Page 12 of The Millionaire's Mechanic

Luckily, Rainer was too preoccupied examining the vehicle to notice her awkward response to him. He ran his hands over the newly smooth doors, opening the passenger side to get a look at the leather interior and the refinished spoked steering wheel.

By the time he finally ripped his attention away from the car, she had regained some semblance of control.

“I’m sorry to drop by unannounced,” he began. “I was visiting a friend who lives not far from here, and I decided to check if you were home.”

Turning his head, he glanced at the ‘For Sale’ sign on the lawn. “Is this a bad time?”

A loud snort escaped. Mortified, Georgia clapped a hand over her mouth and nose. Okay, perhaps she wasn’t as in control of herself as she believed.

Rainer shifted position, leaning a shoulder toward her. “I apologize. I should have called.”

“You don’t have my number.”

He raised a brow.

“Oh.” Georgia felt like an idiot. Of course he had her number. Rainer was at her house. By now, he likely knew everything about her, down to her social security number. “I guess Mr. Powell found my address.”

“Before you left the office,” he confirmed. He shrugged when her eyes opened wide. ‘‘You did give us your real name and where you work. It was easy to find your information after that.”

“Of course,” she murmured, picking up the wrench on the floor.

“This is a nice setup,” Rainer said, gesturing to the creeper ramp that allowed her to work on the Talbot’s undercarriage. He reached up to touch the chain of the pulley and sling system she’d jerry-rigged to move engines by herself. “I take it the Talbot isn’t the first engine you’ve taken apart in here. It’s not your first restoration.”

“No, I’ve done a dozen or so over the years, projects I teamed up on with friends or acquaintances who had a car in the family they wanted to fix up and sell. Also, a couple of junkyard salvages.”

Those projects had earned enough for her to buy the Crown Victoria she drove. That model Ford was more popularly known as a cop car. Georgia liked it because it was easy to repair, and parts were easy to find. Also, she rarely got speeding tickets.

“I also do some work on the side for friends and other people.” She waved at the open garage doors to encompass the neighborhood. “Our neighbors come here first if their cars start making weird noises.”

“And I bet you fix them for free.” There was that grin again as if he were amused by her small acts of charity.

“When I can,” she said, her face heating in a Pavlovian response to his smile. “But people pay for their parts and give me something for the labor when they can. Muffins and brownies are standard. Sometimes casseroles.”

“Casseroles?” he echoed.

She shrugged defensively. “Ephraim likes noodles.”

Putting in some distance to try to get away from his gravity well, Georgia turned her back to set the wrench in its designated spot. “I guess the kidnapping didn’t happen. I checked the news just in case, but I didn’t see your name mentioned.”

Rainer put his hands in his jacket pockets, leaning a hip against the sink counter fixed to the wall.

“Yeah, I’m safe and sound as you can see.”

Georgia’s eyes flicked to him, then away, as she pretended to rearrange her tools.

“Nothing happened, right?” Surely he would have said ‘thank you’ or something similar had there been an attempt to kidnap him.

But Rainer surprised her. “I don’t think so.”

She turned back to him with a frown. “Think?”

He lifted a shoulder. “We pushed the appointment at the bank back by half an hour. Aside from someone opening a fire exit door, which triggered an alarm, it was business as usual.”

Georgia pursed her lips. “And Mr. Powell agrees—about the alarm being nothing?”

He chuckled, the rich sound traveling down from her ears with a frisson as if she’d been stroked with fur. “Well, for a while there, he wasextremely excited. The extra security guys we brought swarmed down there very impressively. But there was nothing to be found. That particular door gets opened without authorization a lot so the few smokers in the building can sneak a cigarette outside. All the stairwells have a smoke detector.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders dropped a fraction.

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