Love So Tender: Taking Care of Business / Play It Again, Elvis / Good Luck Charm

“It…came up.”

“Still—no ring, will fling.”

“Goodbye, Lincoln.”

He left shaking his head. For her part, Gracie tried to tamp down the image of Steve, bare-chested, and get back to work. After a particularly frustrating bout with the sewing machine, she sighed and held up the black-and-white striped shirt of the inmate costume—so many pins had been dislodged during their frantic groping episode that she wasn’t sure she’d made the right adjustments. She checked her Betty Boop watch and stretched her arms overhead in a yawn.

A break sounded good, so why not check on Steve and ask him to try on the shirt? She had to face him sooner or later. Besides, she was dying to see if he’d made progress on the Caddy.

On the way, she stopped by the kitchen to grab two bottles of water in case he was thirsty. Her heart beat double time as she pushed open one of the doors leading to the back lot. Her breath caught in her chest.

Steve was indeed shirtless, leaning into the engine beneath the raised hood, working either to loosen or to tighten something, considering the way the muscles in his arms bulged with exertion. His back was slick with perspiration. He stood and wiped his hand across his brow.

If she lived to be one hundred, she would never forget the sight of Steve Mulcahy standing half-naked in the blistering sun, his developed pecs and six-pack abs glistening with sweat. He was simply the sexiest man she’d ever seen.

H.D., on the other hand, lay in the shade holding a wrench in his mouth, which he happily discarded when he saw Gracie, and lurched to his feet to greet her.

She smiled at Steve and lifted a bottle of water. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

He nodded and reached for it. “Thanks.” He opened the bottle, lifted it to his mouth, and proceeded to down it in one long drink, the column of his throat convulsing as he drained the bottle. She was mesmerized—more so when he grabbed a towel and wiped his chest and neck. “Wow, it’s hot.”

She couldn’t have agreed more. To derail her wicked train of thought, she opened her water bottle and poured half of it into a bowl for H.D. She resisted the temptation to douse herself with the rest of it.

“Have you ever thought of getting a real watchdog around here?” Steve asked.

Gracie pouted. “H.D. is perfect just the way he is.”

“Tell me something—what does ‘H.D.’ stand for?”

She grinned. “Hound dog, of course. What else?”

“Oh. I get it.” He looked mildly amused. “Is he yours?”

“He belongs to Cordelia, really, although we’ve all adopted him.”

“He needs to lose some weight. I’ll bet this morning’s run is the most exercise he’s had in a while.” His mouth twitched with humor.

She lifted her chin. “Let’s forget this morning happened, shall we?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Were they salvageable?”

“Yes,” she chirped.

“Good.” Laughter rumbled deep in his throat.

Flustered, Gracie gestured to the car. “How’s it going?”

He sobered and shook his head. “Slow. I replaced the battery and all the hoses, but there’s a lot more to do.”

“But she’s fixable?”

“Sure—eventually. But it’s going to take a lot of time.”

And he wouldn’t be around that long. The unspoken words hung in the air between them.

“I need for you to try this on again,” she said, holding up the striped shirt she had folded over her arm. “When you have time.”

“Sure, give me a couple of minutes and I’ll wipe my hands.” He leaned back into the engine and applied a wrench to a thingamabob. “By the way, would you mind if I took a shower here instead of going home?”

“No, that’s fine,” Gracie said, then wet her lips. “Where’s home?”

“Hmm?”

“Where do you live?”

He swung his head around, then looked back to his handiwork. “In an apartment a few miles from here. Nothing special. How about you?”

“Same,” she said. “How did you learn to work on cars?”

“My dad,” he said. “He always had a fixer-upper in the garage. There were five of us boys, so he said that the only way he was going to afford for all of us to have a car was if we all knew how to fix them ourselves.”

Her eyes widened. “You have four brothers?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are they?”

After a few seconds’ hesitation, he said, “All over.”

A sliver of disappointment sliced through her heart—secretly she had been hoping that Steve came from a big, boisterous, tight-knit family.

But there she went again—projecting.

Then a thought slid into her brain, one so shocking, she inhaled sharply: What if Steve Mulcahy was a criminal? An ex-con. That would explain why Cordelia was so worried about her getting involved with him, why she was so sure he would be moving on soon. Cordelia didn’t talk about her past much, but Lincoln had said once that he’d heard that Cordelia had been on the wrong side of the law when she was young. Maybe she was trying to repay her debt by giving an ex-con a chance.

Which would explain some other things—like why he would be willing to take the low-prestige job in the first place. And him being in the office this morning, behaving suspiciously. And the fact that he wouldn’t talk about his family or where he’d lived or what he’d done for a living. And that question he’d asked about the chapel having a guard dog—did he plan to rob them? That would explain why he’d been taking so many pictures!

Er, excluding the ones he’d taken of her.

“Gracie.”

At the sound of her name, she jumped and looked at Steve suspiciously. “What?”

He lowered the hood of the car, sending the muscles in his back playing beneath smooth skin. “I said I can’t do anything more here without a few parts. I think I’ll take that shower now.”

“Okay,” she said vaguely, wondering if he planned to steal the Caddy, and if she should share her theories with Cordelia. “What about…clothes?”

“I have a change of clothes in the SUV.”