Know Me Well (Wishful 3)

Liam turned back, one brow lifted. “I know you’re not about to insult me by suggesting I expect to get paid for doing a favor for a friend.”

They were hardly friends. One friend did not come near to spontaneously combusting in the presence of another friend.

“Let me help you Riley.”

He could’ve ordered her. That would’ve been more his style, Mr. Alpha Marine I Know What’s Best, So Fall In Line as he’d done that morning. But he was giving her a choice—or at least the illusion of one—proving that as long as it had been, he still knew her, too.

That was a real pisser.

Riley took a bracing breath and made herself meet his gaze. “Thank you. I appreciate it. All of it. I know I probably don’t seem like it. I’m really bad at accepting help from people.”

The lightning quick smile lit his gray eyes like sunbeams, and Riley had to lock her knees again, grateful he didn’t unleash it often. The damned thing was deadly.

“I know. Why do you think I’m being so bossy?”

“You’re the oldest. You were always bossy.”

“Just sharing the benefits of my maturity.”

Riley snorted at that, and pushed out of the storeroom. “Take all that maturity and go sweet talk my engine. I’ve got work to do.”

“See you around, Riley Marie.”

She watched him go, waiting until he’d walked out of sight before sinking down onto a stool. Like it or not, he was going to be in her space, so she’d better find a way to live with it.

~*~

I am in serious trouble.

Quite apart from the fact that Riley’s engine was toast and he’d just promised her he’d figure something out, he’d violated his strict look-don’t-touch policy—again—to keep her from landing on her fairly spectacular ass. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d stared up at him with those big, blue, drown-in-me eyes and licked her lips, like maybe she wondered how he tasted. It had taken every ounce of his self control to set her away from him rather than dipping his head to kiss her and exploring the rest of those sweet curves with his hands.

“Maybe I should dunk my head in the fountain,” he muttered.

“Well, you could, but a coin is the more traditional offering for a wish.”

Liam jerked his attention away from the issue of Riley to find Autumn perched on the edge of the post-Civil War fountain that was the focal point of the town green.

“I wasn’t making one.”

“Oh come on,” Autumn teased. “It’s all the rage

“Right now, the only thing I need is a miracle to tell me how I’m going to fix Riley’s car.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“The damned thing needs to be buried. But she can’t afford a new one, so I’m trying to perform a Dr. Frankenstein miracle and resuscitate it.” And he knew exactly what it had cost Riley to ask him.

Autumn rose from her perch and looped her arm casually through his as they continued across the green. “Can you?”

“My dad could and did on a regular basis before he died. It’s the least I can do to try.” He owed Riley, more than she could possibly know.

“And if you can’t?”

The last thing he wanted to do was face that look of heartbroken disappointment on Riley’s face.

“Can’t isn’t really an option. I’d rather just buy her a newer used car that I know is road-worthy, but she’d never accept that.”

Autumn lifted a brow at that. “You’d buy her a car?”