I did.
“Now turn it.”
I turned the key. The engine coughed, caught, shuddered with the effort of a Victorian child, then died like it had given everything it had and wanted a medal.
Bandit yowled.
“Same,” I muttered.
Mason straightened from under the hood, and I tried very hard not to notice the way he looked with his hands black with grease, forearms flexing as he braced them against the front of my truck. Morning light hit the tattoos running down his skin and made them look darker, sharper, like they belonged there more than his actual skin did.
He looked too comfortable dirty.
That was annoying.
“What?” I asked.
His eyes lifted to mine. “This thing’s a miracle.”
I got out of the truck and slammed the door harder than necessary. “Don’t say that like an insult.”
“It is an insult.”
“She got me here.”
“She almost got you killed.”
“She has character.”
“She has a coolant leak, a bad belt, a weak battery, one tire giving up on life, and something knocking in the engine that sounds expensive.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
I hated that he didn’t blink first.
“So what I’m hearing,” I said, “is she’s fixable.”
His mouth twitched. Barely. “You hear what you want a lot?”
“Usually.”
“That explain the cat?”
Bandit hissed from inside the cab like he understood tone.
I pointed toward him. “He is also fixable.”
Mason looked through the window at the gray demon currently trying to murder the crate latch. “He’s feral.”
“He’s traumatized.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“So are you, and people still feed you.”
That earned me a real look. Not a smile. Not quite. But something moved over his face, something almost warm before he locked it down and wiped his hands on a rag tucked into his back pocket.
