Short ash-brown hair that was thinning on top. Deep-set, light-colored eyes. Broad nose and a slight double chin. With him sitting down, I couldn’t tell for sure how tall he was, but I figured my nearly six-foot-tall sister would have at least a few inches on the man.
As I was watching him, he turned his eyes on Lexa, and I felt her stiffen up even more than she already was. He licked his lips as he practically undressed her with his eyes.
I knew my sister could take care of herself. Hell, she was raised by a woman who could handle a gun even better than our MC prez father. Lexa could shoot and wield a blade just as well as any man. On top of that, her husband was the freaking sheriff. But when she was working at the shop, she tried to be polite and courteous. The fact that we were the only garage in the county only had a little to do with the repeat business we continued to have. She was the beautiful, smiling face that kept customers coming back.
Stepping in front of the guy’s line of sight and blocking the creep from whatever fantasy he was having of my older sister, I walked over to the counter and pulled up the guy’s bill. “Lexa, you go on home,” I told her. “I got this.”
“I’ll wait,” she hedged, coming behind the counter with me. “Sir, if you’ll just come over so you can pay and sign a few things, you will be on your way in just a few minutes.”
He stood and walked over to us. “You still haven’t given me your number, pretty thing.”
“And I told you, I’m married,” she gritted out, her supply of polite and courteous seeming to have been all used up for the day.
“So am I,” he said with a predatory grin. With his focus completely on her, he didn’t see me ball my hands into fists, ready to clock him in the jaw if he so much as touched Lexa. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“Her retired marine, sheriff husband might disagree with you,” I muttered more to myself than to him, but he still heard me.
His eyes bugged out of his head, and a bead of sweat pebbled on his brow. “You’re married to Sheriff Davis?”
“That would be him,” I confirmed, forcing my hands to relax so I could get this jerkwad out the door sooner rather than later.
He gulped and produced his wallet from his back pocket. As he pulled out his credit card, I noticed his fingers shaking slightly. “Um, I… Er…” He cleared his throat while I processed his payment. “I was just kidding. Y-you don’t need to go telling your man—”
“That you basically propositioned me like I was a hooker?” she finished for him, her tone cold enough to cause frost to form on the windows. Her smile was pure evil as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. The sight of her scar didn’t bother me, but up until Ben came into Lexa’s life, it was something she’d tried to hide as much as possible. These days, she was more confident in her beauty. “Oh, I already texted him and told him all about your lewd commentary.”
I swallowed my laugh as I grabbed the receipt that had printed and handed it to the man. “Your keys are in the center cupholder. Next time, keep a better eye on your brakes. You could have killed some
one.”
“It’s my wife’s car,” he tried to excuse, snatching the receipt from my hand.
“Even worse,” I snapped at him. “A real man doesn’t let his woman drive around in a car that could cause her or someone else serious harm.”
His face turned red, then purple. When he started sputtering, stumbling over words as he tried to insult me, I leaned forward. “You know who I am, you dickless motherfucker?”
“Some mouthy boy wh-who thinks—” he stuttered, obviously scared of me but still trying to put on a show.
I grinned, glad he didn’t know exactly who I was. If he did, he would have already pissed himself. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“He said he moved up this way a few months ago. To be closer to his wife’s family,” Lexa informed me.
“Ah,” I said with a laugh. “And you’ve already met Ben?”
“When I texted Ben, he said he pulled this guy over earlier in the week because of how loud the brakes were grinding. He was surprised there weren’t sparks flying. He wrote him a ticket, but he said he would tear it up once dickless here brought in a receipt for services from us.” She smirked up at me when I glanced at her. “That deal is no longer valid. Ben mentioned that he was going to make sure the fine for operating an unsafe vehicle is doubled.”
As she was speaking, the sheriff’s police cruiser pulled up in front of the shop. The three of us turned our gazes toward the huge window overlooking the parking lot just as Ben stepped out. The look on my brother-in-law’s face was murderous.
The customer turned ghostly white, and I snickered as I finished shutting down the computer. “Don’t forget to lock up, sis,” I told her as I walked toward the back door. “And make sure there’s no blood on the floors. You know how Mom hates having to bring in a cleaner.” Opening the door, I called over my shoulder, “Let me know if I need to help bury a body.”
The bell over the front door jingled as I was going out the back door. Knowing Ben had dickless covered, I jogged up the side stairs to my apartment. Shutting the door behind me, I flipped the locks, not wanting either my sister or brother-in-law to be able to just walk in.
I wanted a little bit longer with my treasure before I had to share her with everyone else.
She wasn’t cuddled up on the couch, so I went into the bedroom. When I didn’t find her snuggled beneath the covers on our bed, my gut clenched. I’d been so focused on getting my job done, I could have missed her if she’d snuck out. Would she have run off on me?
Just as that nightmarish thought entered my head, I heard a sound from the closet. Frowning, I crossed to it and opened the door. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the little closet, but when I finally spotted her in the back corner, curled up into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible, I was ready to destroy whatever had put that fear in her pretty eyes.
Realizing it was me, a pitiful whimper escaped her, and she threw herself into my arms. Feeling how hard she was trembling, I scooped her up and carried her to the bed. Sitting with her in my lap, I held her for a few minutes until some of the tremors stopped before leaning back so I could talk to her.