As if he’d been waiting for her to yell for him, the door in the back of the garage swung open and a man stepped out.
“Oh my,” Gloria muttered under her breath. She couldn’t help it, either. It just slipped out.
It might be freezing cold in Hamlet, but this guy was hot.
He had to be at least six feet tall, if not taller. His height was the first thing she noticed. Barely hitting five-five herself, she always had a thing for a guy who was that much bigger than she was. He wore his brown hair short. That, coupled with the sharp angles of his tanned face and eyes so dark they were nearly black, made him appear focused and super intense.
His body was poured into a pair of grey coveralls that made it impossible to see more than the sculpted lean muscles on hi
s strong-looking forearms. He was holding onto a rag in one hand, the other reaching up to scratch at his thick neck as he effortlessly navigated his side of the garage.
He paused halfway through his journey, stopping dead in his tracks when his gaze went from Bailey to Gloria. He blinked a couple of times, frowned, then marched forward.
Gloria realized that she was staring at him with her mouth hanging slightly open. She closed it, her teeth coming together with a small click.
Whoa.
The mechanic didn’t seem to notice her reaction. Once he’d crossed the garage and was standing near the desk, he nodded over at Gloria. “Hey.”
“This is the customer,” Bailey told him. “She needs your help.”
“Okay.”
She tried desperately to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat. “Um, I guess I was looking for Franklin...”
“You found him.” He wiped his hands on the rag he was holding. “I’m Franklin Carter.”
She figured. He came when the teen called him, plus the coveralls and the grease-stained rag were kind of a big giveaway.
But that wasn’t why she was suddenly stumbling over her words. Gloria was still a little gobsmacked at the jolt of sudden attraction she experienced when she first saw him coming out of the back. She’d only ever felt that once before in her life, when she was fifteen and Xavier Mandalay sat next to her at lunch. They dated for close to four years after that, until they both drifted apart. Long distance could kill any relationship.
Compared to how she felt when she first met Xavier, though, that was a buzz from an electric shock. Her first glimpse of Franklin? Boom. Like a lightning bolt.
It only got worse when he spoke to her in that rough, raspy voice of his.
God, she was a sucker for a tall, dark, handsome man with a voice that sounded like he gargled with gravel.
Shake it off, Gloria. You want to have him fix your car, not try to take him home with you.
“Hi. Okay. So, my name is Gloria Watson. I just moved into town and my car… it’s been acting a little off for a while now. One of the deputies told me that you’d be able to help me.”
Franklin shrugged, then tucked his rag through one of the loops near his hip. “Sure.”
Bailey rolled her eyes. “Forgive my brother. If it doesn’t have a motor or an engine, it’s not gonna interest him. Maybe you could tell him exactly what’s up with your car trouble if you want to get more than a couple of words out of him.”
He threw a look over at Bailey. At first, Gloria thought he might be angry, but as she sneaked another peek at him, she realized that his dark eyes had softened even as his lips pulled down in an annoyed frown.
“That’s not necessary,” he said, proving his sister wrong that he rationed his words or something. “I can take a look under the hood and figure it out myself. Grab the keys, Bailey. Move my truck, would you? Then Ms. Watson—”
“Gloria.”
“—can move her car into the garage for me.”
As Bailey rolled her eyes while reaching for one of the sets of keys hanging on the wall by the desk, Gloria turned to look over at the big, blue pick-up truck again. Before, she thought it looked familiar, but she never really put any thought into it. Maybe her neighbor’s car was having trouble, or, like, big, blue pick-up trucks were all the rage in Hamlet. She didn’t know.
If it was his, though—
“I’m sorry… wait, that’s your truck over there?”