Driving from Seattle to Chicago through a bunch of places he'd never seen before (Idaho, Montana, North Dakota etc.) had seemed a great adventure when Blaine had thought of it, not so much as he sat in his broken down car in the middle of God only knew where at 10:30 at night. He hadn't seen another car for over 30 minutes and he knew he'd heard some kind of wild animal howling about 10 minutes ago, so walking for help was out.

He was resigning himself to sleeping in the car when he saw a set of headlights approaching in the distance…and pull to a stop nearby. A tall, lean figure wearing a stetson slid out of the cab of a tow truck and made his way toward Blaine, silhouetted by the headlights. Blaine swallowed when he noted the shape at the man's hip, fairly sure that it was a holstered hand gun.

"You okay in there, Mr?" a voice said and the man bent to peer into the car. He had a nice face, didn't look like an ax murderer…then again, didn't they say serial killers were usually handsome?

"Fine!" he replied, weighing his options and not liking any of them. "I, uh…"

Then the man suddenly let out a bark of laughter. "Oh!" he said, fishing in a pocket and pulling out a wallet and holding it up to Blaine's window. It was a badge and ID, identifying the man as a deputy sheriff. "I just got off duty and my neighbor Burt asked if I could drive the rig out here to pick you up. He owns the repair shop and I help out if I'm available."

Letting out a breath of relief, Blaine opened the door and clambered out. "How did you know I was here?"

"Ms. P saw you and called Burt," the young man said, stowing his badge and holding out a hand. "Sam Evans."

"Blaine Anderson…I have no idea what's wrong with the car. It's a rental," he said apologetically. Not that he knew much about any cars, but hey, it sounded better to blame the rental.

Sam nodded and opened the hood, checking a few things before re-emerging with a shrug. "Don't see anything obviously wrong. I'll tow it to Burt's and he'll look at it in the morning," he said, then hooked his thumbs in his belt loop and tipped his head as he looked at Blaine. "Panther Inn is closed by now, so you can crash in my spare room if you like."

For a moment, Blaine gaped at him, then said, "Thanks…yeah. Thank you."

Okay, so he was going to spend the night at the home of a hunky cowboy/sheriff. Maybe his great adventure was turning out nicely after all.