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She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and returned his smile. Her mouth was tight and stiff enough that he clearly didn’t believe it was genuine and he laughed before ducking back out of sight. He might be fixing her car, but he was also clearly enjoying her helpless dependence on him.
Bastard.
“Get in and try to start it up now,” he instructed.
She sighed again—surely no one in history had sighed as much in a single week as she had since she’d met Ethan—and sat back down in the driver’s seat. The car sputtered once and then the engine turned over with a nice, steady purr. “Huh,” she mused. “What did you do?”
“Do you really want me to explain it to you?”
“I … actually do not,” she admitted. “Cars aren’t exactly my area of interest. Should I take it to a mechanic for a more permanent fix?”
“Shouldn’t need to.” He wiped his hands carelessly on the black pants he wore as he stepped around the car to look down at her and hold out the emergency tool kit for her to take and stuff back under the seat. “Just a minor thing that had wiggled loose and it’s tightened up now.”
She didn’t like the disadvantage of being so much below him and he took a step back to make room for her as she stood up again. “Well, you saved me an expensive commute and a trip to the mechanic. What do I owe you for your help?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? I would have paid a few hundred dollars if I’d had to call a mechanic or get the car towed.”
“You would have but then I wouldn’t have been a very good neighbor, would I?” There was a smirk playing at the edge of his lips and she wanted to wipe it off his face, possibly with her mouth.
It startled her, how much she wanted it, and she could feel the heat of that traitorous blush working its way up her chest again and her cheeks were on fire. It had been a long time since her body had reacted like this to a man and it didn’t help her rising concern that it happened with this man in particular.
What was wrong with her? She shook her head slightly to clear her mind before she did something she’d regret. Women with ambition didn’t let men with pretty mouths turn their heads like this. She knew it. Could nearly hear her mother saying it again and again, even after all these years. The space she’d put between them hadn’t kept the lessons from sticking.
“Is this your attempt to make up for what happened to my flowers?” Better to keep that at the front of her mind. Irritation was a safer emotion and it wasn’t as though he didn’t deserve it after the way he’d behaved.
“You know, you’re obsessed with those damn flowers.”
“Maybe I should come over there and kick the stand out from under your motorcycle and see how long it takes for you to forgive me.”
He shook his head, but she saw his lips twitch. “You’re something else but I get your point.”
“Good.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck, his usual smirk morphing into a more cautious smile. “Listen, let me make it up to you. I can take you to dinner or?—”
“I thought dating wasn’t what you had in mind?” She crossed her arms triumphantly as he gave her a short, surprised half laugh and continued before he could try to argue. “I appreciate the offer but no. I mean, thank you. You know? For the car? But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Like I told you before, I don’t date men like you.” She hardly dated the men that weren’t like him, either, but she knew what he’d say if she admitted to that. That she was frigid. A tease. A prude. She’d heard it all before and she’d become mostly numb to it, but somehow she didn’t want to hear it from his lips.
“Men like me,” he said slowly, weighing the words. “What’s that exactly?”
She dropped the hood of the car with a thump, narrowly missing his fingers as he snatched them back. “The kind with friends that destroy my flowers.”
She’d let him think it was because of something he’d done. Most men simply refused to take the hint that she wasn’t interested, so she’d stopped trying to explain to them that her career had to come first. If she made it personal, they tended to take it personally and stop asking.
“Ah.” He shook his hand, wincing at his fingers and their near miss. “What if I find a way to make that up to you?”
“I doubt there’s any way you could do that.”
“We’ll see.”
He closed the car door for her when she got inside, and she only looked back twice in the rear-view mirror before she turned the corner.
* * *
