He shook as firmly as his kid had last week. “Philip Adams. I understand you’ve offered Samantha a job.”

“Dad,” she growled and he grimaced.

“Sam, I mean.”

I nodded toward the scowling kid in the chair. “We’ve agreed on a one-week trial to see how we get on before I extend an actual job offer.”

“And she’ll be paid for the trial week?”

“Dad.”

I ignored her and nodded once. “Of course.”

He pursed his lips, looking around the shop as if inspecting it for safety hazards—which he probably was. “She’s brought her lunch. When should I be back to pick her up?”

“Oh my God, Dad. I said I’d call you.”

Philip Adams had to be the most even-tempered guy in town. His daughter wasn’t going to find that kind of patience here. I’d park her at the end of the drive in two shakes and call him myself if she mouthed off to me like that.

“Two or so should be fine today, if that’s convenient.” That was when Pearl’s class ended, though at the moment I doubted Sam and I would make it to two.

“I’ll be back at two, Sam.” He patted her rigid shoulder and glanced around once more. “Unless you need me sooner.”

She sighed like she was barely surviving the embarrassment he was causing her, and he nodded once and walked back to his truck, probably used to her shit because he had to be.

When he was gone, I said, “Hope you don’t mean to treat my customers to a helping of that attitude or this job’ll be over right quick.”

Her short, spiky hair looked lethal, but it underscored how small her head was and made her almost appear vulnerable. “What attitude?” Until she opened her mouth.

“Really?”

She stared at the hands fisted in her lap for a long moment. “He doesn’t want me working. He doesn’t think I’m capable of doing anything on my own. Like at all.”

“So he’s protective.”

“Overprotective, you mean.”

“There’re worse things.” When her lips parted—no doubt to argue the point, I held up a hand, thinking about Pearl. “But it’s good to learn to do for yourself. Otherwise they’ll keep doing for you. And you don’t seem to want that.”

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

She glanced around the shop, her silence dialing her back to vulnerable. “So I’m here,” she said. “What do you have for me to do? I’ve been working on cars since I was ten. I’m real good at diagnostics and replacing fuel lines and—”

“Keep your shorts on. If you’re lucky, I might let you help replace a battery by the end of the week. For now, I need the tools along the back wall organized.”

She gasped as if I’d insulted her ancestry. “Seriously?”

I cocked an eyebrow at her and said nothing, and after a minute or two she harrumphed like she was a Mrs. Echols clone and wheeled to the back wall. Good freaking Christ. Between waiting for Samantha Adams to vamoose and waiting for Pearl to show, six hours felt like a hundred.

Pearl

Boyce’s place was so close to campus that it took me less than three minutes to get there. If I hadn’t gotten stuck behind a golf cart, the trip would have been even quicker.

I parked at the curb but remained in the car. A pickup truck sat in the driveway of the garage, where a man lifted a girl into the passenger side. As he went to buckle her in, she swiped the seat belt from his hands and fastened it herself, then leaned out to pull the door shut. He shook his head, folded a wheelchair into the truck bed and strapped it down. Boyce exited the right-side bay wearing the same resigned expression Thomas got when Tux tore through the house like a dust devil for no conceivable reason, knocking things askew as he went. Thinking about my stepfather and cat made my chest ache right down the center.

One eye squeezed shut against the afternoon glare, Boyce lifted his hand in farewell to the people in the truck as he scanned the street and then spotted my car. His mouth, halfway to a smile from the squint, lifted into his familiar grin as he sauntered toward me. “Right on time,” he drawled as I opened the door and popped the trunk.

“I’m nothing if not prompt. That’s one of my distinguishing characteristics.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder and we lifted three suitcases from the trunk.

He grabbed the two largest and led the way to the trailer I would call home for the next ten weeks. “I hadn’t noticed that one.”

I faked a gasp. “Really? I’m appalled at your inattention, Boyce Wynn! I’m known everywhere for my punctuality.”

He turned at the bottom step, his eyes sweeping over me, and I shivered despite a heat index that topped a hundred. “Guess I’ve always been distracted by your more… visible features.”

Oh God. I had no chance of remaining sane for seventy days if he was going to toy with me like that the whole time. Nothing turned me on like his flirtatious banter, no matter how preposterous it got, even if I knew full well he’d never restricted it to just me. I pinned my lips together and stared down at my pink Sperrys—which probably made me look like a prude who was disconcerted by a little flirting. I had to let him think it. If he knew how the sound of his voice made my mouth water and those teasing remarks melted my insides, I’d be in so much trouble.

I raised my eyes to his when he said, “Hey.” He stood just inside the open doorway, watching me closely. His grin was gone and his tone was cautious, as if he thought I might turn and run back to my car. “I’ve been handing you those harebrained lines forever just to provoke that little smirk of yours, but I’m just playing. You have nothing to fret over with me. I hope you know that.”