Sinners On Tour 04 Wicked Beat Read Free

sure.”
    “Mind if I take a look?” Rebekah left her suitcase by the bus and was heading across the parking lot before he could answer. He caught up with her in two long-legged strides.
    Before Rebekah’s failed stint as an oil-rigger and a crab fisherman, um, fisher wo man, she’d had a failed stint as an auto mechanic. Not because she had been bad at it, but because no one took her seriously. She had been bad at rigging oil and fishing crab—five-foot-two and a hundred and six pounds soaking wet did not make her suitable for many of the jobs she insisted she wanted.
    When she reached the car, her heart sank. The camel-colored, leather interior was totally trashed. “What did you do to her?” she bellowed and turned on Eric, who took a step backward, his smile fading.
    “She was like that when I got her.”
    “And you just left her like this? How long have you had her?”
    Eric tipped backward at the hips, lifted his toes off the ground, and stared at his black Converse high-tops. “Uh, around ten…”
    “Ten days?”
    “Uh…” He shook his head.
    “Ten weeks ?”
    Eric cleared his throat. “Um… ten… years.” He whispered the last word.
    She slapped him on the chest with the flat of her hand. “How could you? She’s a priceless work of art and you treat her like junk.”
    “Junk? No, not junk. She’s my baby.” He patted the door affectionately.
    “Your baby? That pisses me off even more.” Rebekah moved around to the front of the car to pop the hood. “If the engine looks as bad as the interior, I’m gonna scratch your eyes out.”
    Eric covered his eyes with both hands.
    And he had reason to. “Oh, dear,” Rebekah gasped as she tried to make heads or tails over what someone had done to the once glorious V-8 engine. “Is that? Is that… a coat hanger holding open the carburetor choke?”
    “I tried to fix her,” Eric said, his eyes still protected by his long-fingered hands.
    He looked ridiculous. And somehow endearing. She smiled to herself and propped up the hood with a metal rod—another coat hanger.
    “Are you sure you should be the one trying to fix her?”
    “I have a repair manual for this model,” he said. “A really good one.”
    “We’re going to need it to figure out how to straighten out this disaster.”
    He lowered his hands from his eyes. “ We’re going to need it?”
    “I’m sorta a mechanic. Or I used to be. If you want, I’ll help you get her running properly. I don’t do interiors though.”
    He hesitated.
    “Do you have a better suggestion?” she asked, running a finger along the side of the engine block and finding seeping oil. Blown head gasket. Wonderful. She sighed heavily. This poor car. How could he claim that it was his baby?
    Eric moved to stand beside her, looking at the completely fucked up engine with something that bordered on pride. “When I had her towed to my house from the junkyard, I promised myself that I’d do all the work on her myself. She does start now.” He glanced at Rebekah. “Sometimes.”
    “I’m surprised she runs at all.”
    He flushed and looked across the parking lot. Rebekah stared at him, perplexed. He hadn’t been this cute ten minutes ago, had he? Maybe because he was so close, she was able to get a better look at him. And he smelled good. A hint of leather and aftershave and something utterly male. She suddenly wanted him to notice her. As a woman.
    Rebekah shifted sideways and brushed her arm against his, pretending it was an accident. He didn’t move away, but he didn’t increase the contact between them either.
    “You can keep that promise. If I do help you,” she said, “you’ll be the one doing all the work. I’ll just supervise.”
    His bright, genuine smile did something strange to her heart. It soared upward, fluttering in her throat or thereabouts.
    “That sounds like a plan, Reb.”
    His hand slid across her lower back. A thrill of excitement raced up her spine.
    “I don’t expect you to