For the most part, my mother ignored me. She liked to pretend I didn’t exist and I was more than happy to let her. It was how things had always been between us, even before my father had died and she’d married Jacob Malcolm.

My plans to study had been thrown in the trashcan when I’d gotten off the bus in front of the garage and seen the way everything was backed up in the office. We only had one full-time mechanic. Wade Cutter was a freaking genius when it came to anything that involved an engine. His social skills, however, needed some serious work. Noah and Liam had worked part time, apprenticing with Wade up until last year. Liam’s cousin, Wroth, had come back from his deployment overseas and Liam had quit soon after.

Noah had still been apprenticing up until he had graduated this past May. Now he lived in the apartment above the garage and helped out more in the office than in the garage.  When I’d stepped into the office it was to find Noah with grease smeared across his face and hands as he tried to sort through the paperwork on the desk. Six different customers had been standing around, shooting daggers at my brother.

“What’s going on?” I’d smiled politely at a few of our regular customers, but two of them were strangers to me.

Noah nodded his head at the strangers without taking his eyes off the computer. “Idiot number one has been driving around on bald tires for a while now. Thought he could make the long drive from New Jersey to Mississippi on them. Didn’t work so good for him when one blew out and he took off the bumper of idiot number two. Idiot number two needs a new bumper and for some reason a new carburetor, but thinks that idiot number one should pay for said carburetor.”

I looked at the two strangers and forced a smile for them while my brother continued to call them both idiots. Noah had become one hell of a mechanic, but his social skills were nearly as bad as Wade’s when it came to dealing with customers. He had no patience for stupid people and no filter to make him keep his mouth shut. Not that it mattered all that much. My dad’s garage was the only one in the county so it wasn’t like we were going to lose business because of my brother’s rudeness. Still, it helped make things a hell of a lot easier when you were nicer to the customers.

At least it made it easier on me. Since I had to run the office Wednesday through Saturday, I was the one who had to field angry phone calls. Usually because of the way Noah had treated someone, but there was the occasional irate old farmer who needed a new part but had been told to ‘fuck off’ because Noah had been too busy to deal with them.

When Noah continued to glare at the computer, I’d nudged him out of the way and took the invoice slips from his hands. “Go help Wade. I got this.”

Noah grunted something under his breath and slammed the door that led into the garage bay behind him. I gritted my teeth, sucked in a deep breath for patience, and smiled up at the two men my brother had called idiots. “Gentlemen, can I get you to take a seat for a few minutes? I’ll be right with you, I promise.” For extra measure I turned up the brightness of my smile and fluttered my long lashes at them.

The displeased expressions on their faces cleared marginally and they both took seats in front of the window that acted as our waiting room for such occasions. Once they were out of my way, I dealt with the other four customers who had been waiting to pick up their vehicles that had either needed a new part or an oil change. It took less than ten minutes to get them to pay and out the door with their keys in hand.

Once the majority of the chaos was out of the office, I turned my full attention on the remaining two men and started to put their information in the computer. Our system was outdated and needed to be handled with kid gloves. Something that Noah still didn’t understand.

It took over an hour to get everything sorted because I had to call both customers’ insurance agents to make sure we were going to get paid. There was only one problem. There was no way insurance was going to cover a carburetor for a simple fender bender. Explaining that proved to be futile and I took to calling the stupid man Idiot Number Two, if only in my head. It was after five before I had the payment from the would-be conman.

Around six, Noah appeared in the office, freshly showered and changed into his usual old T-shirt and faded jeans he wore to his weekly gigs at Floyd’s Bar. “Wade is almost finished with the Buick. They’ll be picking it up in the morning, so go ahead and start on the invoice for that. If they get here early I’ll just take care of them so you don’t have to.”

I raised a brow at him. “Whose Buick is it?”

“Mrs. Farris.”

“Then I really, really, really hope you have to deal with her.” I’d grinned up at him. “She still hates me.” Mrs. Farris had been both Noah’s fifth-grade teacher and mine. She had adored Noah, but when I’d become her student it had been like night and day in how she’d treated me. I tried not to let it bug me, but it still did. I’d never had a teacher dislike me until that old hag.

“Let’s hope, kid.” Noah had leaned over the desk, brushed a kiss over my cheek and left the office with a grin on his face.

Wade had finished up the Buick and left over half an hour ago, and I still had a mountain of paperwork to deal with before I could lock up.

My tummy flipped at the thought of what was going to happen after I closed the garage for the night. Zander was supposed to pick me up. We were going to get a hamburger and then I would be spending the night in his room again. My heart kept teasing me that this was like a date, while my brain kept scolding me that it was just Zander being Zander. He was looking out for me, making sure I ate and that I was safe.

The inner battle between my heart and brain was distracting and I still wasn’t finished with all the paperwork by the time an old truck pulled up in the parking lot. Groaning, I stacked all the papers together and left them on the desk so I would remember to do it in the morning. It took a few minutes to shut down the computer, but at least I’d put the money in the safe earlier and didn’t have to worry about that. Grabbing my backpack, I locked the garage door and then the front door on my way out.

Zander was already out of the truck. He stood leaning against the passenger door, a tired smile on his sinfully sexy face. It was dark out, but the streetlights made it possible for me to notice that his eyes were green and shooting gold flames. The smile told me he wasn’t raging, though.

Reaching out, he took my backpack off my shoulder and tossed it in the back of the truck. “Long day?”

I shrugged. “I’ve had longer.”

Zander grimaced. “Yeah, I bet you have, babe.” He opened the passenger door and stepped back. “I’m starving. How about you?” Before I could even nod my head, my stomach growled loudly, causing him to grin. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“It’s been a while since lunch,” I muttered as I climbed up into the truck with his help. His hand touched my back and I couldn’t help how I reacted. Goose bumps popped up on my arms and legs, and I shivered. I knew it was just Zander helping me in, not him touching me because he actually wanted to touch me. His grandmother had taught him to be a gentleman where members of the opposite sex were concerned. Well, for the most part. My heart didn’t seem to care because it melted a little more for him as he closed the door and jogged around to the driver’s side of the truck.

He started the engine and shot me a frown as he turned to back out of the parking lot. “You haven’t eaten anything since lunch? That was what, eleven thirty?” I nodded and his jaw clenched. “I don’t like that, Anna.”

Stupidly, my heart gave a little delighted shiver at his calling me ‘Anna’. He was the only one who ever shortened my name, and it made me feel as if I were special to him because of it. Liam Bryant had his own nickname for me, but Anna was so much better than Anna Banana.