The silver sedan rumbled down a meandering country road, Blake at the wheel. He couldn't keep his eyes off Rachel in the passenger seat, sunbaked pastures streaking behind her. He pulled her pretty face close and kissed her cheek. She turned her mouth to meet his, kissing him hard, her hand on his thigh.

He snapped his eyes to the open road then back to her. She wore an expression, a curve of her lips that momentarily forged the face of a different woman that settled back into the familiar as she swept the hair from her face.

The car dipped into a patch of the uneven surface before it regained steady traction.

"Slow down," she whispered.

He backed off the gas when he discovered that he was doing almost sixty miles an hour.

Her hand moved to the inside of his thigh.

"I'm gonna pull over... before things get...," he said, his voice nearly lost in his breath, his hand off the steering wheel, reaching for her.

BA-BANG. The car rocked hard, jostling them. Something scraped the underside of the vehicle. He braked. Looking into the rearview mirror, he discovered that he'd run over a fallen tree branch lying in stubby pieces in the road.

One hundred yards later, the low tire pressure indicator lit. He felt the shimmy of a flat tire in the steering wheel.

"Shit." He gritted his teeth.

She tapped the destination button on the navigation system, then hit the fuel icon. "The nearest gas station is twelve miles away."

He steered to the side of the road, heaviness settling in his chest. A muted orange banner of sky resting just above the horizon indicated the sun would be gone soon. He got out to inspect the car and confirmed that the driver's side tire was flat.

"Is there a spare tire in the trunk?"

She shrugged.

He opened the door, popped the trunk, then walked around to the rear of the car. He pushed the duffel deeper into the trunk then lifted the floor panel where he found a spare tire but no jack. Before he could voice his concern, a black pickup truck emerged from a cloud of dust behind him and parked along the opposite side of the road.

A tall man with a flat face that ended at the tip of a pointed chin got out of the truck. A few long strands of hair connected to his balding scalp fluttered over his head. His passenger climbed down from his seat. The first thing that drew Blake's attention was his highly-polished shoes. He wore a tailored white shirt that had probably looked brand new when he put it on in the morning but was now marked with yellowed perspiration rings. Dark wraparound sunglasses hid his eyes.

The pair approached the silver sedan, as dissimilar as a spaghetti strainer and a saxophone. They didn't match, they didn't go together. Blake's chest muscles tightened.

The high-gloss shoe guy peeked into the car and waved at Rachel. Blake met her distressed eyes through the rear window.

"Flat tire?" said the guy with the flyaway hair, stating the obvious.

"Yep."

"Got a spare in there?"

"I found a spare but no jack."

"Whose car?"

"It's a rental."

"Oh, rental." He rubbed his chin stubble. "Let's have a look." He approached, bending to examine the trunk. Before Blake could stop him, he grabbed the canvas bag and grunted when he shoved it to the side. "Criminee," he said. "You an encyclopedia salesman or something?"

Blake's mouth pushed halfway into a smile.

"Don't see nothing back in there." He straightened. "Spare tire does you no good without a jack."

Blake sighed, increasingly uncomfortable that the other man remained in place, his thumbs tucked into his waistband, not uttering a word.

"I always carry a jack and lug wrench with me," the man said, turning toward his truck.

Blake said, "Isn't that dangerous? Using a jack from a different vehicle?"

"Dangerous?" It was the first word out of the other guy's mouth and it landed heavily like a threat.

"I mean the car could slip off the jack, right?"

Neither replied.

Out of the corners of his eyes, Blake could see they were alone, isolated. There wasn't another vehicle on that long stretch of road. Drumming his fingers against his thigh, the agonizing recognition washed over him. He was going to die out there on that lonely road because of a flat tire, a victim of treachery masquerading as a random act of kindness.

The tall man gently cleared his throat. "I suppose you could sit here waiting on a tow truck." A crooked grin raised his cheek. "If you feel that might be a less dangerous option."

The man in the road was a statue, his face like stone.

Rachel pushed open the door, got out, and watched the two men over the roof of the car. She couldn't read the silent guy. No tics, no microexpressions. She gathered her hair with one hand and raised it off her neck. Affecting her southern drawl, she said to Blake in a voice as calm as can be, "Sweetie, let's see if we can't get that ol' flat tire changed so we can be on our way."

"A risk-taker," said the tall man, his grin breaking into a full smile. "I like that." He went to his truck.

Blake stood at the rear bumper, the trunk open, Rachel outside the passenger door, their eyes darting from the peculiar motionless man in the street to his partner reaching into his truck bed, worried that he'd spin around with a shotgun in his hands instead of a car jack.

Despite the clanging of metal in the truck bed behind him, Mister Shiny Shoes never glanced back, not for a second, like he knew what was coming and his only job was to keep his eyes on the hollowed-out guy and his girlfriend who realized that it was too late to run.

Blake sucked dry air through his teeth when the talkative guy trundled in his direction, relieved that the man carried a car jack and a tire iron. He went to work setting the jack on the ground, pried the wheel cover from the flat tire, his face turning almost purple as he fought the lug nuts, then finally set up the jack beneath the Fusion. Grateful, Blake rolled the spare tire toward the man, who exchanged it for the flat one, tightened the lug nuts, and tossed the flat into the trunk. He clapped the grime from his calloused hands.

"Thank you," said Blake, slamming the trunk lid. "Don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't come by."

The man mopped his face with a handkerchief. His companion stood in the road, watching him gather up the parts of the jack.

Rachel approached, holding out a fifty-dollar bill between two fingers. "You are a dear, dear man."

"No, no ma'am," he said. "The Lord put me here today for a reason. You have a safe trip."

"You're an angel is what you are," she said, blowing him a kiss.

They got into their sedan, grateful for the air conditioner, and watched the men in the truck who hadn't driven away.

"That guy's on his phone," she said. "The creepy one."

Blake glanced into the mirror and accelerated.

########

In a rundown motel room, Blake peeked out of the window into the parking lot. Their rental was parked beneath a faded sign which read, Red Star Motel. He closed the blinds, kicked off his shoes, and plopped down on the bed.

An image of his dad burrowed its way into his head wearing that infuriating arrogant, self-righteous expression. Soon he'd learn that his son hadn't shown up for work, hadn't been working on that old broken-down house, hadn't returned to his apartment. He was right again like he always was. Just as he'd predicted, his son was never going to amount to anything. Blake squeezed his eyes shut, shoving those tormenting thoughts out of his mind.

When he opened his eyes, he noticed a yellow folded form on the floor.

Dressed in nothing but her Penn State sweatshirt, Rachel stepped out of the bathroom with a box of hair dye in her hand. "Are you ready for your makeover?"

Blake read from the form. "So who's Madison Reilly?"

"What?"

"The name on this rental agreement."

"That's the girl who rented the car and this room. In case somebody comes looking."

"So where'd you get the credit card and driver's license?"

"At the mall."

Blake grinned. "Wow. I'm a bad influence.

"Yeah, you're the ultimate bad boy," she replied sarcastically. "Come on. Time to update your look."

A half-hour later, Rachel rinsed Blake's hair in the bathroom sink. His hair was chopped short and colored a sandy blonde. Admiring his reflection in the mirror, he said, "I can work with this."

On the counter was another box of hair dye, this one blonde.

"We're gonna need to touch up those eyebrows." She took scissors to her hair, cutting four inches from the length. After several snips, she handed the scissors to Blake. "Even up the back."

The scissors were foreign objects in his hands. He cut carefully, snipping one-half inch at a time.

"This isn't brain surgery," she said. "Just chop it off."

As he cut lengths of her brunette hair, watching them fall to the floor, he felt as though he was disfiguring a piece of art, hacking away at something sacred. When she met his apologetic eyes in the mirror, she smiled, alleviating his guilt.

When he'd finished cutting as much as he could manage, she reclaimed the scissors and began trimming up the sides of her hair. He put on his shirt, buttoned it closed then went to the front door where stood in the motel room's doorway to air out the harsh odors of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide from his head. As he glanced up at the moon peeking from behind high, wispy, cobalt clouds, he realized that there would no longer be any easy nights and wondered if he'd ever again be replenished by a deep, sound sleep. He was so tired.

It occurred to him that it was unwise to advertise his transformation to the outside world, so he retreated into their musty motel room and secured the door. A long yawn poured out of him. He propped himself up against the headboard and found an HGTV show featuring two guys refinishing a wood floor, admiring how easy they made it look. He was halfway into the next episode, watching a couple re-tile their bathroom, when Rachel emerged from the bathroom nearly unrecognizable in short, blonde hair.

"Hey!" Blake said. "If my girlfriend catches you in here..."

She grinned, scrambled onto the bed, then straddled her partner. His hands traced the topography of her curvaceous body.

"The blonde hair is kinda hot." He peeked down. "But the carpet doesn't match the drapes."

"What carpet?" She pulled the sweatshirt over her head.

He rolled Rachel onto her side. In a flurry of kisses, hands moved, bodies writhed. The playful interlude of easy pleasures was a welcome respite from the incessant strain of running for their lives.

When she came up for air, she whispered, "Your head looks like a Chia Pet."

He responded sarcastically. "You complete me."

"Come on. You're better than that." She giggled as he burrowed beneath the sheets.