Deck the Halls. Arlene James
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good. Resetting that sensor was probably all the car had ever needed.
“We’ll see.”
“Okay,” he said lightly. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”
“Oh, really?” She tilted her head, studying him for signs of dishonesty. Had he somehow sabotaged her car so that she’d have to bring it to his shop?
He glanced away pointedly, his sculpted mouth thinning. “You know, not everyone in the automotive-repair business is a crook. In fact, despite our reputation for rip-offs, most mechanics are honest and highly trained.”
To her absolute disgust, color stained her cheeks. “I didn’t say you were a crook.”
He just looked at her, his smoky-blue eyes flat as stone. “No, but you were thinking it.”
Her chin rose defensively. “You have no idea what I was thinking.”
“Don’t I?”
He just stood there, staring at her, until she suddenly realized what he was waiting for. Her hauteur wilted in a pool of mortification. Still, she wasn’t about to apologize.
“Okay, maybe I was thinking it, but you don’t know how often someone like me gets ripped off.”
“Someone like you?” he echoed uncertainly. “And what makes you so different from the rest of us?”
“I’m a single woman, for one thing.”
His expression grew suspiciously bland. “I had noticed that.”
“And I don’t have a lot of money for another,” she snapped, trying to offset the little thrill that his droll comment had produced.
“I would think that would make you less of a target for the unscrupulous, frankly,” he said calmly.
Bitterly, she shook her head. “You would think wrong.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She gulped at the sincere tone of his voice. “The thing is, I don’t know enough about cars to guard against getting ripped off.”
“You could learn,” he suggested lightly. It sounded almost like an invitation.
She looked down at her toes. “I doubt that. I’m not the mechanical type.”
“Just the suspicious type,” he countered dryly.
Rolling her eyes up, she met his gaze. “I have reason to be.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said, his voice softening, “but I know this. You have nothing to fear from me, Jolie Kay Wheeler. On any score. Ever.”
Now what could she say to that? Apparently he didn’t expect a reply, for he started toward the wrecker.
“Well, you try to have a good evening.”
“Yeah, you, too,” she grumbled, disliking the mishmash of feelings that swamped her.
He flipped her a wave, climbed into the truck and drove off, leaving her standing there in the gathering twilight like some oversized, ponytailed traffic cone. Glancing around self-consciously, she made her way to the driver’s seat of her little car and dropped down into it.
A sedan flew by with the blare of a horn. Traffic had moved back into the outside lane the instant Vince and his flashing lights had pulled away, but she had barely noted that fact. Shaking slightly, she switched on her headlamps, jammed the transmission into gear, put on her blinker, turned off her hazard lights and prepared to merge.
It hit her then. Like a ballpeen hammer to the back of the head.
She had never thanked him. A handsome, apparently successful man had gotten her car running for free, and she hadn’t even had the grace to thank him properly. She tried to remember all the reasons why she had been right to suspect his motives, but somehow they didn’t quite ring true.
Jolie brushed her bangs up, then down, blowing out a stiff breath and closing her eyes until the world righted itself and equilibrium returned and she could look at the situation dispassionately.
On second thought, it just didn’t figure. He had to have some ulterior motive, something so slick and cagey that she couldn’t even think of it. And maybe—good gracious—maybe he was just a nice man who liked to help people. Stranger things had happened.
Somewhere.
Sometime.
Telling herself that it didn’t matter, she took a last measuring look at traffic, then pulled away from the curb.
The problem was, somehow it did matter. A lot. Enough to make her feel small and petty and unreasonable.
She was halfway home before it occurred to her that she still had both of those coupons.
Vince shifted in his seat, the safety belt biting into his shoulder. He craned his neck, trying to work out a kink there. It was ridiculous, getting this worked up over a little thing like having his motives questioned. Everyone was suspicious of everybody, at least until they got to know one another. He’d been accused of having ulterior motives before, though not in quite some time. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t fatal.
So she didn’t trust him. So what? The world was full of people who expected automotive repairmen to rip them off. It was foolish to think she would be any different. And what difference did it make, anyway? God had obviously brought her into his life so that he could get her old car running for her again, and that was just what he’d done. End of story.
The thing wasn’t going to run for long, though. With just a cursory inspection he’d found enough wrong under that hood to keep him busy for days, but he’d only mentioned the worst of it because it was obvious that she didn’t have much money. It was just as glaringly obvious that she wouldn’t be easy to help, either.
Maybe that was the point.
If so, he’d definitely be seeing her again. He believed that God had a purpose in all that He allowed into the lives of His children. So if he never saw her again, so be it. It wasn’t his business, after all, to second-guess God, and he was just fine with that.
So why was he fighting the urge to turn around and give her a lecture on the stupidity of looking a gift horse in the mouth?
Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.
He didn’t know her well enough to be this disappointed in her attitude. And he probably never would. A hole seemed to open in his chest, burning hot around the edges.
Vince sighed and tried to concentrate on his driving. He passed an intersection on a green light and immediately heard the screech of tires followed at once by the crunching of metal. Automatically, Vince flipped on his warning lights and pulled out of traffic.
Looking around, he saw that two cars had collided in a grocery-store parking lot across the street. It didn’t seem serious, and it wasn’t impeding traffic, plus, he was off-duty. The fact was, he didn’t make wrecker runs anymore. At least he hadn’t until Jolie Wheeler had called. Well, that would teach him.
Shaking his head, he began making his way across the busy street to the parking lot. What was he going to do? Leave without making certain that no one needed his assistance? Not his style. Then again, neither was embarrassing himself, but he’d managed to do that twice now with Jolie Kay Wheeler. Twice was quite enough. Why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone?
He reached the scene of the mishap, killed his engine and slid out onto the tarmac. Two women were glaring at each other over the hoods of their tangled cars. Vince put on a smile and waded into the fray.
“Can I help, ladies?”
Almost an hour later he’d managed to uncouple their bumpers and pull out a fender so both could be on their way, still angry but maintaining their civility even as they each contemplated a hike in insurance rates. Twenty bucks richer—the one with the crumpled