“Gosh, no, J. T., itneveroccurred to me to wonder about that,” she said with such withering faux astonishment he blinked.
“Wow.Sorry.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said easily, after a moment, somewhat conciliatory. “I can take care of myself.”
Sure you can, sweetheart.
As much as he’d enjoyed arguing with her, saying that out loud would have been chucking a match into a gasoline puddle, he was pretty sure.
“I guess I just don’t like to give up on things,” she said after a moment. “Whether or not it always makes sense.”
He wondered if she was talking about some other guy.
“Yeah,” he said. “Neither do I.”
He knew she’d see his smile in her rearview mirror.
She knew damn well he was talking about her.
He saw her dimple appear again. She cranked the wheel and steered the car into another sharp turn that sent his seat belt digging into his collarbone. Which he preferred to think of as a coincidence.
“So, Britt, will I see you under a car at the garage, too? Bagging groceries at the store? Running a vacuum in the hall at the Angel’s Nest? Directing traffic at the stoplight?”
She smiled. “Nah, I just have the two jobs. Covers my mortgage and the basics. And my mortgage is barely anything, especially by California standards.”
She pulled up in front of Ernie’s Garage as she said that.
He managed to shoulder open the door, unfold his body with a modicum of grace and get out of her car.
He leaned into the driver’s side window.
“Well, thanks for showing me that place. You gonna be able to get that plant out on your own?”
“Oh, yeah. I can just slide it onto a rolling chair and push it up to my front porch.”
He stared at her, bemused. She said this as if she did it all the time.
“So I can tell my boss you’ll move right into that house?” She gave him a bright, winsome smile.
He snorted. “You can tell him I’m a complete, hopeless diva. Or whatever the male equivalent of that is. You know how actors are, after all.”
That was pure sarcasm, but this only made her grin, which only made him like her more, because he was perverse.
“I honestly can’t blame you about the house,” she sympathized.
He could tell it was true. Her sympathy was balm.
“So, Britt, you’re clearly a compassionate woman. Have pity. Are you really going to consign me to the purgatory of the Angel’s Nest? Those angels arejudgingme.”
“If you behave yourself, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Darlin’, I’m still hoping you’ll give me a reason to misbehave.”
She tilted her head. “Boy, it’s like a faucet, isn’t it, J. T.? The charm?”
“It’s like a faucet, isn’t it, Britt? The prickly rejoinders?”
She paused.
