The thought made my chest pound. I wasn’t necessarily commitment-phobic, like Sage had eluded to that day in my car. I was just afraid of getting so involved with someone that I brought them down with my shitload of baggage I carried around with me everywhere. Why screw someone up with my fucked up issues when the whole thing could be avoided altogether?
“No point worrying about something that hasn’t happened,” I told him, adding, “and may never happen.”
He pointed his beer bottle at me, his face turning serious. “Don’t be so sure, bro. Look at our slut of a brother. He’s been hung up on the same woman almost his whole life and I have no doubt that he’s going to marry Kinley. Parker, man. Who we both thought would have rather faced the zombie apocalypse with a can of pepper spray than settling down with one woman for the rest of his life.”
That was true. Didn’t mean that the same would happen to me, though. “That had apparently been a long time coming,” I reminded him. “I’ve never really pictured myself as a husband and a father, anyway. You’re great at it, but I’m not sure I’d be the same way.”
His eyes turned contemplative as he stared at the space over my shoulder, in the direction where Mickie had walked. “I’m just saying. Life doesn’t always happen the way you think it will.”
That statement held a lot more meaning behind it than I think he meant to reveal. I was about to comment on it when he shook his head and leaned back in his chair. I really took in his face and he looked exhausted, drained. I decided to shelve that question for a later time.
“Have you spoken to Mom about how Sal’s been doing lately?” I asked.
We hadn’t called our father ‘Dad’ since we were teenagers. The term was too loving to be applied to a man like Salvatore Cruz.
“She said he’s having a hard time eating. Still wants his booze all the time and not much else. Doctors say he’s down to four or five months probably.”
Our father, the man we shared DNA with, was dying.
And our voices were flat, apathetic even, when we spoke of him. Like I said, I had some pretty fucked up issues. Some of it I had gotten past, some I never had.
“Have you seen him at all?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t really plan to either. The man has never once asked for our forgiveness so in my eyes, he doesn’t have it.”
Dawson had received the worst treatment from Sal out of the three of us. Being the oldest brother, he’d taken it upon himself when we were younger to look out for us, do his best to protect us from Sal’s rages. That didn’t always stop him from disciplining us with his fists, but it sometimes diverted Sal’s attention to focus solely on Dawson. My older brother had taken so many hits and had too much responsibility thrust upon him at such a young age. He was the strongest guy I knew, but I had no doubt that he was weighed down by all of it. At least, emotionally.
I had the utmost respect for Dawson because of it.
“I’ll probably take some groceries by next week,” I said. Just to make sure that our mother was getting something into her stomach other than her pills.
After so many years of Sal beating on her before he switched to us, she hadn’t been able to handle it any longer. She’d been popping pills since I was in middle school. Needless to say, Sandra Cruz was not the sweet, soft woman I remembered from my childhood.
“Good luck with that,” Dawson muttered. “I probably wouldn’t recommend going inside.”
Because who knows what kind of shit they have in there was the unspoken part of that statement. For a recovered addict like myself, walking into that house with Sal’s bottles of liquor and our mom’s pills, it would be like stepping into a mine field.
I just nodded in understanding. “Hadn’t planned on it.”
He looked down at his watch. “Parker’s game should be starting. Let’s move to the living room.”
I followed him as he stood and walked into the other room. “What do you say? Think he’ll have over 80 homers this year?”
Dawson scoffed. “Maybe. If he could keep his head out of his girlfriend’s ass long enough to focus. Then again, his head was so messed up last year with all the shit that went down with her and with Sal and look what happened.”
I snickered into my Coke can. “Yeah, maybe it’s good for him.”
“Women are crazy that way,” he said. “Driving you insane one minute, then making you want to worship at their feet the next.”
Like a puzzle. Sage Tucker was a puzzle. I could sense it.
And one I had the incredible desire to solve.
Chapter Five
Mason
“Shit!” The word echoed loudly and, of course, had to be screamed right when there was a break in songs playing on the shop’s speakers.
“You said a bad word!” Gabby shouted.
Porter looked over at me apologetically. “Nah, darlin’. I said ‘shoot.’”
“Nuh-uh,” she said with her hands on her hips, looking so much like Mickie I couldn’t even be annoyed with Porter’s potty mouth. “Mommy puts us in timeout if we say a bad word.”
For Gabby and Leo, saying “crap” was considered a bad word. I smiled as I watched the exchange between my little bitty niece and the bulky mechanic.
“I agree,” Jimmy said with a big grin on his face. “I think Porter needs to go to timeout.”
Porter shot Jimmy the finger over the top of Gabby’s head so she couldn’t see him. I never had a problem bringing the kids to the shop when Dawson and Mickie needed some help, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have to keep an eye on them every second. There were about a million different things they could get into and turning the TV on in my office only kept them interested for so long.
Speaking of. “Where’s Leo?”
“He’s over here with me, boss,” Cooke said from the paint room. “I was just showing him the stencils I’m about to lay down on the Chevelle.”
“Just make sure you don’t mess with any of the paint, alright buddy?”
Leo nodded and waved me away. “I know, I know.”
That entire room was used for paint or airbrushing jobs, so I didn’t even want to think about how many different chemicals he could be exposed to if he got into any them. Dawson and Mickie would sure love me for that.
Like I said, a million different things.
“Oh, Mason,” Jimmy called in an irritating sing-song voice. “Your purple-haired vixen is here.”
Sage?
My eyes flew to the door where, sure enough, Sage Tucker was strutting her fine, tattooed ass into my garage. Today she had on acid-washed jeans, a flannel shirt, combat boots, and her hair up in a ponytail, looking casual and relaxed and sexy as shit. My dick immediately hardened in my jeans. Her heels had been nice the other day, yes, but those jeans hugged her ass beautifully. Plus, I was much more of a laidback, casual type of guy, anyway. I wanted a woman who would willingly put on my faded AC/DC t-shirt after we had sex and look damn good in it.
Sage was definitely that type of woman.
I couldn’t stop myself from speed walking over to her. We hadn’t spoken in a couple of days and I was ready to hear her voice again. “Hey, Sage.”
Her face brightened when she saw me, making my chest do this stupid squeezing thing. I liked her looking happy to see me. “Hi. Sorry to just drop by. Are you busy?”
I took the grease-stained rag out of my back pocket and wiped my hands off. She was too pretty for me to get her dirty. Who said you were going to be touching her? Nobody…but just in case.
“No, I’ve got a second,” I told her. “What’s up?”
“Well I—”
“Holy crap,” Leo exclaimed, walking over to us. “You’ve got purple hair.”
Porter’s head suddenly popped around the side of the car he was working on. “You said a bad word!”
Leo lowered his head, a sheepish expression on his face, before looking up at me. “Don’t tell my mom.”
“Who’s this?” Sage asked chee
rfully.
I loved my nephew to death. But man, the kid could be such a little cockblocker. I just wanted five minutes alone with Sage before she had to go back to work. Was that too much to ask?
I took Leo by the shoulders and pulled him to stand in front of me. “This is my nephew Leo. Leo, this is my friend Sage.”
She squatted down with a sweet smile on her face and shook Leo’s little hand. The poor kid looked awestruck. Whether it was from Sage’s bright purple hair or her colorful tattoos, he looked at a loss for words as he stared at her. Join the club, kid.
“It’s nice to meet you, Leo,” she said.
“Why are you so colorful?”
“Hey, that’s not a polite thing to ask,” I scolded him.
She laughed, putting her hand up to stop me. “It’s okay.” She then turned that brilliant smile on my nephew, the lucky little bugger. “I like color,” she explained, pulling on some strands of her purple hair. “Bright colors make me happy. And I like art too.” She trailed a finger down her arm, pointing to her tattoos. God, I want to be that finger. “I like to see these pictures because they remind me of things that make me smile.”
I was dying to know what each image meant, myself. I wanted to hear the stories behind the designs, why she chose each one. I wanted to find out why they made her smile. Tattoos didn’t always have to represent something significant, didn’t have to hold extra meaning behind them. I didn’t judge those who just wanted a design simply because they liked how it looked on their body.
But I suspected that Sage’s tattoos held something much deeper than that. After all, most of mine did.
“I like that one,” Leo said, pointing at what looked to be a dream catcher.
“Yeah?” He nodded. “I got that one because I used to have bad dreams sometimes, and this is supposed to help keep the bad dreams away.”
Oh, yeah. Definitely some stories there.
“I like art,” Leo said. “Could I get some of those on my arms?”
Sage’s eyes darted up to mine in panic so I swooped in. “You have to wait until you’re older to get those, little man. Tattoos are for big kids.”
He craned his neck to look up at me. “But I’m turning five soon. Could I get some then?”
I rubbed a hand over his hair, chuckling. “I don’t think your mom and dad would like that very much. Better wait until you’re a lot older.” He slumped his shoulders in disappointment. “Hey, why don’t you go wait in the office so I can talk to Sage for a minute, okay?”
“Okay.” He started to walk off and spun around when Sage called after him. “Maybe next time I come by, I can bring some play tattoos and we can put them on for fun,” she said. “Does that sound okay?”
His eyes went wide with excitement and he smiled. “Yeah! That would be cool!”
He ran off as Sage and I laughed. Before I turned back to her, I noticed Gabby peeking out from the door of the office, watching us until she saw me looking and ducked back inside. She usually wasn’t the shy type, but Sage was probably unlike any woman either of them had seen before. The same was true for me.
“Sorry about that,” I told her. “My brother needed some help watching them today. I think his sister Gabby was hiding.”
She smiled and returned her gaze to mine. “He’s adorable. I can see some of you in him.”
My grin spread. “You saying I’m adorable?”
Her mouth twisted in an attempt to hide her growing smile but it still came through. “I don’t know if I would use the word ‘adorable’ for you.”
“Does sexy work better?”
She laughed. “I was going to say cute.”
I grabbed my chest in mock pain. “You wound me. When a woman calls a man cute, it’s like the kiss of death.”
“Have a lot of experience with that, do you?”
I leveled her with a heated look, mentally listing all the words I would use to describe her. “I don’t think I’ve been called cute since puberty hit.”
“Aw, and I’m sure little Mason, with his squeaky voice and three hairs on his chin was very cute.”
When that smile remained plastered on her face, I felt the urge to slam my lips down onto hers and ask her if she thought that was cute.
“Think you’re funny?”
She registered the way I’d lowered my voice and that smile faded slightly, her throat muscles bobbing as she swallowed slowly. My eyes were drawn to her throat and neck where some of her tattoos kissed the top of her collarbone.
She licked her lips, her eyes locking with mine when I looked back up at her face. “Is this where you go all macho on me and prove just how not cute you are?”
I smirked, loving that she wasn’t afraid to call me out. “Thinking about it.”
She looked to be in a trance for a few more seconds before snapping out of it, peering around the garage. “How’s my baby doing?”
The look I gave her told her that I knew she was deflecting but that I would let it go for now. She followed me over to where her Plymouth sat, the parts of her deconstructed engine scattered out nearby. It probably looked like a complete mess to her, but I knew where every single little piece was.
Sage groaned next to me. “I hate seeing her like this.”
“Eh, Roxy and I have had a chance to bond,” I said, patting the hood. “She knows we’re only looking out for her.”
Jesus. I was talking about a car as if it were a person. What kind of voodoo magic shit did Sage Tucker have on me?
She raised her eyebrow at me. “Roxy? Don’t be getting too attached, Cruz. I’m still driving her out of here when you’re done with her.”
I laughed, hard. “Trust me, you don’t have to worry. My first car was an ’89 Camaro named Black Betty, so I know how special they can be to you.”
I explained how everything with the re-build was going and wasn’t surprised that she listened to every word I said, even adding in her own opinion every now and then. Time flew by so quickly, I wasn’t even aware how much of it had passed when she stood up and glanced down at her watch.
“I have to get back to work.”
“I wasn’t sure you were working today.” I waved down at her outfit, hoping it wasn’t rude of me.
She laughed, looking down at herself. “Yeah, I’m usually pretty casual on days that I don’t have meetings with my clients or have to appear in court. Today was more of an office paperwork day, and they don’t really care how you look for that. I just came over here during my lunch break.”
I began walking toward the garage entrance, hating that I couldn’t get her to stay longer. “Well, I appreciate you stopping by.” More than you know. “You making sure I’m doing my job right keeps me on my toes.”
I glanced back at her when she laughed. And to my horror, the huge, free-standing metal shelving unit that was directly behind her was wobbling dangerously. She didn’t notice it as her back was facing it, and I didn’t give myself time to think. I lunged forward, grabbing her shoulders, and roughly hauled her away from the shelf, out of harm’s way. I heard her gasp in shock when her body hit my chest, but my concern was on the unit that was suddenly falling to the floor, hitting with a loud crash exactly where Sage had just been standing. Tools scattered everywhere, along with nuts and bolts and a variety of cleaning products.
Shit. That could have been bad.
“Are you okay?” I asked Sage, pulling her away from me to assess her body.
Her eyes were wide as they looked from the floor back to me. “Yeah, I’m good. Wow. Thanks for that. I wasn’t even paying attention.”
She shouldn’t have had to be paying attention. I was suddenly pissed. The guys knew how seriously I took the safety precautions around there. I didn’t tolerate mistakes like that. All the guys came out from their work areas at the sound of the crash and gathered around the mess.
“What happened?” I asked them, steel in my voice. “What have I said about stacking stuff near those shelves?”
Cooke c
rouched down to examine the unit. “The screw was bent on this bottom leg here, boss. Between the poor quality of it and all the weight on those shelves, it must have just collapsed.”
I sighed with my arms still clutching Sage to me, which helped calm me down. Gabby or Leo could have been standing there without anyone around to pull them away. The whole thing could have been so much worse. Holding Sage right then just felt good.
Once my heart rate slowed back down to a normal level, I realized that Sage’s chest was pressed up against mine. Without her heels, she was shorter than she had been the other day and her face was level with my neck. Lust suddenly slammed into me as I held her soft body against my hard one. Desire was making my body tense all over again. Every one of my extremities was tingling with awareness, sparking at every point of contact my body made with hers.
And yeah, my dick knew how much it wanted Sage.
The level of arousal that jolted through me was taking me by surprise. Damn, it was strong. Like, punching through the zipper of my jeans, throwing her up against the wall because I couldn’t wait until I got her to my desk, strong.
Sage’s hand squeezed my arm, shifting my attention down to her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
She smiled softly, rubbing my arm before backing away. I reluctantly let my arms slide back down to my sides. “I’m fine. I wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for you, though. So thank you again.”
“It’s not like I would have let it fall on you,” I said, trying to make light of the situation. “You could have sued my ass for that.”
“Hey, the money for my new paint job has to come from somewhere,” she said, laughing.
“Paint job?”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve wanted to get a new paint job for years, but I keep putting it off. And I figured that since she’s already getting some work done, might as well give her a facelift too.”
The Art of Sage (Cruz Brothers #2) Page 6