“Your garage is amazing.” It seemed the polite thing to say and had the dual purpose of taking her mind off the loss of her parents and the focus off Will’s hand over hers. Almost.
The facility was spotless, with not a single oil stain in sight. Vinyl pathways had been laid down between the cars and along the rear wall. The tool chests were shiny red, with every tool put away or hanging on pegboard above the workbenches. Electrical cords in roller bins hung down from the ceiling. There was order rather than the chaos of a normal garage. Particularly her garage.
She moved ahead of him so that his hand fell away from hers. Without his touch, she felt close to normal again, just a slight tingle of awareness remaining. But at the same time, she couldn’t deny that a part of her missed it.
“You have so much space here,” she noted. “Couldn’t you also house the cars you have down at the airport?”
“Leland owns the hangar, and he’d been trying to rent out those spaces for a while. I’m glad to be able to use them.”
She recalled that Leland was his mechanic. “So you have a mechanic and you fix the cars yourself?” She waved a hand along the row of tool chests. “Not to mention building them.”
“Leland does the routine maintenance, while I get to do most of the fun stuff. But he helps out on a project if something requires more than two hands. Besides,” Will added, the dark intensity back in his eyes as he looked at her, “I’m a hands-on kind of guy.”
Harper remembered the way he’d fit the harness over her, nearly caressing her as he’d done so, and she flushed again. She didn’t like this awareness of a man she could never be with in a million, billion years. Her cravings for a rush, for thrills, were shoved way down into a secret place—whereas his were out in the open. She’d seen dozens of photos of him on the Internet, a different woman on his arm each time. They all had hourglass figures and wore sexy designer dresses that had probably cost as much as her car. Clearly, he was a player.
Yet, he was kind to Jeremy and obviously took great pride in building things with his own hands rather than simply hiring minions to do it for him.
Harper couldn’t put the pieces of the puzzle that was Will Franconi together in a way that made sense. Maybe if she knew more of his story the way he already knew hers, things might become clearer. But since she doubted she or Jeremy would ever see him again, Will Franconi would have to remain a mystery.
Needing another distraction from the heat still rising inside her, she pointed to grease-stained overalls hanging on the wall. “Looks like you’ve been doing a whole lot of work on your cars recently.”
“Like I said, cars are my thing. They always have been, since I was a kid. Even now, I can always count on them when I’m looking for a rush.”
“Can I sit in the car, Will?” Jeremy called from across the garage.
“Sure, go ahead.” Will leaned against a workbench, his arms crossed, drawing her attention to his broad chest. “So Jeremy lives with you?”
She forced herself to concentrate on his words, not his impressive muscles. “Yes. We live in our parents’ home in Palo Alto. He’s better with familiar things around him.”
“And what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a corporate recruiter.” She felt she ought to explain why she was wearing a suit today. “I had an interview this morning.”
“On a Saturday?” He looked impressed. “Dedicated.”
“I enjoy my job.” And she truly did love matching people up with the job perfect for them.
“No brothers, no sisters?”
“Just me and Jeremy. No cousins, either.”
“So you take care of him all on your own?”
“Yes. And we’re fine that way.”
Thank God Jeremy chose that moment to run back to them. She felt like she’d been under Will’s magnifying glass. He was even better at asking questions than she was, and that was pretty impressive, given that she asked questions for a living.
Why, she had to wonder again, was Will at all interested in her and Jeremy when they were never going to see each other again? Perhaps she shouldn’t be so wary when he’d been nothing but nice so far, but after her experiences with the last two men she’d let get close—and after she’d watched the way the wealthy father of the teen who’d hit Jeremy had used his money to buy them out of any trouble—Harper simply couldn’t trust blindly anymore.
“Can we see the other garage, Will?” Jeremy was a bundle of energy, even more so than usual. As though he felt he had to take big bites of Will’s world before it was gone.