A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father: A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father

“Yeah. A little boy. Just turned one a couple weeks ago.” When Tess sucked in a breath, Eli said, “Tess? What is it?”

After several seconds, she shook her head. “Nothing. You ready to go?”

“Sure,” Eli said slowly, grabbing a leather baseball jacket off the counter’s skeleton and shrugging into it. He fished his car keys out of his pants pocket, then patted his other pockets, sighing. “Okay, I’m an idiot, I must’ve left my wallet at the shop.”

“It’s okay, we can take my car. I just gassed up, anyway.”

“That’s fine, but I need the company credit card. Which is in my wallet—”

“Wait—you’ve been driving without your license?”

“Yeah. From the shop to here. And since I wasn’t giving the sheriff any reason to pull me over, you can wipe that oh-my-God-you-didn’t look off your face. But you mind if we swing by the shop on our way out of town?”

“Not at all,” Tess said. Looking highly amused.

He told the guys they’d be back in a couple of hours, then followed Tess outside and to her car, not realizing until his hand landed on the driver door handle what he was doing. As he trooped around to the passenger side, grumbling, Tess laughed. It wasn’t the old Tess laugh—the laugh that used to drive him crazy, in a good way—but then, this wasn’t the old Tess.

“It must be killing you,” she said as they both got in, “letting me drive. You couldn’t stand it…” The key in the ignition, her eyes darted to his. “Before.”

“What can I say? I’ve evolved.” Shoulder belt latched, Eli leaned back, watching her. “At least, on the surface.” When she gave him a puzzled look, he shrugged. “It’s not like letting a woman drive threatens my masculinity or something. But to tell you the truth…sitting on this side of the car? I hate it. If I’m in a vehicle, I want to be the one driving. The one making the decisions that could mean the difference between me being alive at the end of the trip or not.” At her silence, he glanced over. “Just bein’ honest.”

Her mouth twitching, she glanced at him. “Can’t very well take offence since I feel exactly the same way.”

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“You think this means we have control issues?”

“Oh, I know we do,” he said. Then grinned. “Especially you.”

She didn’t grin back. Although she didn’t try smacking him with her purse, either. So he’d count that as a draw. “How on earth I’ll ever teach the kids to drive, though, I have no idea.”

“This is why God made driver’s ed. And you need to turn right up ahead—”

“I know where I’m going, Eli. Sheesh.”

But at least she was smiling.

When they got to the shop, Eli said, “You may as well come in. This might take a while.”

“You don’t know where your wallet is?”

“Sure I do. It’s in there. Somewhere.”

Rolling her eyes, she got out of the car and followed him inside. Jose glanced up from the table saw, nodding to Tess as she followed Eli back to his workspace. “Wow,” she said when she noticed the headboard. “That’s amazing. Who’s it for?”

“A client who canceled his order.”

“Idiot,” she muttered, then walked over to get a closer work. “Thea told me you’d gone into furniture making, but I had no idea you were this talented. No, seriously, I’m impressed. And I don’t impress easily.” Now there’s a shock, Eli thought as she added, “What’re you going to do with it?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” Eli muttered, pawing through the crap on his workbench.

“Wait a minute…I’d planned on staging the house anyway—if you haven’t sold the bed by the first open house, could I borrow it?”

Eli looked over. “You serious?”

“Absolutely. I’ve still got the old queen mattress and box-springs in my garage from when I changed out the master bedroom…” She shut her eyes for a second, then said, “And I’m sure I can rustle up a comforter and some pillows. And who knows, maybe somebody will buy it. So how about it?”

“Well…okay, then. Yeah. Thanks.” Eli spotted the shirt jacket he’d been wearing the day before; sure enough, the wallet was in the chest pocket.

“Any other furniture just lying around?” Tess said, craning her neck.

“Sorry, no. Although…” He glanced over at a stack of reclaimed lumber he’d been hoarding for more than a year. “I might be able to throw together a dining table and a couple of benches. If that would work.”

“Oh, don’t go to any extra trouble—”

“I wouldn’t be.” He held up the wallet. “Got it. Ready?”

As they traipsed back front, though, she stopped for a moment to chat with Jose—apparently his son and Enrique had been in boot camp together—and something warm bloomed inside him as Eli realized her friendliness wasn’t some salesperson schtick, but stemmed from a genuine concern about how other people were getting on. Not that she couldn’t get as bristly as the next person, if the situation—or the offense—warranted it. But neither did she let cynicism infect her relationships.

Not all of them anyway.

“Teo clearly thinks the world of you,” she said once they were on the road again. “For giving him and Luis work.”

“Just glad this job came along so I could. We’ve known the family forever. Mom and Teo’s wife, Luisa, do a lot of church stuff together.”

“Here,” she said, fishing a small pad and pen out of her purse on the console between them as she drove one-handed. Eli nearly had a stroke. “Write down their number,” she said, wagging them at him. “In case I hear of any other work in the area.”

Eli pulled out his cell, clicking through his contacts menu until he found Luis’s number. As he wrote it down, he slid his eyes to Tess. “Please tell me you’re not one of those women who puts on her makeup while driving.”

“Dear God, no,” she said on a short laugh. “Ricky hated that—” She hissed in a quick breath. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget. That he’s not really part of my life anymore.”

Replacing the pad and pen in her purse, Eli said, “Does it bother you to talk about him?”

A shrug preceded, “Depends on the day. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes not.” She shoved a tuft of hair behind her ear; it popped right back out. “Since there’s nobody to talk to, though, it’s kinda moot.”

“What about your aunt? Or your friends?”

They drove probably another half mile or so before she quietly said, “Dumping on the people you care about gets old real fast.”

“Even though you’d do the same for them.”

She shot him a glance. “And you know this how?”

“Because I know—or knew, at any rate—you. In school, you were always the sounding board for everybody else, the guys, as well as the girls. It was weird,” he said when she softly laughed. “So how is it everybody can bitch to you, but you don’t feel right about letting somebody else bear the burden from time to time?”

Her hands tightened around the steering wheel. At perfect ten-to-two driving school formation. “Maybe because I don’t feel I need to, because I’m doing okay—”

“Like hell,” he said, and her eyes flashed to his. “I was there, Tess,” he said when she looked away, her mouth set in an angry line. “People who’re ‘okay’ don’t have wild sex with their old boyfriends.”