Page 7 of Christmas By Design
“I can at least get it to a garage for you,” he offers again.
I bark out a tight laugh. “It probably belongs in the scrapyard.”
“Well, yeah,” he admits with a much lighter chuckle than mine. He’s never liked me driving this old car on the highway to and from work. “You sure you’re okay, Gemmy? You sound stressed.”
That’s an understatement. Planning Christmas for a toddler, trying to buy my own place, working with Mr. Grump on a project he never wanted in the first place, not being able to afford hot chocolate, and now car trouble on top of it. Stressed doesn’t begin to cover it.
I put on my happiest face, even though he can’t see me. Fake it till you make it, I guess. “I’m fine, Daddy,” I say cheerfully. “It was just unexpected, that’s all.”
“Okay, sweetie. Well, let us know when you’ve gotten there safe. We miss you, don’t we?” That last question was addressed to Nova, who coos sweetly in the background.
We say our goodbyes, and I start to rummage around in the glovebox for the number for roadside assistance. I’m so focused on trying to find it that I jump about a foot when someone taps at my passenger side door. My hand flies to my chest, and my breath starts coming rapidly.
“Shit. You scared me!” I shout at Beckett’s scowling face as he leans over to look in the window. He pulls the door open and crunches his long legs into the passenger seat, adjusting his wool coat as he sits. He closes the door quickly, then twists to look at me.
His scowl deepens as he looks me up and down. Probably assessing the stains on my clothes or something.
“Are you okay?” he asks harshly.
“Wow. Try not to care too much,” I fire back. I am in a mood now, and he’s just stoking the fire with his shitty attitude.
He swallows as his bushy black eyebrows knit together. “You’re okay,” he says again. This time, it’s not a question.
“I’m fine. It’s my car that’s broken,” I remind him.
He looks me up and down again. Was he… worried? No. There’s no way.
But he doesn’t say anything, and him wordlessly staring at me is starting to get weird. I decide to break the silence since he’s not going to do it. “I was just going to call a tow—”
“I did already,” he interrupts me.
I blink a few times. The cold is starting to addle my brain, I think. “You what?”
“I called a tow truck. They should be here in half an hour. We can wait with the car if you want. Or they said they could tow it to the nearest garage for us to pick up on the way back.”
I tick an eyebrow up. “Did you think my lady brain couldn’t process what to do about my little car trouble?”
He rears back a bit in his seat. “No. Why would I think that?”
I press my lips together, then take a deep breath. “You must not have been on a job site with a woman in a while. Insulting my gender is kind of par for the course.”
Beckett goes back to regarding me silently, though this time he looks a little curious. It’s unnatural, seeing so many emotions on his face in one interaction. I’d kind of like it if it weren’t so off-putting. After a minute, he shakes his head as if to clear it. “I know a guy out this way. He works on my car. I called him because I didn’t know if you had roadside assistance.”
“You bring your car all the way out to Homewood to get an oil change?” I ask skeptically. “There’s no one nearer to your penthouse?”
“I don’t have a penthouse, and he’s the best.” He shrugs a shoulder as if it’s nothing.
“Of course he is.” I roll my head against the headrest so I can see out the windshield. I sigh, defeated. “He’s probably expensive, too.”
“He owes me one,” Beckett says.
I whip my head to him. “No.”
“No, what?”
“Just no. You’re not paying to tow my car.”
He looks at me as if I must be even more stupid than he originally thought. “You’re right. I’m not. He owes me,” he repeats slowly, as if he’s talking to an idiot.
