Page 29 of Family Affair

“The battery?" He coughed or hiccuped - or maybe both. "In your hybrid?”

“Oh, no, it's not mine. I’m driving my mother’s car.”

“Gotcha. Where are you?”

“At the vet’s office, with Chap.”

“What’s wrong with Chap?”

“Nothing. You don’t want to know. I mean, he’s okay.”

“I see.” He sounded strange, and Coco had a sinking feeling that he was about to brush her off. “Let me check something here, okay?”

He put her on hold.

Maybe calling Dan in the middle of the day was a bad idea. He worked like crazy and of course he didn’t have time to race across town to fix her car.

“Hey,” Dan came back online. “Tell you what, we’ll get you all straightened up. Give me the address.”

She sent him the clinic’s location. “Dan, I hope it’s not too much trouble.”

"Don’t worry, sweetheart,” his voice gentled. “We’ll get it fixed. Just stay put.”

Clicking the phone off, she picked up Chap’s crate and found a spot at the corner of the building where a lone dogwood tree provided meager shade. And waited.

By her estimation, it should take Dan about thirty minutes to get here.

She watched the patients of the furry variety come and go with their owners, feeling her tank top soak through and cling to her back in damp patches.

To open her neck to the weak breeze, she twisted the heavy mass of her hair high on her head and pierced the tight bun with a pen she dug out of her purse.

Just then Dan’s dark blue BMW split from the main current of traffic and sailed into the right-turn-only lane, its yellow light blinking lazily.

As the shiny vehicle pulled up next to her, she heard the door latch release. Coco popped the handle and climbed in along with the crate.

“Thank you for getting here so fast. What a ridiculous day.” She wrestled with the bulky crate, trying to position it on her lap without scratching the console.

Registering no reaction from the driver’s seat, she turned to look at Dan.

The head of shaggy dark hair didn’t belong to Dan. The opaque sunglasses concealed the driver's eyes making him look a little sinister. That tingling sensation she had experienced at the 4thof July party made its way across her skin.

“Sorry,” Cade drawled. “Wrong brother.”

“Ah… Hello, Cade.”

“Hey there.”

Self-consciously she patted her tuning-knob bun making sure the pen didn’t poke a hole in the roof liner. “I thought Dan was coming. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” he said in a frosty tone. “Busy. Now, can I have the keys so I can take a look at your car?”

“Yes, sure.” She handed the key over to him. “This is my car, right there.”

“So I figured.” The corners of his mouth almost lifted.

Of course, she’d left the hood open.

Cade left the BMW idling, and Coco sat there for a few minutes, chilling and observing how he got into her car, gave a couple of tries starting it, then got out and peered under the hood. Sighing, she went to join him, leaving Chap on the seat.