When she got home, Princess Pickles looked up from where she was sleeping on the sofa. A loud meow informed Lucie that she was very annoyed to be woken her from her thirteen-hour catnap.
“Princess Pickles, the new neighbor is . . .” Grumpy, sexy, a little bit mean. All of those would apply. “Interesting.”
Yeah. Interesting was about right. Shaking her head, she pushed him out of her mind as she sat at the dining table. Time to get back work. There were bills to pay, and she was behind on her work after helping Charlotte pack up her stuff. Not that she was complaining. Lucie would always drop everything in order to help a friend. Heck, even someone she didn’t like much.
Now, whether she’d help the grouchy lumberjack next door, well, that was debatable.
Oh, who was she kidding? Of course she would. That’s what neighbors did. Even if their neighbors weren’t particularly nice.
Later that afternoon, when she returned from checking the mail, she found a full plate of snickerdoodles on her porch.
Kill them with kindness, Lucie.
Or, failing that, maybe just kill them.
Lucie turned the key again.
Nothing.
Tears welled. She wouldn’t cry. What would crying get her? Nothing at all. Crying wouldn’t make the truck start. Crying wouldn’t pay her electric bill or buy her food or bring her a magic flying carpet.
Man, that would be cool if it could, though.
Letting out a deep breath, she calmed herself.
Think, Lucie. Think.
Sure, Queenie was about twenty years old, had originally been her grandpa’s, and likely should have been retired five years ago. But she was usually always reliable.
Well, mostly, she was reliable.
Last time Queenie had been at the mechanic’s, he’d told her that the old truck was going to need some work that would likely cost more than it was worth. But Lucie’s bank account wasn’t quite up to that challenge yet. So, currently, she was using the power of hope and prayer to ensure that Queenie kept running.
It had been working pretty well, actually. Until now.
“Come on, Queenie. We have to take this jewelry into town. I just need you to work for one more day. Well, another week or month would be even better. How about six months, then I’ll get you fixed? Just please work.”
If she didn’t get some new jewelry to Steph soon, the other woman would stop stocking her stuff. Then she’d be totally screwed. She’d have to get a job at the diner or gas station, which were the only two things she was qualified for.
Getting out of the truck, she raised the hood and stared down at the motor in bafflement. Ask her to make a necklace or a pair of earrings. She was your girl. Or to bake twelve dozen chocolate chip cookies, no worries.
But try to figure out what was wrong with her truck? Never going to happen.
Lucie chewed at her lip, trying to think. She could ask one of her friends to come and get her, but her phone wasn’t working.
With a sigh, she glanced over at her new neighbor’s place. He’d have to have a phone, right? Her other neighbors lived too far away to walk to.
Running inside, she grabbed a plate and filled it with some chocolate chip cookies that she’d packed into her truck to take into town for the school fair. Sure, she didn’t have any kids at school, but this was a small community and everyone helped out when they could.
Unfortunately, buying the baking ingredients had wiped out her bank account.
Which was also why her phone was temporarily incapacitated. That happened when you didn’t pay the bill. But things would work out, right?
She made her way over to her new neighbor’s place, aware that she still didn’t know his name, and knocked on his door. Hopefully, he was in a better mood today. Maybe he’d just been grumpy after moving in. He’d probably been tired. Yeah, that was it. She wished she’d been home to help him.
There was no answer inside.
Drat.
She hadn’t seen him during these last few days, and she’d been looking.
She knocked again. The door suddenly swung open.
“What?”
And there he was, glaring down at her. His hair was all up on end and there were crinkles on his face. And he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Right there, in her face, was a tanned, slightly hairy, muscular chest.
How did a person get a six-pack like that? She was just happy if she could do up the top button on her jeans.
A throat clearing made her aware that she was staring. Her cheeks warmed.
Whoops.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Did I wake you up?” It wasn’t that early, right? She glanced down at her watch. Whoops, not quite eight yet. She brightened her smile and held up the plate in her hands. “Chocolate chip cookies?”
He grunted and glared down at the chocolate chip cookies as though they had offended him.
Don’t take it to heart, Lucie. Everyone loves your chocolate chip cookies. He’s just not a morning person.
“I made a lot for the school fair tomorrow and I thought I’d bring you some over.”
She was all too aware that he hadn’t spoken yet. And he was giving her a look that would make cockroaches run for cover. Swallowing loudly, she set the plate of chocolate chip cookies on the floor of the porch.
“Um, I’m your neighbor, Lucie? I’m not sure if you remember me from the other day? I brought you snickerdoodles?”
The ones you returned.
Still nothing. Awesome.
“And I left some banana bread on your porch the day before yesterday? I made too much. Like usual.”
Still nothing.
“So, um, I was kind of wondering if I could use your phone? See, my truck won’t start, and I’ve got to get into town. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, I’m not very good with mechanical stuff.” She let out a small laugh.
Still nothing.
Was he a robot?
“I just need to call a friend to come help me. I promise I won’t make any long-distance calls to London.”
Yep. A big old nothing.
“I have a friend in London, but we usually talk over the internet. However, that’s not working either, or I could have used that to contact my friend. Not the one in London. The one who might be able to come and help me now.”
Lucie. Stop. Babbling.
Sure, she liked to talk, but she didn’t usually chatter on about nothing at all.
This was just embarrassing.
Then he did something that made her insides want to shrivel up.
He sighed. A long sigh. One that indicated a great deal of annoyance.
Ouch.
Lucie tried not to react. No need to be hurt. It was early. She was talking. A lot. And he seemed to hoard words like they were gold.
They were just opposites.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked in a low voice that, for some reason, she found sexy as hell.
“My phone?” she squeaked out. “Or the internet? Um, well . . .” She really didn’t want to tell him the reason neither of them was working. He was already looking at her like he wished he could just push a button and she’d magically disappear.
“The truck.” A line appeared between his eyebrows as he stared down at her.
The truck? Oh, right.
“It won’t start.” There, she was on good ground with that answer.
“Why?”
Well, if she knew why, then she would have fixed it, wouldn’t she? But Lucie didn’t say that. It wasn’t polite.