The Cottage on Pumpkin and Vine
Page 21
“Black lipstick isn’t your friend!” she hollered.
Just as the soda shop door opened.
And it wasn’t Mr. Teasdale.
“Problem?” Sawyer asked.
Why did he have to look like that? All manly and rugged and—ugh. Remember the burn.
“No,” she lied, as his gaze fell on the smoking front of her car. Traitorous piece of shit. The car. Sort of.
“I can see that,” he said.
“It just needs—”
“A new radiator,” he said. “Possibly more, but I’d have to get under your hood to know for sure.”
Their eyes met at the double entendre, and he at least had the decency to blink away as the indecent smirk tugged at the corners of his lips.
“Your car’s hood,” he corrected.
Sidney’s neck went hot, and it had nothing to do with her car.
“Let me guess,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You work on cars now, too?”
“I did,” he said, taking off his blue jean jacket and rolling up the sleeves of a flannel shirt. Oh, good God. All her female parts did a shimmy. “It was my first job.”
“Never knew you as the working type before,” Sidney said, cursing her own tongue. Don’t make small talk. Call a tow truck!
He gave her a quick glance with a nod she took to mean to pop her hood.
“Well, things change when you’re on your own,” he said, leaning away from the steam when he raised the hood. “And you’re fond of eating.”
“I’d say that decision was on you,” she said, wondering who was driving her mouth.
His head was hidden from view, but she saw one hand land on the side heavily. A second later, he leaned over, looking at her dead-on.
“I got the impression you didn’t want to have this conversation,” he said quietly, his eyes not blinking. “Has that changed?”
Sidney heard the seriousness in his tone, and she rearranged her weight on her feet.
“No,” she said.
He nodded and went back to work.
“Yeah, your radiator’s shot,” he said after a few minutes. “You need a new timing belt and transmission, too, but those aren’t dead, yet.”
She closed her eyes and leaned against her car. Nothing was going according to plan. What now? How would she continue? How would she get home? She jumped as the hood slammed down.
“The owner of the auto care place and I are still—well, he owes me a favor,” Sawyer said.
“Of course he does,” she said wearily, running her hands over her face and back through her hair.
“And I can call that in,” he added, his tone more acidic. “Unless you’re hell-bent on hating me more than you want your car fixed.”
Sidney looked at him. This would likely fall under those people skills, too. Graciousness.
“No, that would be good,” she mumbled. “Thank you.”
“Fine,” he said. “Now, this car isn’t going anywhere. I’ll go let Mr. Teasdale know it’s gonna be parked till they come pick it up, and then we’ll go.”
“We?”
Sawyer gave her a tired look. A look that said he was over the big surprise and he just wanted to get on with his day.
“You have a magic flying carpet under that skirt?” he asked.
She gave him a disgusted sneer. “Really?”
He just shrugged. “What’s your plan, Squeak?”
Ugh. To pick up the nearest damn pumpkin and throw it at his smug face.
“I don’t know, Caleb,” she said, drawing out the name loudly. “I was thinking I’d wait for the tow truck like most people do. Get a rental car.”
He chuckled and walked up close. Inches kind of close. The kind of close that becomes heady when you’re backed against a car and can’t move.
“This isn’t Boston, Sid,” he said softly, his voice trickling over her skin. The last time she was that close to him, he—She swallowed hard and concentrated on looking unaffected. However unaffected looked.
“I’m aware,” she said.
“Then you should realize that this is Saturday and my guy isn’t at the shop,” Sawyer said. “He’s most likely on his back porch working on his putt or at his grandson’s soccer game. And while there’ll be a tow truck coming,” he continued. “There’s no rental car.”
“So I’m at your mercy?” she asked, tilting her head at him “You driving me home on Sunday, too?”
He blinked.
“I thought you weren’t staying,” he said
“Well, I have to find Edmund Crane,” she said, pointing behind her. “I have some research to do, and evidently now some searching on foot. Unless you have Uber in this town?”
His expression was blank. “Have what?”
Sidney shook her head. “Cabs?
“Not likely,” he said, backing up a step. “What do you need Crane for?”
“To talk to him about my client’s lease,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Sawyer’s eyebrows moved together in confusion, and he backed up another step and crossed his arms over his chest. Really good arms.
Stop.
“What?” he asked. “Your client?”
“Yes.”
“Teasdale is your client?”
“Yes,” Sidney repeated.
“Crane is working him over for the lease?” he asked. “That’s why he’s—” His jaw tightened. “Damn it.”
Before Sidney could ask what he was suddenly so mad about, he was yanking open the door and swallowed back into the sauna.
Chapter 8
If it wasn’t so damn hot in that place, Sawyer would’ve thought it was his own ire smoking out of his ears.
“Mr. T!” he yelled, vaguely aware of the door opening again behind him.
It didn’t matter. If Sidney was now tied up with Edmund Crane, she needed to know whom she was dealing with. She just needed to stay back there. About six feet back there. Because her scent was making him crazy. Making him think more like the lovesick boy he used to be instead of the independent man he’d become.
“Who’s yelling at me?” came Teasdale’s voice, closely followed by the man himself, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Crane?” Sawyer said.
The old man’s look of irritation crumpled into weariness and then annoyance.
“Who put that idiot’s name in your head?” Teasdale said, his gaze looking past him to Sidney.
“I might have mentioned—” Sidney began.
“You’re my lawyer!” Teasdale said, accentuating the last word with a hard pound of his cane. “Two seconds outside my door and you’re blabbing my case to a stranger?”
“Hang on,” Sawyer said, instinctively standing in front of her. And kicking himself in the ass for feeling protective. “It’s not like that. Sidney and I have—” What did they have? “We grew up together. We—were friends once. And her car is broke down outside, so—”
“So you said you’d bring her to Crane, and she said that’s where she was going anyway,” Teasdale said, waving him off like a gnat. “I see the picture.”
“Other way around, actually, but yeah,” Sawyer said.
“Wait, what?” Sidney asked.
“Doesn’t involve you,” Sawyer said. Please stay out of it.
“The hell it doesn’t,” she said, looking like she gained a full inch. “Bring me to Crane? He’s the car guy who owes you a favor?”
Sawyer blew out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Sidney said, lifting her hair off her neck and walking in a circle.
He wished she would quit that. He was having a hard enough time with her mouth. Exposing her neck like that made him want to back her up to a wall.
“I’m never getting out of here,” she said.
“Quit being dramatic,” Sawyer said, focusing back on Teasdale. “You. Why didn’t you tell me that’s why you’re selling everything?”
“Because you’d go
off half-cocked, boy,” Teasdale said, lowering into a chair. “Get yourself in another pickle over favors.”
“Listen to me—”
“No, you listen to me,” Teasdale said. “I’m a pretty big boy. I don’t need you getting involved with him again over me.”
“Or me,” Sidney piped in, grabbing his arm and then stopping dead, staring at her hand as if it had betrayed her. Clearing her throat, she let her fingers slide down his arm and pull away before they reached his hand. And the punch to his midsection was only intensified when those huge blue eyes gazed up at him. “Whatever the hell getting involved with him means. It’s not worth it.”
“Look, I just got his niece a job at the post office, and he was appreciative,” Sawyer said. “I know someone there, and it was no big deal. Small change. So is pushing your car to the front of a line. It’s all good.”
“Well, I have a lawyer now,” Teasdale said. “So you don’t need to do squat for me.” He raised an eyebrow at Sidney. “Right?”
“That’s right,” she said, tucking her hair behind one ear.
Her nervous tell. That was what had been familiar earlier. How the hell was he going to make it through this weekend, with Sidney Jensen in his wake?
* * *
Sidney being in his truck with him was brutal. Watching her slide across the vinyl, her skirt riding up on her thighs before she pulled it down. Being in the same enclosed space with her, only talking when they had to get out again to unload the desk, her scent surrounding him.
It was a longer drive to Edmund Crane’s house on the outskirts of town, and the silence stretched. A particularly rough bump liberated the top button of her blouse from its fastener, and Sawyer was treated to the perfect inside cleavage of her right breast.
Fuck.
Screw this. He had to talk or lose his mind.
“So, what made you want to become a lawyer?” he asked.
“What made you become a mechanic-turned-gardener with a penchant for hanging out with bad guys?” she countered.
Sawyer huffed out a breath. “You first.”
Sidney inhaled deeply and let it go as she crossed her arms. Pushing up and unknowingly putting more of that boob on display. Sawyer shook his head and tried to just focus on the road. He wasn’t usually one to go stupid over a pair of tits, but once upon a time, this particular pair was on his daily fantasizing list. Now between that visual and the skirt inching up her legs again, his dick was starting to join the party.
“Wanted to make my nana proud, I guess,” she said, gazing out the passenger window. “She left me a chunk of money when she died, and I felt like I needed to do something worthy of her with it.” She let go of another breath. “I’m still working on that.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’m a very small fish swimming against high tide in a very lucrative corporate ocean,” she said. “Not exactly where I saw myself landing.”
“So then do something else,” he said. The look she gave him could have melted steel. “What? I’m serious. You’re smart, Sidney. You were always smart. If you don’t like the direction you’re walking in, turn around.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw tightened. “Your turn.”
He held a palm up. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters,” she said. “What’s up with this Crane guy, and what did he do to you?”
Sawyer sighed. “Crane owned the shop I got a job at when I first hit town. He—I don’t know, saw something in me, I guess, and took me under his wing. Taught me everything he knew. I told him my real name and he helped me create someone else. Made me Sawyer Finn on paper.” He shrugged. “I should have seen the signs then, but I was blinded. He was kind of a dad figure, and—well, I was short on that.”
“You left that.”
He met her eyes as he rolled up to a red light. “No. I didn’t. I may have a father. But I never had a dad.”
The look that passed between them was full of every conversation they’d ever had, before she blinked and faced forward.
“You have to remember, I was eighteen and scared and pissed off and not knowing what I was going to do,” he said, watching the little crease above her nose crinkle. He knew what question was coming. “Someone offering me a little attention and safety—I soaked that shit up. And eventually that led to him calling in favors. Errands. Some shady deals that I had to deliver paperwork on or keep people occupied while he had meetings off the book. Just a bunch of shit that I finally had enough of, and when I met Amelia Rose she gave me another job so that I could get away.”
“Jesus, it sounds like the mob,” Sidney said.
Sawyer laughed. “No. Just an ass. Sad thing is he was still more of a dad to me than mine ever was.”
“So—what were you pissed off about?” Sidney asked, zeroing in on what he knew she would.
He nodded, making a turn next to a train car graveyard, and pulling over. He’d thought about this conversation, this apology, a million times over the years. Not once had it ever been staged as a hostile takeover in his truck.
“Someone saw us,” he said finally.
“Some—what?” she stuttered, looking lost.
“That night,” he said. “On the field. You and me.”
She gasped, and then blinked away, frowning and swallowing hard like the sound gave her away. And maybe it did. And maybe he liked that a little too much.
“Wow, a stadium full of people saw teenagers kissing,” Sidney said, chuckling. A sound that came out as nervous and fake. “I doubt that was life-altering for anyone.”
“Depends on the eyes. They saw me leave. Probably assumed you would follow.” Sawyer closed his eyes briefly.
“Imagine that,” she said, deadpan.
“Okay, Sidney,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t,” she said, staring forward again. “Just—let’s get to Crane’s.”
To hell with this. “ ‘Don’t,’ my ass,” he said. “You keep throwing little barbs at me, and that’s fine. I deserve it. But we’re not kids anymore. We’re in my damn truck, and if I have something to say, I’m gonna say it.”
He glanced sideways to see her jaw set. “Fine,” she said, recrossing her arms. “Your truck. Babble away.”
He blew out a breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?” she said. “Lying to me? Making a fool out of me? Having to face me now? Owning up to the joke?”
Sawyer opened his mouth, but he was reeling at the rapid-fire acid that shot out of her mouth. To her credit, she was, too. She took a deep, kind of shaky breath afterward and held two fingers over her lips, as if it all fell out of its own accord.
“There was no joke,” he said finally. “No lie. No—fool-making. Did I miss anything?”
“Don’t insult me, Ca—Sawyer,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Whoever the hell you are now.”
“You know where that came from,” he said.
“I know about two kids having a silly conversation at graduation,” she said. “You don’t see me going by ‘Cinderella,’ do you?”
“Could be an interesting lawyer name,” he said.
“Please,” she said, chuckling over the anger he still saw simmering. “One fake name per company is enough.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.” Making a little hand flourish, she said. “Proceed.”
“I’m sorry I left you there, Squeak,” he said as the frown returned to her face. “I didn’t plan it that way.”
She scoffed. That was expected. He probably wouldn’t believe him, either.
“What makes you think I even showed up?” she said, averting her gaze.
“Well, for starters, the raging hatred,” Sawyer said. “And—” He faced forward, looking for the right words.
“You son of a bitch,” she said, the words slow and full of awe. Her eyes narrowed and glimmered with the hint of hurt. Hurt he’d put there. “You were there.”
* * *
He spun in place, the familiar dread spreading over him.
“Dad.”
“I asked you what you’re doing out here,” his dad said. “The celebration’s on the field, not behind it.”
“I’m—going out with some friends,” he said. “Meeting them.”
“You don’t have friends,” his dad said.
There it was. The hatred, boiling in his belly. The kind that made his eyes go hot and fight crying when he was alone. He wouldn’t cry tonight. He wouldn’t give that man the satisfaction. He’d graduated. Made it through this hellhole, thanks to Sidney, and his father’s slung insults couldn’t hurt him tonight. Nothing could hurt him tonight. He’d kissed her. She’d kissed him back. She was coming. His father could kiss his damn ass.
“You don’t know what I have,” he said.
“I know you were making out with Sidney Jensen on the field out there,” he said, pointing behind him. “Looking like an idiot, and then heading off here.” He held both hands out to his sides. “Not leaving. Not hanging out with anyone. Just standing here by yourself. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you’re waiting for her.”
“Don’t even say her name,” Caleb said through his teeth.
“Ooh, protective,” his dad said. “How sweet. What’s the plan? Go get a hotel? Ruin her future so she’s as useless as you are? Run off together so she blows all the potential she has going for her?”
“You’re just jealous,” Caleb seethed.
His dad laughed. “Jealous? Astound me, son. What do you have that I would be jealous of?”
“A woman,” Caleb said, his voice low. Knowing he was going somewhere he shouldn’t as his dad’s eyes changed. Knowing as the words were falling from his mouth that he was crossing a line he never crossed. “A woman who wants to be with me. Who cares enough to stick around.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“No, I mean, I get why she left me,” he said, walking closer, feeling every button he was pushing and unable to stop. It was like a floodgate had opened and he was finally free. “I’m an ass, after all. That’s what you’re always telling me. She gave up on me, but you?” Caleb stepped close enough to hear him breathing fast through his nose. “Why did the great Principal James’s wife ditch him?”