Chapter 2
Ben
The sound started three weeks ago.
I know this because Tessa Lang drives past my shop most mornings, and her car has been making progressively worse noises. Started as a little wheeze. Now it’s a full-on death rattle. I keep waiting for her to pull in, but she just drives by like her sedan isn’t actively trying to die.
I’m under the hood of Mrs. Henderson’s ancient Buick when I hear it—that now-familiar sound of Tessa’s car approaching. Sure enough, her sensible sedan pulls into my lot, makes one final dying-accordion noise, and goes silent. Steam rises from under the hood into the cold January air.
She actually brought it in. Miracles do happen.
I straighten up, wiping my hands on the rag from my back pocket.
The driver’s door opens and she steps out, breath fogging as she surveys the damage.
All business casual and barely contained stress, bundled in a wool coat that’s more stylish than practical for this weather.
Her scent hits me even from here—lavender and citrus, sharp with anxiety—and I have to force myself not to react.
Just a customer. A very attractive, very intense customer who organizes clipboards for fun and probably color-codes her underwear drawer.
“Ben.” She’s got her phone in one hand, coffee cup in the other, and that look on her face that says she’s already mentally three tasks ahead of this conversation. “I need you to look at my car.”
“The one making that noise?” I lean against Mrs. Henderson’s Buick. “Yeah, I’ve been hearing that coming.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Probably. What’s it doing?”
“Making a noise.” She’s already typing something on her phone, her fingers red from the cold. “And this morning it sort of... wheezed. Then there was steam.”
I pop the hood. The cold makes the steam billow out even more dramatically.
“And you just kept driving it?”
“I’ve been busy.” Her voice has that defensive edge. “Can you fix it or should I take it somewhere else?”
“Relax. I can fix it.” I check the radiator hose. Yeah, there’s the problem. “Needs a new hose and probably a coolant flush. Should’ve come in when you first heard the noise, though.”
“I was going to.”
“Sure you were.” I glance at her over the hood. She’s shivering slightly, though she’s trying to hide it. “Right after you finished saving the world?”
Her eyes narrow slightly, but there’s almost a smile there. “Something like that.”
“I can have it done by Thursday.” I slam the hood. “Couple hours for the hose, maybe three if I need to order parts.”
“Thursday?” Her voice goes up. “Ben, I need it today. I have vendor meetings—”
“And I have Mrs. Henderson’s Buick, which is held together by hope and duct tape.” I wipe my hands on my jeans. “Thursday’s the best I can do. But I’ll get you sorted.”
Her phone buzzes. Then buzzes again. She glances at the screen and her scent spikes—more citrus, the lavender disappearing entirely. Whatever those texts say, they’re not good news.
“Fine.” She’s already typing a response, fingers moving fast despite the cold. “Thursday. But I need it early. I have a site visit at nine.”
“I’ll have it ready by eight.” I head back toward Mrs. Henderson’s Buick. “You need a ride somewhere? I can call—”
“Actually.” She straightens up, and I recognize that look. That’s her I’m-about-to-recruit-you-for-something look. “Since I have you here, I wanted to ask about the Valentine’s fundraiser.”
Oh no.
“The bachelor auction specifically.”
Abort. Abort.
“I still need six more volunteers, and I thought—”
I grab my truck keys from the workbench and toss them to her. She catches them on reflex, blinking in surprise.
“Take my truck,” I say, already moving toward the radio on the far wall. “It’s the blue Ford out front. Bring it back when you pick up your car Thursday.”
“Ben, I just need to know if—”
I crank the radio. Loud. Some classic rock station, doesn’t matter what song.
“CAN’T HEAR YOU!” I shout over the music, giving her a cheerful wave. “TERRIBLE RECEPTION IN HERE! ACOUSTICS, YOU KNOW!”
“Ben Wilson, I am not—”
“WHAT?” I cup my hand to my ear, shaking my head. “STILL CAN’T HEAR YOU! YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GO HANDLE THOSE VENDOR MEETINGS! IT’S COLD OUT THERE!”
Her eyes narrow to slits. She points at me, mouth forming words I’m definitely pretending not to understand, then throws her hands up in frustration.
“THURSDAY!” I shout helpfully. “EIGHT A.M.! TRUCK’S GOT HEAT!”
She mouths something that looks a lot like “You’re impossible” and storms out into the cold, my truck keys clutched in her fist.
The second the truck door slams, I turn the radio back down.
Bea’s standing in the office doorway, laptop in hand, wearing one of my old hoodies because she claims the office is freezing. She’s been helping me with social media and marketing stuff for the shop. Turns out her business degree is useful for my shop.
“Did you just...” She’s trying not to laugh. “Did you seriously just give her your truck and pretend you couldn’t hear her?”
“The acoustics in here are terrible.” I turn back to Mrs. Henderson’s Buick.
“Ben.” She comes over, setting her laptop on the workbench. “She was asking you about the bachelor auction, wasn’t she?”
“Don’t know. Couldn’t hear her.”
“You know she’s just going to ask you again on Thursday when she brings your truck back, right?”
Shit. I didn’t think that through.
“And now you don’t have a truck for three days. In January. In Montana.”
Double shit.
Bea’s grinning. “This is the worst avoidance strategy I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not avoiding anything. I’m helping a customer.”
“By giving her your truck and shouting about acoustics?”
“It’s good customer service.”
“It’s ridiculous.” She leans against the workbench, studying me. “You like her.”
“I appreciate her business.”
“Ben.”
“She needed a ride. I provided a solution.”
“You’re deflecting.”
“I’m working.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I make the mistake of glancing at her. There’s that look—the one that says she’s seeing right through my bullshit and deciding whether to call me out or let it go.
“You know,” she says finally, softer now, “it’s okay to like someone. Even someone terrifying with a clipboard.”
“I don’t—” I stop. Because lying to Bea never works. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s not looking for anything. She’s got her entire life planned out. No room for complications.”
“Maybe she needs complications.” Bea picks up her laptop. “Or maybe you’re just scared.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You literally just hid from her using loud music.”
Fair point.
She heads toward the office, then pauses. “For what it’s worth? I think she likes you too. Nobody gets that annoyed with someone they don’t care about.”
“She was annoyed because I wouldn’t answer her question.”
“She was annoyed because you matter enough to annoy her.” Bea grins. “Think about it.”
She disappears into the office, leaving me alone with Mrs. Henderson’s Buick and entirely too many thoughts about Tessa Lang.
The thing is, Bea’s not wrong. I am gone for her.
Have been since the first time she steamrolled in here demanding I fix something “immediately” because she had a meeting in twenty minutes.
She’d been wearing a blazer with a coffee stain on the sleeve, her hair falling out of its bun, and she’d looked at me like I was personally responsible for every mechanical failure in the universe.
I’d fixed whatever it was—brake lights, maybe—and she’d barely thanked me before rushing out. But her scent had lingered in the shop for hours, and I’d spent way too long thinking about that coffee stain and the way she’d tapped her pen against her clipboard while I worked.
The problem is that Tessa doesn’t do casual. She doesn’t do halfway. If I pursue this—if I admit that her intensity doesn’t scare me, it turns me on—then I’m all in. No backing out. No pretending it’s just attraction.
And that terrifies me.
Because the last time I went all in on someone, she looked at our life here and decided it wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t enough. And I’ve spent three years building walls to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
But Tessa...
Tessa makes me want to tear down every single wall and see what happens.
I turn back to Mrs. Henderson’s Buick, but my mind’s already calculating how long it’ll take to source that radiator hose. Whether I can get it here by Wednesday instead of Thursday. Whether showing up a day early with her fixed car counts as pursuing her or just being a good mechanic.
I pull out my phone and text my parts supplier. If I order the radiator hose now with rush delivery, I can have her car ready by Wednesday morning instead of Thursday. She doesn’t need to know that. I’ll just text her Wednesday night that it’s done early.
Not pursuing her. Just good customer service.
Who am I kidding?
Through the garage window, I can see my truck pulling out of the lot, Tessa behind the wheel. Even from here she looks stressed. Determined. Beautiful in that frazzled, too-much-caffeine way of hers.
And now she’s got my truck. My truck that smells like me, that she’s going to be driving around for days.
That wasn’t part of the plan. There wasn’t a plan. I just saw her standing there in the cold, needing something, and I handed over my keys without thinking.
Probably.
Maybe.
Shit.