Hell Without You

Chapter 2

"Clementine," Donovan called, opening his door and settling his boots on rain-slicked pavement. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," she called, hurrying toward his truck, embarrassingly grateful to have a perfectly rational reason to rush toward him.

He walked around the truck, re-soaking his still-damp t-shirt as he opened the passenger door for her. "I was afraid you might be stuck in a ditch somewhere." He arched one dark brow as she settled into the cab. "You get stuck in a ditch somewhere?"

"Yes." Her cheeks heated a little, fighting the chill. "I hydroplaned into a ditch. Couldn't get my car out."

He shut the door and climbed into the driver's side.

"You can't go this way," she said as he drove forward, moving at a faster pace than he'd maintained while searching for her. "The road's flooded just ahead, at the stream." His house was in the opposite direction anyway. Or did he plan to drive her to her new place?

He ignored her.

"The road—"

"Your car. I'm gonna see how stuck it really is."

A minute later, they stopped a few yards from where the stream had swollen up over the road. Donovan abandoned the cab to inspect her vehicle, wading through water so high it threatened to swallow the tops of his boots.

"It's stuck all right. I'll have a truck tow it to my garage."

"The house doesn't have a garage."

He shook his head as he turned the truck around. "My garage in town. You want me to turn the heat on?"

"Yes." Maybe then her nipples would stop poking through the front of her sopping sweater like thorns.

Or maybe not. Donovan still looked as obscenely hot as before in his pointless shirt, and enclosed in the cab, she could smell him, soap and a hint of sweat mixed with rainwater.

"Are you going to tell me about the garage you apparently have in town?"

"You know the one – it used to be Gerrity's Auto. Now it's mine."

"You own your own repair garage?" Her gaze drifted automatically to his hands, tanned brown and roped with sinew. How many times had she watched him fix a car, or some neighborhood kid's dirt bike? She'd spent countless hours camped out beneath a maple tree, a can of Dr. Pepper in hand as she hid in the shade, watching him work. The memories came back to her, made real by the phantom smells of motor oil and soda, the memory of grease stains on his skin.

He'd always been good with vehicles – had always been good with his hands.

"I do general repairs. Body work. And I've got a guy who paints now."

"All that in six months?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

Well, that solved the mystery of how he was existing in Willow Heights, if not the why.

"At least I know the mechanic won't try to rip me off with bullshit charges just because I'm a woman." Her joke came out flat.

Donovan looked away from the road, his dark brows plunging. "There won't be any charges."

"You don't have to—"

"No charges."

So much for coming back to Willow Heights as an independent woman ready to take on the real world, ready to take care of herself. Burying an eyetooth in her inner lip, she studied Donovan's profile in her peripheral vision.