It was ridiculous how shocked she felt at seeing him, and how instinctively she’d gone back in time to when they were in high school together and she’d loathed him more than any other guy in school.
If he ever happened to catch her looking at him after one of those smart-mouthed comments, she always glared back, just to make sure he wasn’t in the slightest danger of thinking she might have a crush on him.
And now here he was in his father’s dilapidated garage, where he used to help out in his teens, hands stained with engine grease, forehead lightly sheened with grimy sweat, fixing cars for a living.
She thought she should probably feel sorry for him for being here, or maybe maliciously pleased at the contrast between his openly paraded ambitions of wealth and Hollywood stardom back in high school, and the place he’d ended up. Right back where he’d started in his dad’s garage.
And yet she didn’t feel any of that. Instead, the emotions that washed through her were curious and empathetic and wry and—
“Life’s a funny thing, huh?” Joe said quietly with a half smile, and she felt the blush heating her cheeks in reality now, not simply in her imagination. How long since she’d done that? Blushed? A hundred years?
“Um, yes. Yes, it is.” She took in a dragging breath and breathed in him, along with the air.
Jeepers, how did the man do this? Less than a minute in his company and she’d already been knocked sideways by the way he looked, and even the way he smelled, for pity’s sake.
* * *
The Cherry Sisters: Three sisters return to their childhood home in the mountains—and find the love of a lifetime!
It Began with
a Crush
Lilian Darcy
LILIAN DARCY has written nearly eighty books for the Mills & Boon® Cherish™ and Medical Romance™ lines. Happily married with four active children and a very patient cat, she enjoys keeping busy and could probably fill several more lifetimes with the things she likes to do—including cooking, gardening, quilting, drawing and traveling. She currently lives in Australia but travels to the United States as often as possible to visit family. Lilian loves to hear from readers. You can write to her at PO Box 532, Jamison PO, Macquarie ACT 2614, Australia, or email her at [email protected].
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Contents
Chapter One
Mr. Capelli was not going to be happy.
Turning into the driveway of Capelli Auto, Mary Jane was already rehearsing her excuses. She knew her little blue car was overdue for a service, but it was the start of the summer season and they’d been so busy at Spruce Bay Resort. The car had been making a strange noise for a while, she would have to admit it, but the noise was definitely louder now than it had been at first, so it wasn’t as if she’d been ignoring something so blatant all this time.
Even in her own head, it all sounded feeble, and Mr. Capelli was so good at that tolerant yet reproachful look of his. The Cherry family had been bringing their vehicles to him for service and repair for as long as she could remember.
The garage, an old-fashioned and very reassuring place, was on a quiet backstreet. Art Capelli was the kind of mechanic who told you the truth and never overcharged. He didn’t deserve Mary Jane’s embarrassingly neglectful attitude toward her car. Dad was always so scrupulous about maintenance, but she...
She was the worst of sinners in that department, and she knew it.
Right now, she felt as remorseful about the noise in the engine as she would have felt about bringing the vet a mangy and half-starved kitten with a splinter in its infected paw.
She parked out front of the repair shop with its brightly painted Capelli Auto sign, leaving the car windows down and the key in the ignition. There was no one in the office but she could hear sounds coming from the workshop so she went through, needing to pause for a moment or two so her eyes could adjust to the light because it was dimmer in here.
A pair of legs clad in oil-stained dark blue overalls stuck out from beneath a red pickup truck. She addressed them tentatively. “Mr. Capelli?”
There came a grunt and an inarticulate noise that probably meant, “Give me a second.”
She awaited her moment of shame. Really, the noise had only gotten so bad these past few days, although it had been sounding on and off since... Oh, shoot, since her three-day spa vacation in Vermont, and that was back in mid-March, three months ago.
Problem was,