“I
“It’s not funny,” he said testily. “She’s got a silky smooth engine, but the Golfs, the original ones, they put the standard drum brakes in the rear. Which means she loves to go, but she’s not so excited about stopping. And then her carburetor is a little on the sensitive side-”
“I believe you mentioned that. Twice now. And I’m beginning to get a sneaky feeling how important this car thing really is. If we can survive this-or should I say, if I can survive this driving test-we just might make love again, right? Or else it’s all over? Have I got the stakes about right?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go
But he was thinking about it. Maybe she’d avoided him, but spending time with her was proving even more tantalizing than before, so now it was impossible not to think about sleeping with her. Making love with her. How much he wanted to, in any form and way she was willing. But before he built any more risky fantasies that they had a shot together, he had to know that she could swallow some of his rough edges.
Teague knew he was good to people-but not necessarily good with people. He never planned on being a loner. By this time in his life, he’d always thought he’d be married, have a kid or three. Instead he’d lost more than one woman-and screwed up a great business partnership-because he had the slight tendency to like things his own way.
He’d told Daisy about some of that. But she hadn’t really seen it until the car question came up. The car wasn’t the issue. It was just a symbol. And, man, she just didn’t know what he had to overcome to let her climb in the driver’s seat of his most loyal lover, turn the key, make the engine vroom-vroom way, way, way differently than he did.
“Put your seat belt on, tiger,” she said gently.
He clipped his. She clipped hers. Then faster than lightning, she shifted into reverse and they rocketed backward out of the driveway.
Sweat broke out on his forehead.
She took the first curve on all four wheels, but it was close. Then, just past the next curve, he spotted a snowplow, doddering along around twenty miles an hour. Vermont drivers-it was an unspoken rule in the state- didn’t bother using their rearview mirror because they were going to do what they wanted to anyway. Daisy passed the snowplow. On the curve. On the curve with the double-yellow line. Somewhere around fifty.
More jewels of sweat laced the back of his neck. There seemed to be a shortage of oxygen in the car. He couldn’t talk. His right foot was mashed on the brake. Except that there wasn’t a brake on his side of the car.
“My, she does like speed, doesn’t she?”
He spotted a little blue Buick ahead, an older model, the driver in it short with fuzzy white hair, and ahead of her was a Honda Civic. Daisy passed both of them on the next straightaway. The speedometer hit eighty-seven. Not for long. Not even for minutes. But it definitely hit it.
On the next good curvy hill, she practiced downshifting.
Eventually-long enough that he’d gotten three ulcers-she pulled back in his driveway and gave the brake a good test. “Okay now, tiger,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s see if we can peel your knuckles off the armrest.”
“I’m okay,” he said.
“I know you are.” She unclipped her seat belt and handed him the key. “Well?”
“Well what?” His lungs were so grateful to be safe that they wanted to do nothing but suck in oxygen.
“Well, did I pass? I know. You undoubtedly thought I’d drive like a prisoner on parole, but I figured I’d better be honest with you. If the car was a test, then it’d better be a true test. Only…”
“Only what?”
“Only what’s the verdict? Did I destroy any attraction you ever felt for me? Did you decide there’s no chance we’ll ever sleep together again, much less that we have any prayer of lasting another day as friends?”
That woke him up. He looked at her. “If you were trying to scare me off wanting to sleep with you, babe, you failed big-time.”
“You’re okay with my driving?” She lifted her brows.
He was okay with her driving. Just not in his car. Ever again. Yet he heard himself saying, “Sure.” As if he were cool. As if the favorite car of his life hadn’t just suffered a nerve-shattering risk. As if he wasn’t a Type A personality who had to control the important things around him full-time.
“Onto the Shillings’,” he said, not wanting to talk anymore. There just seemed no point. Temporarily he was incapable of communicating anything that made sense. His head, and heart, needed time to calm down and cool down. Some good, solid work always did that.
Or it usually did.
They both drove in his truck to the Shillings’, because there was no point in using two vehicles to go such a short distance. The plan was for Daisy to pick up the car after seeing the Shillings job. The couple lived on the outskirts of White Hills, in a charming two-story brick house that dated back a good hundred years. Mrs. Shilling, Susan, loved history and tradition, and had loved every minute of fixing the place, until she’d been in a car accident. She’d lost part of one leg. Insurance had enabled them to install an elevator chair so she could get up to the second floor, and for the most part she was functioning, doing the things she loved to do before.
But her kitchen just wasn’t working. “The rehab people came over and gave me some suggestions. Also they have a model kitchen at the hospital for people like me, but…”
“But they were generic concepts. Not individual to you,” Teague guessed.
“You said it. I want to do the things I want to do in a kitchen. For one thing, it’s easier for me to work a wheelchair in here than to hop around, so everything’s too high. And their ideas were on relocating supplies, like cans-but I don’t use that many cans. I like fresh food. And I like to bake, but I can’t get any of my baking supplies from this chair. I can’t…sift. Or knead. I can reach the bowls, but then I can’t get them at an angle where I can actually work.”
“Cleanup’s a problem, too?” Daisy asked. Who was wandering around the kitchen, frowning, analyzing, touching.
“Very much so. I can get to the trash. But I need a workspace where flour doesn’t get all over counters and the floor where I have no way to clean it up myself.” Susan turned her soft eyes to Teague. “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do-”
“Oh, he can fix you up perfectly,” Daisy assured her.
Teague blinked.
That was the last chance he got a word in. The two women went into a frenzy of “all the things he could do.” Pull-out shelves. A pull-out pantry door. Moving the oven down a foot. Create a lower-level, long narrow workspace with rims so nothing could spill from the back and set it on wheels. In fact, Daisy wanted about everything set on wheels.
“Hold your horses, ladies,” he interrupted the first chance he could steal a word in. “Susan, we need to talk about what kind of budget you’re willing to spend for these changes.”
“Oh, money’s not a serious problem. I mean, I don’t want fourteen-karat-gold faucets or anything ridiculous. But Donald’s insisted I get anything I want. He knows how much I love to cook and bake.” She was already turning back to Daisy. “You think I could have an extra sink set on wheels?”
“Oh, sure, Teague could do that. No sweat at all.”
“Teague can’t put a sink on wheels,” Teague mentioned. “To begin with, Teague isn’t a plumber. Besides which, plumbing takes stationary pipes. You can’t just move a sink around-”
They weren’t listening to him. A half hour later, though, when they left the house, Susan was as excited as Daisy was. A light snow was drifting down, the sticky kind, that kissed the cheeks and eyelashes and stayed.
“She needs different lighting, too, Teague. Ceiling lights are fine for general light, but-”
She climbed in the truck with him like a born country girl. As soon as she strapped in, he reached over and kissed her. The impulse came from nowhere, yet the result made his pulse teeter and skid. Apparently it ruffled hers, too, because it was the first time she quit talking in well over an hour.
The silence didn’t last long, though. “What was that for?” she questioned.
“I don’t know. I think it’s because you were so gungho pushy. Got right in there and took charge. Trouble all the
