Page 28

The truth was, it didn’t sound good at all.

I didn’t know what this guy’s credentials were or what this shop’s reputation was.

For all I knew, I was about to blow a whole lot of money on a piss-poor job.

But what choice did I have? I knew even less about the area I was in, and who the hell knew where the next closest auto shop was?

So, I nodded reluctantly and handed the guy—Luke—my keys. Then I turned and headed toward the shop front with the neon OPEN sign in the window, where I was welcomed by the scent of cheap, stale coffee and rubber tires as soon as I pushed open the glass door.

I was already heading toward one of the worn-looking metal chairs pushed against the wood-paneled wall when a sweet, melodic voice greeted me from behind.

“Hi. Can I help you with something?”

With a look over my shoulder, I saw her sitting at a desk in front of an ancient computer monitor. Long, reddish-blonde hair. Big blue eyes. The fullest, softest-looking lips I’d ever seen in the flesh.

Wow .

While Laura was pretty, this woman was the type of drop-dead gorgeous you only saw in magazines, and I immediately berated myself for even making that comparison.

But it was impossible not to notice the way the air was sucked out of this tiny room the moment my eyes landed on her and the way she seemed to bite her plump bottom lip for the most fleeting moment at the sight of me.

“Uh … no,” I finally said, finding my voice. “The guy in the garage … Luke … he told me to wait in here while he looked at my truck.”

Her chin dipped with a slight nod. “Oh,” she said. “Okay. Well then, um …” She cleared her throat and ge stured toward the row of vacant chairs, as if I hadn’t already been on my way toward them. “Take a seat.”

“Yeah.” The side of my mouth tipped upward as I mirrored her barely there nod. “I’ll do that.”

I turned away and exhaled, my sights once again on a chair and not on the woman who had no business looking that beautiful in little makeup and a shirt the color of shit. I sat and leaned my head back against the wall, closing my eyes to take a few deep breaths and not look at her.

I should call Grace and Lucy.

I didn’t need Luke to look at my truck and give me an estimated time to know it wasn’t good.

The wheel well was dented, the tire looked like it’d exploded, and I was willing to bet the axel wasn’t looking too hot either.

My sisters were expecting me to come home today.

They had talked our father into letting me stay the night until I could find another place to sleep—at Laura’s preferably, especially since I wasn’t on the best of speaking terms with Ricky yet—and they’d need to know I was going to be a little longer than anticipated.

I pulled out my phone, keeping my eyes down and away from the beautiful woman behind the desk as I ran through my few contacts until I found Grace’s name.

It rang twice before she answered, “Are you home?!”

I huffed a humorless laugh. “I wish. I hit a pothole in Connecticut the size of a freakin’ moon crater.”

“Oh God,” she groaned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, scrubbing a hand over the scruff along my jaw. “My truck, not so much. I’m at a mechanic’s, waiting to find out how long it’s going to take to fix it.”

“Do you want me to come pick you up?”

I considered it for a second, then shook my head. “Nah, not yet. Wait until I find out how much time I’m looking at. If it’s gonna be longer than a night, I’ll probably take you up on that offer.”

She sighed. “Okay. We’re just excited to see you.”

“Yeah,” I said, my chest pinching with a homesickness I only ever got when talking to my sisters. “I’m excited to see you too.”

“Ricky’s looking forward to seeing you too.”

I rolled my eyes, thrusting myself forward to plonk my elbows against my knees. “Now, why’d you have to go and bring him—"

“Oh, were you seriously planning on coming home and not seeing him? Because news flash, Max: he’s dating Lucy whether you like it or not.”

I groaned, reaching up to run my hand over my short, cropped hair. “Why do you have to remind me?”

“Why are you being such a baby about it?”

I shook my head. It wasn’t worth wasting my breath on. Simply put, I had trusted Ricky to watch over my sisters while I was gone, but to keep his hands to himself. He had broken an unspoken oath, one I couldn’t expect either Grace or Lucy to understand.

I grunted an unintelligible sound, then said, “I’ll call you when I know how long I’ll be here.”

“Oh, okay. Change the subject.”

“Yep. Talk to you later. ”

I could almost hear her eyes roll through the phone. “Uh-huh. Bye, you idiot.”

I hung up before I could throw an insult at her and dropped the phone into my lap.

My thoughts had now shifted from Dumass and his widowed wife to every sickening thing my sister was doing with Ricky—probably at this very second—and I couldn’t stand it.

As my hands gripped the back of my head, I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing deep breaths in through my nose, out through my mouth …

“Would you like something to drink?”

Startled, I dropped my hands to dangle between my spread knees, and I looked ahead at the soft, welcoming blue gaze that beckoned me in like the warmth of a fire on the coldest winter night.

I swallowed, almost certain now that driving through that pothole was the worst possible thing that could’ve ever happened.

Many years had passed since I had met Laura, and I’d never been tempted once to stray, but I was sure this woman could have me on my knees with a snap of her fingers, and I wasn’t sure what that meant for me or my feelings for the girl back home.

In my stupor, I somehow forgot what she’d asked, and embarrassed, I shook my head and chuckled despite myself. “Sorry. What did you say?”

Her returned smile was tight, and her cheeks deepened in color. “Did you, um …” She gestured toward a small table holding a coffee carafe and cups beside a water cooler. “Did you want something to drink?”

It was late afternoon. The likelihood of that coffee still being warm, let alone hot, was slim, and from the smell of it, it was highly unlikely to be good. I’d rather drink the instant shit the Army provided in the MREs—and I rarely, if ever, drank that.

“Oh, sure,” I said, pushing a smile and getting to my feet. “Thanks.”

“There might be some doughnuts left in that box there too,” she said as I grabbed a paper cup not much bigger than a thimble and held it beneath the tap of the carafe. “If you’re hungry.”

Now, while that coffee was far from appetizing, a stale doughnut was better than no doughnut at all, so as the coffee trickled out at a snail’s pace, I flipped the box’s lid and was happy to find two jelly doughnuts left in the box from Dunkin’ Donuts.

I grabbed one, grateful that it hadn’t yet staled to the consistency of concrete and took a bite.

“Wait, was that the last jelly?”

I turned to her, mid-chew. “There’s one more,” I answered as crumbs proceeded to spray from my mouth to the floor.

I growled at my inconsideration, holding a hand over my mouth through my humiliation.

Somehow, in the moment, I forgot the coffee, still dispensing into my toddler-sized cup, and it began to overflow, trickling onto the weathered tiled floor.

“Oh my God,” I uttered after a hasty swallow, dropping the doughnut onto the table and hurrying to turn off the tap while grabbing some tissue-thin napkins from beside the stack of tiny cups.

“Oh! That’s okay. I’ll get it.”

As I knelt to the floor, she hurried from behind her desk and dropped beside me, and in perfect synchrony, our heads bumped in our coupled rush to clean up what turned out to be a very little mess.

She laughed, flustered, and I laughed with her, our eyes meeting and holding long enough for my heart to skip a beat or two. God, what the hell was wrong with me?

“Sorry,” she said, her cheeks now a strawberry red to match her hair.

This close, I could count the freckles smattered across her nose. A little closer, and I could kiss her, find out if those lips were as soft as they looked …

Get a grip, Tailor.

I looked down at the small puddle of coffee on the floor and shook my head. “Nothing to be sorry about,” I said, mopping the mess up with the napkins.

She was quiet, but she remained next to me, and when I finished wiping the floor, I turned back to her to find her eyes on my shoulder.

“My dad is a Vietnam veteran,” she offered. “He was also a sergeant.”

I nodded, instantly invested in anything she was willing to tell me. “Army?”

She shook her head, smiling. “He was a Marine.”

“Well, thank him for his service on my behalf,” I replied sincerely.

Her eyes held on to mine for a fraction of a second, and I didn’t look away immediately. I didn’t look away until Laura’s name screamed through my mind. Then I cleared my throat, she coughed, and we both stood.

“Thank you ,” she said, taking the last doughnut from the box.

I glanced down at her mouth as she took a bite, and lewd thoughts skittered across my mind.

Then, catching myself, I stammered awkwardly, “Oh, I, um … you don’t have to thank me. I only wanted one—"

She laughed, chewing. Powdered sugar clung to her lips, and after she swallowed, her tongue swiped out to lick it off.

I wouldn’t mind seeing her lick something else.

Fuck. Stop it.

“No, I meant, for your service. Thank you.”

“Oh,” I said, certain my cheeks were now as red as hers. I grabbed my nearly forgotten doughnut from the table and brought it to my mouth. “It’s all I know how to do.”