Page 5 of Lucky Haven

There are a lot of ways I could make her feel good without crossing any of her good girl boundaries.

I’ve spent most of the last seven years imagining each and every scenario, in great detail, as I maintained a very active but entirely fictional sex life.

Because Haven Bingham is the only woman who has made me come since that day in the courtroom when I was sentenced to jail, and she looked at her uncle and said, “This is wrong and you know it.”

Now, she stares at me like maybe I actually am the violent criminal everyone else thinks.

Which is for the best, but it hurts all the same.

I grin. Slowly, I stand, stretching to the full extent of my six feet, four inches. Her gaze chases me as I rise above her. I like making Haven look up at me. “You think I’d rough some people up for you?”

I look left and right, but we’re alone right now.

“Because I would,” I murmur. “Just say the word and I’ll give someone a very bad day.”

“Get on the other side of the counter,” she mutters, but she’s smiling.

I go the long way around, pausing at the new stack of books they’ve gotten in this week that haven’t yet been added to the system.

“Leave those,” she says sternly.

“But you’ll save the thriller on top for me, right?”

She doesn’t answer, but we both know that she will.

I’m grinning as I jog back across the street.

It fades when I see there’s a truck parked in front of the garage that wasn’t there when I left.

The aggressive parade of dusty but virtuous bumper stickers warn me this isn’t a friendly customer. But I’ll take money from everyone, even uptight religious weirdos like Jeb Martin.

“Here’s Cash,” Riley says as I stride into the office. She holds out the clipboard that we use when filling out an intake form.

I grab it. Part of being the boss is handling all the customers that make my mechanic uncomfortable—and sometimes telling them to get lost. This one, though…I have my reasons to not immediately go there. “What can we do for you today?”

She ducks away, muttering that she needs to finish the oil change she was working on when I went across the street to the library.

Jeb squares his shoulders. “Parking brake is stuck.”

“We can take a look at that. Riley explained we’d recommend a full brake inspection?”

“That’s not necessary.”

“As long as you’re willing to sign a waiver that we offered an inspection and you declined it, I can definitely check your parking brake.”

He scrawls something indistinct across the signature line, then hands over his keys like he’s reluctant for me to touch them.

I try not to look like I’m enjoying having him dependent on me. “Have a seat and I’ll take a quick look.”

I eyeball his wheels on the way out to his truck. He definitely needs a brake inspection, but that’s on him, not us.

I get the truck into the bay and on the lift. There’s some corrosion on the cable, and I’d probably suggest a replacement to most customers, but for now I can see that the immediate problem is slack seized into the adjuster. I hit it with some penetrant spray, give it a minute, then grab the cable with pliers and work it free.

Confident I can give him some choices, I head back to the office.

“I got the cable adjusted for you, but you might want to get it replaced so it doesn’t seize again.”

He hunches up his shoulders. “How long would take?”