Since there was no one in the store, she had already done all the little things that she usually did once the store had officially closed, and she had been on the way to the front to lock it. Spying Sean, instead she threw herself into his arms and hugged him, and, although he did hug her back, she sensed that he was holding back.
She really started to worry. Was he going to break up with her?
Before she could pull away from him, though, that hard arm had snaked around her waist, holding her fixed in place, as he twisted a bit to turn the lock on the door and flip the “Open” sign to “Closed.”
“Is everything all right?” Tess asked, a bit concerned by the serious look on his face, hoping that it was just a stupid mechanical issue that had put it there. “Was your truck not fixable?”
Sean maneuvered them so that he was leaning up against a wall, and she, in turn, was leaning up against him because he had so far refused to let her go. “My truck was fixed within an hour of the time I dropped you off.”
“Okay, then. Did you have a hard time finding what it was that you were looking for in Portsmouth?”
“No, it was waiting for me when I got there.”
“Oh.” Tess was at a loss as to what had put him into the strange mood, so she decided she wasn’t going to play any more guessing games. He would tell her when he decided to and not before, and no amount of coaxing was going to get her the answer she wanted, so she stopped trying.
“What you ought to pay attention to in that phrase was the ‘when I got there’ part.”
Tess’s expression was as blank as it was before. She had no idea what he could be hinting at.
“I was late getting the parts, which meant the customer’s car was late getting fixed. Any guesses why I might not have gotten there on time?”
Somehow, she thought she should have answered another way, but she honestly couldn’t see how, and she frankly wasn’t much a fan of “read my mind” guessing games.
“Because you drive my car as slowly as you drive your truck?”
His stormy expression made her immediately regret the sarcastic remark, especially when she heard his next statement.
“Well, the problem was your car, which you so kindly lent me.”
She sucked in her breath. “Did it die on you?”
Sean sighed, shifting her so that she had to lean even further against him. “No, but it damned well should have.”
Tess just looked even more puzzled at that pronouncement.
He sighed again, and Tess was beginning to believe that this night might not turn out well. “Let me give you the short list: your car is out of registration, out of inspection, and you’re driving – in the winter snow – on tires that look like Yul Brynner’s head. I haven’t even mentioned that the “check engine” light is on, you need oil, and your brake pads are down to nubs. Needless to say, I borrowed someone else’s car for my trip. Yours – in that condition – shouldn’t even be on the road.”
“My car’s fine,” she protested weakly, successfully avoiding his eyes until he captured her chin and forced her to up look at him.
“There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, fine about that deathtrap you call a car. At least not until I get through with it, which is going to take a few days.”
“Wait, but...” That sounded very expensive. The reason she hadn’t addressed the issues he’d listed was because she couldn’t afford it. She was also slowly beginning to realize that she couldn’t afford what he was going to charge, either, only it wasn’t going to be money.
“But what? You’re actually going to defend driving that deathtrap on these winding roads? Has it not occurred to you that you could have been killed dozens of times over in that car? Or that you could have killed someone else?”
“No,” she answered quietly, suddenly feeling guilt at the honesty of his words. “I was going to say that I knew about all of those things, but I didn’t have the money to get them fixed.”
Seeing that she was deadly serious, Sean couldn’t help himself but to kiss her gently on the lips, not allowing himself anything more than that or he knew he’d become distracted from his intent. “Listen, Tess” he said. “If cost was a problem you should have known you could come to me and I’d have worked something out with you. I’d have been happy to take care of it.”
Those beautiful, pouty lips began to protrude even more. “No, I don’t want you to take care of it. I can take care of it myself. I don’t want to end up owing you money.”
Sean levered them away from the wall, grabbing her hand and guiding her out of the store, and once she’d locked the door, into his truck parked directly outside. After situating her in the passenger’s side and taking his place behind the wheel, he began to guide them towards what she thought was going to be dinner tonight. She should have known better.
“I don’t know what your other lovers have been like,” he began, hating having to refer to anyone else in her past, especially since it seemed like a hurtful subject, “but I don’t keep score. I’ll not let you drive around in a car that I think is unsafe, regardless of how much money you do or do not have at any given moment.”
“Well,” she huffed,
