Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(16)

Maybe it’s because she’s not attached to her middle-aged Russian sugar daddy.

Her husband. The car thief.

Who she technically cheated on, with me.

Holy shit.

“I hope that chubby’s for the car, because nothing good can come of it otherwise,” Tabbs warns in a low voice as he passes by me and steps out into the rain to meet her, his polite mechanic mask firmly affixed. When the doors are closed and we’re working, there’s nothing polite about Tabbs. He’s five-foot-four, balding, and tests new combinations of every cuss word I’ve ever heard, plus some new ones.

“Sounds like you have a problem there, little lady.”

Boone guffaws and I know exactly why. The top of Tabbs’s head comes up to her chin.

Her eyes don’t veer from Tabbs as she sighs. I hear the slight shake in it. “I must have hit something on my way home from class. Viktor said to bring it right over and someone would take a look at it.”

I do a cursory glance at the six bays—all being used. There’s a line of cars waiting to get in, too. I don’t see how this is going to happen.

“Zeke! Clear Bay Two for me, will ya!”

I guess our boss’s business partner has a lot of pull around here.

“Thank you.” At least she remembered her manners.

“Of course. It’s no problem, Mrs. Petrova.”

She glances at her watch. “Will this take long?”

“Depends on what’s wrong. Hopefully you just lost a clamp. If we need a replacement part, that’ll take time.” Tabbs gestures with one greasy hand toward the waiting room. “Come . . . Have a cup of coffee. It’s on me.”

I roll my eyes at Tabbs’s cheesy line. The customer lounge has one of those coffeemakers that does everything but sing and dance. There are over thirty types of coffee to choose from, including the organic stuff that most people in Portland would be happy pumping into their veins intravenously, and it’s all free.

A faint smile curls the girl’s lips. Her heels click along the pavement as she rounds the car, using her free hand to open the passenger-side door and pull out a messenger bag. She struggles to sling it over her shoulder, the corner of what looks like a textbook popping out.

Though I should turn my focus back to the car, I can’t pry my eyes from the zebra umbrella as it passes each bay door, heading toward the customer entrance to the lounge.

It isn’t until someone bumps into the back of my knee, buckling my legs, that I snap out of it. “I thought you weren’t into her breed,” Boone says.

“I’m not. It’s just . . .” She disappears from sight. Is that really her? It’s got to be her, but how are my mystery woman and Viktor’s trophy wife one and the same? “Shut up and open the bay. I’ve gotta test this.”

Shaking his head, he reaches up to slap the button on the wall.

“Gotta admit, it’s impressive,” Boone says to the group standing under the car, staring up at the gaping crack in the muffler.

Tabbs doesn’t look impressed. “Was the broad off-roading through the ass-splittin’ mountains? How in the hell did she manage this?”

“It’s a low car. She probably punched a speed bump,” I offer as I pass by, the Enclave’s keys swinging around my index finger. Miller likes us to report in as soon as the work is done.

“Well, we need a new part and we won’t get it in today. She may as well go home. Hey, kid!” Tabbs hollers, and I know he’s talking to me. “Let her know, seeing as you’re going that way?”

I was hoping he’d ask.

“And watch your manners.”

I shoot him a glare on my way to the sink to scrub the dirt and oil off my hands. The lounge is the only truly clean room in the entire shop and everyone, including Miller, gets pissy if there’s so much as a fingerprint left on any of its white surfaces.

I push through the service doors and into the brightly lit hall as a ball of nerves hits me. Which girl am I going to get when I walk in there? The stony gold-digger from The Cellar or the sweet kissing bandit from the side of the road? She may not even recognize me from the club. In my mechanic’s coveralls, I sure don’t look like I did that night.

Rounding the corner to enter the spacious lounge, fully equipped with leather chairs, a flat-screen television, and inspirational pictures of mountains, I see her sitting in a chair with her jacket and heels off and her bare feet pulled under her ass. She’s twirling the end of her ponytail in her fingers, her long, blood-red nails such a contrast against her pale hair.

She’s relaxed and casual, her attention focused on a textbook.

“You’re muffler’s mangled.” I didn’t inherit my mom’s bedside manner, like my sister, Amber, did. I figure this is as good an opener as any.

She must have been deeply engrossed in her studies because she jumps at my voice. The textbook slips off her lap and lands on the ground. I feel her staring at me as I stroll over and pick it up, silently praising myself for spending extra time on washing my hands. The last thing I want to do is be the dirty mechanic who left grease marks on all her stuff.

When I lift my gaze again, I sense recognition in her eyes. But does she really recognize me? I match her stony expression with one of my own. Two can play at this game. “Anatomy and Physiology?” I read out loud, handing the textbook back. “My favorite.”