Eventually.
…Given that he was the right man, of course.
As she sat up enough to stick the key in the ignition, Juliet considered what the right man might be like.
He’d be good and kind and funny. A steady man, who, like herself, would never waver in his devotion. An attractive man—but not too attractive. Juliet was a realist, after all. She wanted, when the time came, a man to last a lifetime. And really good-looking men—men like Cody, for instance—were forever being tempted by one woman after another.
Juliet turned the key that she’d stuck in the ignition, and then forgot all about her mental shopping list for the ideal man. Because something strange happened when she turned the key, something totally unexpected: nothing. The car didn’t start.
Juliet checked to see that she was in neutral. She was. She shifted it out and then back into neutral again, just to be sure. Then she turned the key again.
And again, it didn’t start.
So she popped the hood latch and went to look at the engine. Which told her exactly zero. Juliet knew nothing about cars, except how to drive them and where to put the gas.
She did notice, however, that it didn’t look quite so spanking clean under the hood as it had when she’d bought the car three weeks ago. There appeared to be oil leaking out in some places. She thought that strange.
“Got a problem?”
Juliet sighed in relief at the sound of the familiar voice. Cody. As always, when Juliet had a problem, Cody just naturally seemed to appear to help her out.
She removed her head from beneath the hood and shyly smiled at him. “Hi.” Her voice did that funny wimpy thing, between the h and the i, that little hitching sound, but she didn’t let it bother her. She went on, more strongly. “My car won’t start.”
For a minute, he just stood there and looked at her. It was odd. She wondered if she had engine oil on her nose or something. She was just about to ask what was wrong, when he added, as if he thought he should explain, “Saw you from the window.” He gestured in the general direction of his restaurant.
She said, “Oh,” and thought about how she’d leaned back in the seat and unbuttoned her blouse and imagined taking off her clothes for a man. Had he watched her through all that? She felt her face flushing.
Which was ridiculous. Even if Cody had been watching her the whole time—which she was sure he hadn’t—what was wrong with leaning back in the seat and loosening her collar? Nothing. What she had been thinking was her own business. He could know nothing of that.
They kept on looking at each other. She wondered about something she’d never wondered about before: What was Cody thinking?
She opened her mouth, planning to ask him what was on his mind and be done with it, when he seemed to shake himself. He blinked and said, “Want me to have a look?”
She almost asked, “At what?” but then remembered. Her car. He would look at her car.
“Yes. Great. Thanks.”
He stuck his head beneath the hood and fiddled with a few of the wires. He took a few caps off of various doohickies in there.
“Battery’s not dry,” he muttered. “Nothing seems to have come unhooked.” He leaned out toward her where she stood on the sidewalk. “Get in and try it again.”
She did as he’d asked. And once more, nothing happened. He fiddled some more under the hood, she tried starting it once more, but still nothing happened.
After the third try, he said, “Was it giving you trouble before this?”
“No, none at all.”
“Just now, did it turn over at all the first time you tried it?”
She shook her head.
“You got nothing, not even a groaning sound?”
“Not a thing.”
“Then it’s probably not your battery. Maybe it’s just a loose connection, or possibly your starter. Hell, it could be a hundred things.” He took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his hands on it. “Tell you what, I’m heading back to the ranch now, anyway. Why don’t you ride home with me? You can call the garage in the morning.”
Juliet, worried about her beloved car, shook her head. “Do you think it’s anything serious?”
“That it won’t start…? Probably not. But these gaskets look shot, and the seals don’t seem to be holding.”
“What does that mean?”
He gave her a look with way too much patience in it to be reassuring. Then he asked, “Where’d you buy this car, Julie?”
“Don’s Hot Deals, outside of Auburn.”
“How much did you pay for it?”
She told him.
He looked pained. “I’ve always thought of you as practical, before this.”
“I know.” She giggled, forgetting altogether that she was not a giggling kind of person. She added, downright pertly, “There are a lot of things about me that aren’t the way they used to be.”
“I noticed.”
He looked at her some more, and she looked back. It was kind of fun, Juliet thought, these long pauses where they just looked at each other. At least, it was fun for her. Looking at Cody McIntyre was a purely pleasurable pastime.
“How much do you owe on it?” he asked eventually.
“The car?”
“Yeah.”
“Not a cent. I paid cash.”
“Hell, Julie.”
Juliet smiled and shrugged. “I wanted it. So I bought it.”
“You still have that little brown car?”
“Nope. I never want to see a brown car again.”
Cody shook his head. “Come on. Let’s not stand here all night. Get your things and let’s go home.”
Juliet got her jacket and the big manila folder and followed Cody to his shiny black pickup in the lot behind McIntyre’s.
They were quiet as Cody pulled out of the lot and headed for the edge of town. But once they’d left the lights of Emerald Gap behind and begun the twenty-minute ride to the McIntyre ranch, Cody had a suggestion. “You can use my spare pickup, if you want, until you get that car fixed.”
She looked over at him, smiling. “You’re so good to me, Cody. You always have been. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
He looked a little embarrassed at that, and spent a few moments paying great attention to the road. Then he said gruffly, “I’ve got to be honest, Julie. I think you bought yourself a world of headaches with that car.”
Juliet sighed. “I love it, anyway. I’ll get it fixed, that’s all.” She was a little worried about the car. But tonight, even the possibility that she’d spent several thousand dollars on a bona fide lemon didn’t daunt her. Nothing could faze her tonight.
Because she, Juliet Huddleston, who’d spent her whole life in the background taking orders rather than giving them, was going to run Midsummer Madness this year! The prospect was terrifying, but exhilarating, as well.
She rolled down the window and let the warm wind blow back her hair. Then she turned to Cody, ready to tease him a little as she’d imagined doing a while before.
“You didn’t stick around to congratulate me.”
He chuckled.