Just Give In...

However, Jason stayed silent because he had learned that people never liked to work too hard at a conversation. Eventually, they always gave up.

“Are you going to open the gate, or should I toss this sucker over the top?”

His instinctive response was to instruct her to go ahead and throw, but two things kept him from going with the default. The knowledge that he would have crossed the crazy-lonely-man line in his head, and the beat-up sedan. Frankly, that car out-crazied his crazy-line anyway, so while she might not notice, he would.

Those were his reasons. That, and he liked her breasts.

He typed in the combination on the keypad and the gate creaked open. He’d gone through a lot of trouble to get the creak exactly right. A haunted house creak. At the sound, the woman’s eyes grew wide, but not in fear. No, she liked it.

“I bet the kids love this place at Halloween.”

“People don’t drive out this far for a stick of gum.” People didn’t drive out this far for peas, either, but he left that part out.

“If they don’t, they don’t know what they’re missing.” While she talked, her eyes surveyed the yard, the seventy-year-old house, the mountains of scrap, the piles of engines.

Before she could trespass farther, he took the can of peas. “Thank you.” Then he nodded once, held the gate open and politely waited for her to leave.

Leaving didn’t seem to be part of her strategy. She ducked under his arm and wandered inside, looking at one pile, then the next. “What do you do with this stuff?”

Jason shrugged, not about to explain his hobbies to her, and not sure he could. Not that anyone would understand, anyway. Hell, he didn’t even know why.

His gaze followed her as she walked around, moving from one mound to the next, drawing precariously close to the house.

His pulse rate kicked up. Anxiety or lust? She was cute, short, stacked and curious. The clothes were out of place in the September heat, but he was grateful she was covered up, cause he didn’t think his pulse rate could handle any more. He liked her hair though. It was long, dark silk that hung down her back.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing to a modified bicycle. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me.”

Not that he would have told her anyway, so he stayed quiet while her fingers traced over the twisted metal hump with the leather seat mounted on top. Crouching down, she inspected the spring-loaded frame with the four iron-spoke wheels. It’d taken him three months to find the wheels, and eventually he’d bought them on eBay. They were perfect.

“It’s an animal?”

Still he waited.

She rose, studied the thing. “First, there are four legs, or wheels. Second, the elongated back is almost like a hill…a hump…” Her finger crept to her mouth, chewing absently. She had a nice mouth. Red lips that spent most of their time open. His mind, always running in a tangential yet somewhat practical direction, began to think of all the uses for an open mouth: eating, breathing, kissing, sucking.

Her mouth opened wider. “A camel!”

And now that twenty questions were over, Jason needed to send her on her way. As he headed to the metal gate, he thanked her for coming. There was very little sincerity in the words, but he didn’t think she would notice.

Her dark eyes flickered once. Okay, she noticed. He kicked a particularly heavy cast-iron drum. The pain was solid, well deserved. His foot would recover.

“That’s some car.”

Back and forth she shifted, like she was embarrassed about her mode of transport, but after seeing his mode of habitat, he couldn’t understand why she would care.

“I bought it in Tennessee.”

“Long drive for a car,” he noted, realizing he was making conversation, lingering in her company.

It was her breasts. Had to be.

Evil breasts.

His body hardened at the thought of touching her evil breasts.

“Tennessee was on the way,” she responded, hopefully not tuned in to his thoughts.

“Surprised the car made it,” he told her, channeling his thoughts into another more socially-acceptable direction.

Seeing her wince, he made a mental note to stop commenting on the dicey condition of her vehicle, but it was a little hard to ignore. The inside of the car appeared to be in as bad shape as the outside, with a blanket thrown over the backseat like a tarp. The tarp was most likely designed to keep out prying eyes—like his own. A gallon jug of water was sitting in the front seat, some food wrappers, a pillow, a half-open gym bag and a small sack for trash. Her home.

As he continued to stare at her mode of habitat, a flush crept up her face, and he knew her habitat was a taboo conversation topic, too. That worked out well for him since he wanted her off his place.

All of her, including her breasts.

“You’re staying with your brother?” he asked pleasantly. As parting remarks went, it wasn’t the best.

“Oh, yeah,” she answered quickly, moving to stand in front of her car, blocking his view.

“Good,” he said, not that he believed her. Considering the state of her car, her finances, he didn’t think she was related to anybody in town. If she had family, she would have gone there first.

Probably the brother thing was a lie, as well. In which case, she’d be jobless, living out of her car…

Not that he cared.

She reached for the door handle and yanked it open, the damn thing sticking so hard that her shoulder was now probably dislocated.

Jobless, dislocated shoulder, living out of her car…

Not that he cared.

“You need a job?” he asked, sounding exactly like he was offering her a job. The woman turned, her eyes swimming with hope—until it was gone.

“You know someone who’s hiring?” she asked, her eyes not so hopeful, unless a man was looking.

“I need some help here,” he offered, thinking quickly. “Organizing.”

Not that he wanted organization, not that he wanted human companionship, especially of the female variety, especially of the homeless, jobless female variety.

Most likely, she was needy.

His old army buddies would be laughing their asses off.

Of course, if any of them saw her breasts, they would understand.

“I’m a great organizer,” she said, hands clasped tight in front of her, prayer-like, and he realized how much she wanted this.

A job.

Not him.

Not that he was even thinking sex. A man who lived in a junkyard with one good eye was no prize. Nope, Sonya had made that clear, and that was long before his junkyard phase.

No, it wasn’t the sex. It was the idea of this woman being out there alone. Jason might not be the biggest people-person in the world, but sometime people deserved better. Sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—Jason noticed.

“It’d be temporary,” he added, in case she thought he was charitable.

“That’d be perfect. It’ll give me a chance to settle in town and find a permanent position.”

“Yeah. I can’t afford a lot,” he said, in case she thought he was loaded.

“I don’t need a lot,” she told him, obviously guessing he wasn’t loaded.

“Good.” They stood there and stared for a minute, and she didn’t seem to mind his eye patch. Since she was going to be working for him, not shrinking in horror was a plus.

Finally she spoke. “I’m Brooke Hart.”

“Jason Kincaid.” He should have offered her his hand, but he didn’t. A handshake implied a contract, a pledge. This was nothing more than one human being helping out a woman who needed a chance to get her life together.

Not that he cared.

“So, you’re staying with your brother?” he asked again, in case she wanted to come clean about her living situation.

“Yeah,” she answered, not coming clean. Message received. Don’t ask about the living situation, either.

“You can start tomorrow?”

“First thing.”

“Not too early. I don’t get up early,” he lied. Jason got up at the crack of dawn, but he thought he should straighten up his place first. Get things in order before she started….

“Not a problem. I have a lot of things to do.” She paused. “With my brother.”

“Sure,” he agreed like an idiot. Rather than letting her notice that he actually was an idiot, he headed back toward the gate.

“I’ll see you tomorrow around ten. That’ll be okay?”

The smile was back in place.

Not that he cared.

Then she nodded and climbed into the Hell-Car. Once he returned to the yard, he spent the rest of the day repairing an old wheelchair. Yet every time he looked toward the porch, it was the red LED that was lit, not the green. Sometimes animals set off a false positive, but not often, and not tonight. Someone was out there, or maybe someone had never left.

When night fell, and the crickets began to chrip, Jason quit working and then walked along the fence line, a man with no particular purpose at all. When he was a kid, he had sat on the porch with his dad, watching the sky and the stars, talking baseball and trusting the world to pass by peacefully.

After thirteen years in the army, he knew better. As he walked the fence line, he spotted what he’d been searching for. The old Impala, parked at the edge of the fence line. One dim reading light glowing from the interior.

It was dark outside and she was still out there.

Obviously no brother. No place to stay, but at least she now had a job. A temporary job.

Not that he cared.

There were a lot of things to do before tomorrow. Make the house habitable for human living, do some laundry and throw out the two-month old milk in the fridge. And while he was doing that, she would be out there alone. He tried to ignore the hole in his gut. There was nothing that he could do about the Impala that was parked at the edge of the road, but every few hours, he peeked out the window, making sure there was no trouble.

Not that he cared.

BROOKE CALCULATED THAT by day three she would have enough money to buy more suitable work clothes. First, she needed a cooler shirt, because the sweater was a merino-wool blend that was causing her to wilt. In order to have money for the car, she had sold most of her clothes in Nashville. At that time, a sweater had seemed practical. Now, not so much. The Shearling boots were looking sadder by the minute and would need to be replaced, too. Brooke believed that no matter the financial hardship, it was important to look capable and confident.

Unfortunately, the work that the Captain had given her was insultingly easy, as if she wasn’t capable of anything more. That morning, he’d handed her a sheet of paper and then indicated a knee-high pile of assorted mechanical whatsits, a tiny island in a yard of complete chaos.

“Here. Write down everything you see.”

“That’s an inventory, not an organizational system,” she pointed out, and he glared at her out of his one visible eye, which he probably thought was intimidating, but she thought it was more sexy pirate. She knew he wouldn’t want to hear that, so she pulled her features into some semblance of lemming-hood.

He didn’t look fooled. “Inventorying this pile is step one. Once that’s done, we’ll talk about step two.”

She nudged at a wheelless unicycle with her boot. “It’s going to take me fifteen minutes to do this. Why don’t you let me sort by type?” By all indications, he’d tried to do that in the areas closest to the house. Wood boards were stacked together, some kind of electric gizmos were lined up like bowling pins—wait, they were bowling pins.

He put his hands on his hips, doing that intimidating thing again. “You don’t know what each item is.”

Unintimidated, she picked up a springy thing attached to a weight with a circular metal plate on the end, some piece of the Industrial Revolution that’d gotten left behind. Probably on purpose. “You really know what this is?” she asked.

At the Captain’s silence, she dangled the part higher in the air.

As a rule, Brooke was usually a people-pleaser, but she had issues with someone thinking that poor people didn’t have a brain in their head. It was apparent that the Captain was giving her busy-work in order to give her money because he felt sorry for her. Charlene Hart would have taken the money and ran, possibly stopping for happy hour on the way. Brooke Hart needed people to see her as something more than a charity case—someone positive, someone good.

His gaze raked over her, inventorying her clothes, but lingering on the thingamaboobs beneath. Wisely Brooke pretended not to notice. “You’re not dressed for working outside,” he told her, because apparently his optimal working wardrobe was a thousand-year-old pair of jeans, a white undershirt, and a denim work shirt that hung loose on his rangy shoulders. Perhaps if Brooke had discretionary funds, she might have sprung for something more functionally appropriate. But no, she decided, even if she were as rich as Trump, she still wouldn’t be caught dead in clothes that were so…démodé.

Not wanting to argue about her outfit, she held the doo-dad up higher, just so that he would notice her chest. Cheap, yes, but effective. “You don’t know what this is, do you? Insulting my clothes won’t detract me from the truth. Exhibit one, an antiquated widget that got rusted over in the Ice Age.”

He muttered under his breath. “I’ll give you money. Go into town. Buy something. At least better shoes.”

And now she was back to being a charity case. Brooke placed the doo-dad on the ground and pushed up her sleeves. “I’m here to work.”

“You can’t work in those shoes.”

Seeing the stubborn set to his jaw, Brooke decided that there was no point in continuing the discussion. She walked toward the front gate, skirting one hill then another. A demonstration to the unbelieving that her boots were just fine.

Unattractive? Yes, but this was from a man who thought exterior appearances unimportant. Or at least she hoped so.

“Where are you going?” he yelled, just as she reached the gate.

“I can’t work under these conditions. You’re trying to micro-manage everything and I’m accustomed to more responsibility. I suggest you find some able-bodied teenager who needs detailed instruction and doesn’t mind a dress code.”

“It isn’t a dress code,” he yelled back. “More a dress suggestion.”

She turned, stared him down in silence until finally he shrugged.

“You win. I won’t say another word about your clothes.”

Still, there was disagreement in his face. Brooke stayed where she was. “I can help you with your inventory, but you have to let me do my job. Do you have a computer I can work on?”

“In the house.”

“Good. I can use the computer to look up whatever I don’t know, and you can work in peace. We’ll get along fine, and I’ll guarantee you’ll be happy with the results.”

At his nod of agreement, she picked a path from one pile to another, until she stood in front of him. Once again, his gaze drifted to her boots.

Brooke held up a hand in warning. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Judging by his four-letter response, it was a rule he needed to work on, but Brooke was down with that.

Like she’d said, if he’d let her do her job, they’d get along fine.

BY THE TIME THE SUN was baking overhead, Brooke had sorted and inventoried fourteen small heaps of contraptions that no man in his right mind would want, which only proved her suspicions that the Captain was a standard left-brainer. As even more evidence, not that she needed it, inside the house was a veritable smorgasbord of oddly designed gizmos and wuzzits. A push-button car radio hooked up to an iPod. Bookshelves made from stacked wooden pallets, a vintage Coke machine made into a bar and a small metal box with a blinking light that made her nervous.

That, and then there was Dog. The little, rounded ‘pet’ scooted around the floor at different speeds, and sometimes he sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” in a voice that sounded just like Marilyn Monroe. Some dog, indeed.

Everything seemed to belong in an art gallery, a museum or thrift store, possibly all three, but she had to give him high marks for creativity. Brooke would’ve never thought of an automated pot scrubber or a self-cleaning toilet. However, now that she’d seen them, she wondered why no one had ever thought of them before.

Judging from the never-ending materials she had left to inventory, he’d be making gizmos for the next two hundred years. A long trickle of sweat dripped in her eyes, and she dreamed of moving to the coolness of the house, but there were only three more piles to sort, and then she’d be done. Better to go forth and succeed, then celebrate an honest day’s work. Hopefully, air-conditioning would be involved.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Captain watching her from the other side of the yard. In order to demonstrate her non-wimpiness, she hefted a ten-inch fly-wheel motor (thank you, Google) and placed it in a neat line with the others, before noting the type on her list. It was only after she had deposited the oily thing that she knew why he was staring. In the middle of the sweater was a supersized grease stain that no amount of artistic cover-up could disguise. Sensing the beginnings of another lecture, she waved happily, but it was too late.

The Captain advanced.

“I owe you a new sweater. That one’s ruined.” There was a glint in his eye as if he’d been waiting for just this moment.

Nuh-uh-uh.

Pulling at the wool, Brooke shot him her sweetest smile. “It looks like a map of Canada. I think it’s just the touch it needed.”

His jaw twitched.

“At least put on a cooler shirt.”

Certainly there was a logic to that. He seemed to be genuinely concerned, and she considered the idea, but it was only Day One, Hour Six. He’d given her a nonsense job, and now he wanted to put her in his clothes like some vagrant. So what made her different from any other hard-luck case on the mean streets of life?

Absolutely nothing, and Brooke Hart wasn’t just some other hard-luck case. No, she was going to work this off with grit and sweat, and probably a lot more grease, and the Captain would just have to deal.

Of course, she’d already put in a lot of grit and sweat. Fourteen piles were now neatly inventoried and identified. Maybe a cooler shirt was a fair trade, an old-fashioned barter sort of arrangement. Yeah, that seemed reasonable, and she was just opening her mouth to accept his offer, when he lifted a can of some unknown substance and threw it on her sweater.

Brooke’s mouth snapped shut as the wool plastered to her stomach like a skin mask gone bad.

Aha.

The unknown substance was glue.

3

AS THE SUBSTANCE BEGAN to dry, Brooke glared at the Captain, trying to find some words. Although as a rule she wasn’t usually a believer in violence and/or retribution, she felt here there were extenuating circumstances. Her hands fisted into small glue-encrusted WMDs.

Before she could move (flexibility was difficult when epoxified), he set the can at her feet, pushing a hand through his dark hair.

“I don’t think I should touch you but…ah, hell, Brooke, I’m sorry, but we need to get you cleaned up.” Oh, sure, now he looked sorry.

She plucked the sweater loose from her stomach, wincing as if she were in pain, just so he’d feel worse. “What’s the plan now?” she asked. “Hose me down with turpentine?”

He paused, trying to decide if that was a joke. Comprehension dawned slowly, and his mouth twitched with humor. “I wouldn’t have used a hose. Go shower before you harden and turn into yard art.”

Not a big fan of his sense of humor, Brooke stalked inside. If there had been a carpet or a rug, she would’ve worried about dripping. Not that she had any business being worried, since this was all his doing, but still…a nice rug would have done wonders for the faded wood floors, and given the place a marvelous homey appearance.

She found the bathroom, painted in a surprisingly cheery buttercup-yellow. His quiet footfall sounded behind her—so stealthy for such a big guy.

“I imagine this will take some time. The towels are where?” she asked, happy to see his face still covered in guilt.

The Captain held up a pair of large scissors.

Brooke frowned. “That isn’t a towel.”

“Unless you want glue in your hair, you’ll need to cut the sweater, and, uh, anything else I screwed up.”

Cut? Cut? Was he out of his mind? Didn’t he know this was high-quality apparel? “I’m not cutting this.”

“It’s gone. Let it go. I’ll replace it.” His smile didn’t look so sad, and that was when she knew, when his win-at-all-costs behavior became apparent.

“You did this just so that I’d have to trash it.”

He nodded. “Reason and logic weren’t winning the war. Sometimes covert maneuvers work best.”

And still he didn’t see the problem. “Aren’t you the least bit sorry?”

“Of course,” he said, sounding sincere…mostly.

Her eyes narrowed. “But you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?”

At her words, he wanted to lie. She could see the denial building on his face, but no, the man was damned to tell the truth.

“Probably. Although I’d have come up with something a little less drastic than accelerator glue. The smell’s killer. I didn’t get any in your hair, or your face?” He frowned. “Are you allergic to anything?”

“A little late to ask.” She grabbed the scissors, shut the door, and got to work destroying her most favorite sweater. After two not-so-awesome tries, she could see this was going to be a problem. The wool was hard, getting harder by the second, and the glue was mucking up the scissors. Determined to avoid asking for help, she hacked on, but the scissors were getting worse, and her fingers were starting to stick, and from outside the door, she could hear him pacing.

Three more times she tried, three times she failed, and finally, Brooke sighed. The shabby girl in the mirror wasn’t responsible, or plucky, or capable of surviving whatever life threw at her. Dark hair stuck out in sweat-damp clumps. Her wonderful sweater was now crusted over with a glossy sheen that looked wrong.

Her brothers would disown her…again. Maybe she didn’t have much, but she had her pride, she had her self-respect and she had a body that was uncomfortably stiff. All because of him. No, the Captain was going to pay for this and pay big. Slowly she smiled, the girl in the mirror looking less shabby by the minute. Thoughts of revenge did that to a woman.

Flinging open the door, Brooke brandished the scissors like a sword. “Ruined. Do you have something better? A blowtorch maybe?”

He studied her partial sweater-ectomy. Then he scratched his jaw, where the darkened stubble was starting to show. “Nah. Glue’s flammable.”

“This is no time for sarcasm.”

“Not sarcasm. Look it up.”

She glared. He shrugged. “Give me a minute.”

Less than thirty seconds later, he was back with a hunting knife capable of great destruction. The Captain’s face was tense, waiting for her to take the knife, but that wasn’t part of her plan, and so she spun around, giving him her back. “Make a clean cut, neck to hem,” she instructed. “You didn’t get any glue back there. It should go easier.”

The air crackled with his fear. “You’re sure about this?”

“Just do it,” she whispered in a teasing, taunting voice.

Gently he pulled aside her hair and in one quick slice, the sweater hung in two loose pieces, her back bare except for the single bra strap.

“You can…uh…handle the rest?” His words were rough, hesitant…awkward.

Oh, yes, revenge was a dish best served hot.

Brooke whirled around, plucked at the sweater’s remains and then pulled it off, standing before him in jeans and bra. His eye flickered, mouth tightening, but to his credit, he didn’t look down. Not once. The man had the self-control of a monk.

Well, pooh. However, Brooke wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.