Miss Mechanic

I stopped at the door and caught her eye.

She held my gaze for all of a second before she turned away.

I had no idea what to make of her.

***

My sister’s piercing blue gaze followed me around the garage. “Please, Dex. It’s just for an hour.”

“Rox,” I said softly. “I cannot have Charley running around the garage when I’m working.”

“One hour,” she begged, tucking her dark curls behind her ear. “Please. This interview is important to me.”

“What about Grandpa? Or Greta?”

Roxy groaned and leaned against the wall. “Greta terrifies her, you know that.”

“She terrifies me, and I’m twenty-eight,” I muttered.

“Exactly! Come on. Look at her. She’s sitting in there not making a sound.” She waved a red-tipped finger toward the staff room where Charley, my seven-year-old niece was sitting as quiet as a mouse, coloring in some genie pictures from her most recent obsession. “She won’t bug you. If I get this job, you won’t have to look after her anymore during the day in the school breaks. Please?”

I rubbed my hand down my face. “You didn’t tell me why Grandpa can’t have her.”

“The last time, he fell asleep. She tried her hand and baking and almost set the kitchen on fire,” she told me slowly.

“That was two fu—years ago,” I corrected myself halfway through. “Come on, Rox. You know this isn’t practical. I have my new employee I have to keep an eye on and I can’t do both.”

Her dark eyebrows shot up. “Why? Because you keep arguing with her? No—don’t you dare argue with me, Dexter. Grandpa told me how thrilled you were to hire her.”

“She’s a woman!”

My sister planted her hands on her hips and hit me with a stare that would take down Floyd Mayweather.

“And what,” she began very slowly, in a terrifyingly low voice, “is that supposed to mean?”

I coughed, rubbing the back of my neck, and took a step back. I half-tripped on a wrench, but managed to right myself. “Nothing. Just that this,” I waved my arms, “maybe isn’t the right place for her.”

“Oh boy.” She dropped the threatening tone and moved straight to sarcasm. “I’m so thrilled my daughter has such a positive, uplifting male influence in her life.”

“Hey.” I pointed at her. “Charley can be whatever she wants to be.”

“As long as it isn’t in your garage.”

“As long as it isn’t in my garage,” I repeated with a nod of my head. “My garage, my rules.”

“Technically,” she pointed out, “It’s Grandpa’s garage. You just run it.”

“Don’t weigh this conversation down with semantics, Rox. You’ll never see that I’m right and you’re wrong if you do that.”

“Oh, good,” Jamie’s voice came from the side door. “It’s good to know I’m not the only woman he’s insufferable toward.”

My sister’s lips curved into a cunning smile, and her eyes glinted with mischief.

Shit, no.

Fucking hell.

I knew that look.

Roxy turned on the balls of her feet and looked at Jamie. “You must be Jamie, the poor soul who has to work for the demon that is my baby brother.”

“Oh, Jesus. Here we go,” I moaned, wiping my hand down my face.

Jamie nodded solemnly. “That’s me.”

“Roxy.” My sister held a hand out to Jamie, and they shook. Then, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and met my eyes. “So, you’ll watch Charley for an hour? Thanks, Dex. I appreciate it.”

“Wait, no—damn it, Roxanne!” I scooted past Jamie and chased after her. “Rox!”

“What?” My sister asked with a long-suffering sigh as she turned right in front of her car.

“You can’t leave Charley here,” I said. “I cannot have her here while I’m working.”

She held up her hands, her key dangling from her middle finger. “I have nobody else to have her, you know that. And I need this interview. I told you. One hour.” She unlocked her car and opened the door. “Besides. You’ll have to be nice to Jamie in front of her.”

Bitch.

“I’m not the one with the attitude problem. And you have sixty minutes, Rox. If you’re late, you owe me big time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” She got in her car and started it.

I stared after her as she left. Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and went back inside.

“Uncle Dex?” Charley said from the doorway.

“Yep?” I turned to her.

She folded her arms across her chest. “Mom only did that so you have to be nice to her.” With one finger, she pointed at Jamie.

“She mentioned it,” I said tightly.

“And she could have left me at home with Pops, because I don’t bake cakes on my own anymore.”

“We all learned a lesson that day.”

“She didn’t even ask Pops,” Charley went on, innocence crossing all of her features. “She told him she had a babysitter and we came here.”

Jamie snorted from behind me. I shot her a dark look.

“Good to know, Char, thanks. Anything else your mom didn’t want to tell me?”