5
Cullen
Cullen told Eli to go to Kyan’s without him, especially once he heard that Adrianna Peterson—Bar Peterson’s widow—was going to stop by as well. Cullen loved Adrianna like a sister, but between her and Eli, Kyan was going to be overwhelmed by the amount of company as it was. Once a child model and actor, Kyan came back from the service with burns on a good part of his body and a big-ass gap in his soul for failing to save Bar. They’d been in the same mortar assault.
It was an absurd thing for Kyan to blame himself for, but some wounds didn’t follow logic.
Plus, Cullen needed to talk to Adrianna alone about all the problems her former brother-in-law, Frank Peterson, was causing in terms of collecting Bar’s benefits. Yes, that same Frank Peterson who now had Skylar Reynolds on his payroll. Cullen’s gaze touched Reynolds’s portfolio again. Closing the folder, he slipped it into the reject pile—neatly this time. He didn’t want to hire Sky. He didn’t, and though he could appreciate Eli’s and Catherine’s opinions, he didn’t agree with them. When Catherine came in on Monday, he’d have her set up more interviews. It’d be as simple as that.
Outside the window, the evening was sliding toward darkness, Cullen’s Rolex confirming that late hour. He’d be the last one out this Friday, which was how he liked it. A commander should be the last one out.
His mind on food, Cullen stepped into the parking lot. The earlier storm had passed, but it rained still, and the long lot was empty except for his own truck and a rusted-out Toyota Corolla that looked like it’d fallen off a tow truck on the way to a junkyard. Cullen had worked on a few vehicles in his twenty-eight years—including his current Ford F-450 Super Duty Platinum Crew Cab, which he tricked out like an overzealous teenager—but the Corolla in question wasn’t vintage, it was just crap. Crap that needed to get towed from his lot.
Pulling his phone out of his back pocket, Cullen searched for the tow number as he made his way to the intruding vehicle, only to realize it wasn’t empty.
Walking to the driver’s side window, which for some godforsaken reason was tinted, Cullen rapped hard on the glass.
“What?” The woman sounded familiar. The window lowered, and Cullen’s blood pressure jumped two dozen points.
Skylar Reynolds. On a fucking stakeout in his lot.
“Which part of get the hell out of my business are you having trouble with, Reynolds?” Cullen’s demand came out like a growl.
“The part where the key makes the car start,” she snapped, her eyes flashing with a fury to match his own. Her puffy, red-rimmed eyes. She started cranking the handle to raise the window back up.
Cullen stuck his fist in the opening.
She glowered up at him. “What do you want?”
“In general, you out of my life. At the moment, you out of my parking lot. What’s wrong with the car?”
Reynolds swallowed, the slight trembling of her hands betraying the effort it was taking to keep herself together. Either that, or she was a good actress. “I told you. It won’t start.”
“That a symptom, not a diagnosis, Skylar.” It was the first time Cullen used her first name, and he wasn’t sure why he did it. Didn’t want to think about it either. “Open the hood.”
After shaking her head and throwing up her hands, Skylar leaned over to comply. Pulling off his Armani jacket, Cullen rolled up his sleeves and scrutinized the inner workings of her car, the rain battering against his shirt. The engine compartment was filthy and appeared as if it hadn’t received the proper maintenance. Then he caught sight of the culprit—one of the clamps that attached to the battery had come completely loose. There was obvious corrosion there too.
Yanking out his pocket square, Cullen wiped down the terminal and reattached the cable to the battery, then did the same to the second terminal. Head still under the hood, Cullen yelled out, “Try her now.”
He heard Skylar turn her ignition, and the car sputtered to life. Craning his neck, Cullen checked the girl’s expression, the relief washing over her features too open and sincere to be faked. Something warm hit the region of his solar plexus, and disturbed by this, Cullen ducked back under the hood for a final look. Taking his time, he stood back, wiping his hands on the little bit of clean space remaining on his pocket square before lowering the hood.
“You aren’t maintaining your car,” Cullen said, more gruffly than he’d intended. “If you don’t want this happening again, you’ll need to take it back to where you bought it.” Or to the junkyard.
Skylar’s smile drained away. “Yeah. I’m on that.”
Cullen’s brows narrowed. “Where did you get this…relic of automotive history?”
“A farmer guy right outside New York.” Skylar’s nose wrinkled as if she’d caught a whiff of some horrible smell before her face closed again. “But I appreciate your help. How much do I owe you?”
Cullen studied her. Not only did she have a look of distaste wreathing her features, her posture had grown rigid, and her fingers clutched her steering wheel so fiercely that her knuckles were white. She had her pride, he’d give her that. Pride and no money, though Cullen believed she’d empty her wallet to try to fill whatever bill he came up with. Though the thought had never crossed his mind, the fact that Skylar expected nothing from him was a rather nice change of pace from how the rest of the world usually operated.
“I’m not a mechanic. And if I were, you couldn’t afford me.” Cullen jerked his chin toward the road. “Drive safe. And in a direction away from me, please.”
“Don’t.” The word escaped through Skylar’s clenched teeth, her nostrils flaring as she drew a slow breath before glaring at Cullen through the still-open window. Her bloodshot eyes bored into his like twin flames, her expression resentful. “I don’t want your handout, Cullen. And I want to owe you anything even less. You fixed my damn car. If you don’t know what to charge, have the Barbie doll at your front desk draw up a bill.”
“I’ll pass your compliments on to Rachel,” Cullen muttered, tilting his head as he regarded the little strawberry-blonde spitfire for a long moment. Cullen was no fool, and it didn’t take a genius to add up two and two and get four—even a marine could do it. Whatever else was going on with Skylar, she hadn’t been kidding about needing money. And Cullen knew Frank Peterson well enough to know the bastard would do everything to ensure Skylar was barely on life support—just enough to make leaving scary and not a penny more.
When Cullen thought about it that way, loosening Frank Peterson’s control over an overzealous reporter wasn’t that bad an idea.
“You can work it off.” Cullen raised his hand as he saw Skylar’s eyes open in indignation. “At Trident Rescue, Reynolds. Office manager and glorified dispatcher. Trial basis.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “You’re hiring me?”
Cullen ran his hand through his hair, sending droplets of rain down his shirt. “Why not? You’ll probably quit before the month is up anyway.” He didn’t know whether he added that last bit as a brazen challenge to the woman or a soothing prediction to himself.