Page 23 of Dreaming About Forever

She shook her head as her smile grew. He was really trying to fix it. “Do you need to call a mechanic?”

“I am a mechanic, sweetheart.”

Alicia’s eyes widened as Jordan’s legs hanging out from beneath the truck stilled.

He cleared his throat. “Act like I didn’t say that.”

Her smile was ridiculously wide, and she didn’t want to hide it. “Okay.”

She’d do no such thing, but he didn’t have to know that.

Jordan scooted out from beneath the truck and got to his feet. He wiped his black-stained hands on the sides of his jeans. “The radiator’s busted. I can get what I need from town tomorrow and clean out the air filter. Looks like we’ll be taking the ranch truck today.”

“Ranch truck?”

Jordan pointed to another truck that actually looked like half a truck. The back part wasn’t like the beds of trucks she’d seen before.

“It’s a flatbed. We use it to haul things, but it’ll do the job.”

She looked back to Jordan. “You actually know how to fix the truck?”

Jordan’s brows pinched close as he looked down at her. “Yeah. I’ve been fixing trucks and tractors since I was five.”

“Five?” Alicia said with wonder. She’d been on the set ofFamily Firstwhen she was five, but fixing trucks? “How did you know how to do it?”

“Dad taught me.”

“Did you need to know how to do those things when you were five?”

Jordan wiped his hands on a rag he found by a toolbox. “I haven’t thought about that, but yeah. Necessity is the mother of invention.” His gaze swept from her head to her toes. “The ranch truck might be dirty. Do you want to go back and change?”

She took in her outfit. It was the most casual thing she had. “No. I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself,” Jordan said as he made his way to the flatbed truck. He opened the passenger side door for her with a metallic creak.

She stepped up to the truck and halted. He hadn’t been joking when he said it was dirty. Dark stains were rubbed over the cloth seats, a toolbox sat in the middle of the bench seat, and half a dozen empty Mountain Dew bottles littered the floorboard.

She hummed as she turned to Jordan. The smile he’d been hiding all day split across his face, revealing straight, white teeth.

“Told you.” He chuckled. “Let me get a shop rag for you to sit on.”

Looking back into the depths of the dirty truck, she mouthed, “What?” as he turned away from her.

He appeared by her side a minute later with a beige towel. “Dad likes Mountain Dew.”

“I don’t know how I would have guessed that.”

Jordan spread out the towel and moved back to let her in. He offered a hand to help her, and she took it, stupidly wanting to recapture the link to him.

She was fine. This was totally fine. She was in a dirty truck with an equally dirty man who probably knew seventy ways to kill someone and how to raise a dead truck from the grave.

Settling into the now covered seat, Alicia took in the small cab while Jordan rounded to the other side of the truck. When he got in, she turned her attention to the front windshield.

Staring at him while he drove was probably frowned upon.

He started the truck, and it roared to life with a loud rumble. Alicia covered her ears and turned to him with her brows pinched together.

“Everything okay?” he shouted above the noise.

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