He stepped in and reached for her bag, making her leap backward as if he'd scalded her. She banged her elbow against the car, swore under her breath, and gave him a heated look before thinking better of it. “Please. Just . . . don't do that.”
His jaw tightened slightly, but he managed to keep his gaze level. “I'm only trying to help with your bag. I was going to offer you a lift over to the B&B, but, you know what? My day has been long enough already, thanks. I don't know what your problem is, darlin', but I'm really not tryin' to be part of it, okay? We clear?”
“Very,” she said, well past mortification and operating solely on auto-pilot. She had to get out of there. Had to get somewhere away. Alone. Immediately. Everything that could go wrong had, and then there was the heat, and now this. She didn't have anything left to deal with it. She wasn't ready. How in the hell had she thought she'd ever be ready?
She felt the tears well, which only served to undo whatever reserve she had left. When things got tough, laughter had always been her default reaction. Because crying wasn't an option. Ever. Tears lowered way, way too many guards. But . . . at this point, what the hell difference did it make what she did? The mechanic already suspected she was some kind of a nut job, and, if small town Sugarberry was anything like small town Juniper Hollow, word would spread on that little piece of news before the dinner hour was over.
He was in front of her again, but had stopped a clear foot or two away. He didn't look belligerentâexactlyâbut he didn't look compassionate, either. “Put the suitcase down,” he said in what she assumed was as close to a gentle tone as he could manage. “I'll take it out to my truck. I'll put it in the back. You can get in the back, too, if that helps. I'll have you at the Hughes's place in two minutes. And I'll call you when your car is done.”
He was trying to be kind, or his version of it, anyway. But he was talking to her like she was a crazy chick with a good chance of doing bodily harmâto him or herself. She couldn't exactly blame him, but damn, it made her feel tired. So very, very . . . tired.
And she hadn't even started her new life yet.
“Thank you,” was all she said as evenly as she could manage. She let go of the suitcase and walked past him, frowning the threatening tears into submission. Straight through the back door, she didn't stop until she stood by the passenger door of the only pickup truck parked behind his garage.
A moment later, she heard the bay doors being rolled down, then the back door slap shut. From the corner of her eye, she saw him load her suitcase in the open flatbed.
“Door's unlocked,” he said, walking around to the driver's side and climbing in.
She got in, closed the door, pulled on the seat belt, rolled the window all the way down, and very carefully kept her gaze straight out the front window.
He didn't say a word as he drove her the half mile or so to the front of a tidy little island bungalow with a sign out front, announcing it was THE HUGHES'S B&B. He put the truck in PARK, left the engine running, and got out.
By the time she climbed out and closed the door, her suitcase sat on the low curb by the side of the road.
“Tell Miz Barbara I've got your car, that you're stuck for a night or two. She'll give you a good deal on the room.”
Honey nodded, feeling nothing but numb. And foolish. So ridiculously foolish.
Apparently happy to make his escape, and not requiring or expecting any further conversational niceties, Dylan headed back around the front of the truck, leaving her and her suitcase parked on the curb.
“Thank you,” she said, finding her voice, if not her courage. She kept her gaze averted.
“No problem.”
She wasn't sure what prompted her, or where the words came from, or why on earth it mattered, but when she heard the truck door creak open, she looked up, looked at him. “I'm not crazy.”
He glanced over at her and she held his gaze, almost defiantly.
“I'm not.” Immediately, she wished the words back. Pathetic and pitiable were two things she refused to be. Ever.
Rather than look at her with either of those emotions flickering in his gray eyes, he did something that shook her hard-won control in a way she'd least expected. He grinned. Broadly.
“Sugar, we all have a little bit of crazy in us. It's what keeps us interesting.” Then he climbed in his truck and drove off.
Honey stood there and watched until his taillights disappeared around the corner. Then she did something that only five seconds earlier she thought she no longer had in her to do again, possibly ever. She laughed.
Danger. Danger, indeed.
Chapter 2
D
ylan had known she'd be some kind of trouble from the moment he'd read her name on the service order.
Honey D'Amourvell.
Sounded like very old, deep pockets Southern money. Or a stripper. Either way, she wasn't something the fine citizens of Sugarberryâwell, one particular citizen, anywayâneeded to deal with. Then he'd gone out to look at the car: a powder blue '72 Volkswagen Beetle.
Definitely not old money . . . unless it was eccentric old money.
So, he'd been assuming stripper, while looking over the initial list Dell had compiled of what needed to be done to get her junker up and running again. Vintage parts like she was going to need were going to take some tracking down. And likely cost a king's ransom.
Given the condition the car had been in even before it had broken down and the equally ancient suitcase she'd lugged out of the car, he'd bet his own bottom dollar she didn't have such a tidy sum. Maybe it was a sentimental junker and she had a sweet little hot rod stashed somewhere across the causeway on the mainland.
I could only be so lucky,
he'd thought as he'd pushed through the door to the bench out back of the shop. He'd glanced up from the work order on the clipboard to tell Ms. D'Amourvell the sad and sorry news, only to have the words jam right up in his throat.
Honey was no stripper. Neither tall nor short, large or particularly small, she was just . . . well, average. She had brown hair that was probably about shoulder length, pulled back in a single ponytail, and didn't wear any makeup that he could tell. Even in this heat, she'd covered herself pretty much head to toe. Definitely not a stripper.
But he hadn't actually been thinking about that. He'd been caught off guard by what she
was
revealing, inadvertent though it had been.
The one truly memorable thing about Honey D'Amourvell was her eyes. Not so much because they were an interesting shade of green, although they were so light in color they were almost spooky. Probably just an effect created by the black horn rim glasses she wore. It was what was in those spooky eyes that had made him feel incredibly stupid for assuming anything based on a name. He, of all people, knew better.
She'd been staring across the back alley at the buildings that fronted the corner of the town square. Normally, the thought of the cupcake bakery brought a pleasant smile to his face. He wasn't one for sweets, so had never been through the front door of either part of the establishment, but in the short time his garage had been in its new location, he'd done the neighborly thing, nodded when waved to, observed the comings and goings, had even jumped a dead battery for one of the cupcake ladies, and fixed a flat for another.
Small communities usually bred far more familiarity, but he wasn't a chatty sort and didn't much care to air his personal business. Several generations of the Ross family had contributed more than enough personal business to the community grapevine. The recent loss of the original garage buildings due to a fire down by the docks had stirred up the old gossip all over again. But the cupcake ladies didn't pryâmuchâso he'd accepted the occasional baked treat and tolerated a little friendly chitchat.
Yesterday, however, thinking of them hadn't brought an automatic smile to his face . . . because they surely hadn't brought a smile to his newest customer's face. Nor had they brought a frown. The look on her face had been . . . wistful.
Generally, Dylan stayed in the service bay and let Dell handle the people part of the business. The kid was a natural with any and all movable parts and could probably assemble an engine blindfolded, but he was equally good with the people side of things, which suited Dylan just fine. He could keep his focus on the work at hand. As he saw it, his job was to deliver reliable, dependable service, fixing what needed to be fixed for as reasonable a price as possible. It meant something to him that he'd kept afloat the family business that had been launched sixty-five years ago by his late grandfather and great-uncle, later joined by his father, then briefly by his older brother, and now operated solely by him.
He considered himself a rather observant man. Like any good mechanic, he put a lot of stock in the senses he'd been born with. Oftentimes he could decipher the problem with a car just by the sound it made, the feel of a certain vibration, or the smell it gave off. Observation skills also came in handy when judging his customers, figuring how best to deal with them. So it wasn't altogether surprising that he'd noticed her look of unfettered yearning. What did surprise him was that he'd reacted so viscerally to it.
He prided himself on his powers of observation, yes, but they were second only to his ability to maintain his objectivity in any and all situations. He didn't let things get personal, because . . . well, because he never let things get personal. And Miss Honey D'Amourvell was anything but personal to him. He'd never laid eyes on the woman before.
So why that look on her face yanked a knot in his gut, he couldn't have said. Likely, it had been his inability to figure that out that had him clearing his throat a bit too forcefully, and doling out the bad news to her a bit more gruffly than absolutely necessary. Mostly, he just wanted to get her taken care of and out of his shop so he could go back to being impersonal, private, and unaffected.
And yet, a day later, he still couldn't get her off his mind. Pushing back the heavy hank of hair that insisted on falling forward and plastering itself to his sweaty forehead, he made a mental note to visit Ollie's and get the barber to just shave his head. “Damn, it's hot.”
He dropped one socket wrench into his tool box, grabbed another, then bent back over the VW's ancient engine, which some German rocket scientist had decided to cram in the trunk . . . and found himself thinking about what she'd been wearing.
Not stripper clothes, that's for damn sure.
Not even particularly feminine ones, for that matter. She'd had on loose fitting Army green khakis that had been artfully decorated with stitching or patchwork and what looked like beadsâhe wasn't much for craftsâalong with well-worn, combat-worthy hiking books, and some kind of white gauzy blousy thing that looked more like mosquito netting with some elastic here and there. With the stitched-on beads and gauzy shirt, she was more artsy-gypsy than stripper . . . if gypsies wore horn rim glasses. Oddly enough, those had turned him on. Just a little. Something about mystical green eyes being framed with all that serious, no nonsense black.
“Of course, she's also batshit crazy,” he muttered, glowering at the clamp he was trying to wrench loose.
So . . . why was he still thinking about her?
More to the point, why couldn't he stop thinking about her? It wasn't a surprise that he'd thought about her initially. It wasn't every dayâor any dayâthat someone freaked out all over the inside of his garage like she had. A woman like that was memorable. Just not for the right reasons.
But he hadn't been thinking about that when he'd come in this morning to go over her engine after doing some research to track down the list of parts he was going to need, and he wasn't thinking about it seven hours later as he stared at an engine that was more museum piece than part of a functioning form of transportation.
What he couldn't stop thinking aboutâthen and nowâwas that one moment when he'd first laid eyes on her. Despite all the crazy chick stuff that had happened later, that moment stuck with him. It had been that vulnerable look, and maybe that moment when she'd paused with her back to him, bracing herself on the open door of her car, when he'd noticed her hand wasn't steady. And her shoulders were too rigidly held.
That raw yearning from earlier had echoed through his mind, and had him wondering what had made her react to him as she had. He'd tried to be a bit more . . . well, maybe
compassionate
wasn't exactly the right word. Ultimately, he'd just wanted her the hell out of his shop. The only problems he was comfortable tackling were the ones that could be rolled into his service bay . . . then rolled right back out again.
But she'd looked . . . fragile . . . so he'd put on kid gloves as best he knew how and delivered her to the Hughes's place then tried to turn his attention to the only aspect of her existence that he could let himself care about. Her ancient car. Because he definitely didn't need crazy in his life.
He'd had about all of that he could take growing up. Mercifully, just the one son was left of Ross & Sonsâhim.
He was the only one he had to deal with on a regular basis, and fortunately, he wasn't batshit crazy, which made life kind of nice for a change. Quiet, too. Maybe too quiet at times. But he'd take too quiet over the alternative every single minute of every day he had left on this earth and be damn grateful for it.
He channeled his frustration with himself into a little more elbow grease, determined to wrench the half-rotted hose and clamp loose orâ
A wince-inducing squeal of metal on metal shrieked through the humid shop air, followed by a shrill snap . . . and the tinny sound of a piece of Honey D'Amourvell's Jurassic-era engine pinging off parts of the motor before clattering to the cement floor under her car.
“Well, shit.”
What the hell kind of name is Honey D'Amourvell for a woman who looks like she does, anyway?
He grunted as he hunkered down and reached for the busted clamp.
So, she wasn't a stripper, or old money, but that name conjured up all kinds of sultry, breathy
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
type images. One that came packaged with a deep Southern drawl, a throaty laugh, and a smile that promised all kinds of heartache. The kind a man would willingly suffer through, just to get more of the rest.
The Honey who drove that godforsaken pile of rust was none of those things. What she was, already, was a pain in his ass.
He crawled half under the car to reach the snapped ring, giving in to the need to vent a few of the more colorful words in his vocabulary when it skittered just beyond his reach.
“My, my, it sounds like someone is having a challenging day.”
Dylan closed his eyes briefly, found a calming breath from somewhere, stretched and snagged the damn busted part, then slowly crawled out, got to his feet and turned around. “Afternoon, Miz Alva. Pardon my language. What brings you around today? Problem with the Lincoln?”
Alva Liles was one of the oldest residents of the island, somewhere north of eighty, but with the sharp mind of someone half her age. She stood just inside the bay door, decked out in one of a seemingly endless array of skirt, blouse, and sweater ensembles she always woreâtoday in varying shades of blueâand always with that strand of pearls around her neck. She had to be sweltering in all those layers, but she looked, as always, fresh as a spring daisy. Probably something to do with the helmet of lacquered curls perched ever so precisely on top of her head that wouldn't dare wilt, even in the heat. She was the tiniest thing, barely hitting five feet, even in her sensible, matronly pumps.
“Oh, goodness no,” she reassured him. “That car wouldn't dare malfunction now that you've got her all tuned up and purring like a cat napping in a sunbeam.”
Despite his momentary frustration, he felt the corners of his mouth twitch. She was a character, Miss Alva was. He wiped his hands on the shop rag he'd tucked in his back pocket. “Then what brings you by? Now, if this is about the poker game, I'm flattered to be asked to buy in, but I haven't changed my mind. Iâ”
“Now, now. I'm not here to strong arm you into playing in my Spring Fling tournament, even if we both know you could use a bit of socializing.”
His lips did curve a little then. She made him sound like a poorly trained dog who needed a turn at obedience school. He supposed she wasn't far from wrong on that score, but he'd made it this far off the leash; he wasn't about to strap one on now. “I appreciate the leniency.”
She lowered a perfectly penciled brow at the amusement in his tone, but spared him the lectureâwhich he also appreciated, because when Alva Liles put her mind to something, she usually prevailed.
“I dropped by because we had our little cupcake club yesterday and I still have a jelly roll left after we made our rounds of the hospital wards over in Savannah today. I thought you might enjoy something a little sweet, what with all this heat and you working right out in it. A bite of this and a pitcher of lemonade would be just the thing.” She beamed. “It's cherry. Your favorite.”
He accepted the neatly plastic-wrapped bundle she handed to him. “Now, how do you know cherry is my favorite?”
She smiled and those faded blue eyes of hers twinkled. “Because when you taste my cherry jelly roll, it will be.”
He couldn't help it; he smiled right back. “You're probably right. I appreciate the thought. Good of you to stop by.”
He crossed the cement floor and ducked into his office long enough to pop the package on top of the microwave. When he reentered the service bay, she was looking under the hood of the Volkswagen. “Careful there, Miz Alva. Shouldn't get too close.”
“I remember these cars,” she said, not budging, a wistful note in her voice. “I wanted one, but my dear, departed Harold thought they were impractical. His sister, June, had one when we were dating. It was 1949, or thereabouts. They were just becoming popular. We borrowed it once.” She glanced up at Dylan, that twinkle magnified now. “He was right. Couldn't do a damn thing without that stick shift getting in the way.”
It was a good thing Dylan hadn't given in to the growl in his stomach and pinched a bite of the jelly roll, because he'd have surely choked on it. “Well . . . I wouldn't rightly know,” he somehow managed.