by Janie Mason
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
Servicing Rafferty
Copyright © 2008 by Janie Mason
ISBN: 1-60504-077-0
Edited by Eve Joyce
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2008
www.samhainpublishing.com
Servicing Rafferty
Janie Mason
Dedication
To David, for your love and endless support. And to Rachel and Douglas, for being great kids. Thanks for sharing the computer with Mom. I love you all.
Chapter One
Heidi Callihan imagined the satisfying thud the hood would make, should it accidentally come crashing down on Barbara Murillo’s dyed skull.
For Barbara’s sake, it was a darned good thing Heidi’s boss, Joe “Rafe” Rafferty, was hunched under the Cadillac’s massive hood with her; otherwise Heidi would be sorely tempted to step over from the adjacent service bay and make the vision a reality.
She wiped her grease-blackened hands with a shop rag, looking down at her stubby, darkened nails. Then, shaking off self-doubt, Heidi pretended to search for a nine-sixteenths-inch socket in one of the garage’s rolling tool cabinets. In her peripheral vision, however, she caught intermittent glimpses of the perfectly manicured widow Murillo, poured in her deep V-necked tee, leaning over the fender toward Rafe.
I hope she gets engine grease all over those double-Ds. With a muffled harrumph, Heidi picked up the socket and made herself turn back to her work.
That woman’s had more men than Hershey’s has kisses. Why can’t she just leave this one alone?
“Everything checks out okay,” Heidi heard Rafe say as he backed out from underneath the Cadillac’s hood. He straightened to his full six-foot-three-inch height, his muscular frame almost allowing Heidi to forget the seductress who loomed much too close.
“Well, it was making this funny sound when it idled,” Barbara cooed with enough artificial sweetness to fill a saccharine factory. Heidi rolled her eyes and blew a puff of air up at her bangs. She couldn’t believe Rafe was falling for such a lame act.
“I thought I’d better have you take a look at it,” Barbara continued. “After all, I wouldn’t want Tony Junior and me to be helplessly stranded somewhere.”
Helpless? Fat chance! Heidi glanced through the glass at Tony Junior seated in the tiny waiting room of Rafferty’s Auto Repair. He was dressed like a miniature mercenary-for-hire, scowling at his Gameboy as if it were the enemy. Heidi had heard rumors of truancy, drinking and shoplifting, and the kid was only eleven years old. He was troubled, that was for darned sure. But helpless? Not by any stretch of the imagination. And as for his mother, well, Barbara made Catwoman look like Mother Theresa.
“I really don’t think you need to worry, Barbara,” Rafe said with a natural smile that would make any woman weak in the knees. “I didn’t hear anything unusual when I pulled it in the garage.”
Heidi wanted to tune out what went on in the next bay, but ignoring Rafe was as impossible as turning down a hot fudge sundae. She slid her gaze back in time to see him closing the hood and wiping it clean of his handprints.
“Well,” Barbara began, narrowing the distance between herself and Rafe. She ran her talons up his well-muscled forearm and then slid them under the short sleeve of his shirt, massaging his firm triceps. “About tonight—”
Rafe cut her off, glancing in Heidi’s direction.
“Why don’t we step into my office,” he said, pushing the office door open and hurrying Barbara along with a hand at the small of her back.
Heidi focused on the engine and ground her teeth behind closed lips, imagining the bolt she was tightening to be a tourniquet around Barbara’s neck. She managed not to turn back their way until after she heard the soft click of the door. Like the waiting room, the small office was encased by glass panels on the upper half of the walls. She hoped the fact that anyone in the garage could see in was enough of a deterrent to keep Barbara from jumping Rafe’s bones.
Heidi spied him leaning back on the edge of his desk, arms folded across his broad chest. He appeared to be listening to Barbara with great interest. Heidi refocused her energies enough to give the bolt a final murderous twist, imagining the offers the “Black Widow” was proposing. Since Barbara’s husband had passed away three years earlier, the bereaved widow had developed quite a reputation around Greenville. Rumor had it Rafe was one of the few bachelors who hadn’t let Barbara give him her own special version of a lube job.
Heidi sneaked another peek toward the office. Rafe was smiling. Damn. Then he spoke, nodded and stood to walk toward the door.
“So, I’ll see you around seven o’clock?” Barbara said as she passed within inches of Heidi.
Heidi bit back a smart-ass comment, unsure whether she should be insulted or relieved at how Barbara completely ignored her existence.
But after she watched Barbara drag her son to the Cadillac and pull away, what Heidi had overheard finally hit with the force of a sledgehammer. Rafe was going out with the Black Widow. At seven. And if that woman lived up to her reputation, she’d concoct a way to get her legs locked around his waist by seven-oh-five.
“No way!” Heidi shouted, hurling her wrench at the concrete floor. Rafe, who had disappeared into the office, yanked the door open a split second later, phone in hand.
“You okay? What happened?” he asked, concern apparent in his warm gray eyes.
“It slipped,” Heidi said, masking frustration. I’ve made a mistake, waiting for him to come to his senses and see me as a woman. “Uh, Rafe, I’m almost done here and there was something really important I meant to do. Would you mind if I cut out a little early?”
“Sure, no problem,” he said.
“Before I forget, I called in the order.”
“Thanks,” he said, still eyeing her with suspicion. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Peachy,” she answered, set on edge by both his fatherly tone and the urgency of the situation.
“I’ll see you Monday morning then.” He paused for another moment, studying her, then gave her a single wave and returned to his call. Her mind racing, Heidi whizzed through the final adjustments to the Buick’s serpentine belt.
“What’s the problem?” she scolded herself under her breath. “I’ve never held back from anything I wanted before. Why is it I’ve been too chicken to pursue Rafe?”
Heidi pushed the tool cabinet back against the wall and washed up, a wild plan coming together in her mind. It was riddled with major flaws—like risking both her friendship with Rafe and her job—but at the moment, all that mattered was keeping the Black Widow away from him.
“If he’d just stop treating me like one of his younger sisters, he’d realize we’re perfect for each other,” she mumbled, mental pistons firing at the speed of a Ferrari’s.
“Then again, it’s time you stopped acting like a little sister.” Shucking her coveralls in the washroom, Heidi stared her reflection in the tiny mirror and
gripped the sides of the sink until she was white-knuckled.
“Okay, so Barbara’s the one forcing me to shift to high gear,” Heidi admitted with a new determination, “but if anyone is going to wrap her thighs around Rafe, it’s going to be me.”
—
Rafe watched Heidi straighten up and disappear into the washroom. He hoped Barbara hadn’t upset her.
“Hell-o? Joe, are you still there?” A distant voice called from the receiver in his hand.
“Oh, uh, sorry Mom,” Rafe said, lifting the phone back to his ear. “What is it you needed me to do?”
“Joe, you called me. I don’t need a thing, dear.”
Had he really dialed his mother in Florida? He didn’t remember doing it. As usual, thoughts of Heidi had him so screwed up he was running on autopilot. And not all that efficiently. Rafe swiveled his desk chair to face away from the interior of the garage so he could focus on what his mother was saying.
“Are you all right? You seem awfully distracted. Is the garage in trouble?”
“No, no, everything’s fine.” Why on earth did I call her? “Wasn’t there something you wanted me to do?” he asked. Between his mother and two sisters, there’d always been at least a half a dozen tasks waiting for his attention.
“Now what in the world could you do for me four states away?” His mother chuckled. “Besides, that’s the beauty of my new apartment lifestyle. I just have to call the manager, and he takes care of any issues that arise.”
“Maybe it was Joanie,” Rafe said, puzzled.
“I just spoke with your sister this morning. She didn’t mention anything.”
His mother was probably right. Since Joanie had married her high school sweetheart a month earlier, she’d barely had time to call her big brother. Could it be his other sister, Trisha, who had asked for a favor?
“You know what I think?” his mother continued. “I think you’re still adjusting to your newfound freedom.”
“Freedom?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
“Joe, you’ve had three women to watch over since your father died eighteen years ago. Now both of your sisters are married, and I’ve retired and moved down here with your Aunt Millie.”
“You know I never considered my family a burden to be freed from.” He’d admit it had been tough, becoming the man of the house at fourteen, but no harder than his mother becoming a widow just days before her thirty-fifth birthday.
“I know that, Joe. But all the time you’ve spent taking care of us was that much time you couldn’t devote to your own personal life.”
“Ahh, now I get it. You’re talking about me finding myself a wife.” Rafe turned his chair, caught himself looking at the washroom door, and swiveled right back around to look at the opposite wall.
“Well, don’t make it sound as if having a wife would be a death sentence.” Rafe could almost hear the smile in her voice.
“Not a death sentence—just a ball and chain for the rest of my life,” he teased.
“It’s not like—oh dear, I didn’t realize how late it was. I have to go. Millie had a root canal this afternoon and I need to go pick her up.”
“Okay, give her my best,” Rafe said.
“I will. I’ll speak with you soon. Oh, and Joe?”
“Yes?”
“Give Heidi a kiss for me.”
Rafe hung up the phone and spun his chair around, grabbing a stack of papers that was stuffed into a metal clipboard.
Was it possible his mother knew there was nothing he’d rather do more than kiss Heidi? No, he thought, her comment was innocent. No way would his mother hint at, let alone approve of, him making a play for Heidi. She thought of Heidi as one of her own daughters. But the affection Rafe had been feeling towards his petite employee lately was far from brotherly. Fate had dealt him a cruel hand. For the woman of his dreams to be nine years his junior. It might as well be nine decades.
Rafe was determined to keep his feelings to himself. Heidi would enjoy her twenties the way he’d never had time to: dating and having fun with all her younger friends. And he would run his business and go on the occasional date with someone closer to his age. The image of just such a woman invaded his thoughts.
Setting down the clipboard, he pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting a headache. Damn Barbara anyway, for flaunting the fact he was going to be seeing her later. It wasn’t like it was a date. He’d just agreed to help her pick out football equipment for Tony Junior. Rafe had once suggested Barbara get the boy involved in some extra-curricular activities. That way he’d be too busy, or at least too tired, to go looking for trouble. Rafe had no plans to play big brother, and he sure as hell didn’t want to take on the role of surrogate father. He just wanted to help get the kid the right kind of gear. Nothing too involved.
But Barbara sure as hell hadn’t made it sound that way. She’d made their getting together for a shopping expedition sound like something much more intimate. No frickin’ way was he interested in the “Black Widow”, as she was commonly referred to by much of Greenville’s male population. But Rafe’s gut instinct told him the whole incident might have upset Heidi. She’d had a rough time of it the past few years; add to that the schoolgirl crush he suspected she had on him. He didn’t need Barbara Murillo stirring up bad feelings.
Trying to refocus, Rafe pulled the invoices for today’s work and began double-checking numbers. He managed a full twenty seconds before his mind drifted back to the night, several months earlier, when he’d found Heidi crying.
The night that had changed everything.
—
“Heidi, is that you?” Rafe asked, seeing a small figure curled up on the old leather sofa in the office.
It was evening and the garage was dark, except for the glow of the green-globed desk lamp. Leaving the overhead light off, he crossed the room, knowing his only employee put a lot of stock in her tough-guy image. Squatting in front of the sofa put Rafe about face level with Heidi. She dashed her tears on the sleeve of her oversized shirt.
“What’s wrong?”
“Harmon’s dead,” she whispered.
Rafe wasn’t surprised by the news. Her father—whom he’d never once heard Heidi refer to as Dad—had spent each and every day since he’d gone on disability pickling his liver. He’d been a lousy father before then, and in Rafe’s opinion, not much of a man ever since. Rafe cupped the rounded tip of Heidi’s steel-toed boot in his palm.
“I’m so sorry,” he told her, knowing the staunch loyalty she’d felt toward Harmon. “What can I do? You know I’ll help you any way I can.”
Reaching up with his other hand to sweep her bangs to the side, he noticed more moisture pooling in her eyes. Rafe shifted closer to cup her delicate face in his hands, thumbing away her tears.
He supposed it was the rare combination of her vulnerability and that touch which had opened his eyes, like some kind of cloud-parting revelation. Those warm tears—the only ones he’d ever seen her shed—had burned a fire throughout his body.
Before that moment, he’d never looked at Heidi as a woman. At least not as a sexy, desirable woman. She was his ace mechanic, his little buddy. And at twenty-three compared to his thirty-two, she wasn’t much more than a kid. Unfortunately, the hard-on that had accompanied his sudden revelation made all Skipper and Gilligan comparisons fly right out the window. Going, going, gone; and he’d been fighting an almost overpowering attraction to her ever since.
—
Rafe was pulled back to the present by Heidi exiting the washroom. She was dressed now in a short-sleeved white T-shirt, green fatigues that rode low on her narrow hips, and well-worn work boots. Heidi always dressed with comfort in mind, and Rafe had to smile at her take-me-as-I-am attitude. He knew she’d argued with Harmon about it on more than one occasion. Problem was, Rafe would have liked nothing better than to take her, as her attitude dared. Here and now.
As Heidi reached up to hang her coverall on a hook by the door, her shirt rode up, expo
sing a delectable expanse of bare midriff. Fatigues or burlap sack, she would be sexy in anything. Or nothing. He fantasized about kissing that exposed skin and then going on, making sure to taste every inch of her. Except for her small, work-roughened hands, he imagined the rest of her body would be soft as a brand new chamois.
Rafe readjusted the constricting crotch of his jeans as Heidi rushed out. Through the window he could see her tear out of the lot in her Honda like she was heading into the final lap of the Indy 500.
Whatever it was she had to do, he thought, it must be pretty damned important.
Chapter Two
Rafe checked his watch. Six forty-five. Rescuing Heidi’s kitten, Attila, from behind a piece of furniture shouldn’t take long. In truth, he’d been blown away when Heidi had called. Asking for help wasn’t her usual M.O., but he didn’t mind driving out to her place to lend a hand. After all, his job jar was empty for the first time in eighteen years.
Rafe turned down the gravel drive leading to Heidi’s house—or rather, the shack outside town she’d shared with Harmon. As his pickup crunched to a halt in the gravel out front, he noticed the dilapidated screen door had been replaced with a high-end storm door. He didn’t remember her mentioning it. Hell, he would have been glad to install it for her. But that would have meant asking for help, and the Heidi he knew would normally swallow her tongue before doing that.
Rafe climbed the concrete steps carefully. They were as crumbly as Joanie’s biscuits and dangerous as hell. Add a layer of ice and… He decided to ask if she’d like him to replace them. He could demolish what was left of them with a sledge, build the form and pour new concrete in one weekend. Heidi could even help. Yeah, it’d be great. They could start tomorrow. A smile crept across his face as he rapped on the door.
“Heidi, it’s me,” he said, pulling open the storm door. He heard scrambling inside the house.
“Come on in,” Heidi called, her voice strained.