Page 11 of Finding Her Billionaire Cowboy Mismatch

“Was that a whole sentence? I’m framing it.”

A short sound left him, close kin to a laugh. “I talk when there’s something worth the breath.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“I let the quiet do the asking. Folks tell you most everything, you give them room.”

She turned that over without a word, the flashlight steady on the lug nuts.

“Your daddy teach you the strong, silent routine,” she said, “or did you come by it honest?”

“Grandad. Earl. Raised me out past Terry Hill after my folks passed.” He fit the wrench to the top nut. “Man could go a whole day on a nod and a grunt and still say more than most.”

“Sounds a piece of work, your grandad.”

“He was the best of them.” Stephen broke the nut loose. “What about you. Where’d a town girl learn to hold a flashlight steady on a flat?”

“My daddy ran a one-truck hauling outfit. I was changing tires before I was tall enough to drive on them.” She braced her elbow on her knee. “So go on and load your truck whatever way you please. I just like the paper to match the pile at the end.”

He let that sit. The cold he’d hung on her back at the barbecue didn’t square with the woman kneeling in his headlights, holding the light right where he needed it and not crowding his hands.

“You don’t come to the socials,” she said. “Six years at Bolton, and I’d never laid eyes on you before that barbecue.”

“Work doesn’t quit for a social.”

“Everybody’s work quits sometime.”

“Mine keeps better company.” He set the next nut. “No offense to the company.”

“Some taken.” But she was near smiling again. “You hide out on that land as if it’ll run off the minute you turn your head.”

“It might.” He said it lighter than he meant it, and she let the heavier thing underneath go on by, which he counted a kindness.

The jack chose that moment to slip on the soft board, the truck dropping an inch with a lurch. Before he’d swallowed the word he didn’t say out loud, Elise had her shoulder to the fender and a fresh board jammed under the base of the jack.

“You’ve done this before,” he said.

“Told you. Hauling outfit.” She wiped her palms down her ruined slacks without a flicker of regret. “You figured I only pushed paper.”

He had figured that. He didn’t admit it. He set the spare on the studs and spun the nuts down, and the afternoon stopped being a chore somewhere along the way without his leave.

The spare went on tight. He let the truck off the jack, stowed the tools, and pointed them down the road with the light going gold over the pastures.

She rode most of the way quiet, worn down to easy, her head against the window frame and her clipboard hugged to her chest.

He turned into the Hickory Hollow lot as the yard lights buzzed on.

“That was less of a catastrophe than I budgeted for,” she said, gathering her things.

“High praise.”

“Don’t get accustomed to it, Garrett.” But the bite had gone out of it. She stepped down, then leaned back into the cab. “Thank you. For the ride, and for not gloating about the tire.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She shut the door and crossed to her car, and Stephen sat a beat longer than the moment called for, one hand on the shifter and his eyes on the office door easing shut behind her.

Then he put it in gear.