One
Dale
Expensive shoes.
Clicking across his floor.
How did he know this when his head was currently under the frame of a car?
Because boots did not make that sound.
And because people around here didn’t wear shoes that were not boots. Especially not in the fall when the rain had come, snow was falling at intermittent intervals but not yet sticking to the ground. Dirt had become mud, and mud had become quicksand, and click-clicking shoes were definitely a danger.
Especially in these parts.
And now, Dale sounded like a wannabe cowboy.
The Darlington he’d grown up in might have been rough around the edges, but the Darlington of today was a quaint, small town in northeastern Utah. It was a place he’d spent more hours outdoors than in, trailing through the cattle ranches, the peach orchards, the vineyards. He’d trekked through that mud, had sloughed through the snow, had enjoyed traversing the green hills until they were turned brown by the summer’s heat.
And he’d enjoyed that, too.
Long summer days, the sun rising early and setting late. So much heat that it was easy to spot, shimmering waves as it rose off the ground.
But he’d stayed out for all of it.
Because it hadn’t been inside.
Because inside had been absolutely unbearable.
Those shoes continued to click-click across the garage floor, moving toward him and not away like he’d hoped.
This engine was a bitch to work on, and he’d promised to have it finished by noon for his customer, so he could close up early and get over to his friend Kelly’s by one to help her and her husband set up for their annual Christmas party. Which was both too fucking close to now, since the car wasn’t fixed, and was still too far away, considering the grief this fucking P.O.S. had been giving him since it had been towed to the shop.
The shoes stopped just next to the driver’s side tire, perfectly centered in his line of vision.
And tapped.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Click-click.
When the clicking continued even as he did his damndest to ignore it—or rather, them, the pointy, shiny black leather pumps with a flash of red at every tap and mud ringing their perimeter.
Unfortunately, ignoring didn’t help.
The muddy shoes didn’t disappear.
They stayed.
And clicked.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, pushing with his feet and sliding out from beneath the car. The creeper cart’s wheels screeched as they found purchase against the concrete floor, and—
Holy fucking hell.
Long, long legs. Hips and breasts and—
A fiercely beautiful face that was glowering down at him.
He sat up, wiping his hands on the towel he kept in his pocket. “Can I help you?”
Silence, imperious brown eyes staring down at him, and a brow lifted.
Dale stood. “Was the brow-lifting supposed to be an answer to my question?” he asked. “Because I’m not great at interpreting the intricacies of the various eyebrow languages.”
“I am looking for the owner of this establishment.”
Rich tones of an English accent, the bearing of old—or perhaps expensive manners. To go with her expensive clothes and very expensive shoes.
Or maybe he was just a small-town hick.
“I’m the owner,” he said. “Your car break down?”
“Precisely.” She turned, spun away. “This way.”
Click-clicking across the cracked and stained concrete, as though she were the queen traversing across the finest marble tile. All that click-clicking had the side benefit of making that fabulous ass sitting atop those long, long gorgeous legs bounce just the slightest bit.
Not that he was looking.
Nope. No women for him. Give him the rolling hills and the various parts of a car engine. Hell, even give him balancing the books at the end of the month, which was pretty much the only thing he hated about running his own business.
The cars were easy.
Even the customers mostly were.
But he had the feeling this one wouldn’t be.
He followed her out through the yard—the small parking lot that was more dirt than asphalt—and currently more mud than dirt due to the most recent rain. He’d saved up his profits, would be able to afford brand new asphalt the entire length, but he was waiting for spring. There was no need to subject his new road and parking lot to a fierce Utah winter right off the bat.
“Uh-hem.” A sharp cough drew his focus to melted chocolate eyes . . . filled with disapproval.
“Where’s your car?”
The barest narrowing of her eyes before she spun and continued down the short drive. Dale followed her as she turned right and click-clicked all the way down the road to a sleek black sedan.
Wouldn’t last the winter around here with a car like that.
The problem was easy to spot, the back tire completely flat.
“Engine trouble then?” he deadpanned.
She stopped, spun, face pressed into sharp lines. “It’s—” Clarity dawned as she realized he was joking with her, and the lines got somehow sharper. “Hilarious,” she said. “Can you fix the tire?”
He nodded. “Pop the trunk.”
“Pop the . . . what?” An arched question.
“The trunk.” He tapped the back. “Open it up, please.”
“Ah.” She reached into a small handbag, one of her spring-like curls sliding forward to cover her cheek. An annoyed flick of her head had it darting back in place like a soldier out of formation, and a moment later, she had her keys in hand.
Pop.
The trunk opened, and he made short work of loosening the jack and retrieving the spare tire. It was surprisingly hard with these fancy cars—as though the manufacturers had all decided to make a mechanic’s life a living hell. Unlike his perfectly sensible truck, this wasn’t undoing a couple of screws to gain access to the spare. This was five minutes of frustration and stifled cursing as he fought tooth and nail to loosen the compartment where everything he needed was located.
But eventually—and with no audible curses—he was lifting the tire out and bending to position the jack in place.
As luck—something he’d never had much of, and something he’d really been lacking of late—would have it, when she’d pulled off the road, she’d perfectly positioned the flat tire in the mud.
Perfect.
Perhaps also unfair of him to be further annoyed, as this entire stretch was currently mud. So, he couldn’t move the car forward or back to save himself the sludgy bath he was about to take.
Maybe he should have put her off, but he was behind on his work and wanted to be done with this interruption. Plus, based on the clicking, on the impatience in every line of her body, he instinctively knew that any delay on his part would have been met with arguing on hers. So, he figured he might as well get her tire changed and the sexy little priss back out on her way.
“Pretty shoes you got there,” he said, giving in to the inevitable and kneeling in the mud.
“They serve their purpose,” she replied.
“Maybe,” he said, loosening the lug nuts. “If you spend most of your life indoors.” A beat. “Or at least on mostly paved roads.”
She shifted, and he watched her study her shoes—now caked with no small amount of mud. “I expected the roads to be . . . more road-like.”