Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned below.
Rhonda sat at the red light mentally going over her Christmas list. When the light turned green, she automatically proceeded through the intersection. It wasn't till she'd gone a full block that she realized she'd missed her turn. "Oh well, I guess I'll just take the freeway today," she decided with a shrug.
She normally avoided the freeway and it's large volume of traffic. Traffic that was made worse by the constant downpour that had besieged Cascade lately. She grumbled at the slow progress that she was making.
As she and the other commuters inched along, she spotted a car alongside the road. Something about this car was familiar. With a sudden flash of insight, she realized that it wasn't the car that was familiar, but the man pulling the spare tire out of the trunk.
She pulled over to the roadside and climbed out of her car, "Detective Rafe, fancy meeting you here."
Rafe looked up from his inspection of the flat tire and smiled widely at his co-worker. "Rhonda," the detective replied, "you wouldn't happen to have a tire iron, would you? It would appear that I misplaced mine, the last time I used it to subdue a suspect."
Rhonda moved around to the back of her car and opened her trunk, "Hmmm, I seem to remember some sort of tire thingy in here, the last time I looked." The young woman reached in and pulled out a four-sided tire iron. "I had to get a second one, seeing as how I keep the smaller one that came with the car up front where it's handy," she explained as she handed the tool to Rafe
"You are a life saver." The stranded motorist took the tire iron and headed back to his own car, setting immediately to the task of changing the offending tire.
He'd only managed to loosen one lug nut before he had to wipe the rain from his eyes. As he set to work on the next lug nut, the rain suddenly stopped. The detective looked up to see his rescuer standing over him in her raincoat, holding an umbrella over him.
"Thanks," he mumbled shyly.
Rhonda stood patiently fending off the rain as her friend worked. "Rafe, why aren't you wearing a raincoat?"
The wet detective started to jack the car off the ground with a grunt. "It's in H's car," he explained.
"Well, what is it doing there?"
"Not a whole hell of a lot a good, that's what."
The friendly banter continued as Rafe finished changing the tire on his car. Between the rain, the exertion, and the spray from the passing cars, the detective without his raincoat was soaked to the bone and shivering.
"Thanks for your help, Rhonda. I'd probably have had to call the station and had H come get me. It's lucky you came along."
Rhonda returned his smile, minus the shivers, "It's no problem, but you need to get warm and dry soon."
The soaking wet, GQ detective escorted the secretary back to her car, "I'll change once I get to the station. I have spare clothes in my locker." Before Rafe made it all the way back to his car, he heard Rhonda call his name.
"Hey, Rafe. Think fast."
He turned and instinctively caught the object that was tossed at him. Before he could identify the contents of the sack, his savior drove off towards the station.
***********
Captain Banks walked into his office and shut the door, only to turn around and open it again. "Rhonda?"
The secretary looked up at her boss as if nothing was wrong and it was perfectly normal for her to be sitting there with wet hair and no shoes. "Yes, sir?"
The captain thought about his next question carefully, "Do I want to know why you look like you've been standing in the rain?"
The secretary smiled innocently, "probably not, sir."
The captain was just about to ask why the look on her face resembled 'the cat who ate the canary' when he saw Detective Rafe walk in wearing a very familiar Army sweatshirt that had last been in Rhonda's possession.
He simply shook his head and hid in his office.
Feedback Please QLHT2@kc.rr.com