Chapter Five

CAM

Not flirting with Isabel might be as impossible as not breathing. I know I'm sending her mixed signals. Hell, I'm sending myself mixed signals.

I might think she's doing the same if she hadn't looked me in the eye last night and told me she was flirting but didn't mean anything by it because I'm her brother's best friend. That's how she sees me now, as a friend. A guy she can safely flirt or joke around with, knowing nothing's going to come of it. Nothing is at stake. I'm no longer the man in her happily ever after scrapbook.

Except…if I'm her buddy, and she's not interested in more, why'd she get so pissed off about me working to end to her after-hours hangouts? A beautiful, sexy, funny woman shouldn't be spending her off-hours in an automotive shop. There have to be a dozen other things she could be doing. If it's the lack of transportation that's stopping her, I have the fix.

"Oh wow, it's like time stood still while I was gone. This is exactly how I remember it looking," she says as I turn off the busy, north-south street onto a narrow one that winds through what everyone to as old heights, even though the neighborhood isn't that old or high. "How long have you lived in this part of town?"

"Five years. I bought an estate sale property that'd been on the market for a long time. It's a tiny two bedroom and needs a lot of updating. But the detached garage is solid, heated, and big enough that I had room to install the old drive-on rack from the shop when we replaced it, and I can still park two vehicles comfortably."

"Ah…there it is. The true selling point." The smile on her face when I glance over nearly makes me jump the curb. "Why do you need old shop equipment in your home garage?"

"Because passion projects aren't short term."

Her soft sigh floats on the warm air coming through my truck's open windows. "A lot of women dream of finding a man who will feel and talk about them the way you do about your vehicles."

"And you're one of them." I laugh when she reaches across to punch my arm. "Don't tell me you're denying it. I've seen the scrapbook."

She covers her face with her hands. "You remember that thing?"

"How could I forget? You showed it to me every chance you got."

"What a maniac I was." She shakes her head, the breeze from the open window making the ends of her shiny auburn hair dance. "But you were always really nice to me. Which only encouraged me, you realize," she says, following it with one of those exaggerated evil laughs, just like her younger self used to make.

"Not going to lie, when you hit twelve years old and were still adding stuff to the scrapbook, I started to get seriously concerned." I grin at her while making the last turn toward my house. "Like, restraining order concerned."

"You're not wrong, I was a little obsessed." She spreads her arms as wide as possible in the two-seater cab of my truck. "But I'm over it, I promise. Your days as my scrapbook husband and the father of my magazine cutout children are long gone."

And now we're friends. Talk about being downgraded.

"This is it." I pull into the single-wide driveway and park back a ways from the garage. "Nothing like the big, fancy house pics in your scrapbook."

"Those were silly childhood ideas about what a happy life would look like," she says, her gaze moving over the property, taking it in. "This is cute and down to earth. An actual home. Much better than the scrapbook."

"You might want to reserve judgment until after you've seen the wallpapered bathroom with its pink toilet, sink, and tub."

"You're going to give me the full tour?" Her eyes go wide with excitement. The same way they did when Tony and I would let her go places with us. "I thought you were just going to show me your sidepiece vehicle."

I shake my head while getting out of the truck. If I'd known how awesome she'd be as an adult, would I have stayed in touch with her after she left?

There's a grunted oof as she collides with my back when I stop dead in my tracks. The what the fuck expression on her face morphs into confusion when she looks up at me. "Are you okay? You look stressed-out all of a sudden. Thinking about how much work you blew off tonight? Because we can go back to the shop if you need to."

Agreeing would be an easy out. The best way to keep things casual and safely in the friend zone. "I'm sorry I never answered your letters or cards. Ignoring them was a dick move."

"Oh." It comes out so softly, it wouldn't be audible if she wasn't practically tits to chest with me. "I haven't thought about all that for a long time."

"Me either. I filed it away under ‘things that'll never matter,' but I was wrong to think that. Your feelings mattered."

"You were eighteen when I moved out west, Cam. Way too young to be responsible for making a sad, homesick little girl who meant nothing to you feel better."

I could tell her she meant something to me, but the truth is, I was relieved when she moved across the country with her mom. All I can do is be there for her now, which is why we're here. "How about I make it up to you?"

"With a fat discount on my car repairs?" she asks, wiggling her eyebrows. "Just kidding. I would never ask for or expect a discount."

"I already told Shelby to give you the friends and family rate when she does your invoice." Putting my hand on her lower back to direct her toward the garage sends a streak of awareness through me. "I have something else in mind for you right now."

"I think I've seen this porno before."

A deep chuckle rolls out of me, natural as breathing. "I've laughed more in the past twenty-four hours than I have in…well, eighteen months."

"You've been through a lot in that year and a half," she says, a gentle smile on her lips when she looks up at me while we walk. "I'm glad I can provide some comic relief. And since we're on the subjects of sad times and regrets, I'm so very sorry for your loss. I wish I'd been able to come back for the funeral."

"I'm glad you didn't. I was a mess. The whole family was. If you'd walked right up to me, I wouldn't have seen you." I unlock the garage's man door, meeting her eyes as I slip the keys into my pocket. "And that would've been another loss."

Her lips open and close, wordless. Then she blinks and the sass returns to every part of her face. "Geez, Cam. It's almost like you want me to start a new scrapbook."

Maybe I do. Maybe I fucking do. "Come on, smartass." The motion-activated lights come on as soon as we step inside. I nod toward the mostly finished Bronco. "Still needs a paint job, but there she is."

"She?" Isabel circles the vehicle, snorting after leaning inside through the open driver's side window. "It's so old-fashioned. Is she a senior citizen?"

"She's a classic." The urge to smack Isabel's ass as I walk past almost wins. Not something opposite-sex friends do. "Hop in."

Uncharacteristically, she follows my instructions. "It is pretty cool," she says, running her hands over the buttons and dials of the refinished, original equipment dashboard. "Does it run?"

"Better than the day it rolled off the lot, back in 1990."

"Holy shit, it's practically a relic."

"She's gotten better with age." Not unlike the woman in the driver's seat.

"Okay, seriously. What's with the ‘she' bit?"

"You really want to know?" I raise an eyebrow, as if I'm daring her to say yes.

"Wait, let me guess." Her eyelids flutter to half-closed, then her tongue glides along her lips, leaving them glistening. "When you slide inside her, enjoying the sensation of her silky soft interior against your skin, then you turn her on and her engine purrs, reminding you of the sound a woman makes when you're going full throttle on her, her…" Isabel's eyes pop open to their full, bright size. "Shit, I can't think of a good car part to use as a euphemism for clit. Got any suggestions?"

"Not currently," I say, my voice coming out hoarse.

"So? Did I guess right? It has something to do with sex, the reason you call it ‘she.'" The throaty tone from before is gone. Just another thing she did for effect, to get a reaction.

And it worked. My body's reacting, all right. If I have to get out of my seat anytime soon, she'll see exactly how her borderline dirty talking affected me. "You weren't even close." I pop open the glove box and retrieve a folded piece of paper. "Original ownership," I say, handing her the form. Electricity races up my arm when our fingers touch, and I barely contain my needy groan.

"Violet Macauley." Isabel's gaze snaps to mine. "Awww, Cam, you call the Bronco a ‘she' because the original owner was a woman?" She reaches over and pinches my cheek the way a grandmother would. "You big softie, you."

Instinct makes me catch her wrist before she can pull her hand away.

Her breath catches, her eyes going wide as I draw the mount of her palm to my mouth and graze my lips across her soft skin. "Cam… what are you doing?"

"I don't know. Something I shouldn't? You tell me, Iz."

"You…probably shouldn't," she whispers.

"Right." I nod, releasing my hold. "Friends."

"It's not that I don't find you attractive. I do."

"But I told you I can't commit, and you're not a friends-with-benefits girl."

"I'm not an anything girl right now. There's a shitty ex-boyfriend to blame for that. More than one, actually." Rolling to her back, against the driver's seat, she grabs the steering wheel and stares out through the windshield. "You're probably sitting over there thinking, typical woman, blaming the guy."

"Actually, I was thinking he must be a fucking idiot, letting you get away." My answer doesn't get the response I expected. It doesn't get any response at all. At least my hard-on is gone, so I can circle back to something good, the reason I brought her here. "Buckle up while I open the garage door. You can ask me anything you might need to know about the Bronco while we take your loaner for a spin."

I'm halfway to the door when she leans out the driver's window and calls, "What do you mean, my loaner?"

The hum of the garage door opener gives me an excuse not to answer. Out in the driveway, I hop in my truck and pull it into the empty spot next to the Bronco.

"Yoo-hoo, over here…" Isabel sticks her arm out her window, waving it around as if she's trying to flag down a waiter.

To look at her is to see a beautiful woman. To spend five minutes with her is to know she's adorable. Irresistible. I'm starting to think spending a lifetime with her might be the stuff scrapbooks are made of.

Back in the passenger seat, I clip the spare garage door remote to the sun visor, then fasten my seatbelt. "Start her up and take her out."

Big brown eyes blink at me. "You seriously want me to drive this?"

"That is what I said."

"You also said ‘loaner,' then failed to answer me when I asked for clarification."

"It's a pretty straightforward term. Loaner—something borrowed during a repair period. I'm repairing your car and giving you the Bronco as a loaner."

"After listening to you moon about your vehicles, there's no way in hell I would borrow one of them. What if I damage it?"

"I know a good shop. Kind of hard to get an appointment, but I'm confident the mechanic there would squeeze you in. He thinks you're cute and you make him laugh."

"Cam."

Yeah, it's happening. I'm becoming addicted to the sound of my name in her voice. No matter what tone she uses.

"This gesture, your offer, is the sweetest, most generous thing ever. But I can't accept. It's too much. I mean, you barely know me."

"I've known you since the day you were born. Yeah, you moved away for a while. That doesn't make us strangers. It just means we have some catching up to do." When the only response I get is the torture of watching her chew on her full bottom lip, I take a breath and play another angle. One that's less sweet. "Borrow the truck instead, if you prefer. But you either borrow one of my vehicles, or I rearrange my schedule to drive you everywhere you need to go. At all hours. And you know how fucked my schedule is, so you'd be inconveniencing the shit out of me, but I'll do it."

"You're a bully," she says, reaching for key I always leave on the dashboard. "And a good friend."

There's that word again. The more she says it, the less I like the sound of it.

"Where should I go for my driving test?" She gives me a saucy smile while starting the engine. "Since I know that's what this is."

"How about Cabella's?"

"The Italian restaurant out on Highway 2?"

"Yeah. Nothing's changed since you left. They still make the best meatballs."

She wiggles her eyebrows. "You just want to see how many balls I can fit in my mouth, admit it."

"You got me," I say, shaking my head. Though, now that she suggested it, I have a clear mental picture of her fitting both my balls in her mouth. Good thing we have a fifteen-minute drive ahead of us. Hopefully, it's enough time for this hard-on to go down.

"Then it's a date. A friend date. But you can still buy. This time, because I'm basically broke. We can go out again after I've paid my car repair bill and I'm back on my feet financially, and I'll pay then."

My nod is a lie. There's no way I'll wait that long to take her out again. And I'm always going to pay. I'm always going to take care of her needs—in as many ways as she lets me.