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  She stormed off, leaving Haley laughing, and disappeared around the corner.

  I looked away before Haley caught my eye. The last thing I wanted was her to think I was trying to get her attention when I’d just been eying up Jamie’s ass.

  Not that I had a place doing so, but still. With an ass like that…

  I shook my head to rid my mind of those thoughts. She might have a great ass, but she was a big fucking pain in mine. Her stupid, smart mouth. Her ridiculous, sassy comments. That fucking pretty smile she got when she knew she had me.

  The one she’d given me after the tow truck conversation this morning when I realized I’d talked myself into the worst job I’d do this week.

  That was fucking stupid. And all it’d made me do was realize that she was cute as fuck when she smiled like that—especially when she had a grease smudge over her cheek.

  The craziest part was that her lipstick had still been intact at the end of the day. That’d been some goddamn sorcery right there.

  The person in front of me in line stepped aside, so I moved forward and placed my order.

  “That’s a twenty minute wait. Is that okay?” The pretty, young redhead asked me, blinking bright blue eyes in my direction.

  I waved my hand. “Fine. I’ll go take a seat with some friends.”

  She nodded. “Cash or card?”

  I pulled my card out of my pocket and swiped when she motioned to.

  “Here’s your number.” She handed me a receipt with the number circled on the top. “The machine will call out when your order is ready, and you can collect it from the other end of the counter.” She pointed to an area with a “Take-Out Collection” sign hanging above it.

  “You got it. Thanks.” I stuffed my card back in my pocket and folded the receipt in two. A glance toward where Haley was sitting told me Jamie hadn’t returned from wherever she’d disappeared to.

  Going up there, to that table, was a bad idea. After all, one of the women took pleasure in pissing me off and the other obviously was mildly interested in just the pleasure.

  Which is why I went up there. Because I was fucking good at bad ideas.

  Case in point: I’d hired the woman who took pleasure in pissing me off.

  “Do you mind?” I motioned to the empty side of the booth where Jamie had been sitting.

  Haley looked up, straw between her bright-pink lips. “I don’t,” she said. “But Jamie probably will.”

  “Perfect.” I slid across the booth, gently pushing her plate toward the edge of the table.

  Haley’s lips curved. “I take it you haven’t been introduced to her temper yet.”

  “It can’t be worse than her sarcasm.”

  She laughed, but it was almost hollow. “Boy, you’re brave. You’re playing with fire.”

  I grinned. “I turned my grandfather gray with all the ones I used to set as a kid. I think I can handle Jamie Bell.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Brave and stupid. I give you a week before she chews you up and spits you out on the sidewalk.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “And you don’t know her, yet you seem to assume you can handle her.”

  “Her and her hot temper, right?” She had a bad attitude—not a hot temper. They were wildly different.

  Haley leaned back in the booth and studied me. “You know, she told me you were a dick, and now I see it. You’re not so pretty anymore.”

  I fought a laugh. “Pretty? That’s the first time I’ve ever been called pretty by someone that wasn’t my niece.”

  “Kids. Always there for an ego boost. My nephew is the same.” She folded her arms.

  “This is cozy,” Jamie said, approaching the table. “Sure, take my seat, Dex. Would you like to finish my burger, too?”

  “Nah, I’m good. I have my own cooking.” I nodded toward the counter. “Feel free to sit next to me.”

  She motioned to Haley to move up. Haley rolled her eyes, but she slid over so Jamie could sit next to her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your politeness is astounding,” I replied.

  She hit me with a flat stare.

  “Waiting for food,” I continued. “I asked, and Haley said she didn’t mind.”

  “I mind.”

  “That’s what I said,” Haley muttered.

  Jamie shot her a look, then at me. “Isn’t it bad enough I have to spend nine hours a day in a garage with you? Now, I have to ruin my dinner, too?”

  I leaned back and rested my arm across the top of the booth seat. “It’s your choice to be in the garage, darlin’. You can leave any time.”

  “And pass the chance to beat the sexism out of you?” She raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take my chances at passing out from stress, thanks.”

  A robotic voice called out my number.

  “You should try being nice.” My lips twitched as I moved across the leather seat. “You never know. You might find that you like me.” I winked at Haley. “See you soon.”

  Jamie didn’t reply, but her gaze followed me as I grabbed my food order and then snaked my way through the diner.

  I stopped at the door and caught her eye.

  She held my gaze for all of a second before she turned away.

  I had no idea what to make of her.

  ***

  My sister’s piercing blue gaze followed me around the garage. “Please, Dex. It’s just for an hour.”

  “Rox,” I said softly. “I cannot have Charley running around the garage when I’m working.”

  “One hour,” she begged, tucking her dark curls behind her ear. “Please. This interview is important to me.”

  “What about Grandpa? Or Greta?”

  Roxy groaned and leaned against the wall. “Greta terrifies her, you know that.”

  “She terrifies me, and I’m twenty-eight,” I muttered.

  “Exactly! Come on. Look at her. She’s sitting in there not making a sound.” She waved a red-tipped finger toward the staff room where Charley, my seven-year-old niece was sitting as quiet as a mouse, coloring in some genie pictures from her most recent obsession. “She won’t bug you. If I get this job, you won’t have to look after her anymore during the day in the school breaks. Please?”

  I rubbed my hand down my face. “You didn’t tell me why Grandpa can’t have her.”

  “The last time, he fell asleep. She tried her hand and baking and almost set the kitchen on fire,” she told me slowly.

  “That was two fu—years ago,” I corrected myself halfway through. “Come on, Rox. You know this isn’t practical. I have my new employee I have to keep an eye on and I can’t do both.”

  Her dark eyebrows shot up. “Why? Because you keep arguing with her? No—don’t you dare argue with me, Dexter. Grandpa told me how thrilled you were to hire her.”

  “She’s a woman!”

  My sister planted her hands on her hips and hit me with a stare that would take down Floyd Mayweather.

  “And what,” she began very slowly, in a terrifyingly low voice, “is that supposed to mean?”

  I coughed, rubbing the back of my neck, and took a step back. I half-tripped on a wrench, but managed to right myself. “Nothing. Just that this,” I waved my arms, “maybe isn’t the right place for her.”

  “Oh boy.” She dropped the threatening tone and moved straight to sarcasm. “I’m so thrilled my daughter has such a positive, uplifting male influence in her life.”

  “Hey.” I pointed at her. “Charley can be whatever she wants to be.”

  “As long as it isn’t in your garage.”

  “As long as it isn’t in my garage,” I repeated with a nod of my head. “My garage, my rules.”

  “Technically,” she pointed out, “It’s Grandpa’s garage. You just run it.”

  “Don’t weigh this conversation down with semantics, Rox. You’ll never see that I’m right and you’re wrong if you do that.”

  “Oh, good,” Jamie’s voice came from the side door. “It’s good to kn
ow I’m not the only woman he’s insufferable toward.”

  My sister’s lips curved into a cunning smile, and her eyes glinted with mischief.

  Shit, no.

  Fucking hell.

  I knew that look.

  Roxy turned on the balls of her feet and looked at Jamie. “You must be Jamie, the poor soul who has to work for the demon that is my baby brother.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Here we go,” I moaned, wiping my hand down my face.

  Jamie nodded solemnly. “That’s me.”

  “Roxy.” My sister held a hand out to Jamie, and they shook. Then, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and met my eyes. “So, you’ll watch Charley for an hour? Thanks, Dex. I appreciate it.”

  “Wait, no—damn it, Roxanne!” I scooted past Jamie and chased after her. “Rox!”

  “What?” My sister asked with a long-suffering sigh as she turned right in front of her car.

  “You can’t leave Charley here,” I said. “I cannot have her here while I’m working.”

  She held up her hands, her key dangling from her middle finger. “I have nobody else to have her, you know that. And I need this interview. I told you. One hour.” She unlocked her car and opened the door. “Besides. You’ll have to be nice to Jamie in front of her.”

  Bitch.

  “I’m not the one with the attitude problem. And you have sixty minutes, Rox. If you’re late, you owe me big time.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” She got in her car and started it.

  I stared after her as she left. Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and went back inside.

  “Uncle Dex?” Charley said from the doorway.

  “Yep?” I turned to her.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Mom only did that so you have to be nice to her.” With one finger, she pointed at Jamie.

  “She mentioned it,” I said tightly.

  “And she could have left me at home with Pops, because I don’t bake cakes on my own anymore.”

  “We all learned a lesson that day.”

  “She didn’t even ask Pops,” Charley went on, innocence crossing all of her features. “She told him she had a babysitter and we came here.”

  Jamie snorted from behind me. I shot her a dark look.

  “Good to know, Char, thanks. Anything else your mom didn’t want to tell me?”

  She thought for a moment, her light brown eyebrows drawing together in a frown. “Oh, yes!” She brightened, then dropped the smile.

  “Well?”

  She looked around as if she knew what she was saying was bad. “She said you’re a word that I’m not allowed to say until I can touch the ceiling without my tippy-toes.”

  Jamie did more than snort at that. She laughed.

  I didn’t.

  “All right. That’s enough of that for today. Why don’t you go finish your coloring?”

  “Will you hang it on the wall here?”

  “I’ll hang ten pictures if you color them nicely and let me get back to work.”

  She grinned. It was almost a manic one—one that told me I’d just made a huge mistake. “Okay!” She skipped back into the staff room and jumped on the sofa.

  I watched as she got comfortable in front of her coloring things.

  “Well, if your sister thinks you’re a word a kid can’t repeat, I can’t be far wrong in my estimation of you.” Jamie flashed me a grin as she walked past me.

  “Good morning. How are you? Did you sleep well?” I tried to keep sarcasm out of my tone, but I don’t think it worked.

  “Good morning.” She kept the same, bright tone. “I’m excellent, and I slept exceptionally.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “I dreamed I beat a mechanic over the head with numerous tools,” she continued. “It was delightful, and I woke in a great mood.”

  I stared at the back of her head as she rifled inside a tool box.

  “Ah-ha,” she said, pulling something out. She turned, then froze. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m trying to be nice,” I said through gritted teeth. “But it’s hard when you’re informing me you dreamed of murdering me.”

  “You asked how I slept.”

  “Not what you dreamed about.”

  She held her hands up. “Well, I’m in a great mood, and I’d like to stay that way.”

  I blinked at her. “I’m scared of you in a good mood.”

  “You should be.” She waggled her eyebrows once as if she were warning me, then slipped past me.

  I watched her go. “There are so many things I’d like to say to you right now.”

  “Which are?”

  “For a start, why aren’t you wearing overalls?”

  “It’s hot,” she replied.

  “So put them on and drink a bit more water.”

  She put the screwdriver down on the side and planted a hand on the hood of the Honda she was about to work on. “Now, you’re just being awkward because you have to keep your sarcasm in check.”

  “It’s not sarcasm when I’m talking to you.” I took the tool from her hand and replaced it with the correct size. “It’s survival skills.”

  She switched the screwdrivers right back out. “Fifty bucks says you’re dead before lunch, then.”

  I threw the screwdriver back in the toolbox. “We’re going to continue this later when I don’t have to hold back.”

  “I can’t wait.” She grinned and, reaching inside the car, popped the hood.

  “I need a coffee,” I muttered.

  “Ooh, that’d be great. Cream and two sugars, please.”

  “I wasn’t offering.”

  “I know. I wasn’t asking.”

  “Give me some goddamn strength,” I muttered again, walking away to the tune of her muffled laughter.

  I stormed past the sofa where Charley was coloring some tiny tiger in blue and hit the power button for the coffee machine.

  “I like her.”

  I turned around. Charley hadn’t even looked up from her coloring. “Huh?” I said.

  “Jamie,” she said, absentmindedly tucking a loose curl away from her face. She peered up. “I like her.”

  “Of course you do,” I replied.

  “She doesn’t take any of your banana-split.”

  I frowned. “My banana-split?”

  “Yeah. I have to call it banana-split.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  She paused. “Will you tell mom if I say a bad word?”

  I drew a cross over my heart in promise.

  “Bullshit,” she whispered. “Banana-split.”

  I grimaced.

  Bullshit. Banana-split.

  Awesome. Now my sister was teaching my niece how to politely call me on it.

  “Gotcha.”

  “See? She doesn’t take your banana-split. I like that in a woman.”

  “Charley, you have got to stop listening to your mom.”

  “Why would I do that? If I stop listening, I won’t know how to tattle on her to you.”

  I pointed a finger at her. “Good point. Here.” I dug in my pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill. “For your troubles.” I tossed it on top of her coloring.

  She picked it up and stuffed it in her bag. “Gotta start charging more,” she murmured.

  Yep. The kid was a Ryne all right.

  Chapter Seven – Jamie

  “Three hours,” Dex said flatly, handing Roxy a pink backpack. “Three hours.”

  “I’m sorry.” She pressed her hands to her chest. “The interview went on a little longer than I thought, then a friend invited me to lunch. I knew she wouldn’t be a problem.”

  Dex dug in his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. “See this? It’s called a phone. It has this really neat feature where you can call people and talk to them to tell them things. Like if you’re going to be two hours late.”

  Charley rolled her eyes. “Mom never uses her phone.”

  “I never use my phone to sp
eak to your uncle,” Roxy corrected her.

  “I know. I called you twenty times.”

  “Thirty-three,” she replied. “My phone was on silent.”

  “You’re such a banana-splitter,” he snapped.

  Roxy grinned, clearly holding back a laugh. “How’s it feel to look in the mirror?”

  “Get out of my garage.” He waved his hand at her. “And tell Aunt Greta to make sure she has a bra on when I get home. She scarred me for life this morning.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my laughter.

  Roxy caught my eye and smiled, her tongue caught between her teeth. She wiggled her fingers right before she ushered Charley out of the garage and across to her car.

  “Women. You’re all out to get me.”

  “Have you considered you’re the common denominator here?” I asked, leaning against the side of the car I’d been working on all morning. “Me, your sister, your niece…”

  He sighed at me. “I’m too tired to fight you.”

  “What’s with the banana-split thing?”

  Another hand wave. “Apparently, Charley picked up on Roxy calling me on my bullshit one too many times, so Charley now calls bullshit, banana-split. And uses it to call me on it.”

  I laughed. “That’s the most random thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Well, I discovered it when Charley told me she liked you after five minutes, because you don’t take my banana-split.”

  “She’s gonna go so far in life,” I mused. “And she’s right. I don’t.”

  “Much to my annoyance.”

  “Really? It annoys you that I fight you on everything? Oh my God. It’s not obvious at all.”

  He turned to look at me. “I can’t decide if sarcasm is your default setting, or you’re deliberately trying to wind me up to the point I fire you.”

  “That would shorten this torturous three weeks into something a little less…long.”

  His lips twitched to the side. “I’m not going to fire you, Jamie. No matter how much you get under my skin. It’d be much more enjoyable to see you break first.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t break. I might bend a little, but I don’t break. If you think the fact I can’t stand to be in your presence means I’m going to throw in the towel, you need to have a rethink. If anyone breaks here, it’ll be you.”