Chapter 8
8
“Flub-a-dub! Fudge-bonnet! Crap on a cracker!”
When was the last time she had been this out of sorts?
Oh yeah. When Bennett foisted Lifeless Luke on her because Trey needed to get him a date for the Country Club’s annual charity ball. Even now, thinking about that could set her pulse rate skyrocketing. It was just one more reason she’d left Charleston.
Lainey sighed. Maybe the gold coins in Gram’s safe deposit box would be worth a bunch of money, too. She really needed to get a better car than the one she’d been driving since college.
She was glad she was parked around the back of the building, near the seafood restaurant and the pet shop. Instead of watching her drive away, Maurice had just watched her from the corner and waved as soon as she’d opened her car door. He still had a lot to do before he could go home, and she knew he liked to get home to his wife’s home cooked meal. If she’d been parked out front, Maurice would have wanted to help her with her flat tire, and with his arthritis, it wouldn’t have been a good thing. She pulled out her phone and took her Triple A card out of her wallet and made a call. Three minutes later, she was back to thinking what a rotten day this had turned into.
First there was Janice, who from this day forward she would always think of as ‘Janice the Pervert.’
Then there was the Invisible Agent Ackerson.
Now she had a flat tire and a three-hour wait from Triple A.
Maybe she should just go check out the bar of Home Port next door. Penny said it was hopping. That was the one area where she and Penny disagreed. She just didn’t like the loud music, and the idea of being approached by a bunch of newly minted Naval officers held no appeal. It would be like meeting Dad’s latest crop of attorneys that he brought into the firm each year. All of them knew that the surest way to a partnership was marrying into the family. She preferred it when she and Penny could go to a quiet bar and have a drink and talk.
At least it wasn’t still ninety degrees—it was now a bearable eighty degrees with one hundred percent humidity. Lainey lifted her hair off the back of her neck and turned in a circle, trying to get a little bit of breeze going. It wasn’t working all that well. She worried about sitting in her car and running the air conditioning. Wouldn’t that run down the battery?
Google would know.
She pulled her phone out of her purse again and leaned against the car near the flat tire.
“Hello?”
Startled, she looked up from her internet search and saw a man standing thirty feet away from her. It looked like he had come from the bar, but he didn’t have that fresh-faced look of a boy who had just graduated from the Naval Academy. Actually, there was nothing boyish about this man.
“Hi,” Lainey smiled, secure in the knowledge that she had pepper spray and her phone.
“Is there a problem?”
He had a hint of a Spanish accent. It went with his dark, close-cropped hair that hinted at a curl.
“I have a flat tire, and I’m waiting for Triple-A.”
“Ahhh. So, you’re covered.” He looked up, then over. Then he frowned at her. “How soon will they be here? It’s getting dark soon, and there are only two lights here in the parking lot.”
“I could call Maurice. He’s the security guard at the bank, to come and wait with me if Triple-A takes too long.”
The man didn’t move closer to her, but he again looked all around. “Where is this Maurice? Why isn’t he here already?” She heard just a hint of disapproval in his voice.
“I didn’t want to bother him.”
“Hmmm.” Yep, definitely disapproval. “How long do you have to wait for Triple-A? If it’s too long, maybe I can change your tire for you.”
“They said I might have to wait two hours. But who are you?”
The man chuckled. “That is an excellent question. My name is Matt Aguilar. I’m a chemist for a pharmaceutical company in Baltimore. I was here to see an old friend of mine,” he said, motioning to Home Port, “but he was more interested in meeting someone new tonight.”
He gave a resigned shrug, so Lainey laughed.
“That’s a bummer. I’m sorry about that,” Lainey said. “If it makes you feel any better, I was stood up today, too.”
“You were? I find that very hard to believe.”
He was so giving off a good vibe. Not like the creepers at Clemson University or the lame-butt lawyers working for her dad. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Instead of yelling across a parking lot, how about you come closer so we talk like normal people,” Lainey suggested.
“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, since you were out here alone.”
“Now, sugar, that is the sweetest thought I’ve heard in ages. But please come closer. If I feel uncomfortable, I’ll yell for Maurice and he’ll come running.”
As the man walked closer to her, she realized just how big he was. No wonder he hadn’t gotten closer to her in the beginning.
“You’re right, a man your size could have given me quite a jolt if I wasn’t expecting you. Just how tall are you, Matt Aguilar?”
“Six foot three.”
“My guess is you played offensive or defensive lineman.”
“I did grow up in Texas, so there was a little bit of football in my past.”
Lainey laughed. “I imagine so.”
“And you know football? Why?” he asked as he smiled down at her.
“I went to Clemson in South Carolina. You can’t attend that university without becoming indoctrinated.”
“Southern football, there’s nothing like it. Except for maybe Argentine fútbol.”
“Soccer right?”
He nodded.
“Is that where you’re from? Argentina?”
“Yes, I came here when I was five years old. My mom got a job here as a chemist for DuPont.”
“That’s impressive. So you’re following in her footsteps?”
Matt nodded. “Do you want to pop your trunk so I can see what I’m working with?”
Lainey bit her lower lip. Why did that question sound so dirty? Why did she like it so much?
Lainey hit the trunk icon on her key fob and watched as Matt looked inside. Since she had recently cleaned out the garage, she’d also cleaned out her trunk, so she knew he’d only find the tire and some tools.
“It looks like we’re good to go.” He unbuttoned his cuffs, then rolled up his sleeves on his buttoned shirt. Lainey’s eyes widened. Under the lights of the parking lot, she saw just how muscled his forearms were under his bronzed skin. Outside of an action star in a movie, she’d never seen a man’s arms look so strong. Matt swung the tire out of her trunk with one hand and a wrench and some other thing with his other hand.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the thing she didn’t recognize.
“It’s the jack,” he answered as he moved past her to squat down in front of her flat tire. “It will allow me to jack up the car and remove the tire.”
In the time he used to answer her question, he had removed her hubcap and had loosened the bolts on her car’s wheels.
“Aren’t you going to take off the bolts?”
He grinned up at her. “They’re lug nuts. And no. If I do that, the whole thing will fall off while I’m jacking up the car, and we don’t want that to happen,” he explained.
She liked it that he didn’t seem to mind her questions. She watched as he finished loosening the lug nuts, then he looked under her car and set up the jack and began pumping it so that the car lifted up.
It was when her bottom lip started to hurt that she realized she was biting it. But who could blame her? Watching his shirt strain across his back muscles and watching his pants pull tight against his butt was positively mouth-watering.
Gah! I need to be hosed down! And it’s not because of the humidity.
But it didn’t stop her from admiring the view.
Matt made quick work of loosening the lug nuts and carefully placing them in a pile, then removing the flat tire. He had the spare tire on the car far too soon, in her opinion. She tried to think of another question to ask him so she could hear his sexy Spanish accent.
“You’re good at this. Have you changed many flat tires?”
Great, that could go into the most stupid question hall of fame.
Matt looked up at her. “This is my second, but it’s not a tough process.”
He slid the spare tire on and put the lug nuts in place, then used the wrench to tighten them.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you my name,” Lainey said. “I’m Lainey. Lainey Simpson. I work here at the bank.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Like he hadn’t already figured out she worked at the bank.
Matt stood up. She had to lean her head back to look up at him.
“I’d shake your hand, but mine are all greasy.” His grin was mesmerizing.
“Wait a moment.” She turned to open the car door and dove in for her purse. She pulled out a packet of Kleenex and grabbed the water bottle from the front seat. She pulled out a couple of tissues and poured water on them, dousing her dress at the same time.
Of course I did.
Lainey powered through like it hadn’t happened, and handed the damp tissues to Matt.
“Here you go. That way you can have clean hands when you drive home.”
“I appreciate it. Let me put all of this back in your trunk first.”
I’m an idiot. Lainey mentally slapped her forehead.
When he came back, he took the proffered tissues.
“Thank you, Lainey Simpson.”
Was it her imagination, or was his accent even more pronounced when he said her name? She watched as he wiped the grime off his hands.
“I’ll be back in a moment.” Matt sauntered off to the trash can near the street next to the restaurant, dumped the tissues, then came back.
Lainey was happy to have that time so that she could arrange for her hormones to no longer be in control of her brain and her mouth. As soon as he was within a few feet of her, she thrust out her hand.
“I can’t thank you enough.”
His lips curved up into a smile as he took her hand. “You’re welcome. Glad to be of service.” He paused. “You know, that spare tire of yours has seen better days. I think all of the auto shops are closed at this time, so I’d really feel better if someone followed you home, to make sure you don’t get stuck with another flat, only this time on the side of the road.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Lainey tried to convince herself.
“Do you have a friend you could call who could come and follow you home?”
Lainey thought about Penny, but she knew she was at dinner with her parents.
“I’ll wait here until Triple A comes.”
“For over two hours?”
She bit her lip. “I’ll call an Uber.”
“Would you feel comfortable if I followed you home, so I could make sure that your spare tire doesn’t blow out?”
She shook her head. But at the same time, the Triple A guy would be a stranger, the Uber driver would be a stranger.
Crap on a cracker.
“Lainey, I’m not asking to come into your house. I just want to follow you to make sure the spare tire holds. How about this? You take a picture of my license plate and my driver’s license and text a picture of both of those to someone you trust. Tell them when you expect to be in your apartment, and should expect a call back. If they don’t hear back from you in a timely manner, they can send those pictures to the cops.”
For God’s sake, Janice had gone back to men’s apartments after meeting them that same night at a bar!
Lainey bit her lip.
“Okay. Let me grab my phone.”
“There’s really no need.” Lainey bit her lip and tried again, but stopped when she saw the frown on his face.
“Thank you, Lainey. I feel much better about this. Let me bring my car over, so you can take a picture of the license and send it to your friend.”
He took out his wallet and pulled out his Virginia driver’s license.
“You live in Virginia?”
“I did. I’m living here now. I got a job at Reduxler.”
“Oh.” Lainey took the picture.
“I’ll be right back. I’m driving a black Dodge Challenger.”
She watched as he hurried off.
Lainey nodded. “I’ll wait.” She sent Penny a quick text telling her what was going on. She immediately replied back and told her to be safe, and then asked if Matt was cute.
Lainey: I WILL and YES, he’s twice as hot as his driver’s license picture.
Penny: SWEET! Text me as soon as you get home! Don’t forget.
Lainey: I WON’T.
He was really nice. And not one of her dad’s toadies, or some fresh-faced kid. Even in college, all of the boys had seemed too young. Yeah, Matt was pushing all of her buttons.