Page 15 of Hard to Love
But this time, it wasn’t ready for a fight. His body was ready for another kind of challenge.
The sexual kind.
Which was even more shit-brained than driving a junker without an extra fan belt.
But maybe telling her a little about where he came from would give him an advantage in getting PBC’s tooling work. If she felt like she knew him, she would trust him. And people liked to do business with people they trusted.
“Second-generation American. My parents’ families were from Mexico originally, but my mamá and papá were both born here.”
“Here, as in?”
“Texas. Victoria and Harlingen.”
“And?” She rolled her hand again, not touching him this time, but his skin rippled as though she had.
“I grew up in San Antonio.”
“Which is why you live in Montana now.”
Nuh-uh. This friendly little chat wouldn’t include details about why he lived over fifteen hundred miles away. “Papá owned a small trucking company, mainly hauling fill dirt. My mamá taught ESL.”
“Both in the past tense?”
He should’ve known a woman who delivered fan belts to make sure a meeting happened wouldn’t be the kind to just let things go. “My papá died in a wreck when I wastwelve. My mamá taught until she moved to a small town in Georgia a few years ago. Now she tutors.”
“I’m so sorry. I was just a kid too when my mom passed.” She reached out as if to touch him, but must’ve changed her mind, because her hand hovered over his forearm, making his skin ripple in reaction. “Do you have siblings?”
Yeah, this was where things got tricky. “My little brother’s name is Nicolás.”
“And he lives in Georgia with your mom?”
A couple of women pushing strollers full of pink-cheeked babies and shopping bags walked by, so Alex simply nodded at Greer. His life was no one else’s business.
“Anything else I should know about you?” Her blue gaze landed in the vicinity of Alex’s collar, and he hoped like hell she couldn’t see the way his pulse was thumping in his neck. “Like why you stay buttoned up on a nice, sunny day?”
Wasn’t it enough that he was already feeling more fucking exposed since driving into Prophecy than he had in years? “Is it a problem that I wear clothes, or do you ask all your potential toolers to strip down so you can check out everything about them?”
Her eyes widened slightly. Score Team Alex. Then her gaze turned sly and slid over him as though she had an X-ray vision superpower. “You offering?”
Jesus. Score Team Greer. “Look, I just want to finish these sketches and get them to Delaney so she can make a decision one way or another on that contract.”
“Why do you want PBC’s tooling work?”
“So I can set up shop near my mamá and brother.”
“Is there a reason you haven’t done that before now?”
About twenty thousand of them. “Let’s just say Ihaven’t been able to afford to, but work from PBC could help make that happen. If I’m your pick, then I’ll head…home—” he stumbled over the word, “—to get started on whatever Delaney needs me to do.”
“If you’re the right tooler, what she’ll need is for you to stay in town. You see, the only place prophecy boots can be designed and made is in this town.” Greer grabbed a handful of her hair and twined it in her palm then let it fall in front of her right shoulder. “You still think the boots are a crock of crap, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to. I can smell an eye roll from twenty paces.”
“Look, you have to admit it’s kind of farfetched,” he said. “But it’s smart business.”
“It’s not business,” she snapped, her curvy little body tense to the point of vibrating. “It’s—”
