“‘Prickly... rejoinders’?” she quoted.
With great, slow, wondering, savoring pleasure.
Amusement lit up her whole face.
Damn, but he liked this woman. She wasmaddening.
“I know a lot of other words you might be interested in, Britt Langley. I’d be happy to whisper them to you right now.”
“I know a two-letter word you ought to look up, J. T.”
She didn’t sound or even look angry. She was smiling, and she’d swatted that back to him like a tennis pro. There was an accomplished flirt in there somewhere underneath all the thorns.
She did, however, sound firm.
He’d never had so much fun being thoroughly blown off.
“I have to get going,” she said. “Gary will get in touch with you if something opens up.”
J. T. sighed deeply and with great resignation.
She laughed at his suffering and drove away with a wave.
CHAPTER6
He walked into the garage, smiling in a way no man who’d just been resoundingly rejected ought to smile, and inhaled with pleasure the good, masculine motor-oil-and-gasoline perfume of the garage.
A big gray-haired guy sporting a really high quality mustache and a significant belly was waiting for his own truck, which was getting its oil changed. The two of them gazed up at their vehicles on the rack as if in moral support.
He turned and saw J. T. “You must be that Hollywood fella.”
“So I am. You’re that Misty Cat fella.”
“So I am. Glenn Harwood. Me and my wife, Sherrie, we own the place.”
“J. T. McCord.” J. T. shook Glenn’s outthrust hand.
“This your truck?” Glenn gestured upward at J. T.’s old Dodge Ram.
“Yep.”
“Had her for some time, eh?” Glenn diagnosed.
“Since she was born, you might say. She breaks, I fix her.”
Glenn chuckled. “A truck’s a commitment. Not just a commodity.”
“Agreed.”
They stood in silence a moment longer.
“Was that our Britt dropped you off?” Glenn said, almost idly.
“Our?” Interesting choice of words.
“Oh, we kind of think of our employees that way, me and Sherrie. A bit like family.”
“Family, huh? Even that glowering guy behind the grill?”
