As I drive away from the garage, the strangest sensation ripples down my arms and through my tummy. I laugh lightly to myself, as the feeling travels further. Into my thighs, deeper into my chasm. I can’t quite pinpoint what’s going on inside my body but it’s kind of pleasant. The tingling spreads a warmth through my chest that almost feels like happiness. Like when you’re little and coming down to see what Santa left.

“Girl, you can’t get all hot for a mechanic,” I murmur to myself as I indicate a left turn.

I laugh again and wriggle slightly in my seat. Meaning to shake off this feeling but also to rub my sensitive area on the leather seat. I’ve known Rand Aikins a few years. Not known exactly, just of him, because he’s been my father’s mechanic, working on his cars as long as I can remember.

Oh actually no, the garage used to belong to old Jock Hangeton. Rand only arrived maybe four years back. I remember the first time I saw him, walking across the street in town, heading for the bar. I was still a teen then and he definitely ignited something in my body. I couldn’t help but notice all the women doing a slight double take as they passed.

He’s hot enough to inspire a small town’s collective fantasy and I was no exception. He walks with a confident swagger, but not arrogant. His long legs thickening through powerful thighs, flexing at his low slung jeans. His narrow waist, flat and lean with ridges that form a ladder pressing through his tee shirt. I’m sure like me, every woman was jolted into a fantasy of picturing that man with nothing covering up his god-like body.

But he’s a car mechanic.

I know that sounds snobbish and I really don’t care what a man does, so long as he’s hot as Rand and kind to me. But my father has other ideas. He wants his little girl to be taken care of the way he’s taken care of me. I can’t blame him for that. It’s been just me and him since my mom died from breast cancer when I was nine. Losing her like that, so young and so suddenly, has made him even more protective. It’s a little cloying at times. I feel like I can’t breathe my own air in case it disappoints him. But it’s okay. I can live with it.

“Baby, can you collect the Lincoln this afternoon,” my dad asked as he downed his coffee, the only breakfast he ever indulges in.

“Of course, Daddy.”

I was surprised as that car is my father’s second baby. He loves it even though it’s getting old. It was the first one he bought after he achieved success – a display of his wealth designed to catch my mom.

“Okay and Trem Taylor called earlier,” he added so my heart sank into the pits of me, knowing what was coming. “Boone is desperate to talk to you. He’s sorry for whatever happened and will do anything to make it right between you. You and Boone were always meant to be a team.”

Oh yeah? He’s sorry for getting into a threesome at Penny Summer’s house after her party. I came over cramped and begged him to take me home early. I could tell he was pissed at having to leave the crazy get together she threw while her parents were away for the weekend. But did that mean he had to go back and get into a three-way?

Worse than that he lied right to my face about it. Everyone in town knows about it but me. How is that being a team? Us coupling up is the dream of both our fathers. Not mine and apparently not Boone’s.

“Can’t you hear him out, baby? We men aren’t perfect always and we need a woman like you, like your mom was, to rein us in. To show us the right path.”

I ought to just tell my father what Boone did. Except he’d load a shotgun and go over to the Taylor McMansion to pepper his ass with lead for mistreating and disrespecting me like that. I don’t want my father to end up in a cell, or to lose his friendship with Trem that goes back before Boone or I were born. It’s as though our fathers swore their two kids would end up together and are conspiring to make it happen.

Now I’m on my way to meet Boone and hear what he has to say.

I really doubt that whatever it is will change my mind, but I did dress in a flirty, almost provocative, manner. Just to show him what he gave up on.

Seeing the reaction I got from Rand boosted my confidence big time. I could feel his gaze blasting right through my outfit and searing every pore in my skin. Funnily, it wasn’t douchey, even the way his eyes fixed on my rear as I bent to get into the car.

He snapped them away immediately, before realizing I’d caught him. Not at all smarmy the way Boone and even his friends sometimes look at me. I felt Rand’s appreciation blossom and that brought my body to life in response from the older man. Such a hunk despite being closer to my father’s age than mine.

I wonder how old he is. I notice how my fingers are absentmindedly stroking the smooth curved wood of the steering wheel as I sit at a light with the image of gorgeous sexy Rand filling my head. The sheen of sweat across the hard round swell of his bicep muscle had again caught my eye.

He’d jostled that reaction in my body when daddy and I dropped the car off. I just didn’t get around to acknowledging it until now, what with my father standing right beside me like a papa bear.

The last two days, my fantasy dreams have been full of a strong man with a broad chest and bulging arms, powerful enough to wrap around me and carry me off wherever he wanted. I should have been pining over my useless untrustworthy boyfriend. Instead I thought of a man that works with his hands, that could take care of everything instead of having to call the help to do it.

A man with a chest so broad I could lie across it and be protected from every storm. His arms around me would be delicious. His hard hands on my body would be… damn, Boone is already here. His Camaro is parked in front of the coffee shop in town we agreed to meet at. I flatly refused to go for a drink at night, knowing there would be pressure from him. Not to mention the gossip when people saw us together. That’s the challenge of living in a town where everyone knows your business.

I pull into a space a few cars in front of Boone’s and when I climb out, his door also opens. He was waiting outside the cafe. He never likes to sit alone anywhere. It’s one of the things that drives me crazy, being led around wherever he wants to go in case he gets lonely. Never having time to dip into a good book or just indulge in me time. Now I get it – he can’t stand being around him either.

“Hey Babe,” he smirks, strutting toward me all swagger.

“Hi, Boone. Listen, I’m only here out of respect to daddy. There’s nothing you can say to make me get back together with you.”

“Well, don’t start this off being a bitch,” he snaps.

I turn my back and head straight back to my car. We’re done here.

“Wait, Caila,” he shouts. He dashes up behind me and grabs my arm, spinning me around.

“Ow, that hurts,” I say, yanking my arm away.

“Okay, okay, relax,” he says, not apologizing. “You just set me off all wrong that’s all. This is hard enough as it is.”

“What, having to admit you were wrong?” I snip.

“No – it was a party for chrissake. What do you want from me? I was drunk.”

“Good excuse.” I say.

“Ah, sarcasm woman,” Boone snarls then again tries to cover it up and play nice. “If you hadn’t left early nothing would have happened.”

“That’s the problem Boone,” I say. “I don’t want to be your caregiver. I want to trust a man to handle himself without me alongside watching over him twenty four seven.”

“Come on Caila, give me another chance. My old man made me promise I’d get you back.”

I look at his smooth face, pleading his cause and wonder.