Chapter 78 Kiera
KIERA
The lights of Lucky Strike Autobody were enough to bring on a headache if the incessant calls and texts from my mother hadn’t already done that.
It’d been less than twenty-four hours since I’d transferred my money, and Maura hadn’t stopped her full frontal assault on my poor phone. I sent her a text last night after Spencer and I finished our personal pizzas.
All good, just made a new account and moved the money around.
I didn’t want to give the woman a heart attack or have her put out some missing person’s report just because I took my money somewhere safer. The last thing I needed was Gabriel, Maura, or the police to find me with Valemont Violence.
The clatter of Leo’s wrench on the metal work tray brought me back to earth. Placing my phone on the tray, I leaned over the grill of the car and tried to see what Leo was looking at.
Instead of explaining, Leo just reached further into the engine block. A glisten of sweat and grease coated her muscular arms.
There was still a tension in the air, something odd still lingering between us since I kissed her.
Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe she wasn’t prepared for me — convinced she’d be my little experiment. But the more time I spent in that mansion, the more certain I was that I wanted her. Really wanted her.
The pulsing between my legs and the drool in my mouth at the sight of Doctor Callahan’s muscles should have been enough to set that straight… or gay I guess.
Despite my desperation to feel those hulking arms wrapped around me and those plush lips on mine, we’d hardly spoken ten words to each other over the last few days. And I wasn’t about to rush Leo before she was ready.
My throat tightened as my imagination started running wild, the thought of being between her legs on the hood of another car making me sweat.
But the slam of the office door made my eyes roll. Dom had been stomping around the shop like a pouting toddler all day. I wished I could smack that sour ass look off her face, constantly grimacing at whatever texts she was receiving.
I had no idea if it was work related or Oracle related — given that Dom seemed to equally hate both options.
“K, this is the manifold. It might be causing an unbalanced intake of air to fuel which could be causing the rough idling…” Leo started to explain.
As she kept going, my eyes drifted over to the clattering on the metal work tray. There, my phone vibrated with yet another phone call.
Staring at the lit up screen, I felt my chest tighten. Mom.
Leo leaned against the grill of the car and watched my gaze, an eyebrow raised at me as I watched the screen turn to black again. Once it stopped, she tried again. “So to fix that—”
The screen lit up again.
“Ugh.” I grumbled as I threw my head into my hands. As bad as I felt for the lonely woman, I knew there was some insane guilt trip waiting on the other end of the phone line.
And the reality of our relationship just kept sinking further and further in. Maura wasn’t interested in a real mother-daughter relationship. What she really wanted was someone to bankroll her lifestyle. It was what she’d always wanted.
Especially after Dad died.
“Turn that fucking thing off if you’re not going to answer it.” Dom yelled from the office, her voice muffled by the pristine glass separating her from the shop, before turning her scrunched up face back to her laptop.
Leo’s jaw tensed as the phone went silent. “We’re going to—” the clatter started up again. “Kiera Tierney, I’m begging you. Are you going to just let it ring like that all day?”
My eyes widened, shocked by her aggression.
The doctor’s normally calm face had turned red with frustration and exhaustion.
Licking her lips, Leo tried to soften her chiseled face. It was clear that she hadn’t meant to snap, that her exasperation was more for my sake than out of her own annoyance.
Before she could find the words to apologize for her outburst — an apology I wasn’t even sure I’d earned, I shook my head. “If I turn it off or send it to voicemail, she’ll just keep calling. And if I answer, she’ll try and bully me into giving her my money again.”
Leo sighed, her hulking shoulders dropping as she turned to look at me. “In the gentlest way possible… you can’t hide from her forever. I say this as someone who had to make the same call. At some point, you have to decide whether you want a relationship with her or not.”
A part of me was offended. Like she knows anything about my life. She fucking kidnapped me for god’s sake.
Opening my mouth to shoot back at her, Leo simply raised her hand and continued as the phone clanked around on the tray. “But until you do, consider me your answering machine.”
Wiping her fingers on a grease towel, she snatched my phone and answered the call before I could even process how tiny the phone looked in her hands.
Clearing her throat, she kept her chestnut eyes on me. “Hi, ma’am. Kiera’s not available right now. But when she is, she’ll give you a call.”
Before Maura could utter a single word back, Leo hung up the call and handed the phone back to me with a nod. “You’re welcome.”
But as I scooped my jaw from the floor, thanks were the last thing on my mind. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”