“You’re lucky to have gotten home. From the sound of it, I’d say that your starter motor has just about had it and I’m surprised that you’re getting anything out of your battery.” He indicated the corroded couplings. “The cables are completely corroded with residue. By all rights, there shouldn’t even be a connection being made.”

He wasn’t even going to bother getting into the hoses and the fuel injectors, except to warn her. “I wouldn’t drive it if I were you. There’s a faint smell of gasoline. It’s not safe.”

Christa wrinkled her nose; she believed Malcolm’s assessment. She knew she’d been pushing her luck with the van, but she’d had no choice. A new one, or even a new used one, was out of the question right now.

“Can you fix it?”

He felt as if she had just placed a wounded baby bird in his lap and asked him to breathe life into it.

“Well, it needs a new starter motor, and there’s no telling what else might be wrong with it—”

This was beginning to sound worse and worse. “So it won’t be fixed by tomorrow?”

Did she think he was a miracle worker? He began to say just that, then decided against it. “No, it won’t be fixed by tomorrow.”

Christa sighed, dragging her hand through her hair. “Oh, God.”

She sounded as if he’d just told her the car was terminal. “Is tomorrow important?”

“It might have been.” She dug deep, trying to rally her sinking spirit, but it wasn’t getting any easier. “I have a job interview. Had,” she amended. “I was counting on getting there with this.” She waved a disparaging hand at the van.

“Not unless the place interviewing you is located at the bottom of a hill.”

Christa nibbled on her lower lip again, thinking. Watching her stirred a distant feeling in Malcolm that he had been certain had completely vanished from his life the day he’d buried Gloria.

He pushed it away.

Christa knew she had no right to impose. But she was desperate. “Could you work on it for me?”

Malcolm had never seen so much hope in a woman’s eyes before. Unfounded hope, he thought, but hope nonetheless. It pinned him to the spot and kept him there. It also gave him no choice.

Shrugging, he acquiesced. “Sure. I could have it towed to the shop—”

Towing. Something else to consider. “Is that going to cost?” Before he could answer, she flushed ruefully. “Of course it’s going to cost.”

She ran a slender hand over her face. God, but it was hard not to feel as if her back were against the wall. She knew she could always turn to her brothers and father for money, but her pride wouldn’t let her.

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