Love a Little Sideways Read Free

up the right side of his driveway and then reached up to hit the button to open the left-side door.
    “Hold on a sec,” he told her as the overhead door started to rise, and climbed out.
    Once the door rattled open, he hit the light switch, illuminating his prized possession. It was a 1970 Mustang, the Boss 302, in brilliant orange with black racing stripes. He opened the door, slid into the leather seat and turned the key. It fired right up, the throaty engine purring like a kitten.
    After letting it run a moment, he drove it out of the garage and parked it alongside the cruiser. After he got out, he closed the overhead door and gestured for Liz to join him.
    “You can drive this until you figure out what’s up with your car,” he said, when she’d climbed out of the SUV and walked over to him.
    Her eyes grew huge as she looked back and forth between him and the car, and then she shook her head. “I can’t borrow your Mustang, Drew.”
    “Needs to be driven and I spend most of my time in the SUV, so you’d be doing me a favor. And it’s insured.”
    “Nice try. Look, I appreciate the offer, but—”
    “Did you know this car was the only one to beat Mitch’s Camaro in the quarter-mile back in the day?”
    She smiled, running her hand over the black-striped hood scoop in a way that made him think of sex. “He’s always claimed he missed a shift.”
    “Maybe my car was better or maybe I was the better driver but, either way, seeing the car annoys him. You driving it would really annoy him and I like keeping Mitch on his toes.”
    Drew knew he was poking the sleeping bear, so to speak. The last thing he wanted was for Mitch to find out he’d slept with his sister. Parading Liz around in his Mustang probably wasn’t a step in the right direction.
    But she needed a car and he had a car. And if it gave him some kind of primal thrill seeing Liz behind the wheel of his pride and joy, nobody needed to know that.
    * * *
    Enveloped in the scent of old leather and Drew Miller, Liz followed the big SUV through Whitford. Her fingers slid easily into the grooves decades of the man driving the car had worn into the steering wheel and she tried not to dwell on how sexy everything about the car—the look, the sound, the smell—was as she focused on the road.
    It was better to think about how bad it probably sucked on gas, although whether or not it was worse than her own car remained to be seen. And just how much it would suck if she put so much as a door ding in the thing.
    She’d continued to argue with him for what had to be another half hour after he’d given her the lame spiel about him wanting her to drive it to annoy her brother. There weren’t any car rental places within a reasonable distance of Whitford, but there had to be an extra vehicle kicking around the lodge she could borrow.
    But he wouldn’t take no for an answer and, eventually, she’d gotten tired of arguing with him. So now she was driving the car she’d drooled over from afar during high school, though she’d never wanted a tour of the backseat like most of the girls had. Not that it would have mattered. Even if she hadn’t been nothing more than Mitch’s little sister to him, Drew only had eyes for Mallory.
    Unfortunately, when Drew’s turn signal started blinking, Liz realized she hadn’t been paying attention and they’d arrived at Lauren’s small ranch-style house without her knowing quite how they got there. She’d jotted down the directions her brother Ryan had given her over the phone, but she suspected that scrap of paper was still in the console of her car, along with the fast food and gas receipts she’d accumulated along the road.
    And Lauren didn’t have a garage. Or rather, Liz didn’t have a garage, and she could imagine Drew sitting in the SUV he’d just shut off, cringing at the thought of his baby being exposed to the elements.
    He didn’t say anything when they were both out of their vehicles, though. He just