he hadn’t slept in his car. She’d seen all sorts of cars and their owners since starting at the shop more than a year before. Usually the single guys in ripped T-shirts and stained jeans trashed their cars, not the men with desk jobs and khakis.
“Ready?”
“Huh?” His voice jerked her from her thoughts. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Together they pushed the sedan to the garage door, which Danielle quickly unlocked and raised. When the car was settled over the in-floor pit, Mr. Andersen disappeared into the waiting room, and Danielle set to work, glancing every couple of minutes at his slumped form. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting him to do, but as long as they were alone together in the garage, she wanted to know where he was.
Nate snorted loudly, effectively ripping himself from the light doze he enjoyed on the hard plastic chair in Andy’s Auto Shop waiting room. Leaving his chin resting against his chest, he rubbed the back of his neck with both hands and squeezed his elbows together. The stretch of his arms and shoulders felt wonderful after being cooped up in the car for so long.
He blinked once, his eyes scraping the tender flesh of his eyelids, and groaned loudly. He rubbed both hands over his face. Two-day-old beard rasped against his palms, and he shook his head slightly and closed his eyes again to let them gain some of the moisture they’d lost during the long night.
He definitely wasn’t twenty-five anymore. When he first started with the Bureau, all-nighters and long-term stakeouts were a snap. Even with only stale Funyuns and massive amounts of Yoo-hoo to drink, he’d been alert and thoughtful, great at his job.
At almost thirty-five he had to admit—even just to himself—that he needed to take better care of his body. Especially if his immediate response to a lack of sleep was snoring in a waiting room, even though he should have been on the job. No more all-nighters. It was just that easy. That is, unless his job required it. He’d take better care of himself, but he’d do whatever the job required. Over the last several years as the special agent in charge of the Portland office, Nate did whatever it took to complete the assignment.
He sighed into his hands and blanched at the acrid smell of his own morning breath. He felt his pockets for a stick of gum, but remembered that he’d left the pack in the center console of his car—which he saw through the window was being worked on by the pretty, young mechanic who stood holding a light deep under the hood.
He’d seen plenty of women mechanics in his life but never one quite so cute. That was really the only word to describe her slightly rounded face and innocent brown eyes. Brown hair bobbed around her shoulders and she pushed her bangs out of her eyes as she shifted the light to her other hand and used a wrench to loosen a bolt.
Suddenly she dropped her arms and locked eyes with him. Through the window he felt the intensity of her stare as though she had caught him doing something wrong. He held her gaze for a moment, until she let her eyes fall down and the moment was gone. Not sure exactly what had been lost, Nate decided to put it aside and focus on finding a mint or stick of gum. Eventually he’d have to talk with the woman—she’d said her name was Danielle—and when he did, he didn’t want it to be an altogether unpleasant experience for the both of them.
He walked across the small room to the service counter. The chair behind it was empty even though a glance at his watch told him it was nearly eight-thirty. Someone was running late.
Peeking his head over the counter, he spied a small plastic bowl of candy. Just as his fingers wrapped around a plastic-wrapped peppermint, the main door of the office opened with an obnoxious squeak.
“We don’t keep any money back there, Mister.”
Nate spun around to face a rather short woman flanked by silver crutches that looked to be several inches too tall for her, causing her arms to stick out at odd angles.
Dramatically contrite for being caught red-handed, Nate hung his head slightly and held up both hands, pinching the mint between his thumb and forefinger. “I was just looking for a mint. Morning breath.”
“Oh.” The middle-aged woman shrugged and hobbled across the slick tile floor, the rubber tips of her crutches slipping with each step. She glanced toward the window where Danielle closed the hood of his car then wiped her hands on a greasy rag as she stepped through the door connecting the garage and the waiting room. “Better pop that in before Danielle gets in here. She hates morning breath.”
Nate let out a chuckle, not quite sure if the woman was teasing him or if Danielle really did have a vendetta against bad breath. Figuring his first instinct was definitely right, he quickly unwrapped it and popped the fresh-tasting candy into his mouth in the nick of time.
“Well, Mr. Andersen, it looks like you cracked your transmission pan, but that’s all. It’ll only cost a couple hundred bucks to replace it, but I don’t have a spare part in the garage. I’ll have to order it, and it could be a few days. I’m sorry.” Danielle’s face filled with compassion at the same time he could feel a frown spreading across his face.
He jabbed his hand through his cropped hair. This was definitely not part of the plan, but he didn’t have any choice but to take it in stride. Try to be flexible. Admittedly not his strongest trait.
He could call a regional bureau office. They could get him a replacement car within a day. They would also draw completely unnecessary attention to him, possibly jeopardizing his ability to get the job done under the radar.
Pushing the candy into his cheek, he sighed. “Okay. I guess this town isn’t that big anyway. I can walk wherever I need to go until it’s fixed. Do you have a shuttle that could drop me off at my apartment?”
Nate followed Danielle’s glance over his shoulder to the receptionist noisily settling into her chair behind the counter. “Gretchen?” A lilt in her tone changed Danielle’s question into pleading.
The other woman held up her hands. “No can do. Jimmy dropped me off this morning. I can’t do any driving until my ankle heals. Doctor’s orders.” She paused for a moment, obviously assessing Nate from head to toe. “But I’ll watch the garage until you get back.”
“Thanks,” Danielle said, in a tone that indicated she meant anything but. With a nod toward the exit she continued, “Come on, then. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”
Nate quickly followed, waving his thanks at Gretchen. “I just need to grab my bag out of my car.” He hurried to retrieve the nondescript, black duffel bag from the backseat. Running his fingers over the side pocket, he confirmed that the file with his assignment information was still tucked safely inside, then he walked out through the raised garage door.
Danielle pulled a beat-up truck with the Andy’s Auto logo on the door to a stop next to him, and he hopped in. “Thanks for dropping me off.”
“No problem. Where is it?”
“The Eagle’s Den apartments. Do you know where that is?”
“Sure.”
She kept both hands—delicate, fair-skinned hands that looked like they had no business working on cars—on the wheel as she expertly maneuvered through the side streets to arrive at the apartment complex. He had selected them specifically because they offered clean, furnished apartments. Nate calculated how much attention it would draw, and the Eagle’s Den had passed his preliminary inspection. The apartment would do nicely—but not too nicely.
After
