CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Derek closed the hood of the Tahoe he’d been working on and headed to the office to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. He was halfway across the workshop before he registered the stranger standing by the open bay doors, looking around with interest.
Changing direction, Derek strolled over to the visitor with a smile. “Can I help you?”
The man was wearing a dark suit, had an enormous camera in one hand and a tablet in a leather case in the other. He shifted when Derek spoke, and stepped sideways into a puddle of rainbow-streaked oily water. He raised his dress shoe and examined the sole, lip curling in disgust. “No. Thank you.”
Derek folded his arms over his chest as the man slung the camera strap around his neck and flipped the tablet screen toward him with a practiced move. He typed something on it with spider-like speed.
“Derek!” Another man, short and stocky, with thinning silver hair, came in behind the first and strode over to join them.
“Marshall,” Derek said, shaking hands. “Wasn’t expecting a visit.” He looked from Marshall to the man and back. His jaw tightened. “How are you doing?”
“Good, thanks. Yes. Good. You?”
“Confused.” Derek sent a pointed look at the stranger.
“Ah. Right. Derek, this is Jim Lassiter. My realtor. We’re here for him to get an idea of the place, take photos, assess the market value and all that.”
Burke, close by, was listening. Dani was throwing interested glances their way. Annoyed, Derek said, “Shall we discuss this in my office?” It didn’t sound even remotely like a polite suggestion.
Marshall’s eyes widened at Derek’s command, but he said, “Sure, sure,” and followed after Derek.
The realtor’s camera flashed behind them. Derek flinched. It took all he had not to spin around and snatch it off the little weasel.
Once in the office, he gestured the men to the couch he and his employees used on breaks. They sat. Derek didn’t, choosing to perch instead on the edge of Harry’s battered old desk.
He blinked again when the camera flashed as Lassiter took a shot of the view through the large window that looked out into the workshop. “Cut it out,” he said.
“I do need to take photos,” Lassiter said mildly.
“Not right now, you don’t,” Derek told him.
Lassiter set the camera down on his lap, folded his hands, and smiled.
Derek turned to his landlord. “Marshall, you can’t show up without calling ahead first. It’s my place of business. Until today, my employees didn’t know their jobs are at risk. I haven’t decided how to deal with it yet, and you’re forcing my hand. This is not cool.”
Marshall’s ruddy cheeks darkened, contrasting with his neat silver beard. He fidgeted like a chastened preschooler. “I didn’t think it would be a problem. It’s just to value the property. I haven’t seen it since Dad died, can you believe? Lassiter here’s going to be managing the sale, and he hasn’t seen it at all.”
“I get that. You still should have called ahead to agree a mutually convenient time.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind. Again, sorry.” He cleared his throat. “How are things progressing with the bank?”
“I’m working on a loan. It’s looking good. Doable, if we keep to what we agreed.”
Marshall nodded and settled back into the couch. “Of course.”
Lassiter scooched to the edge and angled his upper body toward his client in an attempt to block Derek as he said in a low voice, “I wasn’t aware you had already reached an agreement with a buyer.”
“Nothing formal,” Marshall said cheerfully.
“Perhaps we should make it formal,” Derek said.
“Perhaps we should hold on that until I’ve had a chance to appraise the property,” Lassiter put in.
“If you think that’s best,” Marshall said. Derek was about to object when Marshall continued, “But my preference is for Derek to have it. I want Rawlings’ Auto Repairs to stay on-site.”
Lassiter shifted even further to the edge of the couch. Another inch and he’d fall off. “I wouldn’t advise being too hasty. This building has the potential to sell well, Marshall. Very well. After a bit of work, that is.”
“Can’t put a price on legacy, though. Eh, Derek?” Marshall braced his hands on his thighs and heaved up, obliging Lassiter to also rise and get out of his way, or be jostled off the couch. “As we’re here already, d’you mind if we go ahead and get it done?”
Derek did mind. He minded a lot, but if he said no, they’d be back again another day.
The prospect did not fill him with joy.
“What’s going on, boss?” Burke asked later when Derek, drinking his water, stood keeping an eye on Lassiter as the twitchy little creep poked around, sneering at everything. From the cars they were working on to the puddles on the floor.
Derek swallowed and recapped the bottle. “I’m thinking of buying the garage.”
“Huh,” was all Burke had to say on the matter. Didn’t help that he managed to load it with enough surprise and doubt that he might as well have slapped Derek on the back, doubled over laughing, and demanded to know when, exactly, Derek had won the lottery/inherited a fortune from a heretofore unknown rich relative/robbed a bank.
When the time came for Marshall to leave, his obvious nostalgia went some way to easing Derek’s concern that Marshall would sell the building out from under him.
“You sure you want to sell?” Derek asked, walking him out into the sunny forecourt.
Marshall sighed. “I don’t,” he admitted, “but I have to. The wife wants a pool. If I sell, we’ll have enough for a house with a pool. I hear it gets hot down in Texas.” He laughed.
Derek didn’t join in.
“I am sorry, Derek. It’s one of those things, you know? I want to sell it to you. Don’t you worry about Lassiter. He’ll try and persuade me to go with the highest bidder, but I’m not a bad man, and I’m not as easy to control as he thinks. I’ve got his number. I also mean what I said about legacy. I’ve lived in Emerson all my life. Feels strange to be starting over somewhere new. Unsettling. I’m sixty-eight, for crying out loud. I like the idea of this still being here.”
Derek managed to dredge up a smile.
“Get the loan and the place is yours, son. Unless,” Marshall added, eyes twinkling, “someone offers me millions for it. In which case, you’re out. Ha ha.”
“Ha,” Derek said politely, and breathed a sigh of relief when the men left.
* * * *
“He’s under there.” Burke’s voice boomed overhead, and the floor rang with the sound of his boots walking away.
Hoping it wasn’t Marshall again, back to take another run at ruining his day, Derek angled his head to look out from under the jacked-up Chevy.
His visitor crouched, braced a hand on the concrete floor to stay balanced, and Jenny came into view. The irritation that had been eating away at Derek since his earlier meeting with Marshall vanished. “Hi.”
“Hi.” She leaned her weight into her hand and sent a nervous look under the truck. “Is this safe?” she said. “It doesn’t look safe.”
“It’s safe.”
“It looks as if it’s going to drop on your head.”
“It’s not going to drop on my head. Even if it does drop, the wheels will keep it clear.”
This last bit didn’t seem to reassure her. At all. “Even if it…? Derek, come out.” The hand not braced on the floor landed on his thigh.
Derek took in a deep breath.
Jenny’s fingers dug into the fabric of his jeans and she tugged. “Come out. Right now.”
Amused, he wheeled himself out. “You worrying about me?”
“Yes. I don’t want to see you crushed by a car.”
“Aww.” He sat up, bringing him eye level with her in her crouch. “You care.”
“I don’t want to see anyone crushed by a car. Can you imagine the cost of the therapy?”
Derek kissed her quickly, steadying her when she wobbled. “What can I do for you, baby?”
“Huh?” Jenny was staring at his mouth. “Yes. Um, I’m here to talk. About the pizza.”
Derek stood, pulling her up with him. His gaze moved over her face. “No. You’re here to wriggle out of it.”
“Not true.”
Derek made a soft noise and caught her slender arm, lifting it to examine the long scratches.
“Ignore that,” she said, easing away. “I am waging war on brambles. Don’t worry. Despite how it looks, I’m winning.”
She was wearing cargo pants, work boots, and a dirt-streaked T-shirt. She’d caught the sun—mainly her nose had caught the sun, going by the strip of shiny pink skin down the length of it—and her strawberry blonde hair was tied back. Damp tendrils were escaping the ponytail, and Derek hooked a stray wisp behind her ear.
He let his fingers drift down her neck, and felt her shiver under his touch.
“You should think about wearing long sleeves,” he told her. He tapped her nose. “Maybe a hat.”
Jenny slapped him away. “I did wear a hat, and have you been outside today? I almost had to strip down to my underwear, it was so hot. Long sleeves would kill me.”
“Now I’m thinking about you in nothing but your underwear and work boots.”
She glanced down at her boots with a frown, then grinned at him. “Oh, very sexy.”
“Yes.”
“Stop looking at me like that.”
Derek stepped closer.
“Can we go somewhere private?” she asked.
He took her hand and dragged her after him, heading for the office with long strides.
Hurrying to keep up, Jenny laced her fingers with his. “Just to talk,” she said.
“Not just.” He opened the office door and stood aside to usher her in.
Jenny balked at the threshold. “Yes, just. Talk about pizza.”
“Don’t forget the wriggling.”
She marched past him. “I already told you I’m not here to wriggle out of it.”
“Good to know. However, I was talking about the wriggling you’ll be doing when I get you on my couch. Or the desk. Haven’t made my mind up yet.”
Jenny scooted out of reach, and he laughed, shutting the door and leaning against it. His laughter drained away when she stuck a hand in her pocket and drew out some cash.
“Here.” She held it out. “I need to pay my bill.”
“We’ve been over this,” he said, clenching his jaw.
“I know. But things have changed.” She continued to hold out the money until she got the message he wasn’t going to take it. She set it on the cluttered desk instead.
“Jen—”
“Derek, it’s important to me.”
He closed the distance between them, nudging her back against the desk. She bumped into it and he put a hand either side of her hips. This close, he could feel the body heat radiating from her, soaking into his front. “We agreed—”
“I know. But that was before. Now it feels weird.”
He studied her face. “Before what? Before I kissed you?”
“Yes. And before I… You know.” Her eyes dropped to his jeans.
He leaned in, bending to put his lips against her neck. He tasted her skin and murmured, “Before you made me co—”
Jenny jerked her head back and clapped her hand over his mouth.
Derek blinked. “The door is shut, the stereo is on, no one can hear us,” he said against her palm.
“Good point.” She removed her hand. “I’m trying to say I need to pay the bill the right way, Derek. Before we were intimate, paying with pizza would have been fine. Like a friend thing. Now…it’s weird.”
“You’re grasping at straws, trying to back out of us, aren’t you?”
“No.” Jenny stunned him by looping her arms around his neck. “The opposite. I’m trying to clear the way. If you’d take the goddamn money, I won’t feel like I paid you with sexual favors.”
He unwound her arms, taking care to avoid the angry-looking scratches. “I’d never ask that of you. Fuck, Jen. What kind of man do you think I am? I’d never ask that of anyone.”
She patted his chest. “I know you wouldn’t. But the fact is, you fixed my car, and I gave you an orgasm.”
“I—”
“And I kinda want to invite you over for pizza tomorrow, and I want it to be clear that it isn’t payment pizza.”
Derek broke away, reached around her and snatched up the money. He stalked around the desk, opened a drawer, threw the money in, and slammed it shut.
“You get that this is ridiculous,” he told her, leaning into his bunched fists. “I was trying to be romantic. Take care of you. Not make you feel like a whore. Now I feel like an asshole.”
Smiling, Jenny mirrored his posture and leaned toward him from the other side of the desk. “Derek?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you like to come over tomorrow night and have pizza?”
Derek slid a hand under her chin and ducked his head until they were only a whisper away. “Yeah.”
Jenny’s russet lashes drifted closed for a second before she pulled back, her eyes going to the window that overlooked the workshop.
For fuck’s sake. Derek strode over to the window and snapped the blind shut. He returned to Jenny, scooped her up, and walked them over to the couch. He sat down, arranged her to straddle his lap, and held her there with a firm grip on the back of her neck. She was breathing fast.
“Let’s have the rest of it,” he said grimly.
She squinted at him.
Derek relaxed his grip enough to curl his thumb around and stroke the sensitive patch where her shoulder met her neck. Jenny arched into his touch.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” he said. “This is where you tell me you want to keep me as your dirty little secret.”
She’d been supple and responsive in his hold, but now she stiffened. “That’s not what I want.” She bit her lip.
Derek arched a brow, waiting.
Jenny scanned his face, trying to get a read on his mood. He didn’t give her anything.
Truth was, he was pissed, and he wasn’t going to make it easy on her. Not this time.
She shifted in his lap. “Okay, maybe it is kind of what I want, but it’s almost certainly not why you think. It’s complicated.”
“I’m a smart guy.” Except for when it came to falling in love with difficult women. “Why don’t you give explaining it a shot.”
“Okay. The reason I had a… That thing with Gabe wasn’t…” She cleared her throat and tried again. “It was right for me because it made things simple.”
“And you want simple.”
She nodded. “I need simple. I don’t have the luxury of allowing complications in my life. It’s not just my life we’re talking about.”
Derek rested his head back against the couch. “Kate,” he said.
“Yup. My reasons for…the Gabe thing…they stand. Nothing’s changed. I have to protect her, Derek.”
Derek understood. He admired her determination to be a great mom. Still, he was pissed. Jenny was also protecting her own heart.
From him.
Didn’t she get that this was it? He didn’t want to date her. He wanted to keep her. He didn’t want to be on the periphery of her little family of two. He wanted to be the foundation they built a new family on. Together.
“Kate likes you,” Jenny was saying. “A lot. She was confused last time you were in our lives. She got used to you being there, and then you were gone.”
“Not my fault,” he gritted out.
Her cheeks were pink but she looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not proud of myself for pushing you away. That’s on me. I shouldn’t have let you get close in the first place. But I did. Her father disappeared, and suddenly Kate had three new guys in her life. You, Gabe, and Alex. Of the three of you, Gabe and Alex stuck around. You didn’t.”
“I didn’t leave you.”
Jenny tried to climb off his lap.
His hold tightened. “Don’t even think you’re going anywhere,” he growled.
To his surprise, she didn’t fight it. “I’ve struggled with this. I know that by trying to keep Kate from having another man fail her—” he winced, and she stroked his cheek, “—I made the wrong choices. I created the very situation I was trying to avoid, and I made you complicit in it. I can’t do it again. Not to Kate.” She ran a hand through his hair. “And not to you. I’m not okay with hurting you. See? Complicated.”
“I think you’re making it more complicated than it needs to be.”
She should marry him already. Derek opened his mouth to say it, then he got an image of a Jenny-shaped hole in the wall as she bolted, and bit it back.
“Start slow with me, Derek. Please. I’m not saying I want you to sneak in under cover of night, or pretend we’re not friends. I suppose I mean I don’t want to go from zero to sixty.”
“Lucky for you I don’t mind being a dirty little secret. I especially don’t have a problem with the dirty part.”
He realized how anxious she’d been when the tension drained away at his teasing, and she slumped into him.
“We can start slow,” he continued. “I respect and understand you needing to think about your daughter. Even though it hurts my fucking feelings that you don’t trust me enough to know I can handle her with care, we’ll do it your way. I’m in your life, I’m in Kate’s life, and that’s not changing again. If you try to push me away, I won’t permit it. I shouldn’t have last time. And that one’s on me. So we’re clear, I’ve learned, and it’s not happening again.”
“Sounding pretty bossy there, Tate.”
“Not done.”
“Extremely bossy.”
“We can go slow. In public. As far as anyone else is concerned, we’re friends. Though, the way you look at me, I think the only person you’re fooling is yourself.”
“Bossy and arrogant. Keep it up.”
He grinned. “No problem. Friends in public. In private—and Jen, I’m making it my top priority to get you in private—we go my speed.”
She chewed her lip, pupils wide. Then she nodded.
“Kiss me,” Derek said.
“Actually, now we’ve got that straight, I have to be going—”
He growled and twisted, taking her down to the cushions.
“You are a patient man, Derek Tate,” Jenny said, and kissed him.
He broke away long enough to whisper, “Hope you understand quite how patient I am.”
She didn’t. Yet. She would.