Page 12 of To Belong Together
“It couldn’t wait until I was inside?”
“Mr. Ride-Along. Says the squeak’s as bad as ever.”
John wouldn’t have complained about her work to Sam after intervening in their fight yesterday. Either Sam had overheard, or he’d snooped through paperwork Aunt Connie had left for her. Probably the latter, hoping for a decent job he could steal.
“Is he waiting?” She scanned the lot and located John’s car, parked toward the street where she couldn’t have seen from inside her car.
“No. Dropped it off.”
So Sam had come to gloat.
“He needed the struts I put in. It’s not really a comeback.”
“He brought it in for a squeak, and you didn’t fix it. You can’t bill him for more diagnosis time.”
“I wouldn’t.” She brushed by him.
“When it’s done, he wants a test drive to make sure the squeak’s actually gone this time.”
Annoyance almost iced her feet in place, but she’d rather drive around with John than give Sam that victory.
5
Erin had been elbow-deep in an engine bay for two hours when a buzzing melody rose from her workbench. She arched her hunched back to relieve the tension gathered there and snagged the cell.
Dad issued an enthusiastic greeting. “Erin!”
Today must be a good day. She grinned and wiped her hair from her forehead. Lowering her hand again, she spotted grease on her fingers. She wiped her sleeve across her forehead in case she’d left a black smudge. “What’s new, Pops?”
“Oh, same old, same old. The brakes are still squeaking.”
Still? Erin hadn’t heard the brakes squeak on her parents’ car when her mom had pulled in the garage the other night. Yet it’d been ages since she’d installed brakes for them. Perhaps the work was due.
“Mom asked me for an oil change, so I’ll add that to the list. We were planning for tomorrow.”
“I hate for you to use a rare day off on us.”
“If I’m not working on your car, I’d be doing some other project.” Her phone beeped, and she checked the display.
John Kennedy had shown up for his test drive.
Though she’d rather talk longer with her dad, these were work hours, and she was more than ready to be done with John’s car—and its owner. “I have a customer waiting on me, so I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“All right. Over and out.”
Still smiling, Erin pocketed the phone and made her way up front.
The steel color of the sky outside the lobby windows signaled snow before she focused long enough to see the fat, falling flakes. Two fresh inches had fallen since the last time she’d been outside. At least the all-wheel-drive on John’s car made the sedan ideal for winter driving. She collected the paperwork from Aunt Connie, but John wasn’t in the lobby. Connie pointed her toward the lot.
Outside, she found him leaning against his driver’s door. A snowflake caught on his eyelashes, but he seemed too focused on her to notice.
She tossed him the key, though he was close enough for a direct hand-off. By the time they’d gotten in, the fleck of snow had disappeared, his lashes damp in its wake.
Since when did she notice a man’s eyelashes? Strong hands, height, cologne, sure. But eyelashes? Next, it’d be the urge to touch the curls starting to form by his temples and at the back of his neck.
The man needed a haircut, and she needed to focus.
She clicked her seatbelt. “I’m sorry the struts didn’t solve the problem. We couldn’t get the noise to happen again, so I took a shot and replaced the sway bar links. They can dry out. Connie explained?”
