Page 11 of A Gift for her Festive Firefighter

“She’s barely got a dent – and heck, it matches half the other pitting and bruises on the body panels. And who names their car anyhow? You act like you’re driving a Porsche when that thing is…”

Holly was boiling.

She ignored the other half of his sentence, walked over, and slammed her boot as hard as possible down into the dent on his old truck. There was such an overwhelming and satisfying bolt of pleasure from the jarring sensation that slammed up her leg at the feeling, seeing the dent deepen, and hearing the disbelieving gasp from Cade.

“WHY YOU LITTLE…”

“Captain Pruitt!” the sheriff interrupted loudly. “I suggest you not finish that statement since you are going to need Beary to help repair your vehicle…”

“I’m not touching his truck,” Holly said primly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Nope. I refuse.”

“You’re the mechanic – and I’m the victim,” Cade snarled, holding out his hand toward his vehicle. “You hit me, attacked me, and made the dent bigger… and now you are refusing to work on my truck?”

“I reserve the right to provide service to anyone,” she repeated pertly, giving a little curtsy in her coveralls – before giving him the finger behind the sheriff’s back. Yeah, this guy might be gorgeous on the outside, but on the inside, he was as ugly as sin. She had never been so blatantly rude or crude to anyone, but in this case, it felt justified.

The man’s mouth dropped open as he flung up his hands in the air in sheer frustration. The sheriff handed him a slip of paper, which only started another round of ‘You gotta be kidding me!’ exclamations, followed by the repeated, ‘It’s her fault’ comments that seemed to be the current mantra this morning.

Beary almost said something to egg him on – only to get handed a ticket from the sheriff as well. He arched an eyebrow and looked at her.

“I’d stop if I were you,” he whispered quietly. “You do not want this to go further – am I clear, Beary?”

“Yes, sir.”

“See if you can get Butter out of the main road before we start to have a little traffic – and I’ll calm down the fireman.”

“I’m not working on his truck.”

“That’s your prerogative.”

“I’m not.”

“You mentioned that.”

Holly grumbled ‘I’m not’ once more under her breath and looked away from the grin on the sheriff’s face as he turned to walk off to where Cade was waiting, obviously furious.

Marching over to Butter, she popped the hood and expected to feel a stab of pain in her chest if the engine was seized. How could this happen? It wasn’t a bad dent, and it couldn’t have hit the engine block causing damage. She would have seen oil everywhere, or it would have been smoking, right?

Looking around under the hood, Holly slid back into the driver’s seat and leaned to get her flashlight out of the glove box. She gave the key one more try now that she was calming down slightly and hesitated as it suddenly hit her.

Holly pushed the clutch in and turned the key, hearing a click. Without so much as a sound, she moved slightly to peer into the engine compartment once more and winced. The positive cable slipped off the battery post at the impact – and in her frustration, she’d let off the clutch, causing it to die.

The sheer mental state of panic, the coffee, and everything else had put her in a real tizzy. Her car didn’t start because of her. She forgot to push in the clutch – and didn’t tighten down the battery terminal when she worked on it the other day.

She panicked.

She lost her temper.

She made a complete fool of herself – to the guy she had a crush on. The guy who knew Holly had a crush on him and called her ‘Creature-Feature.’ Yeah, she was pretty sure that this moment, this day, could not get any worse.

“Hey Beary?”

There was something in the sheriff’s voice that caused her to turn around nervously. Maybe it was because she was coming down off the mountain of rage and drowning in the Guilty Sea. She felt like the biggest nitwit, had made the greatest scene, and even if she did repair Cade’s truck, she would always be ‘Creature-Feature’ to him.

Not a great first impression.

“Yeah, Sheriff?”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, and I don’t know how to say it, but Captain Pruitt mentioned it first – and now that the dawn is here, and well… I know you got those pretty white leather seats, but…”

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