FLIPPING DOWN THE VISOR, I silently curse the yellow light illuminating my face. Taking a calming breath, I remind myself I don’t need to look my best. I’m just going in to work off a debt. That’s it.
“Why did I agree to this?” I whine. “You know why you agreed to it. It’s the right thing to do.” Snorting as I run a hand over the top of my head to smooth out a bump in my ponytail, I laugh. “Yeah, it has nothing to do with how sexy he is. Don’t lie to yourself.”
Stomach sloshing as I pick apart my appearance, I set aside the excitement building in my gut and focus on the reflection in the poorly lit mirror. My skin is decent, except for the pimple that decided to spring up during the night. My makeup is light and casual to go with my strategically ripped jeans and short-sleeved red and black plaid shirt with a lacy white cami underneath that took way too long this morning to choose.
“Stop,” I chastise myself, working a strand of hair from the center of one of my large hoop earrings. “You’re here to do the right thing. Walker doesn’t even like you anyway.”
Gathering my phone and lip gloss from the passenger seat, I slip them into my purse and open the car door. If this happened in any normal situation, I would’ve already paid him back by now. But if I tossed him some cash, I think he might actually be offended. Still, knowing enough money is tucked in my wallet to pay for the damage if things go south is a little balm to my uneasiness.
Confidence is one of my best qualities. I can walk into a room of political powerhouses or professional athletes and hold my own. It’s a regularity of my life in Savannah, how I was raised. So why am I walking into a mechanic’s shop in the middle of Illinois and feeling like I’m naked in Times Square?
Ignoring the roiling in my stomach, I take the handle and yank the door open. The chimes I’m already starting to hate ring as I step inside. The air conditioning is a welcome reprieve from the heat. It’s almost as nice as the view sitting at the desk.
A tight black t-shirt grips his muscled frame as Walker sits in the chair and clicks around on a computer. He knows I’m here; there’s no way he doesn’t. But he doesn’t look at me.
I wait a few seconds before finally clearing my throat. “Hello?”
“Hi.” His head doesn’t turn, his eyes unmoving from the screen. He couldn’t pretend to be more bored with my arrival if he tried.
I pick at the hem of my shirt, silently begging him to have mercy on me and just speak. But after almost a minute, it’s obvious he’s not going to.
“Good morning to you too,” I say flatly.
Readjusting my purse on my shoulder, I wait for him to respond. He continues doing whatever it is that he’s doing, and I’m two seconds from walking back out when he shoves away from the desk. The sudden burst of movement startles me. Large arms cross his chest, and his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them before as they settle on me.
“I didn’t expect you to come today,” he says simply.
“I’m a woman of my word.”
A hint of a smile plays on his lips, but never quite breaks free. I want to ask him why he’s so constrained, why that sentence amuses him, why he didn’t expect me—but I don’t. Instead, I just stare back at him, giving as good as I’m getting.
He gives nothing away with his steady gaze, two-day stubble, and wild hair like his hands have been in it all morning. My heart strums in my chest, each moment that passes without any sort of break in the standoff giving me way too much time to examine him for all the wrong reasons. To smell him. To almost taste the energy spiraling off him in waves.
If I stand here much longer, I might start to pant.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
One corner of his lips lifts, catching on to my unintended innuendo, before he rolls his mouth around like he’s tasting a sip of wine.
Blushed, I clear my throat. “Where do you want me to start?”
“How do I know?” he asks, his voice low and grumbly. “This wasn’t my idea, if you’ll recall.”
“If you’ll recall,” I start back, “it’s your business and you agreed to this. I assume you want a say in how I work off my debt.”
“I can make suggestions,” Peck laughs, coming out of the bathroom. “Wanna hear them?”
“Get to work.” Walker shakes his head as Peck walks by. “The fuel injector came in for the car in the back. Can you get that thing on so we can get it out of the way?”
“Yeah. Got it.” Peck leans against the door to the garage bay. His boyish grin is adorable, a dimple set deeply into his right cheek. A mop of blond hair sticks out from under a navy blue cap. “Nice to see you, Slugger.”
“Go on, Peck,” Walker rumbles as I release a little giggle that only seems to annoy him more.
Peck’s chuckle remains a few seconds after the door swings shut, leaving us alone. Walker scoots his chair back and stands, sending a whiff of a woodsy cologne through the room. “There’ll be a delivery this morning from the auto parts store. Just sign for it if you happen to be out here, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Easy enough.”
Moving around the desk, he stops just a few inches from me. I tilt my head up to look him in the eye, breathing in the masculine scent that I’ve already committed to memory. He’s close enough that I could touch him, could run my hands down the sides of his face or trace the lines of his shoulders pressing against the cotton of his shirt.
His eyes narrow, his lips part slightly, as he takes me in. There’s no uptick in his breathing, no tell-tale sign that he’s thinking anything remotely like what I am. There’s just a hint of intrigue buried deep in his eyes that only fuels my need to make him react.
“Anything I should or shouldn’t do today?” I ask, a little kiss on the words to hopefully drag some sort of response out of him.
“Don’t give anything else away.”
My shoulders fall. “Really? That’s your answer.”
“Yup. That’s my answer.”
“Fine,” I grumble, sidestepping him. I don’t mean to brush against him as I turn the corner of the desk. I don’t really even know how it happens because I move far enough out of the way to not make any contact at all, yet it happens.
Ever-so-lightly, my arm slips across his as I move. Not-so-slightly, a shiver rips through my body as his sturdy body doesn’t flinch. It doesn’t give at all. It’s as if it needs the contact as much as mine in its refusal to get out of the way or at least recoil as any normal person would when touched.
He’s hard and steady and I imagine him enveloping me with both arms.
My eyes flip to his immediately and are rewarded with the faintest glimmer of desire. It’s there, just masked with a look of annoyance that is more tolerable knowing the other emotion lies just below the surface.
His nostrils flare, almost a taunt for me to press the issue. Like he’s asking me to verbalize whatever the hell that was that just sparked between our bodies so he doesn’t have to.
I almost do. I almost give him the opening I think he wants, but think better of it.
“Where can I put my purse?” I ask, gesturing towards the desk. Again, I wait for a response I don’t get. “I’d be happy to figure it out if you’ll get out of my way.”
He cocks his head to the side, twisting his lips together. “Why is it that when you come in here, I feel like you forget who’s in charge?”
“Because I think we both know who’s the calm, level-headed one here.” I toss my purse on the desk.
“You?” he bursts, the word floating on a laugh. “The one who bashed my truck with a baseball bat?”
“That’s a poor example. I was thinking more like the way you stomp around and try to snarl all the time.”
It’s a gamble calling him out, and I hold my breath while I wait for his response. I’m shocked when he laughs, his shoulders relaxing for the first time all morning. “I don’t stomp.”
“But you do snarl,” I wink. “So, purse?”
He hesitates, his features smoothing as he resolves himself to some decision I’m not apprised of. Closing the distance between us, he stops when he’s beside me. Reaching across my body, his arm intentionally brushing my shoulder as it passes, he lifts my purse up with two fingers.
Boxed in between the wall and his forearm, roped with a mass of veins and muscles, I keep my vision pinned on the calendar taped to the desk. As he drags the purse towards him, his bicep swipes against me again, stealing my breath.
He leans close, his lips a hair’s breadth away from the shell of my ear. “It wouldn’t be wise,” he says, his voice a few decibels above a whisper, “to leave your shit lying out and getting stolen.”
When he pulls back, it’s like oxygen is freed up in the room again.
“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?” I ask, my cheeks heating. “From the truck to the stuff yesterday to this—you think I’m just a stupid girl who doesn’t know anything.”
He doesn’t answer, just holds my canary yellow purse in his hand.
“Well, I’m not. The truck thing was kind of stupid,” I admit, “but I didn’t mean to do that. I just . . .”
Scrambling for words, completely thrown off by the mixed signals from Walker, I snatch my purse from his hand. He watches me, a confused look etched on his face.
“Let me just pay you and get out of here,” I say, searching for the bank envelope.
“I’m not taking your money.”
“Why? I owe it to you.”
“Because I’m not.”
The finality in his voice startles me and I look up. He runs a hand through his hair, the spikes changing position but still sticking up. The irritation doesn’t leave his face, but it changes—from what and to what, I’m not sure. All I know is that the hand holding my purse drops to my side as I wait for him to find the words he’s so obviously searching for.
“I, um . . .” He forces a swallow. “Put your purse in the cabinet back there. No one can get into it but me and Peck, and while he might be a dumbass, he’s not a thief.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. There’s a shift in the air, one that swirls between us and leaves us both a little wobbly.
“Otherwise, just, um, do whatever you think needs done. There’ll be a few customers coming in this morning. Just knock on the window and Peck or I will come in and take care of it.”
“You trust Peck over me?”
“Damn right I do,” he replies.
“So I should just assume I’m not to take any payments or deal with invoices?”
His attempt at biting back his chuckle fails. “No. I can’t afford to get behind anymore.”
If I couldn’t tell he was playing, I would be pissed. But the way his lip curls on the side dissolves it before it gets started.
“My business skills are on fire,” I tell him. “You’re making a mistake, Walker.”
“I’m confident in my decision-making abilities, Slugger.”
“Your loss,” I shrug, heading towards the back cabinet. I lay my purse on a box and close it. When I turn around, he’s still there. “You gonna work today or watch me?”
Shaking his head, he heads towards the door to the garage. “Behave.”
“ARE YA EVEN LISTENING to me?” Peck bumps my shoulder as he walks by. “I get it. She’s hot as hell. But we still have to get shit done.”
“Shut it.”
“Just speaking the truth,” he cracks. “You’ve managed to make it two hours without going back in there. I’m impressed.”
Tossing a wrench into the toolbox with more force than necessary, I glare at my cousin. “This was all your idea.”
“And a damn good one at that.”
I pluck a screwdriver out of the container and head back to the SUV we’ve been messing with all morning. My stomach growls as I remove the screws holding in the faulty part that’s taken two hours to get to. It falls into my hand with a heavy thud.
“Finally,” Peck says, taking it from me. “Now can I go to lunch?”
“Yeah, may as well. When you get back, maybe the new piece will be here.”
“Hell, at this rate, I’m tempted to go to the parts store in Merom and just buy the fucker. We’ve waited all day.”
“And we’ll pay double.”
He grabs his keys and phone from the rack by the door and makes his way out. I watch through the window. He stops and talks to Sienna, telling her something that makes her laugh. I move closer to the glass without thinking, wishing I could hear the sound.
It’s taken everything I have all day not to go back in there. It’s taken more than I knew I had not to look up every three seconds and look for her.
She moves with grace—her chin always lifted, her back always straight. It reminds me of the ballerinas who used to perform with Blaire when she was a little girl. Always poised, always performing. The only difference is, with Sienna, it doesn’t feel like a performance.
That’s the fucking problem right there. That’s the reason I can’t shake this girl from my system despite every attempt at doing just that.
There’s a confidence exuding from her that’s overwhelming. How can someone be that sure of themselves? How can she just blaze into my world, my business, and make decisions like she’ll just fix it if it’s wrong? Who does that?
I laid awake last night with her on my mind. I’ve worked all day today and had a stream of Sienna rolling in the back of my brain the whole morning as I tried to fix this fuel pump. She’s intoxicating, a drug foreign to me that I’ve somehow ingested and can’t purge from my body.
But I need to. Desperately.
“Hey.” Her voice sweeps through the garage, capturing my attention. “There’s a pump of some sort here. Peck said to tell you if it came in.”
“Thanks.”
She waits as I head her direction, holding the door open for me. I want to tell her to stop it, to stop making it so hard to dislike her, but I don’t. Instead, I listen to the door shut behind me and spy the box on the desk.
“What’s this for?” she asks.
“A fuel pump we’ve needed since nine,” I say, leaning against the wall. “We order everything from Standski’s, but their delivery has been shit lately. I don’t want to order from one of the online places, but they’re gonna force me to.”
“You should’ve told me. I could’ve called and spurred them on.”
“You think it would’ve helped?” I scoff.
“I can be really persuasive.”
That, I have little trouble believing. Instead of agreeing with her, I glance around the lobby. “Damn. You’ve done a lot today.”
You can see the cars in the parking lot, the trees lining the other side of the road through the now-clear windows. The floors don’t shine, but they definitely don’t have heaps of dried up mud on them either. And the desk is semi-organized with a handful of stacks of papers in a neat line on top.
“You like it?” She shoots me the brightest smile, one that hits something inside me it shouldn’t. “I didn’t know where to start, so I just started at the messiest place and moved on. I thought I’d take those rags to the cleaners when I leave.”
“To the cleaners?” I ask, lifting a brow.
“I’m not putting those greasy things in my washing machine,” she gags. “They stink too.”
“Um, fun fact, Slugger: you take those to a dry cleaners and they’ll laugh your ass right out of there.”
“Do you just throw them away then?”
“There’s about fifty bucks’ worth of towels. No, I don’t throw them away,” I say like she’s crazy. “We take them over to Suds N Spins and wash them there.”
“That’s a . . . what do you call it?”
“A laundromat? Haven’t you had to do laundry there before? When your washer broke or at college or something?”
“Um, nope. But I’ll take these there. What do I need to know?”
“Wait,” I say, holding up a hand. “You’ve never been to a laundromat?”
“No. So what?”
“So who even are you?”
Something crosses her features as a hand goes to her hip. “Do you want me to take them or not?”
There’s a laugh ready to expel, a reaction to how adorably sexy she is when she’s all riled up and challenging me back. Not because I’ve never been challenged, but because I don’t think anyone has ever given a fuck to actually help me and not gotten frustrated when it’s not easy.
I bite back the reaction and instead answer her question. “I’ll get to it.”
“Why are you so hard-headed?”
“Me?” I ask.
“Yes, you.” She points a white-tipped fingernail my way. “I’m trying to help you out. The least you can be is nonjudgmental.”
“I’m not being judgmental.”
“Yeah, you are.”
As I take a step forward, she takes one back. Then another. And another until her back is against the wall. Her chest rises and falls at a spectacular speed, her blue eyes sparkling in the sunshine streaming through the window. Just standing this close to her, feeling her body this close to mine, is enough to fray any sensibilities I’ve managed to hold on to.
With the most caution I’ve ever used, I drag the back of my hand down her cheek. Her skin is soft, the quiet intake of breath so perfect that I find myself forgetting where I am.
God, I want to give in. I want to dip my head down to hers and kiss the fight right out of her. She would be so perfect in my hands as I pin her to the wall, feel her body squirm against mine as our bodies press together and she moans in to my mouth.
“Damn it,” I groan, my voice more haggard than I wanted it to be as I drop my hand away from her face. “Why are you so frustrating?”
“I don’t mean to be.”
It’s not the words, but the way she whispers them that shoots through me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, forcing my feet backwards.
She sags against the wall, her fingers flexing against her sides. She searches my eyes, almost desperately, and my stomach sinks right along with her shoulders.
“What are you sorry for?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I twist around and snatch the box off the desk. “Peck headed to lunch. If you wanna go, Carlson’s Bakery has pretty good sandwiches. Tell Veronica I sent you over.”
I don’t wait for a response. I just hit the door to the bay and escape while I still can.