Page 5 of Don’t Go Stealing My Heart

She maneuvered in front of the engine. The man didn’t step back, and his long body bumped against hers. Firm. Damp. Warm. “Sorry,” she murmured. Sweat dripped down her cleavage.

He shuffled backward. “No. I’m sorry. You’re nice enough to stop and help, and I’m in the way, standing like an idiot.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Me being in the way?”

“You being an idiot.”

He barked out a laugh.

“Just teasing.” She winked at him, feeling loose and bubbly. More herself than she’d felt in ages. “I meant I don’t mind helping. I travel with emergency supplies, just in case. Nothing worse than car trouble when you’re on the road.” Or fleeing the scene of a crime.

“Considering this baby belonged to my granddad, and hasn’t been on the road in a while, I shouldn’t be surprised she got temperamental.”

That explained the rusted fenders, but it didn’t tamp her rising temperature. She tore her hungry gaze from his transparent shirt. Nothing to see here. Move along. She focused on the car. The engine issue was easy to spot. “Your baby’s vacuum hose is cracked. Too much air passed through the power brake line and the engine backfired. Turned your drive sluggish.”

“Power brake line?”

Clueless men were adorable. Outsmarting them in “manly” tasks was always good fun. “The engine’s intake system. You’ll need a new hose.”

He cursed.

“It’s not that bad. Although I don’t have the part, I have the world’s best cure-all.”

“Does it rhyme with Shmiskey and go down nice and slow?”

She laughed at his unexpected humor, but the steamy visual intensified her hot flashes. She wanted him to go down nice and slow, but that wouldn’t help his Jaguar. Nor would a tumbler of whiskey.

She motioned to her car. “I travel prepared.” He squinted at her Prius, and she barely refrained from explaining her Charger at home was hell on wheels, and that she hated her Prius almost as much she hated her khaki shorts and floral top. “I’ll have you on the road in a jiff,” she said. “But this is a temporary fix. You’ll need to hit a garage as soon as possible.”

“But you can get me moving?”

“For a short while.” She popped her trunk, found the greatest invention known to humankind, and held it in the air. “Consider yourself saved.”

“Duct tape?” He grinned, and the effect had her stumbling over a non-existent stone. Someone should follow him with a road sign: Beware of dimples, shortness of breath ahead.

She tried to fan her face again, but the duct tape and scissors offered less relief than her hand. “You can watch me work, maybe learn something.”

His gaze dropped to her legs and traveled upward. The second he met her eyes, he looked away. “I could do that.”

He didn’t just watch, though. He talked. “You passing through Nebraska?”

“I am.”

“Work or pleasure?”

“Bit of both.”

She kept her answers short. Being the listener was easier. She could smile and nod and make those around her feel important. That part wasn’t a role. She loved learning about others, living vicariously through them. Too much interaction could end like her girls’ night fiasco.

Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome wasn’t making staying quiet easy.

He leaned his hip into his Jag, and some of that haphazard hair flopped onto his forehead. “How’d you learn about cars?”

“A friend.” Lucien, she wanted to say. The man who’d caught her stealing shoes for a shoeless friend and had seen something in her worth nurturing. She flattened her lips and focused on cutting tape strips.

“Where are you from?” he asked.