My One and Only(70)

Cooper groaned. “You don’t call a 1956 F100 pickup truck cute.”

“But it is,” she argued. “All curves and circles. Look at the front. He looks like he’s smiling.”

“She,” Cooper corrected.

With raised brows, Haleigh said, “Unless you specifically installed a vagina during the makeover process, I can call it any gender I want. And I say he is cute.”

“You’re killing me, woman.” Cooper waved her forward. “It’s called a restoration, not a makeover. Come closer and have a look.” Reaching through the open driver’s side window, he popped the hood. “I gave her a two-hundred-twenty-three-cubic-inch, six-cylinder engine. Runs like she came off the factory floor last week.”

“I have no idea what that means, but it sounds very exciting.”

“Let’s just say there is serious power under the hood.”

She leaned over the grille. “It’s so clean. Like a giant toy instead of a real truck.”

“It’s both. A toy that will get noticed and make the guy who buys it feel like a badass going down the road.”

“Ah, I get it,” she said. “Boys and their toys.”

“You buy expensive purses. We buy expensive toys.”

“Wrong girl,” Haleigh said, trailing a fingertip along the fender on her way to peer through the passenger door. “I can’t afford cheap purses, let alone expensive ones. Why is the dashboard so plain?”

“Not much need for bells and whistles back in the fifties.” Cooper preferred to talk about her other statement. “I don’t want to pry into your business, but shouldn’t you be able to buy any purse you want?”

He watched her shrug from where he leaned on the driver’s side door. “Maybe someday. When my student loans are paid off. Or if my mother’s house is ever paid for.”

The first part made sense. Med school couldn’t be cheap. But surely her mother wasn’t still demanding money.

“Haleigh, tell me you aren’t supporting your mother.”

Moving along the truck, she answered, “Afraid so. Wow. The bottom of this truck bed looks like a hardwood floor.”

Meeting her at the tailgate, Cooper forced her to look at him. “Is this why you live with Abby?”

“Trust me. I’d get my own place if I could afford it, but if Abby ever throws me out, the only place I have left to go is back home. And I’d rather stick a set of forceps up my nose than live with my mother.”

Cooper didn’t blame her, but the unquestioning acceptance of her fate bothered him.

“How much are we talking in student loans?”

Brown eyes stared up to the ceiling as she said, “I think I’m down to one hundred forty-five thousand.”

“Down to that?” Not going to college hadn’t been such a loss after all. “Haleigh, that’s a mortgage.”

“Oh no, my naive friend. A mortgage would have a better interest rate.”

Quick calculations ran through Cooper’s brain. If he sold the truck and the ’55 Fairlane, he’d still only have a third of what she needed. But if he did the ’57 Corvette up right, he could sell it for a hefty chunk of the balance. Unfortunately, that project was still months from completion.

“I have two cars up for sale in the rally. If they sell, we can put some of the profits toward the loans.”

Staring as if he’d suggested they use Mabel as a basketball, she said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Dead serious.” Haleigh’s life-sucking mother was a problem Cooper couldn’t do anything about. But he’d be damned if Haleigh would live in poverty on the generosity of others while he had the means to help. “I can’t guarantee we’ll get top dollar, but they should each pull a significant amount. And if they don’t go this month, I’ll put them in the next rally in June.”

Stepping forward, Haleigh slid her arms around Cooper’s neck. “You’re an incredibly generous man, Cooper Daniel Ridgeway. Completely and thoroughly out of your mind, but generous nonetheless.”

“Let me do this for you,” he said, pulling her close. “Take the offer.”

Haleigh slowly shook her head. “There’s only one offer I’d take right now,” she said, dropping a kiss on the dimple in his chin before rising onto her toes to nip his bottom lip between her teeth. “Do you know what that might be?”

Ideas were coming to him, but the blood rushed from his brain too fast for him to catch them. In lieu of answering, Cooper shook his head.

Rubbing her thigh between his, she pulled his head lower to whisper in his ear. “Offer to show me your bedroom, Cooper. I promise, I won’t turn you down.”