Maybe that's why Beth burned so hot yet acted so cold toward him, because she thought he wasn’t worth her time.
“All righty then. You're all set.” Mike slapped the Mini Cooper's bumper.
“Great.” Beth lugged her gym bag up from the highway shoulder then crossed the road. “Can you drop me off at my house?”
Mike's gaze slid over to Hank as he wiped away the nonexistent sweat from his forehead with a greasy rag. “Um, well...”
“I'll give you a ride.” Hank started toward his truck, chewing the inside of his cheek, nervous about how she'd react to the story he and Mike concocted. “Suzie threw up in Mike's cab and it smells like a sewer in there.”
Oblivious to the defamation, the rotund feline slept curled in a ball on the cab's dashboard.
Mike kept his gaze locked on the pothole to the left of his back tire. “Yep. Wouldn't want you to have to spend time in there. Uh, that's why I brought Hank along.”
Beth snorted, her suspicious gaze flickering between the men.
He didn't blame her; if Mike played poker as bad as he lied, there was no way Hank would have lost fifty dollars to him last night. Lucky for him, he’d been paying off that loss when the call came in about Beth’s car.
“Front door service.” Holding out his hands, palms up, he flashed the affable, baby-kissing grin he'd perfected during last fall's election. “Promise my truck does not smell like cat puke.”
Sighing, Beth pivoted and walked to his truck. As she slid into the passenger seat, he nodded a silent thank you to Mike. Now he had the twenty-minute drive into Dry Creek to convince her to go out to dinner and a movie. Nothing life threatening. Really, how hard could it be?
As soon as he shut the driver's side door and the smell of her vanilla and lilac perfume teased his senses, his mind went blank.
“Why is Mike giving you a thumbs up?”
Glancing at the rearview mirror as he pulled away from the tow truck, he spotted Mike standing in the middle of the highway with a smartass grin on his face and his thumb stuck up as if he were hitching a ride. Mike always was subtle. “Who knows why he does half the things he does.”
Beth settled back into the seat and proceeded to stare out the window, ignoring him completely. A million idiotic conversation starters rattled around his head, but he couldn't get his dry mouth to form the words. The silence ate away at Hank's nerves. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he checked her out. The woman sat straight as a board, nervous energy pulsing from her brown skin, finding its outlet as she fiddled with the green nylon strap of her gym bag.
He should say something. Anything. He was a grown man driving with a woman he'd known for most of his life. When had it gotten so hard to talk to her?
The sugar beet factory loomed on the horizon, with the big box stores only a little bit farther on. In another few minutes they'd be in Dry Creek proper. A couple of stoplights later and they'd be in front of her adobe bungalow on Kaftan Street. His heartbeat sped up like a thirteen-year-old nerd’s walking up to the prettiest, most popular girl in school.
A block from her house, he couldn't take the silence anymore and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “So, I heard Sarah Jane made a mint when she sold her place. You thinking of selling your grandparents' place?”
Beth spun around in her seat and nailed him with a deadly glare. “I'm never selling, and if you know who the asshole is who's trying to intimidate me into selling, you can tell him that it won’t work.”
Someone threatened her? Anger squeezed his chest. He slammed on the brakes in front of her house, making his truck tires squeal. “What the hell are you talking about? And why is this the first I'm hearing about it?”
She stopped fidgeting with the bag's strap. Her whole body went still as her big brown eyes regarded him. Uncertainty flashed across her face and her forehead crinkled. Her gaze flicked away for an instant. When she looked at him again with a stubborn tilt to her chin, his temple throbbed.
He wasn't going to like this, not one bit. Stubborn woman was going to make him certifiably nuts.
“Never mind, I'm sure it's nothing.” She waved her long fingers in the air as if brushing off an invisible inconvenience. “Thanks for the ride home.”
He grabbed her left hand as her right reached for the door handle. Her warmth shocked his fingers and slithered up his arm. “Bullshit. I've known you since you were young enough to eat your own boogers. You wouldn't have said it if it was nothing.”
Yanking ineffectively to free her hand, she shot him a dirty look. “Let me go, Hank. It's none of your damn business.”
Pulling her close so that their faces nearly touched, he fought to rein in the caveman urge to drag her somewhere safe and hide her away from anything bad in the world. “If it involves you, it is my business.”