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His tone was the one he used on the battlefield of the boardroom—the one that always, always got him the desired results. Instead?
The feet, which had been tapping in time to the music, stilled. A breath of honeyed vanilla hit his nose seconds before the woman rolled out from beneath the Contour.
He had a brief impression of dark hair and incredibly blue eyes, and then the navy jumpsuit–clad creature was on her feet, not just glaring at him, but actually poking her finger into his chest.
He knew that he wasn’t going to win any feminist awards, but he was a bit taken aback that the mechanic was a woman—he’d assumed that the voice belonged to a receptionist or assistant of some sort. Not that he thought women couldn’t do any job they wanted—he just hadn’t expected it.
“Now just a minute—” He wasn’t going to tolerate this kind of treatment from a service provider, not even if she was a woman. No way, no how.
He didn’t get a chance to say so.
“As soon as possible will be as soon as I finish this car, and the one after that.” Those eyes shot out licks of cerulean flames that threatened to incinerate him. “Around here we do what’s fair, and what’s fair is for you to wait your turn.”
“I’m not sure you understand how much money I’m willing to pay—” Ford tried to speak, and the damn woman poked him in the chest again.
“What kind of person bends the rules for money?” She sniffed, tossed back a long dark braid, and Ford again caught that intriguing whiff of vanilla. The scent was so out of place, layered over the engine grease, it made Ford think of cupcakes.
An odd thought for him overall, since he rarely indulged in dessert.
“So you’re saying there’s nothing I can do to speed this process along?” Ford shook aside thoughts of sweet baked goods and grasped his irritation. He found it especially annoying that he couldn’t really see her, this strange creature who had the gall to yell at him—couldn’t see the person in the shapeless coveralls or the skin beneath the thick layer of engine grease. She looked like she’d been grubbing around in a coal mine.
The woman gave him a sweet smile, but Ford noted that her eyes—the only part of her that was clearly visible—were still glittering as she did.
“Like I said.” She pointed at the desk. “You’ve already put me behind. So for the love of God, if you want your damn car fixed, go put your keys over on that bench and fill out the form.”
“I can’t believe I’m stuck here,” Ford muttered as he turned to do as the woman said, and he heard a snort of laughter that made him turn back to her.
“Actually, you’ll be stuck at the café down the street.” Now her expression was mocking. She clearly didn’t think much more of him than he did of her. “I don’t have a waiting room.”
With the smooth movement of someone who had much practice, the strange person lowered herself back down to the rolling thing—what was it called?—and again disappeared beneath the Contour.
Ford’s mind quickly sorted through words and phrases, searching for a witty comeback that would put this impudent woman in her place.
He had nothing. Nothing that would convey the deference he was used to receiving to this grease-covered imp who clearly didn’t care.
Scowling, he stalked over to the workbench and all but threw his keys down on the unfinished wooden surface. He took up the stubby-nosed pencil and the order form, then shook his head and instead pulled out a business card, which had all of his relevant information. He clipped it to the form.
Marchande Motors
Proprietor, Beth Marchande
So she was not just the mechanic—she owned the whole garage. Ford didn’t quite know what to do with that information—the woman didn’t fit into any of the preconceived slots he had to classify the female of the species. And he needed to classify—to classify everything.
What was life without order?
It seemed that this strange, vanilla-scented woman would force him to take a taste and find out.
CHAPTER TWO (#ua9bdc36d-b843-5838-8e5f-eff5d1fa8dea)
BETH DIDN’T HURRY the work that needed to be done on the Contour, or on the massive old truck that came after it. When she hurried she made mistakes, and mistakes hurt the reputation of her business.
One customer lost meant money lost, and she and her sisters and Mamesie didn’t have a penny to spare. They all hustled to keep them in their family home, and sometimes that meant servicing the cars of assholes when she’d rather tell them to take a hike.
It was late afternoon when she finally scrubbed the grease off her face and arms, then grabbed the keys that the fancy man had tossed onto her workbench—tossed with more than a bit of temper, which made her lips curl up into a grin.
She was laid-back by nature, so her sisters always said, but when someone threatened her notions of right and wrong, she did tend to lose her grip on control. And even the fact that the offender was jaw-droppingly gorgeous didn’t ease the weight of his offenses, at least not in her eyes.
“Of course.” Lizzie huffed out a breath when she noted the Porsche logo on the key chain. The breath turned to a whistle when she trotted around the corner and saw the sleek silver Turbo parked on the side of the quiet, tree-lined road.
The fancy man was not only sexy...he was loaded. She’d just known it—everything about him had screamed north side. What the hell was he doing out here in the South End?
Actually, what was he doing with a ten-year-old Porsche? She was pretty sure he could afford a new one. Still, a Turbo was a Turbo, and she couldn’t quite suppress the thrill when she opened the car door. She was halfway in when she realized that while she’d cleaned off her skin, her coveralls were still soaked with grease. And she’d just bet that Mr. Tight Ass would have something to say if she dirtied up his buttery leather seats.
Shucking her dirty coveralls, she rolled them into a ball and tossed them onto the passenger’s seat. Clad in the ribbed white tank top and bright pink yoga shorts that she wore beneath, she finally slid behind the wheel.
She couldn’t quite hold back the moan as she ran her hands over the steering wheel. Her joy at being behind the wheel of something like this was almost sexual, it felt so damn good.
She grinned as she briefly considered giving herself a handsy little ride on the seat, picturing the man’s face if she told him about it after.
Tempting, but not professional. So instead she eased the vehicle forward, wincing as she heard the death rattle.
“Transmission.” She didn’t have to look—she was a damn good mechanic, and she’d heard that sound before. But she wanted to give the Turbo a full diagnosis, so after pulling it into the garage, she popped the hood, sighing only a little at the whisper-soft swish of the automated lift.
Without bothering to put her coveralls back on, she started to poke at the guts of the beautiful machine.
She was more than a little disgusted with what she saw.
The main problem was, as she’d known, the transmission. The filtration system was clogged, the seals were hardened and the fluid had been neglected. The Turbo was going to need an entirely new part.
Wear and tear was part of owning a car. But this combined with the sludge that passed for oil, the corrosion in the cooling system, the clogged fuel injectors...
She’d bet that the man...what was his name? She grabbed for the form, leaving fresh smudges on the white paper.
Ford Lassiter. Of course. Fancy name for a fancy man. And all those fancy college degrees listed after his name. Anyway, she’d bet that Ford Lassiter had only serviced his car a dozen or so times in the ten years he’d had it, assuming he was the original owner, and she assumed he was.
Irresponsible.
“Is it fixed?”
Beth turned and found the man in question standing in the entrance of her garage, silhouetted by the late-afternoon sun. He was tall, probably a good eight or so inches taller than her own five feet six. His hair was the tawny kind of color that made her think of a lion, and it offset the surprising chocolate brown of his piercing eyes.
He was lean, but his body looked hard, like he did more with it than just hit a gym. The suit he’d been wearing earlier was well cut and clearly expensive and showed off that body quite nicely.
In the hours since she’d sent him away, he’d removed the suit jacket, loosened the tie and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his white shirt. And in sharp contrast to the sleekness of the outfit, he now had an open can of Coke in his hand. Beth highly preferred this look. In fact, as she met his stare and leaned back against the sleek door of the Turbo, she found herself wanting to purr a bit as she took in the view.
Not that he was her type. At all.
“It is most certainly not fixed.” Even through her annoyance, she felt a little quiver in her belly when she looked at him—really looked at him. She’d have to have been dead not to.
“What do you mean, it’s not fixed?” That handsome face schooled itself into a disapproving frown, and Beth arched an eyebrow.
Sexy or not, he’d best keep some respect in his tone when she broke the news to him.
“When’s the last time you had a maintenance check done on this car?” Pushing off from where she lounged, she beckoned for Ford to come look under the hood with her. He hesitated, and she didn’t miss the way those dark eyes meandered down her body, which was far more exposed than it had been earlier in the coveralls.
Interesting. Beth had always had a knack for reading people, probably since she preferred to hang back and study them rather than dive right in. That knack was telling her that Ford Lassiter was a man who kept everything in his world under rigid control.
She would have bet money—if she’d had any—that he wasn’t that deliberate in checking out a woman unless some part of him wanted the woman to know.
He hadn’t moved but was instead regarding her intently.
Well, well, well. The rich man wanted to go slumming, did he? Smirking, Beth crooked her finger again and deliberately swayed her hips as she bent over the open hood.
That leonine power, that tightly coiled control—he would be fun to tease. And, she noted when he finally deigned to saunter over, not bothering at all to bank the combination of curiosity and attraction in his eyes, she couldn’t deny that little click that she felt in her gut when their eyes met.
Chemistry. Couldn’t make it, couldn’t fake it. It was either present with another person or it wasn’t...and it seemed that she and Mr. Ford Lassiter had it on the most elemental of levels.
Beside her, he leaned a hip against the Turbo and regarded her with an amused smirk on his own face. Oh, yes, he felt it, too...and unless she missed her guess, he was entertained by the notion of being attracted to a woman like her.
Beth had made it a point to live her life without worrying about what others thought of her, but it still stung when someone, even a stranger, looked at her like she was one of those wild Marchande girls from the wrong side of town. Well, fuck that. She was going to make him want her so badly his head would spin...and then she’d send him packing.
“Can’t remember? Even with all those fancy letters after your name?” She tilted her head, looked up at him, waited while he thought back to her question.
“I don’t recall.” He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed about it, though she noted that his spine stiffened a bit in defense. “I’m a busy man.”
“Seems to me that a busy man like you would have people who could take care of little details like car maintenance for him.” Though Beth’s lips curved in a smile, inside she went from irritation to anger. “This fancy machine here? Most people in this neighborhood have to work for five years to earn that kind of money.”
She wouldn’t focus on what she and her sisters could do—could pay off—with that kind of cash. Replace the furnace that threatened to quit every winter. Patch the place in the roof that let the rain in. “Some of those people might think that you’d want to take care of something like that. Take some responsibility.”
“You’re right.” There, finally, was evidence that he was human—the tiniest flicker of guilt. It was enough to melt her anger away.
Likely he hadn’t ever thought about how long other people would have to work to pay for one of his toys...and why would he treat it as anything special when he probably had a garage full of others at home?
“Can I get that in writing? I think it’s probably not something you say very often.” Beth arched an eyebrow. Ford blinked at her, seemingly stunned, before bursting into laughter.
It was a rich laugh, not the carefully controlled chuckle she would have expected from him, and it cut her off at the knees. To her, nothing was sexier than a man who could laugh at himself.
“Don’t get used to it. It probably won’t happen again.” As if he realized that he’d let his control slip, Ford’s grin quickly morphed back into stern lines. “In all seriousness. Now that we’ve established I don’t take proper care of it, what is wrong with it? Do you not have a part that I need?”
Beth couldn’t hold back the snort of sarcasm that slipped from her throat. “Well, that’s a start, but no, I don’t typically carry parts for cars like these. Not much call for them around here.”
Doing her best not to roll her eyes—they were clearly from such different worlds—she rubbed her hand over her cheek. The return of his smirk told her she’d likely left a smear of engine grease behind on her clean skin, but she didn’t care. That was her. Take it or leave it.
“Your transmission is shot. That needs to be replaced. I can call in a favor and have the part couriered in for the morning, since I figure you’re probably willing to pay the rush fee. But replacing it is going to be a full-day job.” She held up her hand as he opened his mouth, looking like he was prepared to argue. To her way of thinking, there was nothing to argue about here. “But if you stay consistent with the way you treat this car, then I would suggest you let me fix everything else that’s wrong with it while you’ve already got it in the shop. Your fuel and cooling systems need work, you’ve got some corrosion...and you need a basic damn oil change.”
“I see.” Ford gazed at her steadily, his expression unwavering. Beth stared right back, startled when he was the one to break away, huffing out a sound of exasperation and waving his hands in the air. “What are you listening to?”
“Sitar music.” She loved this playlist as much as she’d loved the heavy metal one she’d been playing earlier. Music was so deeply ingrained in who she was, she felt it was a shame not to appreciate as much of it as she could.
“Right.” This, finally, this was what seemed to throw him off his game—the music blasting from her phone.
Beth felt her breath catching as he reached out and sifted his fingers through the end of her braid. Her breasts pushed forward as she exhaled, and Ford looked her over again with that hungry stare—not lecherous, just an acknowledgment of that strange little click between them.
Beth didn’t believe in love at first sight...but oh, she sure believed in lust.
“Sitar music. Heavy metal. Purple in your hair, and the scents of vanilla and engine grease on your skin.” He sounded bemused. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a very unique woman?”
“All the time.” She was pretty sure it was a bad idea, but the way this strange man was looking at her made her very, very hot. Riding on instinct, she reached for the cherry-red can of Coke that still dangled from his fingers and lifted it to her lips. “But you’ve only scratched the surface. There’s a lot more to me than the color of my hair.”
“I can imagine.” He watched her with painstaking attention to detail as she lifted the can to her lips and sipped. The rush of sugar burst over her tongue, and she imagined she got just the slightest taste of him, as well.
“Are you always this forward?” He tracked her tongue as she ran it over her lips.
“Afraid of catching girl cooties?” Beth handed the can back and arched an eyebrow. “And yes, I often am. I’m usually pretty clear on what I want.”
Stepping away from where they were still curled together beneath the hood of the Turbo, she laced her hands together and dipped her head. “But sometimes I like to be told what to do, too.”
Her heart pounded as she made the admission. Had she judged wrong? She couldn’t have. She liked to go after what she wanted, true enough, and she felt no shame in wanting what she did. But she usually felt the subtle little click that she had with Ford when the dynamics between them were just right—as in, the other person wanted to be in control, and Beth wanted to relinquish it.
“I...” Ford took a step back, not the reaction that Beth was expecting. He looked her over again, and her skin felt on fire everywhere his gaze touched.
No, she wasn’t wrong. She felt it in her gut. But he didn’t seem to be all that pleased by the notion.
“I’ll tell you what to do, then.” The struggle to regain control was evident in his voice. One blink of her eyes, and the stern businessman mask was back in place, shuttering the hint of passion that she’d glimpsed below. “Order the part. Fix the car. And call me when it’s ready for pickup.”
Beth felt the same slight chill that she had when she’d noted that he seemed uncomfortable with whatever this was sparking between them—felt it and resented it.
She wasn’t asking for a ring—she was just embracing her needs and desires, like she and her sisters had always done.
“You didn’t ask how much the parts and work are going to be.” Beth’s temper rose, so she unlatched and slammed the hood of the Turbo closed, hard enough that most people would have turned to check that she hadn’t taken a golf club to the metal.
He didn’t turn, didn’t look back—not at the vehicle and not at her.
“Like you’ve pointed out already... I can afford it.”
Well, then. Clearly he wanted to highlight the differences between them. Beth cocked her head and watched as he headed out of her driveway and back in the direction of the café, probably off to research his accommodation options, which she could have told him were few. She suspected he wasn’t going far.
His gait was easy, the stride of a man who knew that he had the world at his feet. As if pulled by her gaze, he finally cast one look back in her direction.
The intensity of the connection when their eyes met nearly brought Beth to her knees. Yes, that attraction was there, burning brighter than any she’d ever felt.
So why was he turning away from it? From her?
She could dwell on it, could go cry into a bottle of wine with her sisters over the rejection, but she’d never seen the point. Sex was supposed to be easy, fun. And to her it always would be.
If Ford Lassiter was uncomfortable with being attracted to her, well, that was his problem. Beth was just fine with who she was. Still, it was a damn shame he was a stick-in-the-mud, she thought as her lips curved.
A man who looked that good in clothes? He would surely look even better out of them.
