by C J Marie
Jo didn’t move until Zac slipped back into the shop to do whatever it was he did in the garage. She was adding a small liner to the garbage can beneath the front desk when she heard the door to the shop open again. Zac shut off the lights, and locked the door, while sealing the massive garage doors. Jo saw August and Rafe trudging toward their separate cars, while Mouse hopped onto the motorcycle with a wave over his shoulder.
“Walk out with me?” Zac asked, his voice low and maybe even hesitant.
Jo ignored the uptick in her pulse raging in her ears, and gathered her bag and folded her arms tight over her chest. Zac held the door open for her before locking it behind them once they were outside in the wettest, muggiest part of the day. Jo could feel her hair frizzing even though it was braided.
“Do you think you’re going to survive after the first day?” Zac asked once they’d walked a few moments.
Jo pinched her lips, and kept her attention straight ahead. “I’ll survive.”
Zac’s jaw pulsed, even beneath his beard she could see the taut muscles. “Okay, good. Uh, would you mind coming over to my place for a second?”
He nodded toward the house across a green empty lot. “Why?”
He smiled, and if Jo didn’t know better she’d almost guess Zac Dawson was nervous. “I told you I’d share my washer and dryer. I do sometimes have a life outside of home and work so in case you can’t always reach me, here’s a temporary key.”
She had no idea why Zac would ask her to his house, but giving her the spare key wasn’t one of them. “You want me to have a key to your house?”
“For laundry purposes. As I said, it might be easier since I’m not always available to hand over my key.”
Jo scoffed, but her lips also spread into a small smile. She turned with him toward the dirt path cutting through the lot. “You’re not so cocky handing over your key—it’s like you’ve never offered a woman a key before.”
“Only my mama,” he insisted.
“Huh.”
“What?” Zac pressed.
“Your friends are married, I guess I assumed there was probably some southern belle tucked in your kitchen waiting for you at home.” Jo meant the words snarky, but found she was unnaturally interested in hearing the response.
Zac rolled his eyes. “First of all, I’m not into the debutante type—don’t tell Olive I said that.”
“She’s a debutante?”
“Sort of—was—not really, her family is the old southern type with lots of inheritances passed down, you understand?”
Jo chuckled. “They’re wealthy—why is that such a dirty word?”
“It’s not. I only mean, there’s a culture you probably don’t see every day that Rafe and Olive had to break through, alright.”
“Fine,” Jo agreed, though she didn’t understand what Zac was saying. “But not for you, huh?”
Zac chuckled, and stopped near the front porch. “No. I haven’t found anyone who’s up for the challenge, yet.”
Jo wanted to smile, feeling at ease for the first time around the man who she promised to hate. She resisted the urge, and instead studied the exterior of the home. It wasn’t anything fancy. White brick with blue shutters on the outside. The porch was wide, and there were two chairs with a small square table in between. There was a flowering bush near the steps wafting a delightful scent across the entire property. To her surprise, Zac’s home seemed comfortable. He dug underneath a rock tucked beneath the bush, and pulled out a plastic wrapped key.
“You sure you want to give this over? I might trash your house.”
“I know the number to the police station.”
Jo’s blood heated. “Yeah, I’m well aware.”
Zac leaned back against the post on his wrap around banister. “You really don’t like me, do you?”
“Was it part of the sentencing agreement that I was supposed to like you?”
“Let me ask you something,” he began, running a hand over his beard.
Beards weren’t ever something she thought she’d be attracted to—probably because of her father’s ratty beard at the end—but she was having a hard time not noticing the way the dark scruff created a swirl at the bottom of her stomach.
“Turn the tables, just for a second, what if someone damaged your clinic, or whatever? What if they tried to dart away while offering money as if that makes it okay? Would you be satisfied? It’s obvious you care a lot about what you do.”
“It’s different.”
“How so?”
“My clinic saves lives.”
Zac muttered. “You’re right. I don’t save lives, but you know nothing about my shop and you don’t know how important it is to me. I may not be a doctor, but I’m fortunate to have a place where people who might be down on their luck can come when they need a tune up. We’ve got a place where people trust us—where they pay when they can if they’re struggling. They always do because we’ve created mutual respect. Sure, I could make a lot more money if we didn’t run business like that, but that place matters to me like your clinic matters to you. Does that change how you feel about my reaction at all?”
It did, but Jo wasn’t going to tell him that. “Listen, Mr. Dawson,” Jo snapped. “I’m comfortable not knowing anything about you—it’s not part of the deal, so don’t pretend you know anything about what’s important to me or not.”
Jo stomped off his porch, hating the way he watched her, as if he could see into her soul. Letting Zac Dawson see behind her shroud wasn’t part of the deal. No one saw what made her tick, not even Emmitt, because there were things that were too painful, and she was content never to admit them out loud again.
***
His fists curled at his side. If he had a brain he’d walk inside and let her wallow in her frustrated, snappy attitude. But Zac wasn’t known for his smarts sometimes. Pouncing off his step, he trudged behind her.
“I don’t think you want to show anyone the real you.”
“Oh, really, thank you, doctor,” she hissed over her shoulder.
“I mean it,” he insisted, picking up his pace until he reached her elbow. Tugging her around, he hadn’t expected Jo’s figure to press against his chest. There was a shuddering moment when their bodies connected across the surface. He met her eye, and felt her hold her breath until he took a step back, his hand still on her elbow. “I think you talk tough, but you aren’t really this way.”
“Why does it matter to you?” she asked, her voice softer—almost like she was sincerely wondering. “In a few weeks I’ll be a bad memory, someone you and your boys can laugh at later on. Why does talking to me even matter to you?”
Zac’s eyes locked with her. The question was simple, so in turn, the answer should be as simple, yet it wasn’t. He didn’t like Josephine Graham—at least he hadn’t thought he did. But with every glare, every harsh comment Zac found himself wanting to understand the woman. It didn’t help that he’d decided the night she crashed into his shop he was attracted to her bright eyes and curvy body—no, not helpful.
“I don’t know,” he said. Jo’s scowl softened, and she stopped trying to slither her arm out of his grip. Zac shook his head. “I don’t know, but…I do.”
The tense space staking between them wasn’t a good sign. Things didn’t need to get complicated, and Zac was already breaking a cardinal rule—he was finding himself intrigued by a taken woman. How many times had Zac heard about Mr. Doctor-boyfriend up in Boston?
“Boy, what are you doing with a forceful hand on that woman?”
Zac’s eyes fluttered as if his mother’s voice breathed him back to life. Glancing over his shoulder he released Jo’s arm, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Mama, you want the truth, or should I let you use your imagination?”
He chuckled when his mother pointed warning finger at him as she tromped across the lot. “You’re never too old to get your mouth smacked, son,” she breathed, her eyes landing on Jo who’d curled inward like a tepid mouse. He’
d upset her, and Zac felt like an idiot. “Now, is this Miss Josephine?”
Jo nodded and held out her hand toward his mother, though he caught her cautious glance at him first. “Yes. Josephine Graham…ma’am.”
“Oh, they’ve got you all trained up on the Missus and ma’ams, I see. You can just call me Agatha, sugar. Is my son giving you a hard time?”
Jo offered a sad smile. “No,” she insisted, to Zac’s surprise. “Just saying the truth I don’t want to hear.”
Zac didn’t care if his mother saw, he turned his eye on Jo and kept it there until she found the gumption to meet his gaze. Unspoken words filtered between them, words he couldn’t interpret and it was infuriating. He’d never been off kilter with women before, but this spitfire—rude, arrogant, sarcastic, beautiful—spitfire was knocking him off his feet and it needed to stop.
“Well, sometimes the truth is the pits,” Agatha insisted. “But when we accept those truths we give ourselves a lot of power. Now—” his mother was a professional at switching gears mid-conversation— “I’m pleased I caught you. Tomorrow being a special Sunday and all, I’d love to extend the invitation for you to come on over and have dinner with us.”
Zac choked on his own tongue and covered the cough behind his elbow. His mother offered him a sharp look before turning her attention back toward Jo, whose fingers wrung together like a wet dishtowel. “Dinner? With your family?”
“Sure thing. Of course, we usually have the Whitfields over too,”
“Jace and Will were planning on coming too, mama,” Zac insisted.
Agatha snapped her fingers. “That’s right, cousins of the Whitfields. We usually don’t have such a crowd, but we’re celebrating tomorrow, and I thought what a perfect time to have a new face at the table.”
Jo shifted on her feet. “Thank you, but I couldn’t impose, especially on a special occasion.”
“Oh, there’s no imposition,” she insisted. “Trust me, the more the merrier at this birthday party. Keeps us distracted.”
“I don’t think I understand?” Jo offered.
“Oh, it’s Zac’s daddy’s birthday,” Agatha said as if Jo should know exactly what she meant.
Jo glanced at him for clarification. He spoke soft, knowing the truth would likely make things more uncomfortable for her. “He died, but we still celebrate his birthday.”
There was an expression on Jo’s face he couldn’t read, but one thing he knew was it wasn’t the contorted bitterness she’d kept locked on him since she’d returned to Honeyville. With a soft smile, she turned back toward his mother. “I’d love to come,” she whispered.
Agatha clapped her hands and beamed. “Wonderful. Zac, you make sure she gets there in one piece?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, that’s all I was coming over here for, to tell Zac to invite you, but I’m glad I got to meet you myself.”
“One thing about mama,” Zac boasted. “She’s not one to talk on the phone. It doesn’t matter if someone lives thirty miles away, she’d rather ask questions face to face.”
Zac earned a shove by his mother. “Well, it’s more personal, don’t you think Jo?”
Jo grinned and nodded. “I agree.”
Zac breathed a bit of relief when Jo and his mother engaged in small talk for a few more minutes. He’d worried Jo would be stiff and arrogant with the only woman who really mattered in his life, but she even laughed a little when his mother filled her in on some gossip at the spa where she worked. Agatha Dawson was a beautiful woman, and she’d always been involved in the beauty industry, but it was nice to have someone else catch the racy gossip she earned during facials and massages from her clients instead of him.
Jo insisted on walking back to the motel, though Zac offered to drive her. They parted without a real farewell, but at least it wasn’t filled with stomping feet or eyerolling. Zac filtered into his house after both women were gone. Jo was coming to his childhood home. With his family, his closest friends. He didn’t know what to think, and like he’d told Jo earlier, he didn’t know why it mattered.
Chapter 5
Zac wasn’t sure how everyone was going to fit inside his mom’s house. Rafe had informed him that Dot Gardener was joining them too, after Agatha found out it was her first weekend off at the new clinic her family had opened up. Zac smirked thinking of how strange it was to have Olive and Dot at his family’s table—along with Jace and Will, the only family from Rafe’s and August’s dead-beat dad’s side.
Zac once thought Dot was a wealthy snob, but since Rafe and Olive got together, Zac found their mish-mashed group boisterous, and from all walks of life. It kept things interesting. Being an only child, his mom and uncle took every opportunity to fill the table with as many faces as possible. His parents had both come from large families, though most of his extended family lived in Alabama or near Atlanta, so growing up Zac had grown accustomed to neighbors or friends eating meals with his family simply for noise. At least that’s what his mom always said.
Now today, Jo Graham was being tossed into the mix.
Zac took a deep breath, scanning his reflection for a moment. His hair was impossible to tame most days, but the more he tried the worse it tousled. No holes or stains on his blue T-shirt—always a good thing. Beard was trimmed—his mama would be pleased. He sniffed his skin—odors under control—a definite positive.
Get it together.
Zac wasn’t shy around women. He wasn’t afraid to go after what he wanted. Of course, he couldn’t say he wanted Jo—again, the boyfriend and the fact that he’d gotten her arrested ruined any shot on that road—but for some reason, he wanted to know her better. The idea unsettled Zac because she wasn’t his type, not even close. Although he hadn’t had a serious relationship in years; more dating and having fun afterward was about the extent of his love life. Perhaps he didn’t know his own type.
Accepting his hair would always be messy, Zac grabbed his keys and trudged toward his truck. Every piece of the sky was glowing in soft oranges and pinks as the sun faded over the distant horizon. The pleasant air calmed his unease about the evening for a moment until he peered over the bed of his truck and caught sight of a wandering woman, her attention on the asphalt as if deep in thought.
“What are you doing? I was coming to pick you up.” Zac called out.
Jo’s eyes snapped up, and he swallowed the cotton in the back of his throat. She’d left her hair down tonight, and Zac realized how long her strawberry waves were, striking between her shoulder blades. Jo was wearing a floral skirt with sandals that reminded him of ballerina slippers because of the ribbon wrapping around her ankles. Jo was tall, and it was clear her length came straight from her legs.
“I felt like walking,” she muttered, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She leaned against the edge of his truck bed and gave an obligatory smile. “I don’t have anything to bring since I didn’t dare ask if there was any food for sale at the motel.”
Zac laughed and shook his head. “Don’t worry, you’ll be well fed without vending machine snacks.” Swinging around the front of the truck, he opened the passenger door. Jo lifted a brow and stayed put. “What?”
Her steps were haughty, but the corner of her mouth tugged up subtly. “I can open my own doors you know.”
Zac waved his hand in front of his face. “I’m well aware you’re able to open a door. Are you telling me your fancy doctor doesn’t open the door for you?”
Her pink lips smiled, not in a laughing way, almost as if Zac was missing something important. “It’s modern times, Zac. Emmitt encourages an independent relationship, and I happen to agree. I don’t need special treatment, and neither does he.”
Zac huffed, and pointed to the seat. “Would you get your butt in the truck, Miss Independent? I hate to break it to you, Jo, but I’m going to open the front door for you, and the shop door, and the truck door—chivalry isn’t dead, even in modern times. Admit it, you sort of like it.”
Sh
e snickered, and Zac would take any sign of truce Jo had to offer. “Why don’t you admit you’re doing it because your mother would smack you if you didn’t.”
Zac smiled. “Was that a joke? I knew you had it in you, but you’re right. The woman is as sweet as sugar, but she can smack with the best of them.” Zac shut the door once Jo was in place, and nestled next to her in the front seat. Her plump bottom lip was rolled over her teeth when she glanced at him as he backed up the truck. “What are you smiling at?”
Jo glanced out the window, leaning her chin on the top of her hand. “I might like the chivalry—a tiny bit.”
“Oh, there we go,” Zac taunted. “Is Josephine Graham admitting I do something nice?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Zachariah, you’re still a jerk.”
“Hey, just because Maggie calls me by my full name doesn’t give you permission.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with Zachariah?”
He grinned. “Want me to call you Josephine all the time? We both have mouthful names, it will take two minutes just to get to the point.” He eyed her swiftly, to judge her expression. Jo wasn’t frowning, she seemed almost relaxed while she listened. It suited her better than tension. “I go by Zac because my parents wanted my name to sound like it came from the Bible, or something. That’s what my uncle said. You know, so I’d always walk the good path.”
Jo snickered. “So, that doesn’t mean you should hate the name, unless you’d like to be known as a bad boy.”
He shook his head. “No, I use Zac in the event I wander from the straight and narrow a bit. Eases the namesake guilt and all.”
Jo rolled her head so her eyes locked on him and she stared for half a breath before clicking her tongue. “You know if I hadn’t made a promise not to like you, I’d almost consider you decent company.”