Baily's Irish Dream: Baily's Irish Dream / Czech Mate. Stephanie Doyle

car didn’t have the acceleration required for a high-speed pass. It was Daniel’s turn to feel a bit sheepish.

      The only thing to do was to apologize. No chance she would hear him through two car widths. Daniel improvised with a shrug of his shoulders and a harmless smile that said, “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to honk so loud.”

      BAILY GASPED. “The nerve of that man! He’s smirking and shrugging at me like he doesn’t even care that he turned five of my hairs gray with that blasted horn of his.”

      The meanest action she could think to do popped into her head. Without a second’s hesitation she did it.

      SHE STUCK HER TONGUE OUT at him! Here he was trying to apologize, and she was showing him tongue. Obviously she was disturbed. Probably an escapee from some kind of mental facility. The best thing to do would be to hightail it out of there before she did something really crazy.

      Like the pig face. Daniel hated the pig face. The one where the person pushed his nose up on his face and slanted his eyes back toward his ears. It chilled him just thinking about it. With one last glare to show her that he didn’t appreciate her driving etiquette, Daniel hit the gas pedal with the full weight of his foot.

      A mistake, considering he hadn’t taken his eyes off the redheaded driver. Daniel never saw the cow that had slowly made its way through the opening in the fence along the side of the road until it was actually on the road itself. He knew it was too late the minute he saw the big bovine. Completely oblivious to the damage the dumb animal was about to cause, the cow mooed at the oncoming car.

      Daniel slammed on his brakes so hard he feared he would push the pedal through the floor of the car. The vehicle swerved then spun out of control. He tried to steer into the skid, but the car didn’t respond in time. Before he was aware of what was happening, he’d skidded off the road and crashed into a fence post. The air bag inflated, and Daniel was thrown back against the seat.

      It all took exactly two seconds.

      “Moooo.”

      Well at least the cow made it.

      “Mister! Mister! Are you all right?”

      The air bag now deflated, Daniel was able to move within the car. First he took stock of his body. Both his legs and arms were okay. His chest and the rest of his body had been protected by the air bag. He bumped his head and he felt a burning sensation on his cheek from where the air bag had scraped his face. Other than that he was fine. And lucky.

      His car…not so lucky.

      “Answer me!”

      Daniel turned his head and met the worried green eyes of his redheaded nemesis. “Why?”

      Baily sat back on her haunches. That was an odd answer. “Because I want to make sure you’re okay.”

      “Obviously I am, or I wouldn’t have been able to answer you, now would I?”

      Good point. He was awfully calm for someone who had just gotten into a car wreck. And by the looks of it the car was totaled. The hood was practically wrapped around the thick fence post. The fence post, however, looked fine. “Didn’t you see the cow?”

      No words were necessary. Daniel’s sour face said it all.

      “Okay, you didn’t see the cow,” Baily concluded.

      Daniel attempted to open the car door. Not an easy task since the entire frame had been pushed in. Baily saw his intent and aided him by pulling on the door while he pushed. Together they managed to create enough space for him to escape. Finding his legs a bit unsteady, he took a few calming breaths before he inspected the damage.

      “You should sit down while we wait for the cops.”

      “What cops?”

      “You know the cops that come after you’ve been in an accident,” Baily told him naively.

      Daniel raised his arms to indicate the vast space around him. The only thing for miles was Baily’s Bug, Daniel’s wreck and a cow. “And just where do expect these magical cops to sprout from?”

      “Oh.” She saw his point. The road they traveled wasn’t a hotbed of activity. The semi was the only other vehicle Baily had noticed for hours and by now it was long gone. “I don’t have a cell phone or anything.”

      “Who doesn’t have a cell phone in today’s world?” he asked incredulously. He didn’t know why he cared, but it seemed wrong for a woman to be on the road alone without a cell phone.

      “Me. I’m a schoolteacher on a budget. It was either a cell phone or my monthly manicure.”

      “Cell phones are very useful in cases of emergencies, accidents…”

      “Yes, but well-painted nails are a joy every day,” she said holding out her pretty pink nails for inspection. He didn’t seem impressed. “I take it you have a cell phone.”

      “Of course I have a cell phone,” he stated haughtily. He reached for his right pants’ pocket and found it empty. Then he reached for his left pocket and also found it empty. Looking down at his pants, he realized they weren’t the same ones he’d been wearing on his trip back from California. The ones with his cell phone still in the pocket. They were on the floor of his bathroom where he’d last left them. Not here. With him. In the middle of Montana.

      “No cell phone?”

      He almost wanted to growl at her.

      “So what should we do?”

      Again, Daniel was beyond words. He moved around the car slowly and carefully. The hood, the engine, the frame—the whole damn car was trashed. He began to swear with the skill of a sailor.

      Baily smiled uncomfortably. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard the words before. Growing up with five brothers, she could give vocabulary lessons in swearing. She just envied the ease with which he did it. Boy, if her mother could hear him now, she’d shove enough soap in his mouth to keep his language clean for years.

      Finally, after he’d surveyed the wreck and realized that he wasn’t going anywhere, Daniel turned his attention on the woman. “You,” he accused.

      “Me?” Baily asked.

      “This is all your fault!” It was a lie. He’d been driving too fast, but it felt good to blame someone else for his stupidity.

      “My fault! You were the one who almost hit that poor cow and drove off the road.”

      “Poor cow?” Daniel searched and found the cow off to the side of the road munching on some grass. “The cow is fine! What about my car?”

      Baily spared a glance at the car. “It’s pretty much totaled.”

      “Ah-hh,” Daniel yelled in frustration.

      Perhaps this would have been a good time for Baily to get in her car and get the hell out of Dodge. Who knew what the man would do next? Honking and yelling, he was obviously the emotional sort. But she couldn’t leave. Although she’d denied it, she did feel partly responsible for the accident. She wasn’t about to admit it to him, but he had been staring at her tongue. The tongue she’d so childishly thrust at him. It was why he hadn’t seen the cow until it was too late. For that reason, she had to at least offer her assistance.

      “What am I going to do?” Daniel yelled. Now that he had regained some of his senses, he realized that he was in big trouble. Totaling his car wasn’t part of the plan. Being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a redhead wasn’t part of the plan, either.

      Baily refrained from making a comment, but she had asked a similar question only moments before. They were still all alone. Not counting the cow.

      That’s when the trepidation hit. She was alone in Montana with a strange man who liked to beep his horn and swear. The smart course of action, the one the self-defense books suggested, would be to get into her car, drive to the nearest phone, and call someone