Better Than the Best

by Amabel Daniels

  “Wh—”

  “You’ve got a leak in the exhaust.”

  She nodded. He was closing up. She sucked in her lips, stopping herself from saying something soothing and pitying. Stopping herself from reassuring him it was okay to talk to her. That she loved it when he talked to her. “I overheard you arguing with Roger yesterday. Why can’t the Braves make the wild card this year?”

  Her heart raced when it seemed the corner of his mouth tipped up again.

  “Because they can’t bat if their lives depended on it.” He slid out from under the car suddenly and effortlessly. Kelly frowned, missing his closeness. She crawled out and was surprised he leaned against the car with his arms crossed. Well, not at his gruff, annoyed, too-strong and sexy appearance, but the fact he hadn’t walked away yet.

  “Didn’t seem like you lacked any first-aid skills earlier,” he said.

  Kelly leaned next to him. “Habits are hard to break.” What did he say before? Can’t take the Marine out of a man? Well, you can’t take the nurse out of a woman, either.

  “Any word on Junior?”

  She nodded. “He’ll be fine with an overnight of observation. With the antivenin, hydration and rest, he’ll be back to normal. It’s a good thing the snake was still there. It wouldn’t have helped a bit if they used the wrong antivenin. There’s a slight risk of infection at the bite wound, but with…”

  He was silent. She grimaced, hating her tendency to babble medical mumble-jumble.

  “Kind of odd it wasn’t a native snake. I looked up adders on my break. They’re pretty easy to buy online.”

  Still nothing. Kelly admired the sunset and worried if she had rambled too much.

  “In a selfish way, I’m glad it wasn’t busy this morning.” Kelly sighed. “Heck, I’ve been driving the truck for days now until Clay finally remembered to get my battery. Otherwise I would have been the one to get in the truck first. Junior wouldn’t have even been there if he wasn’t so bored.”

  “He’s infatuated with you.” Will pushed off the Subaru.

  “He’s sixteen.”

  “Maybe he’s hoping you’ll be a cougar.”

  A joke. Kelly smiled. He made a joke! “Everyone always goes on and on about watching for gators.” She turned on the hood and looked at the lake behind them. “I never even thought about watching for snakes.”

  Will leaned his forearms on the hood next to hers and furrowed his brows at the lake.

  “What?”

  “Still doesn’t make sense how it climbed into the cab.” He glanced at her. “I checked the carriage. There weren’t any rusted-out holes or gaps it could have slid through.” He pulled his ringing phone from his hip. “It could have climbed up through an opening if it had been sitting there for weeks. But you’d been using it.” He stepped away to answer his phone.

  By the confusion etched on his face as he hung up, she assumed it wasn’t good news. “What?” she said, intrigued at the shadows which crossed his face. He was generally irritated, but he was awfully expressive at the same time.

  “Clay was in an accident.” He started for his truck, rubbing the back of his neck. At the driver’s door he paused with his hand on the handle and turned back to her. “Want to come?”

  ***

  Much later, Clay sat between them on the way back to the townhouse. He glanced at Kelly, then Will, then her again with a lopsided smile.

  “What?” she said. “The meds are wearing off already?”

  “No. It’s not so bad.”

  When they arrived at the hospital, Clay had been making out with a nurse’s aide. Kelly had collected discharge instructions and Will listened to Eric whine about car insurance and citations. Clay had been lucky to be under the limit.

  On the way home, Will stopped at the wreckage still in the ditch where Clay had lost his brakes. Since they shared the only tow-truck in town, Clay’s truck had remained in situ, its crumpled hood intact. As Will inspected the damage, Kelly listened to Clay’s story again. It wasn’t an epic tale. His brakes went out as he slowed for the stop sign fifty feet up the road.

  “You want me to tow it to the garage tomorrow?” Will lowered to a plank to study beneath the vehicle.

  “Yeah.” Clay sighed. “I’ll work on it when the cast is off. Guess I should have done the brakes before the power steering on Larkey’s castoff.” He elbowed Kelly. “I can mooch off you for rides, right?”

  She nodded and lowered to the ground to see what had caught Will’s attention. He said nothing, and stood up. Curious what he had noticed, she scrambled to her feet to follow the men back into the cab of Will’s truck.

  For the rest of the trip home, they fell silent. Kelly felt like a sardine. A half-fried one. She fidgeted at Will’s warm presence on her left. Clay’s slumped body cramped her on the right, the hard cast on his left arm forcing her to sit closer to Will. There simply wasn’t enough room. Not enough air, either. Will’s thigh brushed hers as he shifted and Kelly sucked in her breath. Not. Enough. Air. Exile’s Kiss You All Over came on the radio and her hand bolted forward to silence it.

  A torpedo of chaos tore at her thoughts. First, she was peeved Clay had in fact forgotten about her and had been driving home from Elmer’s, last seen with Daisy and Kendra and the ‘gang’. She thought they were friends. Friends stood by friends. But it seemed Clay’s punctuality only worked with his balls. Of course, the accident was a significant delay, but he’d told her he would come straight home to help her.

  Secondly, she recalled the sight of Will shirtless.

  “Sorry about your tranny, Kelly.”

  She flinched at Clay’s interruption. “It’s not going anywhere. Burns doesn’t seem to mind if I use his truck.” I’ll only have to check for snakes first.

  “I had the stuff in the bed.” Clay fingered the cut on his cheek. “It might have flown out when I crashed.”

  “I picked it up,” Will muttered.

  Clay bobbed his head in a small acknowledgement and kept his face trained to the window.

  Was he upset because his arm was in a cast and temporarily useless so he wouldn’t be able to perform his job well, or perform between the sheets well? Nonetheless, her nurturing instinct tugged at her heart. “You know, if it scars, it could be kind of sexy…in a rugged way.”

  Clay smiled and Kelly was glad to amuse him. He cared more about his sexual appeal than the fact he could have died if the shards of the windshield had come closer to his jugular than his cheek when he flew head-first out of the cab. Simple comfort for a simple man.

  Chapter 17

  Rain poured from the sky the next morning and despite how late she had been at the hospital, Kelly woke up early. She nursed coffee on the porch and caught the blur of Will running through the torrential precipitation. For dedication, or from demons?

  Due to inclement weather and for Junior’s stay in the hospital, Burns closed the hut for the day. Instead of taking the morning off, Kelly took Clay to the garage and went in for a double shift at the bowling alley. They were never busy in the daytime, but Kelly accepted the offer from Alan to earn extra and deep-clean the lanes.

  With the unforgivable and ceaseless rain, the deliveries were in high demand. No one wanted to get out in the rain and pick up food. With an umbrella in hand, Kelly was busy. On her walks back and forth on Main, she noticed Clay was taking advantage of his injuries, getting the poor-baby pamper treatment from everyone.

  Daisy, Jaycee, Kendra, even the loner Alyssa were constant visitors to the garage to coo over Clay. Kelly wondered if Will was annoyed or pleased with the female company.

  At noon, she left Alan’s with Clay and Will’s subs, but not before she went in the kitchen and put pickles on Will’s. She noticed he never ordered it with the pickles, but he clearly liked them. She had yet to see him take a bite without adding them.

  Clay and Kendra swapped spit in the first bay. Kelly doubted Daisy knew about their development. She waved Clay’s sub box and put it down on the
hood of the car. They didn’t look up.

  She walked over chunks of metal and hoses and headed for Will. Nirvana blared from the radio and Will glanced at her from under a car on the lift.

  “Thanks.” He nodded to the workbench.

  She set the sub down and joined him under the car. She inspected the conglomerate of parts over her head. The shower of rain still fell from the window. Why not stall? “What’s all this?”

  “People call it a car.” He tossed his rag down and went to wash his hands. Opening the sub box, he watched her study the belly of the car. “Want to do the tranny tonight?”

  She faced him. “You’re going to do it?”

  “Thought you said you were the expert.” He took a bite.

  She smirked.

  He stopped chewing and faced her with a ghost of a smile. “Bring it when you’re done at Alan’s. Won’t take long. I’ll be here late since I’m doing his work on top of mine now.”

  Kelly peeked at Clay and Kendra. Her shirt was sort of missing and his pants were sort of off. “Don’t you always?”

  He gave her the almost smile, but she still frowned.

  “His brake lines were cut, weren’t they? That’s what you saw under his car.”

  He nodded, still eating with his eyes sharp on her.

  “He really has enemies?”

  “You already forgot about the moron who was hunting for his wife the other night?”

  “The one you pulverized?”

  “What the hell were you going to do with the knife?”

  She shrugged. “It was better than nothing. Did you always have to look out for him?”

  “We kind of all looked out for each other.” His tone was neutral but it seemed like a painful confession.

  She started for the door, already too mesmerized at the sight of him and concerned about the hurt in his eyes. Her freaking bleeding heart would be wasted on the man who despised the whole world. “You’re sure you won’t be too busy for my car?”

  “No. Drive up to the middle bay.”

  When Kelly returned at the end of her night at Alan’s, she actually witnessed Clay working. He browsed the computer for parts and explained Will was doing a brake job. Guilt tickled her and she knew she should come back another time. He was so busy he hadn’t even known she had pulled up to the middle bay.

  “How’s the arm?” she asked Clay.

  He grinned. “Fine.”

  Kendra, Alyssa, and Daisy entered through the side door.

  “You going to need a ride home?” Kelly asked him.

  “Nah.” He gave his girls the bedroom eyes and Kelly nodded. How did it not get complicated? Was it a competition or an orgy? Regardless, she deduced this was going to be another night to escape to the beach.

  “Hey,” she called out for Will over the roar of the radio. He stood under a car, on one foot again. He didn’t answer and gave no move to show he’d heard her.

  “Acrobatic, are we?” She stood in front of him. His face was grim with creases of pain.

  “Oh. Hey.” He let go of the brake drum and took a deep breath. “You’re here to take Lothario home?”

  She began to frown, but caught herself. He had forgotten about her. Surprisingly, it hurt. “No. Looks like he’s got an orgy lined up along with a chauffeur service. See you around.”

  “Shit.” He reached out and grabbed her arm. “Your tranny. I forgot.” He shifted his weight onto his other foot. “Let me finish this and then I’ll do it. Been kind of busy.”

  “What exactly is wrong with your leg?”

  “Knee. Busted in the war.”

  She checked the scars. “Reconstructed patella?”

  “They actually saved it. Mostly it’s the tendons.”

  “You run—”

  “All that helps.” He winced in pain as he wrestled with the drum again.

  “Do you want help?”

  “From you?”

  She cocked her head to the side, feeling small. It was a hypocritical realization that he seemed to hate offers of help as much as she did. But her assistance wasn’t out of pity. “I’ll come back.”

  “Are you always this impatient?”

  Kendra and Daisy giggled loudly from the distant bay and Will went to turn up The Offspring on the radio. “Pull in behind the convertible on the lift,” he ordered to Kelly, yelling over the music.

  “You don’t want to put it on a lift?”

  “They’re all taken. Come on.”

  Once she was parked inside, she lowered to the stained cement floor to follow him under the car.

  “I said it won’t take long.” He barred her from getting under the car with his hand.

  She smacked it away. “My car. I’ll help if I want to. I’m not worthless.”

  He opted for silence but Kelly couldn’t handle it. They passed the time arguing about sports and debating appropriate condiments on Italian food. He asked questions about her brothers and when she explained Sean was a commercial contractor, he participated in the conversation less and less. It was only when he seemed too absent-minded, misplacing tools, when she remembered his pal had been a carpenter.

  “Here.” She handed him a wrench, regretting she had reminded him of his loss.

  “How long are you staying in town?”

  “Have another tenant ready to take my place?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I don’t know. It can be kind of idyllic down here. Nice little summer town,” she said.

  “You’re so afraid of your ex to leave town for good?”

  Afraid. Ha. “No. It made me miserable. He betrayed me, humiliated me. It still hurts. I’m a stickler on loyalty.”

  “What are you going to do after the season? Find another hospital to work at?”

  “I doubt it.” She sighed. “A patient died on me—”

  “I heard Clay talking about it with Randy.”

  She scratched her forehead. “You know, it wasn’t really him that did it. I’m not sappy. I’ve seen a lot of death. But…”

  “Yeah?”

  “His daughter. She was so destroyed over his death. But it’s Betsy who sticks with me. She hung herself over the guilt. I remember going back in his room, trying to revive him. She broke down. Shocked.”

  “And the daughter came after you? Why? You didn’t give him the medicine.”

  “She looked upon me as being in charge.”

  “So that’s it? You give up and work in a boat shack for the rest of your life? Because of one old man and his crazy kid?”

  “Excuse me?” She slapped the next bolt and nut in his hand.

  “Since you’ve been in town I’ve seen you attempt the Heimlich on a whale, save Junior, behead a snake. Doesn’t seem like you scare easily. Sure, your assistant hanging herself will drag you down if you’ve got a big heart. Obviously she wasn’t cut out for the work. You are.” He glanced at her. “You working for Roger doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Nothing makes sense anymore,” she said. “Trying to get rid of me already?”

  He took a deep breath. “No. You’re not half bad company a quarter of the time. Give me the socket.”

  She raised her brows.

  “Please,” he said.

  She reached to her right for the socket, then handed it to him.

  “No. Other one. Half inch.” He handed it back to her and she reached again for the right size. As soon as she let go, it fell out of his hands and rolled on the cement past their heads. He slapped his hand back to catch it and dinged his elbow on the car. She leaned up to twist back and reach for it, forgetting where they were.

  “Watch your—”

  She winced as she smacked her temple on a pipe. Will caught her back. With narrowed eyes, she silently warned him not to laugh. Crouching lower, she leaned over him and stretched her arm out to grab the socket.

  His hand pressed to her back and Kelly was acutely aware of her breaths, bringing her chest closer to his. Their bodies were pressed together, length
to length, her soft curves and his hard angles. Practically on top of him, she couldn’t distinguish if it was her heart racing or his.

  Socket in hand, she inched her way back down him, enduring a personal private torture. His hand was still there. Like a plate of fire, it scorched her skin.

  Kelly stopped when her face was above his. Her forearm scratched with grit as she leaned on the cement floor. The socket felt greasy in her hand as she braced it on the floor next to his head. Swing Swing by the All American Rejects blared from the radio and she was barely aware of the other people in the garage.

  But she was completely attuned to Will. His nearness. His warmth. His hand burning the skin on her back. She felt heavy and lost in his gaze. She imagined it was desire in his eyes and she lowered her face to his, hardly rationalizing her actions.

  His brown gaze locked on hers as he watched her lower her lips over his and she considered the intensity of his expression. She hesitated, second-guessing and blushing. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want anyone. No one would want me.

  She blinked a couple times, hoping to clear her head and save face.

  Abort! Abort! You’re not good enough, Kelly. Your own husband didn’t even want you.

  Retreating, she leaned away, but his hand on her back held her. Antsy at their staring contest, she couldn’t resist him and brushed her lips against his. It was a soft, gentle, barely-there touch, a skim across his mouth. Kelly frowned at his lack of response. She tried again because she couldn’t imagine not doing so. Harder, firmer, hungrier.

  In an explosion of action, he pulled her down hard against his chest. He slanted his mouth to kiss her back, spreading his other palm over her back. She gasped and murmured as she deepened her kiss. The socket fell out of her hand as she felt his cheek, then slid her fingers into his hair.

  Murmurs, groans, and little noises came from her throat. He held her closer, gripping her shirt at her shoulder blade, clutching her ass through her shorts. He pulled her to lie on top of him.