The Trouble with Angels (Angels Everywhere #2)(35)

Heaven was aware she could do nothing to change Brian. She’d tried, God help her, with a zero success rate.

Defeated, Maureen looked up. Daylight was fast slipping away, and she needed to get back to the stables. She slid off the rock and started back toward the trail, or where she last remembered seeing the trail.

She hesitated.

This didn’t seem to be the right way. She turned and started in the opposite direction, certain she remembered that bend in the stream.

Within minutes it was so dark, she couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of her. Fighting panic, she knew that either someone would come and find her or she’d wait until morning and discover the way back on her own.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called out as loudly as she could, "Is anyone out there?”

Only an eerie, unnatural silence greeted her frantic question.

"Please,” she whispered. "Thom? Anyone?”

"I don’t know what’s wrong with Edith,” Joy said as her father carefully lifted the hood of her dated Chevy in his repair shop. "She’s been acting strange lately.”

Ray Palmer smiled at his daughter. "If you translate ‘strange’ as Edith starting up of her own accord, you need more than a mechanic.” Her father leaned over the engine, out of Joy’s view.

"Did you see the Lakers game last night?” he asked, his words muffled, aimed as they were at the garage floor.

"It was great.” Or it had been until after the game, when Ted had gone quiet and brooding on her. He’d driven her home as if he couldn’t be rid of her fast enough.

She hadn’t invited him up for a drink. Really, what was the use? It was more than apparent that he was glad the evening was over and he could be done with her.

While her father checked Edith’s innards, Joy wandered around his shop. It smelled of grease and tires and gasoline. These scents had been like perfume to her when she was a little girl. Her brothers came down to the garage often, but it was only on rare occasions that Joy was allowed in her father’s domain.

A BMW similar to Ted’s pulled up out front, catching Joy’s eye. A door slammed, and she watched in shocked disbelief as Ted Griffin nonchalantly walked into her father’s shop.

"What are you doing here?” she asked, looking past him, certain Blythe would be with him, too. That he would bring his fancy girlfriend to her father’s shop infuriated her. Blythe was sure to wrinkle her nose at the very thing Joy loved about this old shop. She waited, but apparently Blythe wasn’t with him.

"As I recall, you were the one who mentioned that your father’s a mechanic. It’s time for an oil change, and I thought I’d give him the business. Unless you have any objections.”

Eating her own words had never appealed to Joy. She suspected they tasted a good deal like crow. "Of course I don’t object,” she said, stepping down from her high horse. "I do remember mentioning Dad’s shop.”

Her father straightened, closed Edith’s hood, and wiped his hand clean on the pink cotton rag. He studied Ted briefly and then looked to his daughter. "You know this young man, Joy?”

"Dad, this is Ted Griffin,” she said, making a half-flopping motion with her hand. "Ted, my father, Ray Palmer.”

"Hello, Mr. Palmer,” Ted said, and stepped forward to offer his hand.

The two men exchanged robust handshakes. "Have you been having any problems with your car, son?”

A grin teased the corners of Ted’s mouth. "None to mention. But I’d prefer to be on Edith’s good side in light of what happened to my friend’s car. I’d be grateful if you had the time for an oil change.”

"So you were around the other night when Edith pulled her little trick.” Ray chuckled and stuffed the pink rag into the hip pocket of his gray-striped coveralls. "I always said it’s never a good idea to turn your back on a frustrated woman.”

"Daddy.”

"Sorry, sweetheart, but it’s true.”

Joy noticed that Ted was doing an inadequate job of hiding a smile.

"Pull your car in here and I’ll be finished with her in a jiffy.” He walked over to the large garage doors and raised them so Ted could ease his car into the slot next to Joy’s infamous Edith.

Her father directed Ted into the spot and then suggested, "Help yourself to the coffee. This shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.”

"How fresh is it, Dad?” Joy asked, knowing her father’s penchant for strong coffee.

"It’s fresh,” Ray insisted. "I made it myself yesterday morning.”

"Thanks anyway,” Ted managed to say around a smile.

"If you two want to make yourselves useful,” her father said as he raised the hood to Ted’s car.

"Sure, what do you need?”

"Lunch,” Ray told them. "There’s a deli two blocks down. Get me something to hold me until dinner, will you?” The question was directed to them both.

"A sandwich,” Joy offered.

"Anything.”

Ted followed her out of the garage. They walked side by side for about half a block. "You don’t need to come,” she said stiffly. After all, she was perfectly capable of walking two blocks without an escort, especially him.