“You, too.” Replacing the phone in the cradle, Kenzie sat back in the chair and swiveled side to side gently. Maybe she could give Stephen some time in the office or the garage while she waited to return to her normal schedule at the firehouse.
“Was she rude?”
Kenzie smothered the reaction as the deep burr of Stephen’s voice skimmed over the nape of her neck. He stood just outside the door frame, wiping dark streaks from his hands with a shop towel. Something about him sent her heartrate into overdrive. This was not the time for her hormones to take a detour.
“Not at all,” she replied, she managed in a steady voice.
His eyebrows arched in disbelief. “She didn’t do any wheedling to get her minivan back today?”
Kenzie shook her head.
“Huh. Thanks.”
The man was pretty cute when he was baffled. “No problem.” She was about to ask about her own car when the phone rang again. Stephen’s face clouded over with a scowl. “Go on back. I’ll handle it,” she told him.
“Really? Thanks. Just take messages,” he said, practically running back to the shop.
She handled the various inquiries for the rest of the morning. When her stomach was rumbling around noon, she wandered back into the shop with the intent of picking up lunch for both of them. Stephen wasn’t in the garage. The bay where the minivan had been was empty and Kenzie followed the sounds of water running outside.
She found him power washing the brake dust off his sister’s tire rims, and her first thought was that he should hire someone to handle that kind of thing. It would be a great job for some high school kid. Not her business how he wanted to run his garage.
Her second thought, and those that followed right after it, were centered on the way his T-shirt, damp from the spray of water, molded to his chest. When he turned that serious, brooding gaze on her she nearly forgot she was here about lunch.
“Keys are in the loaner,” he added, after requesting a meatball sub from the pizza place down the block.
“They are?”
“Well, sure. It’s yours to use whenever you need it. The key fob will handle the security gate for you.”
She was still processing all the implications of his easy generosity when she returned with lunch. He’d finished the brakes and cleaned up the service bay during her brief absence, and she marveled at his efficiency.
A man who obviously appreciated solitude, he didn’t want her hanging around while they ate, she assumed, but she didn’t want his well-earned break interrupted by the phone. He’d seemed almost afraid of the thing earlier.
“So what’s with delivery over having Megan pick up her minivan?” Kenzie unwrapped her sandwich and took a big bite. “This is amazing.”
He nodded, his mouth full, too. When he’d swallowed, he said, “Delivery tomorrow isn’t ideal, but I’m already doing the job for the cost of parts. If I do it in record time, they’ll never let me rest. Do you know how many Galways there are?”
She did a quick head count. “You have four siblings, right?”
“Yes,” he said between bites. “Add in parents and cousins and in-laws, and a man wouldn’t have time for anything else.”
“I thought Mitch helped you out.”
“He does. He prefers the custom work more than the maintenance stuff,” Stephen said.
“Don’t we all?” There was an excitement in restoration, in breathing new life into quality machinery.
Stephen raised an eyebrow. “To be fair, he would’ve handled Megan’s van if I’d been slammed.”
“Based on the phone calls I managed this morning, I’d say you could be slammed at any given moment. If you can spare the bay, and time with the tools, I can fix my car on my own,” she said. “After hours, so I can stay out of your way.”
“You know cars?” he asked.
“My dad taught me more than enough to handle that particular car.”
He lifted a bottle of water to his lips and Kenzie caught herself staring at his jaw and throat. It was as if he was carved from some substance that could shift between a solid and fluid state at will. He was almost too lean and the shadows under his eyes were a sure sign he didn’t sleep as much as he should.
She belatedly recalled he’d been engaged a few years back, the woman murdered before the wedding. It put Kenzie’s own issues into sharp perspective. Her career was at risk thanks to Murtagh, not her life.
“You think your car is overwhelming for me?”
“I think my car is a piece of crap and well beneath your level of expertise.” She found herself on the business end of that inscrutable expression. What was going on behind the hazel eyes shadowed by those burnished gold eyebrows?
“I can spare the space and tools,” he said. “Thanks for helping out with the phone. I usually just check messages at the end of the day.”
“I didn’t realize you had an answering machine,” she said, trying to contain the happy urge to bounce in her chair. Working on a car, even the pitiful rust-bucket, would be a fabulous distraction until she was back on shift. “That makes me feel better about leaving you this afternoon.”
His brow wrinkled. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m scheduled on the late shift again tonight at the club. Between now and then I need to find a place to stay.” She pointed to the boxes he’d stacked for her near the storeroom. “I can’t just leave all my stuff here in your way.”
Stephen’s hands stilled, the sandwich wrapper balled up between his palms. “You have a place to stay.”
Finding herself the focus of his full attention made her mouth go dry. She felt like the proverbial deer in headlights. It took two attempts to get the right words past her lips. “Last night was too kind. I’m not kicking you out of your house.”
“It’s yours,” he stated. “For as long as you need it.” He stood up, as if that was the end of the conversation.
“But last night you said—”
He cut her off. “I said we’d sort it out today.” He tossed his trash and leaned back against the counter, apparently waiting for her to say something else he could shoot down.
“That feels like way too much of an imposition.”
“You’re wrong.” A muscle jumped in his tense jaw. “I know what firefighters make,” he stated. “And I know what lawyers can charge. If it makes you feel better, keep answering the phone and taking messages when you can.”
“That’s hardly a fair trade for kicking you out of your home,” she protested.
His fingers flexed around the edge of the countertop. The muscles in his forearm bunched and relaxed slowly. “If it’s all I’m asking for, why argue the point?”
“Do logic and reason ring a bell?” Why was he insisting she stay here?
“Does sabotage ring a bell for you?” he countered, his gaze heating up.
This wasn’t the conversation she’d planned on having with him, but it was too late now and she was too aggravated to successfully turn the topic to the Camaro. “I don’t need protection.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Duly noted. Do you want to file a police report about the damage?”
That gave her pause and she took her time to think it through. As both Grant and Stephen had previously pointed out, someone had most likely targeted her with the sugar in her gas tank. At the moment she could think of only one person angry enough with her to try such a stunt. “No.”
“Because you know who did it?” Stephen pressed.
“What good would it do to file a report? I have no idea when it happened.”
“Based on the settling and filter damage, I would guess it happened within the last week,” Stephen said, his voice as hard as his gaze now. “A police report is an official record. It could establish a time line or a pattern of behavior.”
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