A Father's Name(58)

Angelina nodded, her expression serious. “Okay, I’m going to admit that you’re right, Tyler.”

“Really? About what?” he asked suspiciously because beneath her serious expression he could spot a smile lurking.

“You’re right that I could do better. Oh, so much better, Tyler. But at this moment in time, I don’t want to. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than in your arms. So yes, I’d love to go out with you. Bet we can talk Bart into babysitting while I revel in your mediocrity for an evening?”

“How come even when you admit I’m right and I should feel like I won an argument, I still feel as if I’m a loser?”

“You are, but hey, when you take me on that date, we’ll see if you can get luckier. I mean, really lucky.”

Whatever cloud had darkened her mood earlier had blown over. If getting teased was the price he had to pay for pulling her out of her funk, he was willing to pay and play along. She hefted a mock-sigh. “Angel, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

“The question isn’t what you’re going to do, it’s what you want to do. What do you want to do with me, Tyler?”

His mind raced with all the many and varied things he wanted to do with Angelina Tucker. Unfortunately, he had the Matthews inside, so his desires would have to wait. “Ask me that question again after our date.”

She laughed. “I will. Oh, you can bet I will.”



TUCKER WENT INTO the office on Sunday morning. She was too revved up about tonight’s date to sleep.

It was ridiculous, and she knew it.

She was a grown woman with a son who was leaving for college in a few weeks, and she was acting like a teenager.



She let herself into the building’s back door and started toward her office.

There was a light on.

She considered there might be someone trying to break in, but if she were a thief, she’d steal expensive garage equipment. There was nothing in her office worth stealing. So she opened her door, and found her father sitting at her desk, staring at her computer screen with his reading glasses perched at the end of his nose.

“Pops?”

He looked up from the screen. “You’re up early, Angel.”

“Uh, so are you.” She walked over to the desk and peeked at the computer monitor. “So what are you doing?”

“Checking the books,” her father said casually, as if coming into her office and double-checking her work was a normal, everyday occurrence.

“Why?”

Her father didn’t answer.

“Because you don’t trust me?”

His expression said he thought she was being ridiculous. “Trust you? Certainly, I trust you. I wouldn’t have stepped aside if I didn’t trust you, but…”

She didn’t need a psychology degree to know what this was about. “It’s that Tyler’s helping, right?”

“Right.”

“You don’t think I have enough business savvy to check his work?” She trusted him, on some deep level, despite all the evidence saying she shouldn’t. But despite that innate confidence in him, as a matter of good business principles, she double-checked his work. After all, the garage wasn’t only her livelihood. A lot of people relied on it.

Her father looked puzzled. “If you’re checking it, then why have him help?”

How to explain to her father what she hardly understood herself. “First off, you can see how much more efficient his system is. It’s all on the computer, Pops, and once everything’s up and running, it should really streamline the paperwork, and that works well for me, and for the business.”

She walked around the desk and sat down. “Secondly, I asked him to help because this is where he belongs. In an office. He’s a great mechanic, but he’s an even better businessman. He should be in an office, dealing with customers. Lou agrees. He’s had Tyler doing more and more of the customer interactions in the garage.” She paused.

Her father nodded and filled in, “And thirdly, you care about him.”

“Maybe,” was all she’d admit to her father, but in her heart she knew there was no maybe about it. She cared about Tyler Martinez. And her feelings were growing stronger daily.

“He’s not what I wanted for you,” her father admitted with a sigh.

“I don’t think I’d sweat it, Pops. I don’t think I’m what he wants—at least not long term. But hey, short term is better than not at all.”