Exclusive Cover Reveals + Excerpt: Trace + Olivia Series

• Excerpt

  “No, no, no, no!” I beat my steering wheel with the heel of my hand. “No! You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  I pulled off the road, my tire bumping along.

  I put my car in park and climbed out to assess the damage, my feet crunching on the gravel scattered alongside the road.

  Immediately, the oily burnt smell of my peeling tire met me. Calling this a flat tire didn’t do it justice.

  This was complete and utter carnage.

  I looked behind me at the trail of tire pieces leading straight to my car like a path of breadcrumbs.

  It was starting to get dark, and this wasn’t exactly the safest road. I was also a twenty-year-old girl, ripe for the picking.

  I kicked the side of my car. “I don’t have time for this!”

  I stalked around the back to the trunk, lifting it and looking for the necessary tools to change a tire.
  Which was pointless, because, unfortunately, I didn’t know the first thing about changing a tire. My father had made sure that I only knew how to do a woman’s work.

  I slammed the trunk closed and stalked back to the driver’s side, pulling at the ends of my hair. I glared at the offending nail that had to be four inches long sticking out of the tire. How many nails did people drive over a day, and I was the one to get a flat freakin’ tire?

  Not cool.

  Not at all.

  I opened the door and reached for my phone to call my roommate to come pick me up.

  The sky was darkening, and I didn’t want to be stranded.

  I wrapped my lightweight jacket tighter around my body as the wind gusted around me, blowing leaves off of the nearby trees. I watched the red, yellow, and orange leaves fall down and scatter over my car.

  One, unfortunately, got caught in my hair. I reached up and pulled it out before letting it drift to the ground.

  Gravel crunched behind me. I turned quickly to see a guy getting out of a black car that looked like something old but classic.

  I hadn’t even heard him pull over.

  I backed a step away, thinking he might be a murderer or a rapist, but when I got a look at his face, I was stunned.

  He was tall with a lean but muscular body. He had short, dark brown almost black hair and the greenest eyes I had ever seen. Five o’ clock shadow covered his cheeks and chin. My eyes trailed down over the white t-shirt glued to his chest and stopped there. I could see black ink underneath the white shirt and licked my lips. The fact that he had tattoos only made him hotter. To protect against the cold, he was wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt.

  “Uh, can I help you?” he asked, smiling pleasantly at me and putting my earlier fears about him being a murderer or rapist completely to rest.

  Help? With what? I needed help?

  “Huh?”

  He grinned crookedly, tilting his head. “With your tire. Do you need some help?”

  He had the deepest, huskiest voice I had ever heard. I shivered at the sound. I was pretty sure I’d be happy for him to help me with a lot of things, and none of them included my tire.

  “Help would be great.” I blushed, ducking my head.

  He chuckled. “You do have a spare, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the trunk.” I pointed, like he didn’t know where the trunk was.

  He grabbed the spare and all the necessary tools and sat down next to the ruined tire.

  “I, uh, would’ve changed it myself, but, uh, my dad never taught me.” I ran my fingers nervously through my wavy brown hair. “He said something about it not being appropriate for a girl to do and if I ever got a flat tire, I better hope Prince Charming came along. My dad’s very, uh, old fashioned,” I stammered.

  He looked up at me. “Does that make me Prince Charming?” He grinned.

  “Oh, uhm, Prince Charming is fictional, so I guess not, and he, uh, usually rides a white horse or something … I think.”

  Somebody stamp AWKWARD across my forehead already.

  The guy threw his head back and laughed. “I guess a shiny black ‘69 Camaro doesn’t count as a white horse. You watch a lot of Disney movies or something?”

  “No.” I blushed tomato red. “At least, not anymore.”

  He squinted up at me, shielding his eyes from the orange glow of the setting sun. “You’re funny.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing,” I muttered. Unfortunately, I wasn’t trying to be funny.

  “It’s a very good thing …” he paused, waiting for my name.

  “Oh, uh, Olivia. Olivia Owens.”

  “I’m Trace.” He reached a hand up to me, and I took it. It was warm and calloused, swallowing mine whole. He grinned when my hand jerked at his touch. “Trace Wentworth.”

  We were both silent after that as he changed my tire. When he was done, he packed everything away and put my ruined tire in his trunk.

  I reached for his arm. “You don’t need to do that.” The guy had already stopped to help me; I certainly didn’t expect him to haul my ruined tire away as well.

  “I’m a mechanic, I’ll get rid of it at work.” He closed the trunk with a shrug. “You need to get a new tire on tomorrow. That spare won’t last you long.”

  “Right.” I nodded, committing that tidbit of information to memory.

  “Bring it by Pete’s Garage.” He opened the door to his car and held onto the frame. “I’ll be there and fix it up for you.”

  “Oh, um, okay. Thanks for fixing my tire and for, uh, stopping,” I said, walking backward away from his car and toward mine.

  “You say, uh, a lot,” he commented, a grin tilting his lips up at the corners. He had one of those smiles that made panties around the world drop. I was tempted to check and make sure mine were still firmly in place.

  “I know,” I grimaced. “It’s a, uh, bad habit.”

  Actually, I rarely ever said, uh, it was just that Trace turned me into a blubbering idiot.

  He grinned, tapping his car door with his hand like he was playing a drum. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah, you’ll see me. Gotta get this stupid thing fixed.” I smacked the hood of the car.

  “Ask for me, okay, Olivia?” His eyes grew serious.

  “I will.” I gave him a thumbs up, hating the way my body reacted to the way he said my name.

  Wait, I gave him a thumbs up? What is wrong with me? That was not cool! He probably thought I was so dumb. Heck, I thought I was being dumb. How was it possible for one gorgeous guy to turn me into a complete pile of mushy goo? That didn’t seem fair.

  Trace waited for me to get into my car and drive away before he did the same. Despite the bad boy appearance, he was obviously more of a gentleman than most of the guys I knew.

  I smiled to myself as I drove down the road and toward the college campus. My roommate and best friend wasn’t going to believe this. Things like hot guys pulling over to help a damsel in distress didn’t happen to me. In fact, I was pretty sure it didn’t happen to most people.

• ❮ PRE-ORDER: FINDING OLIVIA | CHASING OLIVIA | TEMPTING ROWAN | SAVING TATUM ❯