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Chapter Three
What the fuck…!Sloan jumped, his nerves rioting. “How the hell did you get in here?”
The lady staring back at him didn’t blink at his rudeness; instead, his edginess made her grin. “I’m with them.” She pointed to the door he’d been listening at.
Disgusted, Sloan waited to hear an explanation.Where the hell had his skills gone? Eight months ago no one could have snuck up on him like that.
Roy suddenly appeared and spoke to the light-haired beauty who’d shocked the shit out of him. “Missy, didn’t I tell you to wait for me in the coffee room?”
She flipped her head in a saucy way, sniffed and replied. “Can’t a lady go to the bathroom in this joint without getting in trouble?”
Roy stepped back. “Oh darn, I wasn’t very thoughtful leaving you here alone. Glad you found your way.”
She pointed to the washroom sign on the wall and added, “That kinda helped.”
Totally off-kilter, genuinely flustered in the way the senior tended to be around females, Roy added, “I’m sorry. I had to take the garbage out. Les left a mess lying around, stinking up the place, and I wanted to catch the truck this morning.” Obviously upset, his Santa-like face turned red and he swallowed hard.
Reaching to touch his arm, she spoke gently. “Please, think nothing of it.” Blue eyes, as vivid as Roy’s own, twinkled at him. Sloan watched his friend melt. He enjoyed the moment until he heard sounds filtering through the door again.
“Excuse me for butting in on your lovefest.” Sloan didn’t try to hide his grumpiness. “If you two don’t mind being interrupted, what the hell is going on here? And who’s in there?”
Gesturing his head toward the female, his way of telling Sloan to curb his tongue ‘cause there was a lady present, Roy answered, “You mean the other two agents who came calling a few minutes ago? I let them in there to wait for ya.”
Heat poured into Sloan’s face as he tossed his weapon onto the nearby tool chest. He glared his embarrassment at the old brat, who was having trouble hiding his glee at having caught Sloan off-guard.
“Why didn’t you tell me you let them in?”
“I thought I just did.”
“Roy, quit messing with me. There’ve been a lot of thefts in the neighborhood lately. It’s made me cautious.”
Roy’s eyes widened, the vivid blue attention-getters flashing in his otherwise nondescript white-bearded face. Sloan had his interest now. “I forgot about that. Sorry, I should have stuck around to warn you.”
Knowing that a situation like this could upset Roy for days, Sloan hurried to soothe him. “No problem, Roy. It’s fine.”
Paying attention and not trying to hide it, the lady questioned with a no-nonsense attitude, “Haveyouhad any break-ins so far?”
“Not since I installed the alarm system with the video surveillance.” Sloan shrugged. “I figure even kids know where they shouldn’t be messing around.” His glance slid past her to Roy. “So, who’s visiting?” Sloan arched his head toward the door of his office.
“One of them is your old partner, Don. He’s with another man who looked around the place like it was the same dump it used to be.”
Sloan knew how much old Roy had loved the changes, unlike the other gray-haired orphan he’d inherited from his dad. Les still grumbled about the updates, muttering about how he could never find anything.
“Don’s the only reason I let them in; figured you’d be happy to see him.”
“I’m always happy to see him outside of business hours. Not so much if he’s making an official call.” Sloan raised his eyebrow at the attractive woman dressed in a casual light blue business suit. Sporting a flared short skirt, it showed her tanned legs to advantage. She waited until he’d looked his fill and stared back without a speck of emotion.
Roy broke into the uncomfortable silence. “They badgering you to come back to work for them?”
Sloan didn’t break eye contact with her; instead, he stared her down and took a short breath of relief when she was the first to look away.
Roy cleared his throat, obviously still waiting for Sloan’s answer. He decided not to bullshit because Roy could read him like a lie detector.
“Not lately. We were pretty close to closing a few cases they’d had on the books for years. But Don’s a good guy. He can handle it.” Sloan turned away so Roy or the chick wouldn’t see his yearning, but the old buzzard couldn’t be fooled. He grabbed Sloan’s shoulder and squeezed, his way of showing understanding and affection.
“I’ll go see what they want and get rid of them. You look after our visitor here… and remember. We’ve got the Vanguard’s vehicle to finish today. Thankfully, Les is painting the final design trim this morning. We did promise we’d have the car ready after five. I need to get those drawings done for the ‘66 Stingray, so you can get the boys working on the powertrain build. And you still have the motor to overhaul and the drive shaft.”
Back to business, Roy nodded, took the woman’s arm like a gentleman and led her away. She hesitated, but only for a minute. Sloan watched them and shook his head, the tubby, slightly crippled senior citizen always solicitous of the opposite sex – Beauty and the Beast.
Sloan’s eyes glommed onto the sway of her hips, sexy without meaning to be. Her slender albeit muscular form could stop construction workers in their tracks. But it would be her glorious legs that would bring the whistles. His own lips puckered up but the sound came out so low only he heard it.
Maybe not!As if his eyes burned into her body, she turned and threw him a challenging one-sided grin; no humor, only a silent message:eat your heart out!
Sloan wilted; feeling a flash of instant sexual hunger so intense, he had to catch himself. Babysitting these two old guys had put a real crimp in his partying. It was past time to find himself a honey and get some much needed attention to his own drive shaft.
He pulled himself together, arched his back and tried to wipe off the grease spots from his latest uniform of tight jeans. He tucked in one side of the black golf shirt with the garage’s logo,Booker’s,embroidered in white on the pocket. Then he grabbed his wavy black hair to tie it back with the elastic band he always carried in his pocket. Pissed at himself for letting it get so long, he shrugged.
With no regulations forcing him to keep it trimmed, his barber visits were low on his pole of priorities. Picking up his mug of lukewarm coffee, he faced the closed door and straightened his shoulders.
