‘Jasper’s Garage’ says the rusty sign that’s swinging on creaking hinges overhead. A bitter smell of car oil hangs in the warm air, incongruously mixed with the scent of fresh coffee. A man is laughing inside the dim interior, the sound rising over the clang of metal and the rumbling of an engine.

Last time I asked here if they were hiring, a couple of weeks ago when I first started looking, the mechanics catcalled and whistled, and the owner’s only son, Ross, our school’s bully and my own very personal nemesis, leered at me until my face burned and I wanted to scream.

But I’m literally at the end of my rope, the end of the road. The edge of my world. There’s nothing beyond this shop besides the highway east and west, and further north the much bigger town of Springfield.

Though it’s not hard to find places bigger than Destiny.

When I was a kid it felt like a whole country, unexplored and huge. Nowadays it feels no larger than a barn, and no less boring.

No less empty.

If it wasn’t for my family… they fill up all the emptiness, make this small place worth living in.

God, I need to leave, make something of my life. But I’ll come back. I’ll always come back. No road could take me away for long.

“Looking for something, sista?” asks a deep voice, and I jerk backward.

Crap, if it isn’t Ross himself. Just my luck.

He’s giving me a once-over from the shadows inside the shop, wiping his hands on a filthy rug. His icy blue eyes make me shiver. They’re cold—but at the same time way too interested in my barely-there cleavage.

“I want to talk to Jasper,” I say through clenched teeth, planting my feet on the sidewalk and not balking even when he comes out and smirks at me. “About a job.”

“There ain’t no job for a chick here,” he drawls. “’Specially a whore-spawn like you.”

“Says you,” I counter because I won’t let him have the last word.

“Says I,” he agrees and steps closer. Too close. “Got a problem with that, B-Slut?”

Oh joy. Ross’s favorite nickname for me. Short for Bastard Slut. I guess since I took out the braces he has nothing else to work with.

“Look, Jack Martinez at the gas station said Jasper might have a job for me.” This is true, by the way. I wouldn’t be standing here otherwise. He said Jasper mentioned needing a secretary for a temporary stint.

If not, Jack said he could find me a job in Springfield.

So this is it. My last chance.

“Jack knows jack shit,” Ross says smugly, preening at his cleverness. “We ain’t got no jobs. And especially not for you, you little—”

A growly voice rumbles, “Ross.” A dark, tall shadow falls over us, and Ross lurches sideways as if shoved from the back. “Leave.”

“What the fuck?” Ross mumbles, shoving blond hair out of his face and puffing out his chest. “What the hell’s your problem, man?”

I open my mouth but no words come, because right there, in front of me, stands Mr. Jerk himself.

Matt Hansen. Most unlikely hero ever, although I suddenly remember how he saved me from falling in the drugstore the other day, and wasn’t that something.

In any case, he’s really here, scowling, mouth flat behind his beard, hands clenched at his sides.

Standing between the blond creep and myself.

Tension hums in the air.

And I can’t keep my gaze off him.

His dark eyes have narrowed to slits, and his broad shoulders are hunched up, his biceps bulging, stretching the short sleeves of his T-shirt until they look about to burst at the seams. The dark lines of tattoos are barely visible on his chest and shoulders under the thin cotton.

He looks ready to fight. He looks… dangerous.

And frigging sexy.

Jeez, I should really stop thinking these kinds of stupid thoughts. The kinds of thoughts that get good girls into bad trouble.

“You’re that new guy, aren’t you?” Ross says, his stance subtly relaxing, a disdainful smirk curling a side of his mouth. “Hansen. You’re a fucking newbie. The order of hierarchy—”

“Shut your pie-hole.”

The growl seems to catch Ross by surprise. Or maybe it’s the fact that Matt—and since when he’s Matt to me?—hasn’t relaxed, or backed away, or acknowledged anything Ross has said.

Hasn’t given him one inch.

Ross chuckles like there’s something funny, then the smile slips off his face. “Back the hell off. This ain’t your turf, motherfucker.”

Matt doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move a muscle.

“Jasper will have your balls on a spit if you think you can throw your weight around here,” Ross goes on, hissing out the words. “This ain’t your backyard, you fucking—”

“Cool your guns,” a familiar voice says, and Jasper Jones walks out of his garage, wearing a scowl to match the one on Matt’s face, seeming to fill the whole street with his big-boned, muscular bulk. “What’s going on here?”

“This son of a bitch,” Ross stabs a finger at Matt, “thinks he owns this place.”

“I own this place,” Jasper says coolly, his pale gaze, so similar to Ross’s, settling on Matt. “What’s the problem?”

Matt glares.

A few passersby stop, staring at us. Great. With the way this is going, soon we’ll have a big audience watching us.

Watching me, with three guys arguing over my head. If that doesn’t get those wicked tongues wagging, I don’t know what will. Not that there’s much else happening in this sleepy town, while the heat rises off the asphalt and the mosquitoes buzz.

I take a step back, wondering if I can make my escape while they are still arguing, but Jasper turns to me.

Crap.

“You started this?” he accuses.

“I didn’t start anything.” Like every time, unfairness is a red flag waved in my face. I straighten to my full five-feet-two and stare him dead in the eye. “I only came to ask for a job.”

“Told you when you asked two weeks ago: I ain’t got no job for a chick. So go away. Shoo.”

Anger and embarrassment burn through my blood, flushing my cheeks. My ears burn. “Jack Martinez said you might have a position for me.”

“And what position might that be?” he asks mildly.

Ross grins.

I open my mouth, not sure what to say to that, too angry to think straight, when Matthew again steps between me and them, interposing his impressive frame between me and the jackass of Jasper.

“Enough,” he says quietly.

My mouth remains open.

“That so?” Jasper asks darkly. “Maybe you want to be looking for a job along with her, huh?”

“Told you,” Ross says smugly. “This chick is trouble.”

Jasper is glaring knives at us.

“You’re lucky we’re short on good mechanics,” he spits at Matt. “Go back to work, boy, and let me handle this.”

Boy?

Even in this mess I’m in, I can’t help but steal another look at Matt’s face with the shaggy beard and the dark eyes peering through a tangle of messy hair, then let my gaze wander down his tall, muscular body. He’s no boy, he’s a grown man.

Grown in a stable, or a cave, most probably, but grown nevertheless, unlike Ross.

I suddenly wonder just how old Matt is. A single dad, arriving at a town in the middle of nowhere.

“And you,” Jasper turns to me, his gaze icy-cold. “Come to my office.”

* * *

I half expected Matt not to step aside, to ignore Jasper. But he obeys and heads back into the shop without a backward glance, leaving me strangely disappointed.

Why? No clue. I mean, his brief stint as my knight in shiny armor was more than I’d have expected of him. Maybe he wasn’t feeling like himself for a moment there.

As his broad-shouldered form disappears in the gloom and Jasper lifts a brow at me, I brace myself.

“Coming?” Jasper asks.

I follow him inside the car bay, Ross a dark presence at my back, sending an itch between my shoulder blades.

Jasper’s office is a tiny room, the shutters of the window open to the car bay. He leans back against his cluttered desk and nods at me.

“So what did dear Jack say?”

“That you need a secretary,” I reply, flinching when Ross brushes by me to go stand beside his dad, crowding the already cramped space.

“Jack is a dumb fuck.” Jasper tilts his head to the side, looking me over like I’m a strange critter he found skulking in his office. “I don’t need no secretary.”

My heart plunges, although I can’t help a small flicker of relief as well.

“I just need a job,” I say, not sure why I’m still trying. Why I haven’t walked away. Their stares are those of predators, cobras or rattlesnakes, nailing me in place. “Any job.”

“Any job? Hear that, Ross?” Jasper licks his lips, and my stomach curdles.

I finally manage a step back. “Screw you.”

“I’d screw you,” Ross says, flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth. “You’d want that, wouldn’t you, B-Slut? Like your mommy did.”

“Shut up.” A sick feeling rolls inside me, twisting my stomach. Ice slithers up my spine. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

“Or what? What will you do, huh? It’s only the truth. Who do you think your daddy is?”

Jasper isn’t telling his son to shut up. He doesn’t look surprised by what Ross said, either. He is observing me, as if looking for something. God knows what.

Then he snorts as if he’s failed to find it, and that pleased him.

I can’t stay here a second longer. The spell is thankfully broken, and I might puke if I stay a second longer.

But as I step back, Ross grabs my arm in a hold of steel. “We’re not done talking.”

“Yes, you are.” The low, gravelly voice from behind me makes me jump a mile in the air.

I spin around, grateful for anyone coming to my rescue, and as I do, I already know who it belongs to.

Matt is back, his shoulders filling the narrow doorframe, his gaze hot with something that looks like fury.

“What the fuck?” Ross hisses, his hand clamping harder around my arm, forcing a whimper through my lips. “Are you that stupid?”

“Get your fucking hands off her,” Matt says, his voice so low it’s like the distant roll of thunder. “Back off, now.”

He doesn’t wait for Ross to obey, instead getting into his face and pushing him until my arm is released.

I stumble backward, rubbing at my bruised flesh, my heart hammering.

“What do you care, boy?” Jasper drawls, a flicker of interest passing over his wrinkled, leathery face, although he doesn’t make a single move to help his offspring.

Matt glares at Ross who looks ready to jump and pummel him to the ground before he grinds out, “She works for me.”