Page 8 of Montana Heat

I didn’t reply, crossing my arms while I waited for the coffee to drip. Not that watching it was going to make it go any faster. Still, coffee first. Susanna could wait.

“Jensen!” she hollered again.

“In a minute!” I shouted back. She was a feisty woman, just a few years younger than me. But since she’d started here, we had forged a brother-sister bickering that mostly amused me, but sometimes, like now, was just annoying.

I wasn’t sure what I’d do without her, though. Dealing with all the ins and outs of the business, not to mention talking all day with the customers, I’d exceed my people quota quickly each day.

As soon as my cup was brewed, I joined her in the office. While the repair bays of the garage were functional and sparse, her space in the office was an explosion of color. Knitted—crocheted? Hell if I knew the difference—scarves and blanket-things littered the coatrack and hung over the back of her chair.

“What’s that?” she asked as a greeting, pointing a bright-pink pen at a box ofmuffins.

I almost smiled, forgetting that I’d arranged to have them delivered. “Breakfast,” I replied before taking one.

“Don’t you mean ‘payment’?” She air-quoted the last word with the hand she wasn’t using to tap that pen on the desk.

I shrugged, taking a big bite.

She furrowed her brow. “I came in to open up this morning and found them in an insulated bag at the front door.”

I nodded. Mrs. Kimble had told me she’d drop them off daily this week.

“So,” she continued, “I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was balancing the books and discovered you’d given her a steep discount for her brake drums and rotors.”

I didn’t speak, just ate the muffin.

Susanna raised one thin eyebrow at me.

“Yeah,” I finally forced out since I could tell she wasn’t going to let it go.

“Jensen, you’re giving away too many services!” She slapped her palm on the desk.

“I’m not giving away anything.”

“You discounted that job by seventy percent.”

She narrowed her eyes when I shrugged again.

I wasn’t going to stress out Mrs. Kimble over her brakes. She was a nice older lady who owned a small house down the road. She was a longtime resident of Garnet Bend and her husband had passed away a few months ago, so she was alone except when her son and his family came for visits. She loved to cook, always providing treats for fundraisers and charity events, and her baked goods were amazing.

It would feel like taking advantage of some grandmother if I charged her full price.

“Seemed worth it,” I said. “Plus, these are delicious. If you ate some, you probably wouldn’t be so cranky.”

I knew I was venturing out onto thin ice, but it was deliberate.This wasn’t the first time Susanna had grumbled about my method of bartering and trading, and I doubted it would be the last.

It was just the way I wanted to run things here. I didn’t need the money. I lived well within my means and didn’t have a lot of expenses or debt, so I could offer discounts for my services if I wanted. And bartering was my way of giving back to the community that’d taken me in and embraced me as one of their own.

“We’re barely breaking even this month,” she groused.

Bullshit. I cut her a look.

“Well, we are.”

I tipped my chin at the computer monitor that showed all the spreadsheets I hated to ever look at. “What about the income from the extra bay?”

The Resting Warrior guys and I had added an additional bay area a year ago when we’d done the renovations. That bay wasn’t for cars; it was for my woodworking. I handcrafted small wood pieces like jewelry boxes, sculptures, and animal carvings.

The guys had built it for me as a place to do what I loved the most, but it hadn’t taken long for people to find out about my skills and for orders to start coming in. It was already making money.

---