by Anne Marsh
“Except in the bedroom,” Laura Jo hooted.
Gia grinned and someone groaned. “Rio is pretty amazing.”
Faye made a shushing motion. “Don’t scar us. And don’t scare off the single ladies.”
“On the other hand, feel free to share all the details.” Katie Lawson leaned forward expectantly. “I’m always up for learning something new.”
Wow. Time to redirect this train wreck of a conversation.
“Have you ever thought about knitting something different?”
“She’s redirecting the conversation,” Laura Jo said to no one in particular.
“Like what?” Katie clearly was bored with quilt squares too. Mercedes figured they could buy baby blankets and save the Sacramento infants from lumpy swaddling.
“I’ve seen all sorts of patterns on Etsy. We could knit something more fun. Funner.” She needed a grammar lesson. And a head check.
“I need a for example.”
In for a penny... She whipped out her phone and brought up a few pictures.
“Wow.” Laura Jo blinked. “I had no idea you thought like this, Deputy.”
The first pattern was for a pair of gray knitted boxers made to look like an elephant. One eye dotted each hipbone, but the pièce de résistance was the impressive trunk fly.
“Does that pattern come in small, medium, and large? Because I think I’ve found Tye’s Christmas present.” Katie grinned. “And I might actually manage to knit the thing in ten months.”
“No one could fill out those shorts,” Gia protested. “Someone needs an anatomy lesson.”
“What we need are male models,” Laura Jo announced. “And perhaps a gallery show. Or you could do a new calendar this year, Faye.”
Mercy had seen the calendar Laura Jo was talking about. Frankly, it was hard to miss as there were stacks of them in every local store. Plus she’d discovered one on her desk the first day on the job. There was nothing unusual about the twelve full-color pages, one for each month. However, each month featured a different smoke jumper, some wearing less than others. Mercy had no idea how Faye had convinced the guys to shuck their clothes and model for her, but she was grateful. Joey made a stunning Mr. September.
Faye made a rude noise. “Evan swore never again. He was mad at me for a week.”
“Tell him he can keep his clothes on this time.” Laura Jo waggled her eyebrows. “At least until you talk him out of them.”
“I’ll volunteer Tye. Gia and Lily can work on Rio and Jack,” Katie said. “And Mercy can get Joey to model. That’s four months right there.”
Wait. What?
“Why on earth would Joey listen to me?”
She could imagine asking him though. His mouth would curl up in that naughty grin, and she’d bet he’d say yes. He was a good sport.
“Because he’s chasing after you?”
“And he thinks you’re hot?”
“Um. No.” She was fairly certain he thought she was a pain in his ass. What man wanted to date a woman who routinely ticketed him? It explained her serious lack of a dating life.
“He’s never asked you out on a date?” Gia sounded skeptical.
“I’ve pulled him over almost a dozen times and almost arrested him once. Why on earth would he like me?”
“She needs a mirror,” Laura Jo announced. “And an intervention.”
Katie nodded energetically. “You should totally take him for a test drive.”
Since Katie and Gia both had their own resident SEALs, Mercy figured they were either biased—or knew a good thing when they saw it. The idea of test-driving Joey Carter was certainly appealing on some levels. He was hot, and she was lonely. More importantly, he was nice and he liked to laugh. She was also dead certain that he’d never laugh at her. “Have any of you dated him?”
Everyone looked at each other and there was a round of head shaking.
“You’re good to go,” Laura Jo announced. “He’s a virgin date.”
There was more laughter as the Smoking Hot Knitters wrapped up for the evening, but Mercy couldn’t stop thinking about Joey. And test-driving. Had he meant it when he’d asked her out on a date?
3
Stupid, used, piece-of-shit car. The sad truth was that she didn’t earn enough to send her mother a small check each month and pay a car loan. So she’d picked the more important of the two and sent the money to her mama, a decision she had no problem with except for nights like this when her beater car conked out on her. Nights like this, she wished her mother were a mechanic. Or that Mercy had taken shop in high school instead of the college prep classes she hadn’t been able to use.
She turned the key, but the car stayed dead. Luckily, she’d been able to coast to the shoulder when the motor had started acting up a quarter mile ago. Unfortunately, her cell phone was dead, and there were no call boxes on this stretch of road—an oversight she’d planned on remedying. If she’d known her car would die on the way home from the vet, she’d have bumped the item up her to-do list.
“How do you feel about hiking?” She looked down at her feline companion. The cat carrier alone weighed five pounds, plus it contained an additional fifteen pounds of His Royal Highness. Her arms would fall off. Or her legs. She was reasonably fit—part of her job description—but it had already been a long day, and Strong was uphill.
Clearly, she’d pissed off Karma at some point.
HRH chirped encouragement, ready to trade in his cat carrier for home and a can of Fancy Feast. She reached a finger in and scratched him underneath his chin.
“Working on it, buddy.” Part Siamese, part Maine Coon, Bob was an oddball. Her big blue-eyed boy had a white belly and matching socks, but he’d inherited dark ears from his Siamese daddy. He also came with lots of brown fur that routinely covered her furniture and her clothes. He was a talker, loyal to the death, and he slept with her without fail, which was more than she could say for the men she’d invited into her life. Better taste in cats than men. That was her.
“I don’t suppose you know how to fix a car?”
Bob chirped. Definitely a negative.
She got out of the car, popped the hood, and stared inside, but it was like randomly picking lottery numbers and hoping for a payout. She felt a headache coming on and added car repair to the list of books she needed to check out from the library. She could learn to do this too.
When headlights flashed over the trees, signaling an incoming car, she swallowed her pride and waved. Not frantically. Just nice and fast and deliberately. Asking for help sucked, but walking back to Strong with Bob sucked more. The pickup was a big, black solid number with a metal tool container bolted onto the back. Thank God. It might be sexist, but she’d take a guy with tools over a mom with a minivan full of groceries right now. Although she wouldn’t say no to a Pop-Tart. Or Cheetos. Both, if Karma was in the mood to make up for the breakdown.
The pickup pulled in. Thank God. She eyed the windshield, trying to make out who the driver was. Nope. Karma was still mad as hell at her, because that was Joey grinning at her through the driver’s side window.
“Are we playing role reversal? Usually, I’m the one on the side of the highway.”
The words stuck in her throat. Exercise would be good for her. Lord knew, her butt wasn’t getting any smaller.
“Problem?” Joey prompted.
She sighed. “Yeah.”
He didn’t make her beg, though, so apparently he really didn’t hold a grudge about all those speeding tickets. Or the arrest. He threw the truck into park and killed the engine before hopping out and coming around. She, on the other hand, was still standing there, hands curled around the edge of the engine compartment. Blinking at him like an idiot.
He nudged her out of the way. Long legs encased in worn denim with some very yummy white stress points ended in the usual pair of motorcycle boots. He wore a fire department T-shirt beneath an open flannel shirt. She awarded him bonus points for radiating heat. Standing out here in the
night air, poking at her engine, had been chillier than she expected.
He looked underneath the hood, and she looked at his ridiculously long lashes. Life just wasn’t fair. “Tell me all about your problems. The doctor’s in.”
She wasn’t really going to turn down a free mechanic, not when she was stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. “One minute I was driving along and the next, the motor died. I coasted a few hundred yards, and now here I am.”
He nodded. “Have you had car problems before?”
“It’s a fifteen-year-old import with two hundred thousand miles. What hasn’t broken?”
“True.” He stuck his head under the hood and started fiddling with various bits. He hummed as he worked, looking perfectly happy parked by the side of the road, fixing her car. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but apparently she’d hit on one thing that made him slow down. Sitting around and twiddling her thumbs didn’t appeal, so she moved closer so she could see what he was doing.
The lack of room beneath the hood meant she ended up pressed against him. She bumped him with her hip.
“Move over.” Her car, her engine.
He raised his gaze to hers, treating her to another look at his sinful eyelashes. “I’m working here.”
“Doing what?”
“Checking your fuel filter and then the pump to see if either is clogged.”
She had no idea what he’d just said, but she’d learn. “Give it to me in steps.”
He adjusted something gadget-y. “I can’t just fix it?”
“I need to know how to do this myself,” she said. “Otherwise, what happens the next time my car breaks down?”
He frowned. “Maybe you should buy a new car.”
“Do you have any idea what they pay deputy sheriffs in these parts?”
He considered her words for a moment. “Good point. Maybe you should come work for me at the garage. I’ll pay you a living wage.”
She gave him another look, and he launched into a complicated explanation of how to check a fuel line. She had to give him credit. He actually seemed like he was trying to explain what he was doing, but her fingers itched for a pen to write it all down. Writing helped her make sense of things, and she didn’t think she could wallpaper her fuel line with colored Post-it notes corresponding to the different steps in Joey’s long-winded process.
In the middle of his explanation, Bob meowed demandingly from the car. Her Siamese was done with the sitting-around-and-waiting portion of the night’s events. She’d been feeling the same way until she cozied up underneath the hood of her car with Joey.
Joey wiped his hands on a bandana he’d produced from somewhere and offered it to her. Her car might not produce much speed, but it apparently was an overachiever when it came to engine grease. “You’ve got company. You going to introduce me?”
She straightened. God, her back was killing her. “Meet Bob.”
He grabbed her fingers before she could rub the small of her back and wiped the grease off them. “Bob as in bobcat?”
“Bob as in battery-operated boyfriend.”
He blinked. “Wow.”
“And Bob as in better than.” She might as well be totally honest.
“The ultimate Bob, huh?” He gently bumped her out of the way and dropped into the driver’s seat. Holding out his hand, he waggled his fingers. “Key?”
“I can do it.” The rest of tonight’s repair job was out of her league, despite his attempts to explain, but the turning-the-key-in-the-ignition part? She had that much covered.
“And I can help,” he said easily. In no hurry to get going, he held out his fingers in front of the carrier so Bob could sniff him. “I’ve got a loaner cat.”
“Now it’s my turn to say wow. I never imagined you were a cat person.”
“I like cats,” he said easily. “In fact, I like all sorts of—”
“Don’t say it.” She reached in and slapped a hand over his mouth. She could feel his smile growing beneath her fingers, and then he nipped her.
“You need to pull your mind out of the gutter, Deputy. What kind of pet do you see me with?”
A jaguar. A big mountain cat. Something exotic that might take your head off and your throat out. He simply didn’t seem like the kind of guy who cozied up with nine pounds of house cat love.
“How can a cat be loaner?” Deflect.
“He belongs to my sister, but she’s off honeymooning with Mr. Medina and attempting to make a two-legged replacement for the cat.”
“You can have a cat and a baby.”
He sighed. “I’m better with cats than babies.”
She couldn’t afford to think about babies and Joey in the same sentence, because that led to thoughts about making babies.
“Where did you learn to fix cars?” she asked instead.
“I have a garage where I restore and fix bikes in the off-season from jumping.” He turned the key in the ignition, and her motor purred to life. “Problem solved. Now you owe me.”
That’s what she was afraid of.
“Out.” She tapped him on the shoulder.
“Ungrateful,” he countered, his eyes laughing at her. Before she could react, he tugged her down onto his lap. She drove a Honda Civic, which meant she’d sat on benches with more room. Joey’s caveman tactic had her jammed between the steering wheel and a hard male chest. She stared down at the arm wrapped around her middle and wondered if he could tell through her clothes that she liked cookies too much and sit-ups too little. Just in case he thought she was okay with being manhandled (and honestly, right now? She didn’t mind), she wriggled in token protest and discovered a whole lot of happy to see you beneath her butt. Oh.
“This is not what I had in mind.” She made a grab for the key. Not that she had any idea how that would help, but she needed to do something.
“Shhh.” He leaned forward and covered her fingers with his. Grease and pine trees and a scent that was wholly, indescribably Joey surrounded her. She could have happily sat there smelling him—pathetic—but he was doing more with his mouth than just trying to shut her up. He brushed his mouth over her ear, and she shivered, getting goose bumps in all the right places. “You think too much.”
Thinking too little caused problems. Right now, for example, she wanted to blurt out take me, big boy, and that had to be one of the stupidest ideas of the century.
“Get out of my car.”
“In a minute. I’m perfectly comfortable.”
“This is completely inappropriate.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound like he minded.
“There’s no maybe about it, Joey Carter.”
***
He was crazy. He’d never slapped that label on himself, but maybe he’d suffered a head injury on that last tour of duty. God knew, he’d run headlong into one dangerous situation after another. Playing with Mercedes Hernandez, Mercy, was crazy. Absolutely, unequivocally crazy. She squirmed on his lap, and instead of letting her go, he tightened his arm. She felt so damned good. Curvy and soft—and wriggling. Jesus. He hadn’t thought that through when he’d tugged her down onto his lap. He’d just known that he’d get a rise out of her.
And himself apparently.
Her ponytail whipped him in the face as she made another halfhearted move toward the open door. She couldn’t have minded her current position too much though because she could have broken free. Not without hurting him, however, because at close quarters, inside a car and alone with a man his size, his cool, standoffish deputy sheriff was vulnerable.
Damn. It sucked that he was apparently a nice guy after all.
“Jam your elbow in my gut,” he said gruffly. “Or slam your head back and aim for my nose.”
“You want me to hurt you?” She sounded adorably confused.
“I’m not into pain.” Enough happened accidentally, and he’d never understood seeking it out. “I just want this to be your choice.”
Which didn’t explain why he wasn’t le
tting go. Or what this was.
“Huh.” She huffed out a breath and stopped moving. “You’re a strange man.”
He’d heard that before.
“And I have a handgun in the glove compartment. I’m licensed for concealed carry.”
Great. If he pissed her off, she could shoot him. At least she wasn’t entirely defenseless. He wasn’t a long-term guy. He didn’t stick. And the only acquaintance he wanted with marriage was watching his friends walk down the aisle. Mercedes Hernandez, on the other hand, was a keeper. She was a forever-after kind of woman, even if, he suspected, she didn’t know it. Bob the cat mewed plaintively from his carrier, unhappy at being left out. Hell, even her cat had an opinion about what they were doing here in the front seat of her car.
“Go out with me,” he heard himself say. He buried his face in her hair, fisting her ponytail and drinking her in. It was a good thing she couldn’t see his face.
“Joey—”
She was going to say no.
He didn’t like that answer, and he didn’t have to play fair. So he kissed the side of her neck, running his thumb over the soft curve of her jaw. She was all soft underneath, his Mercy.
“Say yes. One date,” he said. “I think you owe me that much.”
“That’s the price of car repairs today?” He loved the laughter in her voice. “I’ll have to remember to swing by the garage more often.”
He dragged his hands down over her ribs, finding her waist. “Say yes,” he repeated.
“I can’t.” Regret replaced laughter in her voice.
“One date,” he coaxed. He pressed his lips against the pulse that beat in her throat. Her breathing hitched.
“I have a morals clause in my contract.”
“Are you questioning my morals?”
“It’s happened before.” She shrugged, and the move sent her sweater—one of those fuzzy, soft-colored things—sliding off her shoulder. The red bra strap that peeked out was, he decided, far more interesting than her morals clause. He needed to kiss her there, taste the sweet little hollow of skin and thumb the strap down. Strip her bare. And—