Page 21 of Between the Lines

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN JOGOTHOME, she headed straight for the garage. The small space housed her sister Beth’s mechanic shop, and the sister she was closest to could almost always be found there during work hours.

She didn’t want to be alone, but she wanted someone she could be silent with.

“Beth?” She strode into the garage, throwing her arms up at the last second when she saw her sister, who was very much not alone. “Oh shit! Sorry! I’ll go!”

“No, no. Stay.” Beth pushed Ford away with a mock-stern stare and pulled her coveralls back up to her waist, where she tied the arms in a knot, then straightened her tank. “Mr. Handsy here was just trying to convince me to take a break, but I have too much to do.”

Beth stopped when she caught sight of Jo’s face. Jo thought she’d done a pretty good job at masking what she felt, but her sister knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t all right. “For you, I’ll take a break. Sit.”

Beth gestured to her workbench, then shot Ford a look with eyebrows raised. He took the hint, buckling up his pants as he entered the house through the door that joined the two.

“I’m not going to bug you if you’re busy,” Jo started, but Beth waved her off.

“You can talk while I work,” she said, ducking under the hood of the car she was working on. Jo saw something spark and took a cautious step back, out of range.

“It’s nothing. Really,” Jo insisted, but she didn’t leave, instead opening up the mini fridge that Beth kept in the corner. The door was lined with shiny glass bottles of kombucha. So gross. Jo wrinkled her nose and shifted things around, finally locating a can of Diet Coke in the back corner. She didn’t love soda, but she did like having something to do with her hands.

When she closed the fridge, Beth was watching her. Her sister’s skin was still flushed from what she and Ford had been doing when Jo entered the garage, and Jo felt a pang of what was undeniably loneliness.

She wanted what Beth and Ford had. Not just the companionship, either, damn it. She wanted the lust, the can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other headiness.

And the only person who had ever done it for her was Theo.

Fuck her life.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that it’s Theo who’s gotten that crazy look in your eyes.” Beth eyed Jo’s drink, then crossed to the fridge and retrieved a kombucha for herself. Jo couldn’t hold back a grimace when her sister downed half the bottle. Sure, it was supposed to be good for you, but it had little floaty things in it. Yuck.

“So, tell me.” Beth gestured with her bottle. Jo squirmed. She’d come here because she’d wanted to rant to her sister, absolutely. But after seeing Beth and Ford together, she felt more like curling up into a ball in her room. Alone.

“How can you drink that?” Both Jo and Beth jumped when the door Ford had just disappeared through banged open, smacking into the unfinished drywall of the shop. “It has chunks in it.”

Beth arched an eyebrow at the bottle of beer Meg carried. “But beer before noon is okay?”

“It’s craft beer.” Meg smiled sweetly. “Doesn’t count.”

Looking to Jo for support, she stopped short. “What’s going on?”

“Theo,” Beth supplied before Jo could answer.

“Damn it.” Meg handed Jo the beer. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.” Jo scowled. She’d come here wanting to talk to Beth, but now she didn’t know what the hell she wanted.

“Hello?” All three sisters turned at the sound of the male voice. Jo felt awkwardness weigh down on her like wet wool as she saw John Brooke standing in the open door of the garage. His pristine suit looked completely out of place against the oil-stained walls.

“Mr. Brooke.” Shit. Jo had no idea what the social nuances of a situation like this were. She also had no idea what the hell he was doing here.

“Miss Marchande.” Sidestepping a slick of oil on the floor, John closed the distance between them, offering her a hand. “I don’t feel that we had an adequate discussion of the position at Crossing Lines. I’d like to remedy that. Perhaps we can try again, tomorrow morning?”

“What?” Jo blurted, ignoring the hand that he still held out. “But didn’t Theo tell you about us?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” John arched his eyebrows in a way that he suggested he didn’t want to know, either. “If you need time to think about the offer, I can give you twenty-four hours. But I don’t think you were informed of the compensation for the job, which might influence your decision.”

He named a sum that made her two sisters gasp and left Jo gaping. It wasn’t astronomical, but it was far more than most writers made...ever.

“Apologies—I didn’t think that it might be crass to drop numbers in front of others.” He looked over at her sisters as he spoke, then did a double take at Meg. She looked right back, and the smirk that curved her lips said she liked what she saw.

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