Lean Mean Loving Machine: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Sandra Chastain

“Oh, no!”

  Stacy swallowed hard. She could see the disbelief on Gavin’s face. She could see him make a valiant attempt to hide it as he scanned the garage in search of his mother. Instead, his gaze found her.

  “Are they all right?”

  “Yes,” Stacy whispered, surprised by an unexpected need to put her arms around him, to comfort him, to tell him that she understood. Stacy knew that it was just a car, but to Gavin it was more. He’d taken something that had been broken, discarded, and had brought it back to life. “Lonnie took them home. How’d you know they were here?”

  “Years of trying to stay ahead of them. I knew that they’d come. I just don’t understand,” Gavin confessed. “They’ve never taken my car before. In all their crazy schemes and ideas, they’ve understood about the car. In fact, the restoration center was Aunt Jane’s idea. Why?”

  “Why did they take your car? I don’t know. But I think the brakes failed, and they clipped the building.” Stacy edged closer. This time she did reach out and touch his face, to comfort and share. “It can be repaired, Gavin.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to find antique Cadillac car parts?”

  “No, but I’m a pretty fair mechanic. I can handle the brakes, and Lonnie knows more about bodywork than anybody I know.” She slid her hand down across his shoulder, down his arm and gripped his hand.

  “I guess I don’t have any choice, do I? I’ll get on the phone with Jim, my parts man, and see if we have a fender. I have to get this car repaired.”

  But Stacy could tell that Gavin wasn’t satisfied. No matter what nonsense his aunt and mother had spouted last night about paying bills, Gavin could obviously afford to buy a new car, if he needed one.

  “Why is this car so important, Magadan?” she finally asked.

  “Because I’d agreed to sell it to—it doesn’t matter. I’ll have to think of something else to satisfy them.”

  “You’re going to sell your car? Why? You obviously care a great deal about it.”

  “I do. But I care about the center more. The man who loaned me the money for the options on the land wanted the car, and I had to agree, or he wouldn’t have given me the loan.”

  “He doesn’t sound like any banker I ever heard of. I thought the land itself would be the collateral for a loan.”

  Gavin seemed to notice for the first time that Stacy was holding his hand. “A regular bank wouldn’t have financed this kind of deal. This man isn’t a regular banker, Stacy. He’s just a man who invests, and he doesn’t like to be disappointed.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to see that he isn’t. If you’ll handle your mother and Aunt Jane, Lonnie and I will repair the car. I promise, I’m very good at what I do.”

  Maybe the car was her way out too. She had to buy some time so that she could figure out what to do about her father’s debt, and she and Lonnie certainly had no other work at the moment. In spite of Gavin’s fears, she thought that Lonnie could straighten out the bend in the fender and repaint it to match the rest of the car. But in agreeing, was she solving her problem, or was she binding herself to Gavin Magadan even more?

  As conflicting thoughts swept through her mind, he was looking down at her with questioning eyes, eyes that rewrapped her in the fantasy and made her forget her doubts. No matter the reason he’d had for coming into her life, for now they were tied by work, by her job, his future, and that connection was as strong as the physical magnetism that held them.

  This time as he leaned over her, she stretched to reach him. His lips melted against hers, and without reservation she answered his desire freely, giving to him the comfort he so desperately needed, that she so desperately needed to give. Hands tightened. Bodies pressed. Tongues danced.

  Until the phone rang.

  “Saved by the bell,” Gavin said as he drew away.

  “Bell?”

  “The phone, it’s ringing. Knowing that my mother and aunt have taken Lonnie hostage, you’d better answer it.”

  It wasn’t Lonnie. It was one of her few remaining regular customers. Greenway’s Gravel Company had a truck overheating over on Highway 278. Could Stacy go?

  “Sure. No, wait a minute. The wrecker is out right now, and the pick-up …” The pickup still had a dead battery. She had intended to recharge it first thing that morning. Before Alice and Jane had come to call.

  But Frank Greenway needed her help now. Quickly she made up her mind. “Magadan, how’d you get here?”

  “In my mother’s Buick.”

  “Your mother’s car? Why didn’t they drive it?”

  “They did, yesterday. They parked it downtown near their spiritual center and forgot where it was. I just found it this morning.”

  Stacy thought for a moment, then turned back to the phone. “Got you covered,” Stacy told the caller. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Stacy hung up the phone and began to give orders. “Magadan, take that mat over there and line your mother’s trunk. I’ll get the necessary tools.”

  “And what are you going to do, commit murder and hide the body?”

  “Not a chance. We’re going to repair a dump truck.”

  Ten minutes later they were pulling behind a truck filled with gravel on the side of the highway.

  “What can I do, Stacy?”

  Stacy took one look at her driver and shook her head. She couldn’t think of a thing Gavin Magadan would be good for, unless they were cruising Neiman-Marcus. Well, she reconsidered, maybe there were a few things. But they couldn’t be done on the side of the road in broad daylight.

  She crawled under the hood and began to study the situation. She was lucky. Only a broken water hose. She did a quick check on the other hoses and connections and decided that they’d get the driver to the job.

  “Okay,” she said to Frank’s driver as she backed down and wiped her face on her sleeve. “Just sit tight for a few minutes while I take a quick trip to the parts store, and I’ll have you moving. Gavin?”

  “Of course,” he said, opening the car door with the formality of a chauffeur, ignoring the grease she’d wiped on her bottom. It would serve his mother right if her car seat was ruined. It was just dessert for what had happened to his convertible. That wouldn’t make them even, but it was a start.

  On the drive to the parts store, and later as he listened to Stacy wisecrack with the clerk while he was filling the order for the hose and connections she needed, Gavin took a careful look at the woman who’d become such an integral part of his life.

  She was saucy and determined. She was obviously a competent mechanic, and it was obvious that the men with whom she was dealing respected both her work and her as a person. An honest person. A person who worked with her hands and her heart. For he didn’t doubt it was her heart that had prompted her to agree to repair his car. Why else would she gather him up and try to comfort him, when he was just as obviously trying to take the thing that made her life important.

  All his life Gavin had lived by his wits. Even his job depended not so much on standard business methods—everybody in investments operated the same way—but on his charm and quick wit. He wooed the ladies, drank with the men, played the game with the best of them, until one day he’d grown weary of promising things that he couldn’t be sure he could deliver.

  It had been Aunt Jane who, after she’d heard someone offer him a fortune for his car, had encouraged his plan to open up a classic car restoration center. Gavin hadn’t done the work on his car himself, but he’d managed to locate a crew of workers who had the ability.

  Then he’d met an old man, a farmer who through the years had collected what his family considered barns full of junk. To Gavin, the farmer was the answer he’d been looking for, and a partnership became the result. The farmer didn’t want to give up his tractors, his cars, and bicycle parts.

  That was when Gavin had come up with the idea of building a center to reproduce and restore antique vehicles to be sold, and for private collectors like Gavin who had money
without the necessary expertise to restore their cars.

  But land around Atlanta had been expensive, and he was getting desperate until his aunt Jane had suggested he look in Paulding County. She’d even suggested Lanham’s Garage as a possibility. Long ago, Gavin had stopped questioning his aunt’s peculiar storehouse of information. Too often she’d known about things even she couldn’t explain. This time she’d been right. The land was selling for a reasonable price, and he could finally envision his future—a future that he initiated and worked for.

  But he hadn’t counted on Ms. Anastasia Lanham with her attack dogs and her love of horror movies and baseball. He’d never believed that there was a woman on the face of the earth who could understand and accept his family. But then he’d met her. And here he was, assisting a woman with a grease stain across her cheek and a wrench in her back pocket. The Gavin of two days ago would have been working out a plan to force her into selling her business. But the new Gavin was having doubts. Her garage was as important to her as the center was to him.

  Gavin watched her lean across the parts counter, watched the way her worn coveralls hugged her bottom, and he felt an answering tug in his lower parts. What was she wearing under her coveralls today? Did those ribbed undershirts and boxer shorts come in assorted colors?

  Hell, why was he thinking about her underwear when he was about to be dismembered by a man named Sol the Greek over the destruction of the car. It was as if his body was suffering from a hormone attack that was turning his mind into pure mush. The man who’d advanced him the funds to take options on the land would never understand his inability to force her out and secure the final piece of land. Neither could he.

  “Okay, Magadan, let’s roll.” Stacy was carrying a long cordoned section of black tubing and a small bag of parts. “Now we have to find some water?”

  “Water?”

  “Yes, we can fix the water hose, but all the water is gone. We’ll have to replace it.”

  “And how do we do that? There don’t seem to be many faucets on the side of the road.”

  “We order take-out.”

  At this point Gavin didn’t argue. He simply followed her instructions to drive to the ice-cream shop nearby, and helped Stacy rinse out and fill six empty gallon syrup jugs. By the time they were finished, Gavin’s already stained white Loafers were spotted with raspberry and grape flavoring.

  Stacy replaced the hose and filled the radiator with water while Gavin leaned against his mother’s car and watched. He was feeling more than a little incompetent as the truck driver held him in a skeptical stare-down. Back at the garage, Stacy filled out her service sheet, figured the bill, and called Larry Greenway to give him the report.

  She finished talking to her customer and began shuffling papers around in silence. He felt a strain in the air for the first time since he’d laid eyes on Stacy Lanham.

  “Now, then, Magadan,” she finally said. “Thanks for your help. But I think you’d better get home and check on the ladies.”

  “I think what I’d better do is check on Lonnie. With my mother and Aunt Jane, he could be in mortal danger.”

  “That too.” She sat behind her desk, feeling the growing unease. They’d been so caught up in what Stacy was beginning to recognize as a whirlwind of desire that they didn’t know how to have a simple conversation. Looking at the man in the linen trousers and the button-down shirt, she was beginning to understand that the differences between them involved more than just life styles. They had nothing in common.

  Stacy was into horror movies and books, and she’d be willing to bet that he had a copy of The Hunt for Red October on his nightstand. She was a baseball nut, and Gavin played tennis. Her stereo, when it played, was stacked with rock and roll. He probably had a CD player and listened to opera. She ate peanut butter sandwiches, and he ate Turkish delights.

  But, more than that, he was out to buy her garage, and from what she’d learned, Lucky, and now she, probably owed his aunt Jane more than the garage was worth. It was all such a muddle.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do. You’re sitting there analyzing me. I can see you reading my service manual and deciding that I’m a new computer model and you’re still into repair the old-fashioned way.”

  She gasped. How could he possibly know how close he was to what she’d been thinking?

  He started around the desk. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “No, don’t come any closer. I can’t think when you’re too near. I can’t even look at you without forgetting what I’m doing. That’s—that’s nothing but pure—”

  “Lust? Maybe, but how can we be sure? There’s something very different about you and me, about how this has all fallen into place. I’ve never understood how my mother’s and my aunt’s minds work, but I’m beginning to believe that there is some kind of force working here that we can’t turn off.”

  Stacy refused to look at him. Looking at him made everything else seem unimportant. She was confused. She’d called herself hexed. He’d called it a force that couldn’t be stopped. Never in her life had she been a coward, but to save her life, she couldn’t find an answer that would make things what they were before Gavin Magadan had breezed into her garage the previous morning.

  “I’m going to send Nick over to help you,” Gavin said. “He’s the man who’ll head up the body shop.”

  “We don’t need any help.”

  “It isn’t a matter of need,” Gavin said. “It’s a matter of time.”

  “Are you in that big a rush to get rid of your car?”

  “No, before I let it go I’m going to drive it in a parade, a very important parade.”

  Stacy tried to think. Gavin’s mind was more like his aunt Jane’s than he realized. What kind of parade was taking place. The Fourth of July had already passed, and it wasn’t yet Labor Day. There could be some kind of centennial celebration, but Gavin didn’t seem to be the kind of man to go in for that kind of thing, particularly when it would be hard on his car.

  “It’s a sentimental thing. They’re closing Northside, my old high school, in two weeks. The ceremonies start with a parade and end with reunions of the classes who’ve graduated in the last forty years.”

  Northside, of course. The exclusive school for those students living on the north side. At least it had started out that way originally. Through the years it had turned into a citywide school for the performing arts, and many wealthy students had switched to private schools.

  “I’d have thought you went to one of the private schools like Lovett, or Pace Academy,” Stacy said, raising her gaze before she thought.

  “You have a lot of wrong thoughts about me, which I intend to change, beginning with my interests. I have tickets to the Braves-Dodgers’ game Saturday night. Will you come with me?”

  “Tickets for the Dodgers? But I thought they were sold-out.”

  “I believe they are. Will you come?”

  “Will I come? You really want to take me?”

  “Of course, who else do I know who can give me a running commentary on the finer points of the game.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  This time he did come around the desk. This time he leaned down and brushed her lips with his lightly, almost as if he were afraid of getting too close. “I never kid a kidder,” he said. “I’ll send Nick over tomorrow to help Lonnie, and I’ll pick you up Friday night about six. Traffic will be pretty bad, and we don’t want to miss the first pitch. Who do you like, gambling woman?”

  “You want to make a wager?” The air supply in the garage was turning volatile again. Gavin had stepped back, but the oxygen had already overheated.

  “Absolutely,” he said with a serious expression on his face. “I’ll bet two dollars on the Dodgers. Ah, hell, I mean, ah, shoot, let’s get crazy, make it five dollars and dinner.”

  “You’re on, Magadan. You know I can’t cook, but you’re safe. You also know that
I don’t lose.”

  “I know. You only make little bets on sure things.”

  “That’s right. So, if you expect anything more, you’re going to be disappointed.”

  “All I expect you to do, Stacy Lanham, is repair my car and,” he grinned as he added, “work on your vamping technique. You’re definitely improving, but you still have a way to go.”

  Lonnie returned after lunch wearing an odd expression of contentment on his face.

  “Took you long enough,” Stacy commented.

  “Well, it turned out that Jane left her keys in the convertible. I had to do a little breaking and entering to get the back door open. Of course Jane explained to the security officer who answered the call that I was only following orders. She’s a real special lady, isn’t she?”

  “Jane? Yes, I suppose she might be called that.”

  “Yep, you just don’t meet many women like her anymore. I think I’ll go to lunch now, if that’s okay. I thought I’d get myself a haircut.”

  Lonnie get a haircut? The heavens must have shifted slightly. The charge in the air inside the garage had reached catastrophic proportions and had altered Lonnie’s brain waves. “Eh, sure. You can bring me a burger. I’m going to stay here and put the battery charger on the truck.”

  “By the way, I told Jane and Alice that we’d repair the fender. I’ll get started on it first thing in the morning.”

  “Fine, if you’re back to earth by then.”

  But Lonnie didn’t hear her. It was obvious that the music he was hearing came from a different place. Stacy could understand that. She just couldn’t believe that her old friend and protector had fallen victim to the same Magadan charm that was jolting her senses.

  Stacy made up her mind that she wasn’t going to resent Nick. But she was unprepared for his censure when he saw what they had to work with in her garage. She was even less prepared for the delegation of equipment and supplies that arrived with Gavin’s friend the next morning.

  Where Lonnie was bald and short, Nick was reed slim and bushy. His hair, longer than Stacy’s, was actually pulled back in a ponytail that hung down his back. The tattoos on his arms announced that he loved his mother and his car, and once Stacy saw him run his fingers over the crushed fender, she figured out which came first.