Just Give In...

“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.”