Page 15 of To Belong Together
Still?
He glanced at the clock. Something might have prevented Roy from spilling his identity in the last twenty minutes.
God, for example. Who also might have foiled Erin’s attempts to fix this car, providing John one last opportunity to talk with her.
That was a stretch.
Even so, the end of their last interaction hadn’t been awful.
They were due for a breakthrough.
He turned back for Hartley.
6
Erin drove Mr. Rolski’s tank of a sedan out of the shop. He’d been a customer as long as she could remember, faithful even now that his favorite technician, her father, had retired. After parking, she trudged through three inches of snow to the lobby.
With snow still falling and the weekend nearly there, the others must’ve justified waiting to shovel, but Mr. Rolski would pick up his car any minute. A seventy-year-old shouldn’t have to deal with drifts of snow. She turned in his key to Aunt Connie and took the shovel to the walk.
Between scrapes of the shovel against the concrete, she picked out the tone of a turbo-charged car accelerating down the street. A dark gray, all-too-familiar sedan led the flow of traffic from the light at the corner. Her hope that John was passing on his way elsewhere fled when he turned on his blinker and eased the car beside her.
He rolled down his window. “Did Roy talk to you?”
“No.” Roy had left for the weekend after collecting John’s payment. Only she, Sam, and Connie remained at the shop. “Why? Did you call? The noise came back?”
He climbed from the car. His line of sight flicked to the windows behind her, probably to Connie, before settling on her. “Any chance you’ll take that drive you promised?”
The snow had brought an early nightfall. In the dim lot, John’s blue eyes appeared gray, though he stood two feet from her. But what was apparent? The hope on his face and in his voice. When she pictured another flake melting on his lashes, she turned away. It’d be like Roy to send her this surprise late on a Friday when all she wanted was to go home. She pushed one last pile of snow off the walk. She hadn’t cleared everything, but the path should allow Mr. Rolski to make the trek safely.
“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t time-sensitive,” John said.
“I don’t have time to diagnose and fix it tonight, so if you need the car, go ahead and drive it. Everything is safe, even if there is a squeak.”
“There is.”
“So you say.”
“You don’t believe me?”
This was his third visit for the same problem, a problem no one else had heard in days. He should sound annoyed, but he sounded like he always did, kind and unflappable. Strong and steady. He wasn’t there to get his car fixed, and they both knew it.
She tightened her grip on the shovel, debating how much to say. If he thought he could win her over by claiming she’d failed at the one thing she was good at, he had a twisted idea of how to charm a lady.
Come to think of it, a spur-of-the-moment test drive with him sounded dangerous. If she left without informing anyone, no one would know where to look for her body. “I think Sam is still here, if you need help tonight.”
He frowned. “I don’t want your cousins near my car.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t trust them.”
“They do a good job, and you don’t have a reason to trust me either.”
His silence, paired with the way he studied her, communicated his disagreement as loud as any words.
“This”—she gestured between them—“honestly, it’s a little creepy.” The truth needed to be said, right? Discomfort drew a chuckle from her.
“We’ve been for two other test drives. This is different?”
