CHAPTER THREE
KEIR NURSED another headache while watching the sky dim and people leave the parking lot just minutes after four. He slumped over the lunchroom table and told himself he wasn’t looking, but the third floor wall of windows offered a panoramic view of the rear lot. He shook his head that Myah put her wasted car back on the road.
In an upward stroke, he dug a finger against his forehead, and he stirred his black tea. Both were to abate the dull ache his skull banged around like a pinball behind his eyes. It was the same most days. This place of the familiar headache.
Blowing on the brew, he squinted and scrutinized how the parking lot cleared out in quick succession. Cars lined the exit single file for the main road like a funeral procession. Myah’s remained. Not looking, he reminded. He checked his watch and popped the two painkillers he hoped would kick in soon.
Bill said Myah left work around quarter to six these days, so Keir decided he’d wait until after five, when most of the remaining work crowd left, to go pay her a visit. He stood and sipped, watched out the window a moment longer, then grabbed the garment from the neighboring chair and headed to the elevator.
He could take the stairs, a trip to the first floor warehouse wasn’t a big stretch, but his head couldn’t handle the jostling down the steps. God, when will this end? No amount of prayer had worked over the past three and a half years. His doctor? Still convinced it was all in his head. Yeah, that’s the problem, doc. It’s in my head. How do I get rid of it?
Truck horns, screaming brakes, and deafening metal slammed into his memory; crashing, as it always did, on the sensitive line behind his eyes. Alone on the elevator, he crushed his lids together to fight off the pain.
Cardigan slung over one shoulder, he stepped out and looked up and down the long corridor of the DRU-Med building, then took the straight route to the mechanics center where he repaired various equipment—and sometimes the service vehicles—in the two hundred and fifty thousand square foot facility. His partner abandoned him, off with the flu, but that was all right, he didn’t mind working alone.
Keir sank to his seat at the shared desk to read the service order for a mobility scooter. Unofficially, he readied for questions from the on-call service technicians since they’d all found they liked running ideas by one another to garner new information.
Lost in work, Keir had the cart upside down and half apart. The guts were scattered on the bench, and he reached out to dip his hand in black goop to lube the motor when he noticed the time. Quarter past five. Checking out the state of his hands, he quick-lighted it to the restroom to wash up, then made his way to the fourth floor.
He was practically sweating by the time he raced up the stairs. Stairs. He’d taken the stairs. He ripped open the top of his coveralls while he wove through the corridor and tied the arms around his hips. His work boots clomped along, disturbing the peace. Treading lighter in the quiet open area, he listened to the environment. From the sounds of keyboards and a phone conversation, he’d say at least three people remained on this side of the floor.
Having scoped out Myah’s desk from a walk-by last night, he went directly to the second cubicle on the far side of the gray colored grid. MYAH BLAKE, read the black letters on the silver plate. Curiosity invited him to peek over the partition.
His five-ten made an easy height to spy over the five-five wall. Myah’s head hovered over paperwork, ringlets of hair curtained her dark skin. He watched her finger, weighted with a huge oval ring, track figures on a printout. Pursing her lips, a small noise bumped her throat before she reached for the mouse.
She raised her head to inspect the screen and she took a pretzel from a small container with her other hand. Her dark gaze flew to him. Taken by the flash of her eyes, Keir hoped his smile hid his bewilderment.
Her long lashes blinked a couple of times. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
She wheeled back half a foot and covered her chewing mouth. “Hi!”
He grinned at her bright but confused expression. “Working late again?” he asked, and regretted the stupid question.
Myah bobbed her head and shrugged a hand. “Month end. If I don’t put these in I won’t be able to do it. The person covering for me last week was off sick, and our team leader away at a conference. No one’s kept track.”
He knew what it took to balance books, and since today was the last of the month, it sounded like a lot of work.
“I have until the end of next week.” Her shoulders drooped and she sighed. “It’ll get done, it’s just that looking at numbers for hours on end drives me crazy, makes me feel like I’m losing my mind—and my vision.” She pressed, then slid the back of her fingers over her eyes, and Keir pieced together the incredible symmetry of defined cheekbones and bare, shapely lips.
He should have said something encouraging about her work, but discovering he found her kind of pretty surprised him. Despite the lack of speech, or maybe because of it, Keir let out a blunt laugh. Silly pup. He stepped to the opening of the cubicle so she wouldn’t have to view him as a disembodied head.
When Myah finished rubbing her eyes, her gaze landed on the garment he’d once again draped over his shoulder. “My sweater.”
He took hold of the pale green knitwear. “I found it in the parking lot.”
She gasped and looked up at him.
“Where you parked last night. I assumed it was yours.”
“Do you know how many times I’ve lost this thing?” She reached for it and tugged it out of his grasp. “I just found it on a coat rack down the hall yesterday and wanted to take it home for a wash. I thought I’d flung it in my car with all my other junk. Good thing it wasn’t my purse that fell out. Eeeeh! My sweater!” She scrubbed it between her knuckles like a prize.
The strange heap had caught his attention on the way to his truck during break. Without reason, he hadn’t informed Billy, who might have taken it upon himself to return the item. It never occurred to Keir to leave it on her chair either, but he wouldn’t have missed this. He’d put a genuine smile on her face. Not bad for accidental work.
Maybe it made up for whatever offense he’d committed last night, though she didn’t seem to remember she’d been upset with him upon leaving.
Keir folded his arms, crossed his ankles, and shared the beam of her wide grin. Then the silent, passing seconds hit him. Deliver sweater. Check. Explain recovery. Check.
He twisted his lips and scrambled for a goodbye speech as Myah’s enthusiasm died on a smile and a moaned sigh. He ran another look over her at the content sound. His brain emptied of topics. Fabulous. He scratched his left bare bicep and took in the cluttered desk top.
“I guess…” He shrugged like a vocationally-challenged gimp.
Myah perked up. “Don’t move! I have something for you.” She opened a desk drawer. As soon as he saw the white envelope, he stepped back. She looked hesitant. “I assume you do this type of thing often—helping damsels in distress.” When he retreated again, she thrust it toward him. “It’s not much, but…”
Not veering from the tentative look in her eyes, he plucked away the envelope, flicked it between his fingers with a nervous chuckle, then placed it on the desk in front of her. “I can’t. Think of me as someone who happened to stop to help a stranger with a flat tire.”
Her lips pressed together in an embarrassed twist, but he figured she ought to use that dough on the measly car.
Knowing the answer, he asked anyway. “How did it run last night? What’d they say when you took it in?”
More embarrassment showed in her jerky movements tidying up.
“You didn’t take it in,” he said flatly.
“You sound like my brother. Look, the thing hardly starts, the alignment’s off, the engine light flicks on and off, but I’ve had zero time to think about laying up my car in a garage for who knows how long. It’ll probably cost an arm and a kidney anyway.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“A kidney I can afford. Can’t afford a leg. I need to be mobile.”
Keir groaned while she pumped her arms in a walking motion. He could play this up. He scratched his chin, anchored his feet apart, flexed his folded arms on his chest, and slit his gaze. “Myah Blake, you have a son to think about. I doubt he’d appreciate you speeding down the freeways in a car that’s about to split apart and land on its belly. You get my drift?”
She laughed through a fake gasp. “Keir—whatever your name is—I—”
“Treasure.”
“Wh—what?”
“Treasure.”
She didn’t blink an eye as most people did at learning his name. “Look, Mr. Keir Treasure, I am well aware of the dangers of driving an unsafe vehicle, but I figure what’s the use of praying for a safe drive if you don’t exercise the theory?”
He brain-stuttered, then scrunched his face to wave off her sappy argument. “Nah-nah. Not when it comes to car safety. Got it?”
“When I can.”
He couldn’t let her know how much the topic really grated his nerves, but even he didn’t understand why he leaned over to plant his hands on the chair’s armrests, blocking her down. “Got it?”
“All right, car police. Maybe this weekend. But I need it during the week.”
He ran a quick glimpse down her face to the pulse in her neck. He stood up to fill in the doorway again. “Or sooner?”
“Or sooner. I know, I know.” She nodded, serious now, and twisted her chair as her shy gaze skidded to the desk. “Thanks for helping me yesterday.”
He drifted his forearms to sit atop the sides of the divider and watched her lips grow into an appreciative smile now that she swung back to face him. Something was different about her than the black girls he grew up with in his old neighborhood. She seemed open. Innately calm. “Any time. I aim to please.”
A chair creaked a few desks down to his right. He turned when his peripheral caught an object sliding out. The attractive brunette rolling her chair to peek up the aisle looked a few years younger—mid-twenties. A noticeable ooh on her red lips trapped him as her brazen eyes roved his frame. They took their time traveling back up. After a second, the arch of an eyebrow accompanied a gratuitous smile.
“… my sweater.”
His attention flew back to Myah. He blinked away his distraction, nodded. What’d she say? He mustn’t have hid it well. “Yeah…the... I’ll let you get back to it.” He nodded at the spreadsheet.
She dismissively made a final swivel to her computer. Keir straightened, feeling shut out. The woman down the aisle didn’t seem half as in a hurry to tuck herself back into her workspace. He glanced at her again. Both eyebrows raised now.
When he turned to say goodnight to Myah, he found she’d watched him watching her colleague. Again. He waved and stepped back. “Good night.”
“’Night.”
He stuffed his hands past the coveralls into the back pockets of his jeans. “I’ll see ya.”
“Yep.” She flung the cardigan onto the desktop while the other hand returned to the figures.
Keir watched her for a second, then pivoted and headed to the main aisle. He hadn’t heard the creak of a chair yet. He looked over his shoulder—just a peek really—meeting the brunette’s gaze. Great. How many glances said he was interested when he really wasn’t?
He seized the flapping arms of his coveralls and grimaced not knowing why it mattered. He’d never seen either of these women before yesterday, and never would again.
NO sooner had the stairwell far door closed did Myah’s ears thrum with the sound of feet stampeding in her direction. Amy’s animated face, hazel eyes and wide smile flew into her face. “Oooh, My-ah, My-ah. Where did you find that fine hunk of hotness?”
“Calm down, Ames, he probably has a girlfriend.”
Her friend’s eyes widened. “You mean you don’t know? The guy comes all the way to your desk oozing sex and that voice that’s velvet and Kahlua on a cold night, and you fail to ask if he has a girlfriend, or boyfriend?”
“Ames!”
“Have I taught you nothing? What’s his name?”
“Keir.”
“Keir. Keir.” Amy slid her tongue on the edge of her teeth. Throughout the silent evaluation, her interest shone clear. She purred. “I like it. Sounds like an uber-rich American golden boy or a Gaelic hunk. Did you see the looks he gave me? I just wanted to rip those overalls right off him.” She picked up Myah’s sweater and folded it over her arm to pet like a cat. “Maybe I can corner him in the restroom.”
Myah rolled her eyes while she swayed her chair. “Slow down, Bessie, you’ll scare him off.”
“Naw, he’s got attitude, I read it on him. I bet he’s into pain. Did you see the tattoos?”
He had tattoos? Looking like the drummer for an alternative rock band she wouldn’t be surprised. But honestly, she hadn’t really made it past those eyes. He’d leaned over her with a rush of a male scent and peppermint, cocooning her in a two-person world. She’d swirled in his deep browns, maybe caught a glimpse of a mouth that curled up with a slight, raw smile.
The inside of his wrist had brushed her forearm when he backed off, leaving her gaze to drop to his fingers as the strong-looking members slid from the armrests. Her brain stamped the outline of a ring imprinted his left middle finger. Funny she’d notice that. Myah blinked to dismiss the sensation.
“So, that’s the mystery man who gave you a little juice last night. You didn’t say he was cute. He can electrocute anything on me he wants.”
Myah groaned and covered her face.
“What’s the rest of the story? He ask you out or something?”
Myah scoffed and turned to her computer. “Girl, get back to your desk. The man just rescued my sweater, is all.”
“‘The man just rescued my sweater, is all’,” Amy mimicked with a poke to Myah’s shoulder. “See? That church of yours is counterproductive to my seduction programming.”
“Well, hallelujah, salvation is real.”
Amy grunted and clomped back to her cubicle. “You need a man I’m telling you!”
“Your solution to life is to get a man!” she shouted back.
After getting pregnant by a charmer who actually asked if “that thing” was his, she had a right to be picky. She hated that Dylan had to grow up knowing his father shunned him. She’d do anything to prevent that happening to him again and everything in her power to let him know he was loved.
For Amy Cauffman, any man would do. Myah sighed that Amy couldn’t function unless eyeing the next delicious, exciting, and chiseled-to-perfection victim. Men were mountains to climb, amusement parks for a free ride, a movie for a good thrill.
The absent Mr. Cauffman bankrolled his daughter’s waterfront condo and leased cars, leaving her with ne’er a worry or grain of responsibility. Unfortunately, the twenty-five-year-old didn’t see how degrading it was to go through multiple partners a year.
Myah mourned for her apparent losing plight to get Amy into a relationship with God. No sex, no partying, no itty bit of weed on the odd weekend. “Just living life to the fullest,” Amy had explained once. How was Jesus to compete?
And now Amy zeroed in on Keir Treasure.
Myah hovered her finger on a line on her spreadsheet. To leave Keir to the magnificent prowess of Amy didn’t seem right. He’d be torn to shreds. Myah clicked the mouse. Her eyes oscillated to the sheet then the screen, sheet, screen.
Maybe that’s what he likes. Wild women.
Sheet, screen.
He didn’t seem all tame himself, something made her heart beat erratic around him. Go ahead. Fall for the proverbial bad boy. Fall? Never again.
Sheet, screen. Myah stared at the numbers. What was she doing? Scrunching her face, she zigzagged her finger down the column. Just get to work, he’s not coming back. She checked the top of the cubicle.
“Not for you anyway,” she mumbled.
She’d been surprised to see him lurking over her desk. But the crazy girl down the aisle nailed it. Before Myah even saw the easy fitting shirt and hip-riding work gear, he’d been the poster boy for sexiness with his dark eyes and those lips. Man, where did he get that smile? A shy, knowing, stunned, and bewildered twist all at once. Like mixed emotions didn’t know which one to use when it came to her.
His glances at Amy had been forthright though. Hit by the A-bomb.
Planting a fingernail on the spreadsheet, Myah scanned numbers. Not the right line. She shuffled down. A minute of staring at her red fingernail by the decimal, she gave up and locked the computer.
Sweater tucked under her arm, she called out good night to the empty sea of desks before making her way downstairs. She thought about the warehouse. She hadn’t visited there much, but office staff knew where everything should be situated; prototypes, storage, packing, parts…auto-electric repairs. Maybe she should poke her head—do you hear yourself?
She didn’t even stop to chat with Bill on her way out.