“I’ll hitch it to the truck,” he said quickly.
MacKenzie’s eyes went wide. “What?”
He nodded. “I have chains in the back and the truck can handle the weight. We’ll tow it to my shop so you’ll know it’s safe and then tomorrow I’ll get it up on a lift and tell you exactly what’s wrong. What do you say?”
“I say…I guess I don’t really have a choice,” she said before begrudgingly added, “Thank you.”
ChapterTwo
Talk about awkward…
MacKenzie sat in silence as they drove through the storm. Beside her, Devin was soaked to the skin. And yet she’d never seen a sexier man. He was beyond tall–easily six feet. Although being only five-three herself, everyone was tall. With jet black hair and whiskey-colored eyes, he was damn near drool worthy. And if he looked this good soaking wet, she could only imagine how he’d look when he was dry.
Yum.
By the time he had gotten her car hitched to the pickup, you could barely see your hand in front of your face. She kind of felt bad about that. Hell, she’d even offered to help him, but he was more concerned with her getting out of the rain.
Clearly the man had some manners.
They had only been on the road for about fifteen minutes when she heard him mutter a curse.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“I’m not feeling good about this,” Devin answered. “My visibility is crap, and I can feel the car swaying back there. According to the GPS, there’s a town coming up. I think we need to pull over and wait out the storm.”
In her mind, she knew it made sense, but she was hating this turn of events. Why couldn’t something just go right for her? Was she destined to have bad luck forever?
Devin looked over at her when she didn’t respond. “I’m only doing it to protect your car.” His tone was slightly defensive.
“I know, I know,” she said quickly. “And I appreciate it. Really, if we find a diner or something, you can take the car off the hitch and I’ll hang out here until your truck can come and get it. Or I’ll ask around and see if there’s a mechanic here. Believe me, I am so thankful that you stopped and helped, but I don’t expect you to give up any more of your time.”
He didn’t respond, but he pulled off at the next exit and right there at the end of the ramp was a diner. Devin parked along the far side of the building–no easy task with the Mustang trailing behind him–and cut the engine. When he turned and looked at MacKenzie, he looked more than a little pissed.
“I realize you don’t know me,” he began mildly, his voice in complete contrast with the look on his face, “but I am not the type of person who would leave a woman at a rest stop with a broken-down car and no way of knowing if she was going to be okay.”
“Devin…”
He held up a hand to stop her. “Look, I’m sure we could go inside and ask around if there’s a mechanic here in town. Chances are there is. But I don’t know anything about them and neither do you.”
“I don’t know anything about you as a mechanic either,” she argued softly.
That stopped him for a minute. “Okay. Fine. You’re right. But…” He stopped and cursed again. “I know I can fix your car. I know I can not only fix it, but I can have it running better than it ever has.”
She cocked a brow at his arrogance. “You have no idea how my car runs. For all you know…”
“The engine is a mess and hasn’t had real maintenance for a while,” he interrupted.
“Hey!”
“Oil changes don’t count. I have been working on cars for almost my entire life. People come from miles around to have me work on their cars, trucks, and motorcycles.” He pulled his phone off the dash and handed it to her. “Google it. Go on Yelp. You’ll see for yourself that I am one of the best in the business at what I do.”
MacKenzie looked at the phone in his hand and then back to his face. She wanted to be angry, at the very least annoyed. And yet one look at his strong jaw and those sexy eyes and she’d almost be willing to justgivehim the damn car.
“That car is a classic,” he went on. “I bet back in the day it was a damn dream to drive. Most guys get a hard-on just thinking about driving a car like that. It’s a shame it’s in such a state of disrepair.”
He let that one hang and MacKenzie had to admit, she kind of felt guilty about not babying the car more. When her father had given it to her, she had promised to love it like he had.
But she hadn’t.