An Accidental Gentleman (12 page)

Belly flopped in the muddy tire tracks, he rolled over.

She’d lost her stern expression. She bent over him, eyes wide and lips parted, her breasts rounding in her tight T-shirt. A vision.

Raindrops pelted his face. “Right as rain.”

High and low, their laughter mingled. His new favorite soundtrack. When he was with her, clowning wasn’t a plea for attention. The ability to make her laugh was a gift he gave himself.

He patted her ankle. Soft, smooth skin in his palm. A leg he’d drape across his shoulder when he knelt and tasted her. Fuck, not helping divert blood flow from his cock.

Releasing her, he left muddy fingerprints behind. “Mud’s some expensive skin care shit, right? Lookit all I’m getting for free.”

Covered, head to toe. The mud camouflaged his lucky shorts. He spread his arms wide and grinned, eager for a new round of her amusement. Her joy in him.

She dropped on top of him.

Arms flying, he caught her waist as she straddled his stomach.

Cool mud slid between them. With strong calves, she gripped his sides. She leaned forward and folded her forearms across his chest. “Now we’re both filthy. Do the skin-care benefits work through the clothes, or should we take them off?”

Whoa boy. He tamped down the urge to flip her over and find out. “Probably not in the parking lot. Kids and whatnot.”

She nodded, her face rearranged into faux-serious lines broken by her twitching lips. “You have a shower big enough for two?”

If he didn’t, he’d swing by the hardware store for a sledgehammer and a tarp on the way.

No—bad, bad, bad idea. Once he let his balls leapfrog ahead of his brain, he’d be nothing more to her than a quirky weekend in a long summer. Fuck that. He’d be every damn weekend. And winter, spring, and fall besides.

“We could squeeze in.” He grabbed hold of her hips, gorgeous and flaring, to appreciate her gasp. A little incentive never hurt anyone. “But once you get what’s in my shorts, you’ll be off to the next conquest.” Exaggerating his sigh, he added a pouty droop and jostled her seat. “Unless you’re gonna put a ring on it. Can’t walk away then.”

Her face hardened faster than a mud mask.

“Fuck you, Brian.” Jamming her elbows into his chest, she wrenched herself upward. “Fuck you.”

Christ Jesus. Two divots burned holes in his chest, and still the coiling wrongness in his stomach outmatched them. He always pushed the jokes over the edge. Shit, shit, shit. “What did I say? I’ll take it back.”

Her foot caught and dragged his shirt. She lurched forward, arms outstretched, and thudded against the bumper, his scrambling intervention too goddamn slow.

“Katherine? Are you—” Fuck, no, she wasn’t okay.

Cradling her left arm, she kicked mud toward him and stood on her own. A wince cut through her glare. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

“Let me get a medic.” He scanned the lot. Anyone in shouting distance would do. They’d have the kit under the pavilion until the last person packed up. “Or drive you to the hospital. We should get you looked at.”

Backing from him, she circled around his car to hers and dug keys from her pocket.

“At least stay and let me ice that.” He gave chase. “You’re hurt. You shouldn’t be driving.”

She opened the door in an awkward backhanded grab. “Tell me one more time what I should and shouldn’t do, Brian. Who the fuck do you think you are?” Dropping into the seat, she hissed air between her teeth. “I’ll tell you what you are—nothing. We’re done. Don’t text me. Don’t call me.”

The door slammed. The engine started.

He pounded on the window with the flat of his hand. “Katherine, wait. Please. I just want—”

She reversed past him, too fast.

“—to make sure you’re all right.”

Spraying mud and rattling through the bumps, she zipped down the aisle.

His whisper fell short of her retreat. “I want to fix this.”

Impossible, standing in waterlogged wheel ruts. Mission outcome: utter failure. His date idea had shifted her farther from him than they’d started. And for his next trick? Wooing a woman who actively loathed him.

“Good talk.”

Tucked away somewhere on the backroom shelves, a perfect replacement knob waited. Kit pushed aside the more modern parts-donors. The radio carcasses held a wealth of useful materials, but her current project demanded 1940s styling.

Holding the pristine exemplar from the client’s vintage set, she searched for a match. Wood, smooth, with a basic round-shiny-button look. No frills. The owners would be getting their radio and record player combo—a wedding present way back in the day—returned to them in brilliant restored and playable condition for their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary as a gift from the granddaughter who’d smuggled the poor neglect victim out of a damp basement.

Three weeks ago, the machine had been a wreck. Now, the degunked insides and refinished outsides waited on her worktable. She should’ve had the whole project done by now, but Monday afternoon had been busier than usual.

Couldn’t complain about good business, especially not when she’d offloaded a classic early-seventies pinball machine to a collector who’d driven up from Omaha to take a gander. Could complain about the damn just-in-case brace on her left wrist and the shoulder sling. Take it easy, let the sprain heal for three or four days. Right. Great advice from people who didn’t have deadlines to meet. An extra pair of hands would be heaven-sent. The woman would be in tomorrow to pick up the radio, and the restored grand dame still needed to be assembled and given a test run.

But first—ah, perfect. “What a beauty you are.”

She plucked the knob from a basket of loose parts. The dark lacquer under the thin dust-fuzz would match the piece in her hand with some spit and polish. She gave the wood a quick buff against her orange tank top.

As she rounded the shelves, Grandpa Jake’s desk leveled an accusing stare. Dust shrouded the surface. Particles drifting down since August formed a snowy film over the train set he’d been tinkering with. Nothing for a specific client, just a set they’d picked up together at a junk sale. He loved working on miniatures. His magnifier waited for hands to swing the lens from the cradle and extend the arm over the tiny engine.

He’d called before he left the shop that Sunday. Extra time on the projects he loved but rarely indulged, always finishing just one more job for a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a stranger he’d made into a friend in five minutes of talk. She’d teased him about the train never regaining its spark.

“It’ll keep. We’ll get her running tomorrow. You tell your mom I’ll be over in time for supper, Kitten.”

But he hadn’t.

He’d had a heart attack behind the wheel and driven into a drainage ditch in front of a minivan whose driver had called 911. The paramedics couldn’t have arrived in time. The doctor had said so, in her short but kind condolences about how Grandpa Jake hadn’t suffered.

The shop bell chimed.

“Be right with you.” The desk would keep. The dust would keep. The anniversary radio wouldn’t. She hustled to her own workbench and set the knobs amid the lineup of parts beside the empty cabinet.

The wall clock showed five-thirty as she reversed course, empty-handed, and headed out front. Probably a post-work customer, though nothing waited to be picked up tonight. A drop-off or a walk-in.

She dug deep for a smile. Her loneliness would keep, too. “Hey, if I can help you with any—”

Brian stood before the counter. He hoisted a picnic basket, an honest-to-God woven basket with dual handles, onto the top. “I brought an apology.”

“Why the hell are you here?” She clutched the stress ball tucked in her sling. Stretching exercises to work her wrist without overworking it. The doc hadn’t seen her crush the squishy foam into ball bearing size. “I told you not to contact me.”

A persistent man didn’t have to be a bad thing, but she’d driven off and left him standing in a parking lot, for chrissake. Her tantrum-throwing skills rivaled a toddler’s. One with a driver’s license.

“You told me not to call or text, and I didn’t.” Frowning, he tracked the strap of her shoulder sling down to the fist sticking out. “No matter how bad I wanted to know how you were. Doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It’s only a sprain.” An aching nuisance slowing her down all day. The way Brian frowned, best he hadn’t shown up during one of her frustrated fits, when she’d balled up the sling and flung it into the corner where her desk met the wall. Impossible to properly hold small parts and degunk with a bristle brush one-handed. Or to wipe down and pat them dry after. “Work’s still gotta get done.”

“You’ve got to be the one to do it? Your dad or somebody—”

“My responsibility.” Dad ran himself ragged with the house calls for the large appliance repairs. Erin slept half the day away after working late shifts at the warehouse. Mom kept everything running at home. As if she could hand the shop over to the girls, who were supposed to be enjoying their summer break but had picked up babysitting and lawn-mowing gigs. Nobody to mind the store and get the orders done except her. “We have a reputation to uphold, you know. Sixty-five years since my grandpa opened the shop. I can’t skip out and do whatever the fuck I want. People depend on us to keep our promises.”

The stress ball bounced free and rolled across the counter. Past the picnic basket, the neon green slipped over the edge.

Brian scooped the ball up as it fell. “You keep your promises.” Holding out his hand, he offered her the ball on his flat palm. “I believe you. Let me help you do that.”

“You don’t know how to rebuild radios.” She snatched the ball with her good hand. She’d meant to be quick, darting out and back, but he curled his fingers in a teasing brush, and she scraped him with her nails as she clenched. She yanked free. Distraction, distraction—“And your dinner will go bad.”

He patted the basket lid. “Cold packs inside. The food’ll keep.”

She jerked back from his smile and his certainty. So, so ridiculous to imagine Grandpa Jake had sent him. Working his ghost magic from up in heaven. Believing angels existed at all, let alone meddled on Earth, belonged in the minds of little kids and insane people. Kids, crazies, and schmaltzy movies. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Okay, I don’t know how to do what you do. So tell me.” Charming grin well in place, he shrugged beneath his collared dress shirt, the top two buttons open but the fabric still stiff. “You say what to do, and I do it. You direct, and I’ll tinker. I know how to take orders.” He leaned in, elbows on the picnic basket. “Worked for changing a tire, didn’t it?”

Who the fuck was this guy who ignored her rudeness, who acted as if they could carry on some hybrid relationship of friendship and romance—fucking romance, Jesus, not even lust relief but picnic dinners. He had to be a trick. He had a game, or an angle, and she hadn’t plucked loose his motive yet. “I ran out on you Saturday. I just swore at you. Why are you still trying to help me?”

* * * *

Because his heart beat for her.

He stuffed the true answer down deep. Telling her he’d never felt this intensity with another woman would upset her. Drive her further from him, to where she pretended their connection meant no more than cock-hardening, pussy-wetting hormones.

He packed his hopes into a shrug and a headshake. “I told you I’m not giving up on you, Katherine.”

Even though she trusted him so little—or feared their attraction so much—that he hadn’t been allowed to check on her over the weekend. Wasn’t allowed to know her home address, though that’d been easy to remedy. He’d granted himself only the superficial background snooping available to any idiot with a computer and a rudimentary knowledge of Google. No re-tasking sats.

She lived with her parents. No shame in it, but he’d run his mouth off about Lucas on Saturday and she hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t apologize for his speechifying without admitting he’d checked up on her. Maybe her folks needed the help, or her granddad’s death had drawn them closer, or she’d been running from a bad relationship. Hopefully not a situation where she’d ended up with her arm in a sling often. He’d sure as fuck nailed worst way to end a first date.

“I’m sorry about Saturday. You being hurt, that’s on me. Let me make it up to you tonight. Put me to work.” Too close to begging. He dialed back the pleading before his fear of her rejection brought the boogeyman to life. “Look, I wasn’t always a guy who meant what he said. I chased the biggest laughs. Maybe you were hurt by a guy like that once upon a time.” An asshole he’d cheerfully hunt down and beat the shit out of. “But I won’t let you down.”

Her mouth dropped open, but otherwise she stood still as a poster hung behind the counter. Her navy blue sling cut a swath across the front of her tank top. Orange today, the shirt somehow brought out the glow in her eyes and the deep reddish hues in her hair without clashing.

He held his tongue. Telling her she looked beautiful when he dumbfounded her would be pushing things.

She turned away.

No, no, no. He reeled under the weight of a full-gear pack slamming into his chest. Mission Picnic Dinner: a plan turning out more clusterfuckingly worse than taking her to softball.

“You coming, or what?” She glanced over her shoulder as she disappeared through the doorframe. “You can’t be my left hand from way the hell over there, Brian. Bring your basket. We’ll get to the food when the work’s done.”

Salvation. He snatched up the handles and barely stopped himself from vaulting across the counter. Standing outside, he’d donned imaginary cold-weather gear for the frosty reception he’d expected.

Their connection mattered to Katherine. She always left him room for convincing her—first softball and now dinner—and she let herself be convinced. With coaxing, her sharp edges were softening into curves molded to his hands. Her heart would follow. Time, patience, and not holding back so far that she went looking elsewhere for satisfaction—those would be the keys to success.

Shoulders rubbing, they sat on tall work stools with the patient laid out before them. A radio, she’d said, but every delicate bit had to come together from her neat spread of coils, wires, tubes—hell, even an old, swing-arm turntable—and fit into a refinished wood cabinet.