Silken wrinkled her nose. “I’m not feelin’ that right now. Let’s just forget it ever happened.”
“Silken McCullen, you will not back out of this. You need to take responsibility for your action.” Suave gave her a look that said she planned on nagging until her sister gave in.
“All right, I’ll apologize,” Silken, said with a groan. “Goody Two-Shoes.” The second part was muttered under her breath. Of course, Suave heard and delivered a slap that made her leg sting. “Hey, watch it,” Silken grumbled. “I bruise easy.”
Suave totally ignored her. “He’s getting away,” she said, jabbing at Silken’s injured leg. “Write down his license plate number. Quick.”
“Okay, okay.” Silken dug around in her purse till she found a pen and a Pizza Hut receipt. “What’s the number?”
When Suave told her, she scribbled it on the back of the receipt then reached over and dropped the paper in her sister’s lap.
That got her a growl. “What’re you giving it to me for? You’re the one who needs to find him and apologize.”
“Hey, you can do it for me.” Silken raised her eyebrows. “You’re the one who’s insisting that he needs an apology so you can apologize for me. He won’t know the difference.”
“No, I will not apologize for you even if you chewed him out on my behalf. I’ve been telling you for years to stop fighting my fights. Now it’s come back to bite you.” Not taking her eyes off the road, she lifted the paper off her jeans-clad leg and dropped it on Silken’s lap. “Now suck it up and do what you have to do.”
Silken groaned but she didn’t bother to argue. When Suave got like this, all holy and righteous, there was no swaying her. It was just her luck to have such a goody-goody sister. Darn.
Heaving an aggrieved sigh, Silken picked up the paper and slid it into her purse. Now, according to the decree of her royal highness, Queen Suave, she would have to hunt down a man she didn’t even know – except that he had sexy dark eyes and a chiseled mouth and, yeah, even as she cursed him out she’d had time to notice all that – and she would have to apologize, even though he probably hated every bone in her body. And who could blame him?
Yes, she would apologize. It was the right thing to do. But God knew she was not looking forward to it.
CHAPTER TWO
"The track is almost at completion but we’ll have to rework the stands. Safety first, of course. Don’t want to put any spectators in danger.”
Max tried hard not to yawn as the contractor droned on in his monotone voice. It wasn’t that what he was saying wasn’t important. It was the way he said it, his voice giving off a low vibrating buzz like the light back at his old college library, the same ones that used to lull him to sleep. They should hire out this guy to people who had problems falling asleep. He’d make a mint.
“And so I’m thinking we could go with wooden stands over plastic. Warmer on the behind in the cooler months and cooler in the summer. And then we could…”
The man’s voice faded away again and Max found himself back at the sports complex, caught in probably the most confusing event of his life. What the hell happened yesterday? He’d been running the incident over and over in his mind and he still couldn’t make head or tail of it.
So he’d gone to the sports complex to work out. It was only his third Sunday afternoon in Cupertino and he wanted to get back into his workout routine. Big mistake. At the café bar he’d gone from sipping mineral water and minding his own business, to observing a diminutive girl defend herself against a stocky bully, to getting chewed out by said girl who seemed to have lost all her marbles in a matter of minutes.
He still couldn’t fathom how she could have mistaken him for the bully. They looked nothing alike.
He almost shook his head but then he remembered he was supposed to be listening to the man who was leading the project to build his racetrack just outside of Cupertino. He adopted a thoughtful look instead.
But his thoughts kept going back to that girl, so pleasant and unassuming at first, then so sharp and fiery, her previously dark eyes tuned amber in the heat of her impassioned rage. And her lips, no longer softened by a sweet smile, now full and pouting, looked all the more tempting…perverted as that might seem. As she scolded him…no, flayed him with her words…all he wanted to do was pull her close and silence her with a kiss. That is, after throwing her over his knee and spanking her butt for her impudence.
Now that was a fetching picture if there ever was one. Despite his resolve to display a bland façade the thought had him smiling…even as it had his crotch tightening. Jesus, Max. Lusting after a perfect stranger, a crazy one at that? You need a life.
“Do you agree?” Frank Slater gave him a pointed look, obviously fully aware by now that Max hadn’t been listening.
“Just run that by me again,” Max said with a grunt. “We’ll hammer things out and I’ll have you out of here in no time.”
Slater seemed relieved at that and Max didn’t mind wrapping up early.
He had a lot on his mind, not least of which was his mystery chameleon. And, for some insane reason, he had a pressing urge to see her again.
***
“Jeff’s here.”
Silken almost banged her head on the hood of the car as Suave yelled out to her from the office door. They really had to do something about their communication system around the auto shop. This yelling business could not continue. Jerked out of concentration by Suave’s yells, one day she would put her eye out if she wasn’t careful.
“Yeah, I heard you,” she yelled back. “I’ll be right in.” She slid the oil dipstick back into its socket and grabbed a damp rag from the nearby counter, scrubbing at her hands as she loped toward the office. “I’ll be back in a sec, guys,” she called out to the mechanics working on the truck on the raised car lift. “Just need to have a quick chat.”
“No problem, boss.” Bill gave her a wave. “We’ll hold the fort.”
Silken had no doubt he would. He and Keith had been with her since they’d opened the shop two years earlier, fresh out of college, she with her degree in mechanical engineering and diploma in automotive repair, and Suave with her double major in finance and accounting. Although they’d grown up in Wisconsin they’d chosen California as the perfect setting for their new business and Cupertino as the ideal city – full of young professionals with fast cars and heavy pockets, the rewards of their jobs in the Silicon Valley tech industry. They’d never be short of business here.