"Lucy is a real car," Anne Moore protested.
"Depends on your definition of 'real,' I guess. Personally, I think a real car should hold more than one and a half people. And have the ability to go more than thirty miles an hour."
"Lucy holds two people quite comfortably.''
"Only if they're contortionists," Lisa muttered.
"And she'll go more than thirty miles an hour."
"Only if you get out and push."
Anne laughed, reaching for the seat belt as Lisa pulled up next to the garage. It was an old argument, one neither of them expected to win. "You're just jealous because my car has a personality."
"Like a professional hypochondriac. If it isn't the brakes, it's the engine or the transmission. You only bought the stupid thing because no one else wanted it."
Anne shrugged, but couldn't deny the accusation. "They were going to send her to the junkyard."
"That's where it belongs," Lisa pointed out.
"Shh, she might hear you," Anne said, grinning as she nodded to the open garage door.
Lisa gave the ancient VW Bug that sat inside a sour look. "Nothing that old can possibly have any hearing left. Do you know how old that thing is in dog years?"
"If she was a dog, I'd worry," Anne said dryly. She pulled the door handle. ''Thanks for the lift."
"Hubba hubba." At Lisa's soft exclamation, Anne, one foot already on the ground, turned to look at her. Lisa was staring, mesmerized, toward the open garage, and when Anne followed her gaze, she could understand why.
Hubba hubba, indeed, Anne thought. The man leaning over the VW's engine compartment was a jeans manufacturer's dream come true. Faded denim clung lovingly to narrow hips and long legs.
"If I were a man, I'd say something sexist, like 'That's the most incredible butt I've ever seen,'" Lisa breathed reverently.
"It's not sexist when it's true."
"He must be from out of town. I'd know if a butt like that lived in Loving," Lisa said with conviction.
"Do you suppose the rest of him lives up to the rear view?" Anne's hand still gripped the door handle, but she'd forgotten all about getting out.
"It couldn't possibly."
As if in answer to the question, he straightened and half turned toward them. The dim light inside the garage made it impossible to see his features clearly, but what they could see was more than enough.
"Look at those shoulders," Lisa sighed.
Anne was already looking. The black T-shirt molded his torso, revealing broad shoulders that tapered into a narrow waist and flat stomach. He was tall— an inch or two over six feet—"and every inch of that was lean muscle. Thick dark hair fell onto his forehead, and, even from a distance, the overall impression was one of rugged masculine beauty.
"I hate to use such a cliche, but there's a genuine hunk,'' Lisa said.
"Maybe he has buck teeth."
"Or crossed eyes."
"Or he's gay," Anne said with gloomy certainty. They were both silent a moment, contemplating the depressing likelihood of that.
He moved farther into the garage, out of their sight, and both women sighed. Anne shook herself a little and remembered to pull the door handle. "I wonder who he is."
"Maybe David finally hired someone to help in the garage," Lisa said. "He's been threatening to find part tune help for the last couple of years."
"More likely he's just passing through town,"
Anne commented as she pushed open the door. More people moved out of Loving, Indiana, than moved into it, and, even from a distance, there was a coiled, restless look about the stranger that made it difficult to imagine him settling in a sleepy little fanning town.
"Are you coming to dinner with Jack tonight?"Anne asked as she started to slide out of the car.
"Sure. Where else can I go to have my character called into question and my fashion sense insulted, all in one fun-filled evening?"
"It's not that bad.''
"Sure it is. Your mom detests me. She detested me fifteen years ago when Brooke was alive and I was her best friend, and she detested me when I moved back to Loving two years ago. Hell, she probably even detested me the ten years I was in California." Lisa shrugged, one corner of her mouth angling down in a rueful smile. "One thing you've got to hand her is that she's consistent."
"She doesn't detest you," Anne protested weakly. "She just...worries that—"
"That your brother is going to ask me to marry him," Lisa said bluntly.
"It's not that. Exactly." Catching her friend's eye, she amended the statement. "Not just that, anyway. She just doesn't want to see Jack—"
"Make a mistake?" Lisa asked, dry as dust. She shook her head when Anne flushed. "Don't let it bother you. I don't. Your mother thinks that if Jack marries me, he'll stay in Loving and keep his job as sheriff." Exasperated, Lisa shoved her fingers through her hair, tousling the deep red curls into even greater disarray. "He's thirty-five, for God's sake, but, I swear, she still thinks he's going to go back to med school and become the world famous surgeon she planned on your father being. That ended when Brooke died. Why can't she just accept that?"
A lot of things had ended when her sister died, Anne thought, but all she said was, "Acceptance isn't a big part of my mother's vocabulary."
"A masterpiece of understatement."
Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then Anne broke the silence. "I think the politically correct phrase would be a masterpiece of understatement," she said solemnly.
Lisa considered for a moment and then shook her head. "No, I think it would have to be a personpiece of understatement."
"A personpiece?" Anne wrinkled her nose. "Makes me think of Hannibal Lector!"
Lisa waggled her eyebrows. "You bring the fava beans and I'll bring the Chianti. We can tell your mom it's a hostess gift."
Anne was smiling when she got out of the car, but the smile faded as the car pulled away. She'd known Lisa most of her life, though when she was a child, the six-year difference in their ages had been an unbridgeable gap and Anne had known her only as her older sister's friend. Their friendship had started two years ago, when Lisa moved back to Indiana.
On the surface, they didn't have much in common. Lisa was an artist. Anne worked as a secretary in a bank. Lisa had moved to California when she was twenty, had married a musician and traveled all over the country with him. When they divorced, she took her half of their community property and went to Europe for six months. Other than a trip to the Disney World amusement park when she was a child, Anne had never been more than a couple of hours' drive from Loving. She'd also never had a serious relationship with a member of the opposite sex, unless you counted Frank Miller, and she really hated the idea of counting him. After more than a year of casual dating, she could barely remember what he looked like between dates.
But despite their differences—or maybe because of them—she and Lisa had become close friends.
And the fact that Lisa and Jack were dating would have made it a picture-perfect situation if it wasn't for her mother's politely implacable hostility, Anne thought, as she stepped out of the bright sunlight and into the dim garage.
Maybe there was a God after all, Neill thought, looking at the woman who'd just walked into the garage. She'd stopped just out of the sunlight, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the relative gloom. Maybe it was shallow to ascribe a ride into town, a cold Coke and half a dozen Oreos to divine intervention, but, when you threw in a pretty blonde in a blue-flowered sundress, there was no longer any room for doubt. God was in His heaven, and, if all wasn't completely right with the world, well, at least things were definitely looking up.
Her eyes still dazzled from the sun, she hadn't seen him yet, and he was in no hurry to make his presence known. Leaning against the cluttered workbench, Neill admired the view. She wasn't very big—not much over five feet—but she was very nicely packaged. The short, flippy skirt of the sundress revealed lightly tanned legs—delightfully long legs for such a small woman—and the rest of her was just as appealing. She had the kind of figure that had been fashionable back in the fifties— a little too full in bust and hip for the current fashion, with a narrow waist that emphasized the curves. If she was like most women he knew, she probably thought she needed to lose ten pounds, but, as far as he was concerned, she looked just about right—soft and supple and very, very female.
And it's obviously been way too long since you spent time in the real world, Devlin. Neill shifted, uncomfortably aware that his jeans were suddenly tighter than they had been. He was a couple of decades past the age when just looking at a pretty woman was enough to get him hard. Then again, he'd spent most of the last year buried in research, and for the past six months the closest he'd come to a carnal relationship was biting into a hot pizza.
She walked over to the scruffy VW Bug, the hem of the flowered dress swinging gently against her legs. As she leaned over to peer uncertainly into the engine compartment, the thin cotton draped lovingly around the soft curves of her bottom and Neill choked on a mouthful of cola.
Startled, Anne jerked upright and spun toward the sound, one hand pressed to her suddenly thumping heart, her eyes searching the dimly lit garage. Someone was straightening away from the workbench, moving toward her—a man, a stranger.
The realization made her skin ice over and filled her throat with the acid taste of old fear.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." The rueful apology stopped her convulsive move toward the door and escape. She drew a shallow breath, struggling for control as he came closer. '1 guess you didn't see me," he said, stopping a few feet away and smiling at her.
Black T-shirt, snug faded denims, worn black boots and thick, dark hair the color of midnight. It was the hunk, she realized, the man she and Lisa had been shamelessly ogling just a few minutes ago. Anne breathed more deeply, feeling irritation replace the momentary panic. She'd thought she was past reacting like that, years past it. Yet here she was, bolting like a silly little rabbit just because she happened to be momentarily alone with a strange man. And it wasn't even as if they were really alone, she thought, hating the fear that had her glancing toward the office.
"David got a call a few minutes ago," Neill said, seeing the direction of her glance. He kept a careful distance between them and made his voice low and soft. He didn't want to do anything to bring back the sharp look of fear that had turned her gray eyes almost black. Such pretty eyes, he thought. She was pretty, like the girl on an old-fashioned box of candy. Big gray eyes, the kind of skin that could only be called peaches and cream, hair the color of pale honey, a short straight little nose and a soft bow of a mouth, the lower lip just a little fuller than the upper, the kind of mouth that made a man want to taste that faint hint of a pout. As a general rule, his taste ran to tall, leggy brunettes, but he was willing to concede that his focus might have been a little too narrow in the past. There was definitely something to be said for short, curvy blondes.
"Your car?" he asked, nodding to the Bug.
"Yes. She's in for a tune-up."
"She?" Neill deliberately made his grin puppy-dog friendly. "What's her name?"
"Lucy," Anne said automatically and then flushed, bracing for laughter. Not everyone understood the impulse to name a car.
"Some cars just seem to require a name, don't they?" His smile widened in friendly amusement. "My older sister had a thousand-year-old Volvo sedan named Morris that someone had painted pink. I was in junior high, and my mother used to ask Darcy to pick me up after school. I was convinced my mother hated me. It was bad enough to have my big sister picking me up, but that car..."
He shuddered at the memory. "How macho can a guy be if he's forced to ride in a pink Volvo?"
"It must have been very traumatic!" Anne smiled, the last trace of fear evaporating. It just wasn't possible to be afraid of a man whose sister had driven a pink Volvo named Morris. And there was that smile. And the way his eyes laughed even when he wasn't smiling.
No buck teeth, no crossed eyes and, since he was looking at her with unmistakable male appreciation, it seemed unlikely that he was gay. In fact, there wasn't a flaw in sight, she decided, catching back an appreciative sigh. Early to mid-thirties, with a lean, rangy body, blue, blue eyes, nearly black hair, strong, angular jaw and a mouth that looked as if it smiled more than it frowned. The man was practically a poster boy for tall, dark and handsome.
"I never have been able to figure out what it is about Bugs that makes people so crazy about them." Looking at Anne's car, he shook his head at the phenomenon. "A friend of mine got one for his sixteenth birthday. No air-conditioning, the heater was a joke, and when it came to hills, passengers were required to get out and push. But he loved that car. I wouldn't be surprised if he had it bronzed and keeps it on the mantel next to his kids' baby shoes."
She chuckled but, at the same time, reached out to pat the car's fender reassuringly. "Lucy has heart,'' she told him.
He nodded, that smile flickering in his eyes again. "Seth used to get that same look when he talked about his car." He slid his hands into his pockets and let the smile reach his mouth. ''Personally, I think it's the ugly puppy syndrome. You gotta love the car because you figure no one else will."