Beth Harbison - Head Over Heels

“And I turned you down without help from anyone.” He drank, then leveled his eyes on Grace. “If it had stopped there, we’d have no problem.”

“What happened?”

“Fred Bailey happened,” he said, confirming her fears. “He strongly ‘suggested’ that I reconsider you for the position, no matter how unqualified you are. What did you do, call him from your cell phone as soon as you got outside?”

“No!” Grace was hurt by the accusation. “I saw him in the parking lot when I left, and he asked what I was doing there. When I told him what happened, he offered to talk to you, but I declined. I had no idea he’d done it anyway, and I’m sorry he did.”

“This is the way things have always worked for you, Grace.” Luke shook his head and took an angry slug of his beer, hammering it back down on the countertop.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“That means it’s always been easy for you. You’ve always known just what you wanted and gotten it.” He lowered his voice slightly and added, “No matter what the cost.”

She railed in anger. “That’s not true. Number one, if you think this is my dream job and I went after it pulling all the powerful strings I could because I wanted it so badly, you’re crazy. And number two, I would hardly say my life is easy. You have a lot of nerve making presumptions of any sort about me.” She caught her breath. “And what do you mean ‘no matter what the cost’?”

He looked as though he was about to fire back at her, then stopped. “That’s none of my business. It’s between you and whoever you make your deals with. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“That’s right, you shouldn’t. You have no right to judge me, Luke Stewart. No right at all.”

“I’ll keep my thoughts to myself from now on.”

“Right,” she said. “Like you always have, huh? Like you even can. You may not say anything, but you have a way of getting your disapproval across.”

“I don’t think you want to have that conversation,” Luke said, in a voice that assured her that she did not.

“I don’t want to have any conversation with you!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then you’re going to find it particularly tedious to work for me, don’t you think?”

She threw her hands up in the air. “So what do you want me to do? You want me to say I won’t take the job?” she asked, fighting the urge to do just that. “You want me to quit before I even start?”

He gave a quick shake of the head. “Oh, no, I don’t want you to quit. I want you to come in tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. and start learning the parts of the engine.” He gave a quick, humorless smile. “You had your chance to decline. Now you have to go through with this. We need a driver and, like it or not, you’re it.”

Chapter Four

Three weeks later, Grace knew more about school buses than she’d ever dreamed she would. It was Wednesday, two days before she was set to take the test for her commercial driver’s license and five days before the first day of summer school—when she was supposed to begin driving.

Assuming she passed the test, that was.

It apparently had a first-time failure rate of 49 percent. Grace would have accepted those odds more comfortably if she hadn’t already come out on the short end of the 47-percent failure rate of first marriages.

She and Luke stood before the bus in the early-morning heat. It was not yet nine o’clock. Luke had insisted that Grace meet him on campus every day at 7:00 a.m. so they could get their work done before it got too hot and humid outside. Or so he said. She suspected the early hour was really because he wanted to make this whole experience as miserable as possible for her.

“All right,” Luke said, taking a sip of steaming coffee from a paper gas-station cup. “The test official is going to ask you to go through an outside sight inspection first, identifying all the major parts of the engine and frame.”

“How can you drink steamy coffee on a hot morning like this?” Grace asked. “You know, they make whipped frozen coffees that are really good.”

He gave her a look. “Is it necessary to discuss my drink preferences, or can we just move forward with what’s actually important?”

“Okay, okay. Move on.” She took a deep breath, like an athlete preparing for a sprint. “I’m ready.”

He stepped back and gestured toward the bus. “Then go for it. Tell me everything you’re checking as you do it.”

“Okay.” Her hands tingled with nervousness, but she wasn’t about to admit to him that this was harder than she thought it would be. If he noticed her shake, she’d blame it on the frozen whipped coffee she’d had on her way in. “First I check the headlights, taillights and brake lights, to make sure there are no cracks.” She walked around the bus, looking at all the plastic covers on the lights as she spoke, then stopped where she’d started again. “Everything looks fine.”

“Everything?” he asked, as if he’d caught her in a lie.

“Oh, the reflectors.” She’d nearly forgotten the reflectors again. For some reason she had made that mistake almost every time. She made another round, then came back and looked to Luke for approval.

He said nothing, just watched her impassively.

She wasn’t going to let him rattle her. “Okay, then. Tires.”

“What about them?” His mouth almost lifted into a smile. Almost.

She couldn’t help but admire the curve of his lips. That was something she’d always noticed whenever she saw him. He had a great mouth. Not full and girlish, but not lipless and hard. Just right.

And, she remembered with a reluctant shiver, he’d known just how to use it.

“Tires?” he prompted. “What are you supposed to look for there?”

She shook herself back into the moment. Tires. “The tread has to be four thirty-seconds of an inch, the rims have to be rust-free and smooth. No cracks. Valve caps on. And you can’t just take them off another car in the parking lot like you could with a normal car.”

“Is this the kind of thing you’re planning to say to the cop who tests you?”

She ignored his question and turned to kneel in front of the first tire. She half suspected Luke might have changed it since she went through this drill yesterday, but it looked the same. “So now I’m supposed to take the hubcap off—” she wrestled with it until it came free “—and check the slugs and grease seal.”

“Lugs,” Luke said.

“Huh?”

“It’s lugs. You keep saying slugs.” For the first time in two weeks he smiled. “You’re talking about tires, not guns.”

“I said lugs,” she lied, disarmed by his grin. What a weapon he had there. “You heard wrong.”

“Uh-huh.” He could see right through her.

She’d always been a terrible liar. “Where was I?”

“You mentioned tread, rims, valve caps, grease seals and ‘slugs,’” Luke said. There was a light in his eyes for a moment, but it dimmed quickly and he was back to business. “Anything else?”

Obviously he had something in mind. What was she forgetting now? She repeated the list in her mind twice before it came to her. “Air! I’m checking the air pressure. And making sure there’s no fabric showing through the rubber tire. Although, frankly, isn’t this the kind of thing they check for you at the gas station when you go to full service?”

“You’re not going to full service anymore, Grace,” Luke said. “At least not on the school’s dime.”

He was right—she wasn’t living in a full-service world anymore. Not here or at home. She went back to her drill, checking each tire in turn. “Next I check the wiper blades, the gas door,” she moved from one part to the next as she spoke, “and the running board.” She stepped on it and pushed hard with her foot. The bus rocked.