Samhain Publishing Ltd, Ebooks and Books in Print

Heidi Callihan imagined the satisfying thud the hood would make, should it accidentally come crashing down on Barbara Murillo’s dyed skull.

For Barbara’s sake, it was a darned good thing Heidi’s boss, Joe “Rafe” Rafferty, was hunched under the Cadillac’s massive hood with her; otherwise Heidi would be sorely tempted to step over from the adjacent service bay and make the vision a reality.

She wiped her grease-blackened hands with a shop rag, looking down at her stubby, darkened nails. Then, shaking off self-doubt, Heidi pretended to search for a nine-sixteenths-inch socket in one of the garage’s rolling tool cabinets. In her peripheral vision, however, she caught intermittent glimpses of the perfectly manicured widow Murillo, poured in her deep V-necked tee, leaning over the fender toward Rafe.

I hope she gets engine grease all over those double-Ds. With a muffled harrumph, Heidi picked up the socket and made herself turn back to her work.

That woman’s had more men than Hershey’s has kisses. Why can’t she just leave this one alone?

“Everything checks out okay,” Heidi heard Rafe say as he backed out from underneath the Cadillac’s hood. He straightened to his full six-foot-three-inch height, his muscular frame almost allowing Heidi to forget the seductress who loomed much too close.

“Well, it was making this funny sound when it idled,” Barbara cooed with enough artificial sweetness to fill a saccharine factory. Heidi rolled her eyes and blew a puff of air up at her bangs. She couldn’t believe Rafe was falling for such a lame act.

“I thought I’d better have you take a look at it,” Barbara continued. “After all, I wouldn’t want Tony Junior and me to be helplessly stranded somewhere.”

Helpless? Fat chance! Heidi glanced through the glass at Tony Junior seated in the tiny waiting room of Rafferty’s Auto Repair. He was dressed like a miniature mercenary-for-hire, scowling at his Gameboy as if it were the enemy. Heidi had heard rumors of truancy, drinking and shoplifting, and the kid was only eleven years old. He was troubled, that was for darned sure. But helpless? Not by any stretch of the imagination. And as for his mother, well, Barbara made Catwoman look like Mother Theresa.

“I really don’t think you need to worry, Barbara,” Rafe said with a natural smile that would make any woman weak in the knees. “I didn’t hear anything unusual when I pulled it in the garage.”

Heidi wanted to tune out what went on in the next bay, but ignoring Rafe was as impossible as turning down a hot fudge sundae. She slid her gaze back in time to see him closing the hood and wiping it clean of his handprints.

“Well,” Barbara began, narrowing the distance between herself and Rafe. She ran her talons up his well-muscled forearm and then slid them under the short sleeve of his shirt, massaging his firm triceps. “About tonight—”

Rafe cut her off, glancing in Heidi’s direction.

“Why don’t we step into my office,” he said, pushing the office door open and hurrying Barbara along with a hand at the small of her back.

Heidi focused on the engine and ground her teeth behind closed lips, imagining the bolt she was tightening to be a tourniquet around Barbara’s neck. She managed not to turn back their way until after she heard the soft click of the door. Like the waiting room, the small office was encased by glass panels on the upper half of the walls. She hoped the fact that anyone in the garage could see in was enough of a deterrent to keep Barbara from jumping Rafe’s bones.

Heidi spied him leaning back on the edge of his desk, arms folded across his broad chest. He appeared to be listening to Barbara with great interest. Heidi refocused her energies enough to give the bolt a final murderous twist, imagining the offers the “Black Widow” was proposing. Since Barbara’s husband had passed away three years earlier, the bereaved widow had developed quite a reputation around Greenville. Rumor had it Rafe was one of the few bachelors who hadn’t let Barbara give him her own special version of a lube job.

Heidi sneaked another peek toward the office. Rafe was smiling. Damn. Then he spoke, nodded and stood to walk toward the door.

“So, I’ll see you around seven o’clock?” Barbara said as she passed within inches of Heidi.

Heidi bit back a smart-ass comment, unsure whether she should be insulted or relieved at how Barbara completely ignored her existence.

But after she watched Barbara drag her son to the Cadillac and pull away, what Heidi had overheard finally hit with the force of a sledgehammer. Rafe was going out with the Black Widow. At seven. And if that woman lived up to her reputation, she’d concoct a way to get her legs locked around his waist by seven-oh-five.

“No way!” Heidi shouted, hurling her wrench at the concrete floor. Rafe, who had disappeared into the office, yanked the door open a split second later, phone in hand.

“You okay? What happened?” he asked, concern apparent in his warm gray eyes.

“It slipped,” Heidi said, masking frustration. I’ve made a mistake, waiting for him to come to his senses and see me as a woman. “Uh, Rafe, I’m almost done here and there was something really important I meant to do. Would you mind if I cut out a little early?”

“Sure, no problem,” he said.

“Before I forget, I called in the order.”

“Thanks,” he said, still eyeing her with suspicion. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Peachy,” she answered, set on edge by both his fatherly tone and the urgency of the situation.

“I’ll see you Monday morning then.” He paused for another moment, studying her, then gave her a single wave and returned to his call. Her mind racing, Heidi whizzed through the final adjustments to the Buick’s serpentine belt.

“What’s the problem?” she scolded herself under her breath. “I’ve never held back from anything I wanted before. Why is it I’ve been too chicken to pursue Rafe?”

Heidi pushed the tool cabinet back against the wall and washed up, a wild plan coming together in her mind. It was riddled with major flaws—like risking both her friendship with Rafe and her job—but at the moment, all that mattered was keeping the Black Widow away from him.

“If he’d just stop treating me like one of his younger sisters, he’d realize we’re perfect for each other,” she mumbled, mental pistons firing at the speed of a Ferrari’s.

“Then again, it’s time you stopped acting like a little sister.” Shucking her coveralls in the washroom, Heidi stared her reflection in the tiny mirror and gripped the sides of the sink until she was white-knuckled.

“Okay, so Barbara’s the one forcing me to shift to high gear,” Heidi admitted with a new determination, “but if anyone is going to wrap her thighs around Rafe, it’s going to be me.”