It Began with a Crush

The owners of the other cars showed up both at the same time, and he took their money and returned their keys and remembered he still hadn’t called Mary Jane Cherry, even though it was nearly four o’clock. He was just about to pick up the phone when his father came in, towing two identical seven-year-old girls and looking pretty tired.

The girls, of course, were Joe’s two precious things.

“You’re going to tell me it’s easier fixing cars than taking care of these two,” he told his dad.

“Nah, we had a great day.” But a tiring one. Dad couldn’t gloss over that.

“What did you do?”

“Played on the beach at the lake. Did a round of mini golf up at that place with all the waterfalls. Had ice cream.”

Dad couldn’t keep up this pace all summer. He had prostate cancer, and the only good thing about this was the doctor’s promise that it would kill him so slowly he’d likely die of something else first, fifteen years from now.

Joe was starting not to believe the doctor, but maybe it was the sheer energy of two little girls that had Dad looking so tired today. “I’ll get them into a vacation program,” he promised his father. “Day camp, or something.”

“Horseback riding camp?” said both girls together, in identical and intensely hopeful voices.

Joe sighed. “Maybe horse-riding camp. We’ll look into it.”

He didn’t know where this horsey thing was coming from, but it was rabid. The girls had a shared subscription to a pony magazine, and the walls of their room were covered in horsey pictures. They had a whole shelf of horsey books. Not just stories, but books on how to ride and groom and look after your pony. They had a plastic pony play-set, and plush ponies that they slept with every night, and unicorn socks—apparently unicorns counted as ponies—as well as horseshoe bracelets and pony T-shirts and pony pajamas.

Now that he and the girls had left California and come back east, it might actually be possible for them to meet a pony or two, face-to-face.

“You don’t have to shove ’em into some day-camp program just because of me,” Dad said.

“Pony camp! Pony camp!” said the girls.

“Well, I won’t, not unless it’s one they enjoy,” Joe promised, but he knew he might be stretching the truth.

They might be forced to enjoy it whether they wanted to or not, because Dad really could not look after the girls all summer, five and a half days a week. The whole idea of Joe being here in the garage was to give Dad a break until they decided whether to sell the place or close it down. His taking care of the girls was a stopgap measure until the three of them got settled, because they’d only moved from California two weeks ago and still weren’t fully unpacked.

Holly and Maddie had spent half their lives in day care and day camp in the four years since Joe had had full custody, because he’d had no other choice in the matter. Even so, all the child care was still way better than what they’d had before they’d come to him. He’d spared Dad most of the details on that, and it was cute...and warming, somehow...that Dad, in his innocence, viewed professional child care as such a poor option.

He would try to get a little more of the unpacking done tonight after Dad and the girls had gone to bed, he promised himself, so that at least his father didn’t have to deal with the mess. Joe didn’t really have time to devote a whole precious evening to going through cardboard boxes. He had studying to do. But if he didn’t take care of Dad...

“Ready to close up shop?” Dad asked now, betraying his eagerness to get home and take it easy.

“Not quite. I have a phone call to make, and she’s probably going to want the loaner car, so I’ll have to arrange that. Why don’t you take them home and put them in front of TV, while you get a break? If they’ve had ice cream, they won’t be hungry.”

Wrong.

“Yes, we are!” Again, Holly and Maddie spoke in unison.

They did this all the time quite unselfconsciously, and Joe was used to it. Didn’t even hear it, half the time. Grandmotherly women thought it was “adorable,” but when it came to things like begging for riding lessons, it just doubled their pester power. In his darker moments, Joe considered identical twins to be a whole lot less cute than they were cracked up to be...and still he loved these two with every particle in his soul.

“Okay, they are hungry,” he said. “There’s a bag of potato smiles in the freezer. Put half of them in the toaster oven. Girls, if Grandad doesn’t hear the oven timer when it goes off, you tell him, okay? Don’t try to get them out of the hot oven yourselves.”

He knew they would, if he didn’t specifically forbid it. They were incredibly ambitious when it came to attempting practical tasks that they weren’t ready for yet. He’d caught them trying to fry their own eggs when they were two.

Dad, Holly and Maddie left again, and Joe found himself wondering just how quickly he could arrange to get the loaner car to Mary Jane, assuming she wanted it, because he really didn’t want to leave Dad on his own with the girls for much longer.

Chapter Two

“A loaner car?” Mary Jane said blankly.

She was still digesting the news that her mangy, neglected kitten of a car had a lot more wrong with it than just a splinter in its paw, and wouldn’t be ready until Friday.

“Yes, Dad has a nice little compact, very similar to yours, that he lends to long-term clients if their car is going to be in the shop for a while,” Joe Capelli said, in the voice that had been too deep and gruff and husky for singing “Mari-i-i-aa!” in West Side Story.

“Well, yes. I do need it.” It was impossible to manage the resort in summer without a car. She was constantly running small errands such as picking up new pool chemicals or buying fresh groceries for the restaurant if their regular delivery orders had fallen short. Last week, she’d had to drive a guest to the hospital emergency room.

“Can I drop it over to you in twenty minutes or so, then,” Joe said, “and you can drop me back home? Is that possible? It works out really well for me if you can.”

“You’re still living over on North Street?” She had no idea where she’d dredged up this detail from the past, but somehow it was there.

If he was surprised, it didn’t show. “That’s right, with my dad.”

“No problem, then.” She was mentally sorting through the staffing implications as she spoke. If Lee hadn’t already left to drive up to Jay, where she and her fiancé, Mac, were renting a house, Lee might have stayed on until Mary Jane was back with the loaner car, but her absence wasn’t a major issue. Nickie could staff the office, and Piri would be happy to put in another hour or two in the restaurant kitchen, as she wanted all the work she could get. “So twenty minutes, you said?”

“Give or take.”

“Great! You know where we are?”

She began to give directions, but he cut in with a quick, “No, it’s fine, I know it,” and then he was as good as his word, shooting into a parking space in front of the resort office about nineteen minutes after they’d ended the call. The little red car looked way too small for him, as he uncurled himself from the driver’s seat, but it would be perfect for Mary Jane. Small, zippy, fuel-efficient.

Nickie was already on the phone in the office, answering a guest’s question about extra towels, so Mary Jane hurried out and Joe handed her the keys. He’d taken off the grease-stained overalls and was wearing a pair of well-worn jeans and a T-shirt almost the same as the other one, except a paler blue in color.

And cleaner.

Definitely cleaner.

More worn, too, maybe. Through the fabric, she could glimpse the darker patch where he had hair on his chest.

He’d scrubbed his hands and arms and neck and face, she could tell, because his hairline still looked a little damp and she could smell the clean, floral scent of soap. There was even a streak of it on his neck, just below his ear. She had a ridiculous urge to grab a tissue and wipe it off.

“Oh, you can drive till we get to your place, if you want,” she said to him. She tried to hand the keys back, but he wouldn’t take them.

“Best if you get some practice while I’m still with you, in case it drives a little different than yours.”

“Okay, that makes sense, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Famous last words.

On the passenger side, he seemed even more crowded than he’d been at the wheel, and he had the seat pushed right back. She was distracted by his beautifully sculpted bulk, by the fact that he didn’t bother with small talk and by the mental shopping list she was currently creating because the fridge in her apartment above the office didn’t have much in it right now. She just hadn’t had time to think about grocery shopping the past few days.

Lee was down here working at Spruce Bay only four days a week, which was already too many hours for a pregnant fiancée to be apart from her husband-to-be. Lee and Mac had a small wedding planned for late July, then she would be finishing up at the end of the Labor Day weekend in early September, ready for the birth. Mary Jane was thinking of suggesting that she stop before then.

I could hire on someone who wants six or seven days a week.