "Do you think you can have it running by noon?"

He gripped the inside frame of the car and gave a heavy sigh. He lifted his head and pinned her with a stare, one of his bushy white brows rising high on his forehead. "Roseanne, I won't be able to fix a damn thing with you hovering."

Shit. He was right. She was absolutely hovering and in the worst way possible, standing right over his shoulder, doing nothing more than leaking anxiety all over the place. Literally. Her armpits were beginning to sweat and-it was March, for crying out loud. March in Washington. How in the world was she sweating this much?

"Sorry." She offered him a contrite smile and stepped away from the vehicle. "I'll just . . ." She jerked her head toward the opposite end of the driveway. "Go stand over there and let you work in peace."

Hopefully quickly, because time was of the essence, but she had a sneaking suspicion that if she reminded Mr. Miller of her time crunch one more time, he'd toss in his grease-covered towel and tell her to find someone else to fix her car, and Roseanne-

Had no one.

Her phone was a waterlogged hunk of plastic, worthless. Why she was still clutching it in her fist, holding it as if she had a shot in hell of resuscitating it was beyond her. Dad was long gone, probably halfway to Forks by now, and-could she even get an Uber to drive her from Enumclaw all the way to Seattle?