His Unlikely Lover

by Natasha Anders

  “That’s not how it would be.” He didn’t sound very convincing at all. “I think we have a real chance at something special, it just took me a while to see it. I want us to be together and I want us to go into a relationship with hope for a future together rather than the expectation of failure.”

  “Do you love me?” she asked, and despite the gloom, she could see that he was visibly startled by the question.

  “Of course I love you,” he blurted, sounding offended by the question.

  “Okay, allow me to rephrase the question. Are you in love with me?”

  “That’s hardly a fair question, Bobbi,” he retorted. “You know that your confession that night threw me. You can’t expect me to return your feelings just because you actually happened to verbalize them to me. It’s not something that can be switched on just like that. What I’m asking is that you give me the chance to fall in love with you.”

  “And while you’re busy deciding if I’m someone you can fall in love with, I’m just supposed to put my feelings on hold? What sort of timeline are you looking at? Will a month or two be enough for you to figure out whether I could be worthy of your love? Six months? A year? And what if—after all that time—you didn’t fall in love with me? Do you think it’s fair that I risk even more heartbreak?”

  “That’s a lot of questions that I just don’t have the answers to,” he confessed. “I don’t know how it’ll work, I’ve never found myself in this position before. You’re so damned important to me and I’m terrified of losing you.”

  “Then give me a chance to get over this thing we had and we can go back to being friends,” she said after a very long moment. “That way everybody’s a winner.”

  “I don’t want that,” he snapped, losing patience. “I want more than that.”

  “I’m not prepared to give you more. I won’t change who I am for you, Gabe. I just won’t, and if I’m really as important to you as you claim, you wouldn’t want me to.”

  “I don’t want you to change . . .” He seemed to be speaking through clenched teeth. “I just want you to wear a damned dress on occasion, go to a bloody hairdresser, have your nails done. You’re a woman, for God’s sake. These things aren’t hardships.”

  “They are to me!”

  “You seem to be equating a visit to the salon with selling your soul to the devil.” He threw his hands up in despair, and she stared back at him with equal misery. He didn’t seem to understand that she was afraid that in the middle of all this makeover crap, he would fall in love with someone who simply didn’t exist, a Bobbi of his own invention. The prospect scared the hell out of her. If that happened she would be trapped playing a role for the rest of her life. She couldn’t do it, not even for Gabe.

  “I think you should leave,” she said tiredly. “This isn’t achieving anything.”

  “I’m not giving up,” he warned.

  “Just stop the Campaign of Crazy with the flowers, please. You’re driving everybody nuts. I can’t be held responsible if my father or the guys at the shop hunt you down and force feed you roses.”

  He chuckled in response to that quip.

  “I really do miss you,” he said. “Not just in my bed . . . I miss you in my life. Please come back to me.”

  “Please just go, Gabe,” she softly commanded, hardening her heart against the quiet plea.

  He got up and wavered for so long that she feared he would come over and kiss her. He did take one hesitant step forward before abruptly turning on his heel and leaving.

  Bobbi fought the impulse to run after him and surrender to his terms. It was the way she had always lived her life. She had gone from girl desperate to please and impress her father and big brothers to a woman futilely focused on trying to please just this one man, and she had to fight against the instinct to give him exactly what he asked for, even if it was detrimental to her own heart and sanity.

  It took everything she had and then some, but she managed to fight against her instinct and emerge triumphant.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When the delivery van showed up at the shop two days later, Sean and Pieter groaned and Craig rubbed his hands together at the prospect of more free flowers with which to butter up his wife. Apparently she had been very forgiving after that last time. Bobbi, in the meantime, was utterly dismayed that Gabe had so completely ignored her plea that he stop sending her flowers.

  She stood waiting with her arms folded defensively over her chest. It was the same delivery guy as the last time but he didn’t have a cavalcade of trucks following him or an army of guys to carry in the flowers this time. When he saw Bobbi’s stance, he shrugged and grinned.

  “If you’d just sign the delivery slip I’ll get your stuff and be on my way.” Bobbi heaved an exasperated sigh and reached for the clipboard.

  Bobbi watched him turn back to his truck and withdraw a cellophane wrapped basket from the back of the van. The thing was huge and looked heavy, but he managed to carry it into the shop and drop it onto one of the closest work surfaces with a heavy thud.

  “I was told to personally hand this over to you,” he said, stopping in front of Bobbi on his way out and holding out a familiar card to her. “You should tell your boyfriend to put these cards into envelopes, ma’am. More private that way.” Which meant that—she peered at the faded stitching on the breast pocket of his shirt—Quinton here had probably read the card. Along with whoever else had handled the order. She had a feeling that Gabe didn’t put them in envelopes because he knew that once she caught even the slightest glimpse of what he had written she wouldn’t stop reading. If it were in an envelope it would be too easy for her to toss it thoughtlessly aside.

  She ignored Quinton, who shrugged and whistled as he returned to his truck. Pieter, Sean, and Craig had gathered around the cellophane-wrapped basket curiously.

  “Do you think it’s a fruit basket? Or chocolates maybe?” Sean asked eagerly.

  “I’m hoping for perfumes and lotions and stuff. Ellie would love that,” Craig inserted. Pieter cracked his bubblegum and glared at the basket like it had mortally offended him.

  “You gonna open it, boss?” Sean asked when she just stood staring at the gigantic basket with dread. What if it was “perfumes and lotions and stuff.” How would she cope with something so obvious? She absently looked down at the card in her hand and read it slowly.

  I fully confess to making the following up but since it’s what I want them to mean, I’m hoping you’ll grant me some leeway. So, did you know that pliers are symbolic for two people coming together? And (true story) wrench is something my heart does every time I see you? —G

  She was baffled by that message and turned the card over, hoping for some clarity.

  Drill bits are sharp

  Handsaws are too

  A grease streak or two

  Are beautiful on you

  She rapidly blinked away the tears that suddenly flooded her eyes and glanced up at the large basket at which the guys were still poking and prodding. Tucking the card safely into her pocket, she walked over to where they were trying to discern the contents through the layers of dark-blue cellophane.

  She dragged off the ridiculous pink bow, tore off the crisp plastic, and gasped when she saw what he had given her.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Craig sounded both awed and disappointed.

  “That’s so cool,” Sean whooped. Pieter snorted and turned away to amble back to the old hatchback VW he was servicing. The other two men also drifted off to their tasks and left Bobbi to stand and gape at the tool bouquet in front of her. Brand-spanking-new hand tools—probably worth thousands—arranged quite prettily in one of those round baskets usually reserved for floral arrangements. A complete set of screwdrivers were fanned out in the back, with pink—pink for heaven’s sake—rubberized handles facing up and sizes arranged from small to large. There were wrenches, levels, hammers, pliers . . . everything a girl could ever ask for from a set of tools. Everything accentuated in th
e prettiest pink. Gabe must have gone to great lengths to obtain them, and Bobbi found herself ridiculously touched by the gesture.

  And then there was that silly little rhyme. It had hit all the right notes, and it scared Bobbi how quickly a part of her heart had melted. He could so easily sneak past her defenses when she wasn’t looking, especially if he kept doing things like this.

  When Gabe drove up to Bobbi’s shop later that day, the place was busier than usual. He could barely find space to park amongst all the cars in the lot waiting to be serviced. He had seen the masterful work she had done on Jason’s Corvette—the car was unrecognizable from the heap he had seen on her shop floor a month ago and Jason was like a new dad with the damned thing. As Jason promised he told everybody who asked and, even those who didn’t, where his car had been restored and had even put a sticker endorsing her shop in the rear window of the car. It looked like the advertising was paying off, judging by the amount of cars in the lot. Gabe was proud of Bobbi and ashamed for doubting her. He had known how much his skepticism had hurt her and that his misgivings had read as a complete lack of faith. It was probably another thing she had added to his list of flaws.

  He walked into the bustling shop; Craig, Sean, and Pieter were busy with a different car each and Bobbi was in her office in earnest discussion with a debonair-looking older man. She didn’t see him, and not wanting to interrupt the flow of her conversation, he wandered over to Craig, who was peering into the innards of an ancient-looking Jeep.

  The man glanced up when Gabe came to stand beside the car.

  “Hey,” Craig said tersely before tugging at something beneath the bonnet of the sick old beast. A spark plug maybe? Gabe was unashamedly clueless when it came to the inner workings of cars.

  “Morning,” Gabe returned the greeting, and then stood in silence and watched him work.

  “Thanks for the flowers,” Craig said after a conversational hiatus that had been filled with nothing but the sound of hammering and grinding machinery and rock and roll coming from the CD player stashed in a corner out of harm’s way.

  Gabe grinned at the man’s temerity.

  “You’re welcome. I’m glad you liked them.”

  “My wife, Ellie, did. It got me off the sofa that night.”

  “Why were you on the sofa?”

  “She thinks I said her bum was big,” the man glowered and tugged at his ear. “Didn’t. I gave her a three and a half on a scale of ten. Ten apparently being gigantic.”

  Gabe winced.

  “You’re a brave man, Craig. I would have gone with a zero or less.”

  “I figured three and a half was a good size, not too big and not invisible. No man likes an invisible bum.” Gabe wondered why they were standing here discussing the man’s wife’s behind, and he had a feeling that if the inimitable Ellie ever heard about it, Craig would be back on the sofa.

  “Anyway, the flowers helped. I caught a glimpse of the card too,” he unapologetically admitted. “You should put those things in envelopes if you want privacy. I liked the forgiveness and admiration stuff. Used that on the missus. She was very impressed. Figured I owed you a thank-you.”

  “Glad I could be of some help,” Gabe said with a complete lack of sarcasm. He had known that Bobbi would find some way to disperse of all those flowers; it naturally followed that she would have offered some to every person she knew. He had hoped that she would keep at least one bouquet of each for herself though, but a quick glance around the shop told him that he had hoped in vain.

  “She’s not into the flowery stuff,” Craig said, accurately reading Gabe’s glance around.

  “I know that,” Gabe admitted, irritated that Craig seemed to think he knew Bobbi better than Gabe did. “But the messages that came with the flowers were what I really hoped to get across.”

  “Now the stuff you sent her this morning,” Craig muttered, leaning into gaping maw of the Jeep again and twisting at something. He grunted with effort as he continued to twist for what felt like hours, leaving Gabe hanging in suspense. Craig finally stood upright again and nodded down at the car in satisfaction.

  “What about the stuff I sent this morning?” Gabe prompted impatiently and Craig looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  “That was a stroke of genius.” He nodded in approval. “She loved it, even though she tried to pretend that she didn’t.” He gave Gabe a perusing glance before sighing and removing his filthy baseball cap. He rubbed a hand briskly back and forth over his short, messy hair before sticking the cap back onto his head.

  “Can’t say I ever liked you,” he admitted, his voice gruff. “With your fancy suits, always waiting outside on the rare occasions that you picked our girl up from work. Figured you were scared of getting your posh shoes and pretty clothes dirty. I can’t trust a man who’s afraid of a bit of grease . . .” Gabe strove to remain unoffended by the less than sterling character assessment, hoping that there was a “but” in there somewhere. “But I reckon you’re not so bad.”

  Gabe waited for the rest, but Craig seemed to be done talking. Well, faint praise was better than no praise he supposed as he watched Craig turn back to the car. It seemed that the man was done talking to him and, feeling comprehensively dismissed, Gabe walked over to the where the youngest guy, Sean, was working.

  “He-ey,” the young man said with the exuberance of a puppy. “It’s the boss’s boyfriend. What’s up, bru?”

  He unselfconsciously held out a grease-covered hand and Gabe took it with barely a flinch. He reminded himself that he had hand-sanitizer in the car and if he was going to be squeamish about this stuff he’d lose major points with Bobbi and just prove her point about them being unsuited.

  “Listen.” Sean was leaning in conspiratorially. “I was thinking: Miz R loves chocolates and dried fruit and stuff. You should totally consider sending her stuff like that.” Gabe bit back a laugh at the transparency of young Sean’s ploy. He was just hoping for the bounty to spill over onto him, as it no doubt had with the flowers.

  “Did you give the flowers to your girlfriend as well?” Gabe asked, smiling, and Sean grinned before nudging Gabe with a friendly elbow.

  “I have three girlfriends, and they all loved the flowers.” Three. Gabe could barely cope with (or keep, for that matter) one. Ah, the vitality of youth. He stifled a laugh and glanced up to see that surly Pieter guy staring daggers at him. Wondering what that was all about, he excused himself and walked over to Pieter’s workstation.

  “Have I offended you in some way?” he asked directly.

  “Yeah, the boss is a nice lady; she don’t need some player playing her!” The words were delivered with a bit of heat and a lot of ice.

  “I assure you, I’m not playing her,” he told the skinny man, who had a three-inch height advantage on him.

  “You can use your fancy words and all, but she’s too good for you.”

  Gabe reflected on his previous sentence, wondering which of the seven words had been too “fancy” for Pieter.

  “I agree,” Gabe said. “She is too good for me, but I’m trying to become someone worthy of her.”

  Pieter’s pale-blue eyes narrowed assessingly, and Gabe kept his stance open and his eyes level. Gabe watched the fight go out of the other man’s bearing.

  “You should stop sending her flowers. It’s not her thing,” Pieter said. Yet another guy who thought he knew Bobbi better than Gabe did. If Gabe weren’t so heartened by the fact that her employees obviously liked and respected her enough to fight for her, he would have been beyond annoyed. Besides, Bobbi had never received flowers from anybody precisely because they thought that she wasn’t someone who would appreciate them. But she was a woman underneath the overalls, he knew that better than anybody else, and despite everything, he suspected that deep down inside she had loved the flowers—maybe not the excess of them, but definitely the sentiment behind the gesture.

  “It’s been mentioned before,” he said. He heard her voice and leaned to the side to see
her past Pieter’s lanky bulk. She was leading the customer out of her office, her voice brimming with excitement. He wasn’t close enough to hear her words above the noise of the shop but whatever she was saying, she was damned enthusiastic about it.

  She shook the man’s hand and waved him off as he climbed into his car and drove off. After the car had turned the corner that would take him out of sight of the shop, she pumped her fist in the air and did a happy shimmy.

  He could tell exactly when she first caught sight of his car, because her body language tensed immediately. She turned slowly and even with the light behind her he could see her flinch.

  “Gabe,” she said, her voice wobbling a bit.

  “Can we talk?” he asked without preamble, and she nodded warily, indicating that he should follow her into her office. He dusted off the same chair he’d occupied the last time and saw that his handkerchief came away slightly less grimy this time. He noticed, as he sat down, that she had put the tool bouquet on a low filing cabinet next to her desk. She saw his attention drift to the basket and cleared her throat awkwardly.

  “Thanks for the tools,” she said. “But I can’t keep them. They must have cost a fortune.”

  He laughed. “I have a fortune.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want you to spend it on me. That’s not your place.”

  “I don’t want to get into this right now,” he dismissed. “I’m not taking the tools back; I wouldn’t know what to do with them. Use them or don’t. Give them away to your employees like you did the flowers, although I don’t imagine they’d be happy using pink tools.”