Overheated

CHAPTER ONE

CRYSTAL HAYES WAS GLAD OF the familiar chaos as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams arrived for the race at Charlotte. The town was abuzz with activity, and the fast pace of track deliveries from Softco Machine Works kept her mind off the little things-like her bank balance.

Thursday morning, she swung the company delivery truck out the bay door of Softco’s east shop. The complex had grown from its humble beginnings as a single bay garage to an impressive complex of three modern machine shops, two warehouses and a ten-person office. There was an apartment over the office, where Crystal had lived since her husband, Simon, died two years ago.

But she wasn’t thinking about that today. In particular, she wasn’t stressing about how long a twenty-eight-year-old woman could live above her parents’ business without looking pathetic. Today, she was headed for the speedway in Charlotte and the Dean Grosso garage to be part of the pulsating hive of activity surrounding a premier NASCAR event.

She pulled the truck onto Deerborne Street and headed north toward the interstate. When she got up to speed, she popped a vintage Creedence CD into the player, in the mood to get nostalgic. Her father had played Creedence, Pink Floyd and Nazareth in the truck when Crystal was a child riding along on deliveries, and she still had a soft spot in her heart for classic rock.

She toured past the Rondal Bicycle Factory and the Pearson Furniture Warehouse before traffic increased and the landscape turned to retail businesses. The bright red, Treatsy-Sweetsy ice-cream parlor sign rotated slowly in the distance, its stylized, red TS towering above the surrounding buildings. Crystal could almost hear her childhood voice begging her dad to stop for a butterscotch cone.

She smiled to herself as Creedence rasped on about the calm before the storm.

She thought about the forty-odd dollars in her pocket. She’d planned to treat herself to a pizza on Saturday night, which would leave her with just enough for groceries until her next Softco paycheck. If she splurged on a cone, she’d have to compromise somewhere else.

A part-time job as a delivery driver, combined with the occasional advance check on her short stories, didn’t exactly provide for a high lifestyle. But she wasn’t touching Simon’s military widow’s pension and life insurance policy, not even to relive the childhood memory.

The rotating sign loomed closer.

She could taste the velvet smooth ice cream, the crisp waffle cone-made daily on site, as they had been for thirty years. She could feel the melting butterscotch oozing over her fingers in the hot, May sunshine.

Oh, to hell with the pizza.

She stomped on the brakes, gluing the unwieldy box of a vehicle to the hot pavement. The tires protested with a screech, but she made the corner, parked across four marked spaces in back of the lot and shut down the diesel engine.

She rounded the building and approached a small patch of garden between the street and the front entrance. There was a black Lab tied to a spindly shrub at one edge of the sparse lawn. Somebody had brought him some water in a Treatsy-Sweetsy ice-cream bowl, but he wasn’t drinking it.

He was staring off down the sidewalk, twitching at the end of his lead.

He watched one car approach, brows up, ears quirked. Then it passed without slowing, and the anticipation leeched out of his body. He moved onto the next car, growing alert, obviously expecting his owner to appear at any second. He had gray fur around his muzzle, and a chunk missing from one floppy ear, testifying to a long, probably less than pampered, life.

Crystal drew his attention, and he watched her with big, brown eyes. For a second, she was tempted to buy him a burger. But she quickly reminded herself that she was broke. She’d already compromised her Saturday night pizza. Plus, she reasoned, the owner might not appreciate random strangers feeding his dog.

The small Treatsy-Sweetsy dining room was a whole lot cooler than outside. It was also completely empty, so she walked straight up to the counter. She looked up at the menu board, debating between a regular and a large cone. She wasn’t worried about the calories, only the price. She had a naturally thin frame, and a metabolism that was very forgiving of her abuses.

“Help you?” asked a young, ponytailed girl in a pink and white striped blouse and dangling white, plastic earrings.

“A large butterscotch cone.”

The girl nodded and rung the price into the cash register. “Two seventy-five.”

Crystal handed her a twenty and glanced back at the dog.

He was still standing at the end of the yellow rope, twitching at something he saw down the street, his expression hopeful.

“Your change,” said the girl, and Crystal turned back.

“What’s with the dog?” she asked.

“Animal Control’s coming for him.”

This surprised Crystal. For some reason, he hadn’t struck her as a stray. He seemed intelligent and, well, dignified-if the word could be applied to an old dog with such a battered ear.

“Is he lost?” she asked.

The girl shook her head, jiggling her plastic earrings and swaying her ponytail. “There was a car accident this morning.” She pointed. “Old man hit the tree.”

Crystal stared back, seeing the white gash in a stately, old oak.

“Old guy was killed. Dog was fine.”

Crystal’s heart instantly went out to the poor dog, and her chest tightened painfully. His owner wouldn’t be coming back. And the city pound would…

She swallowed, not allowing herself to think about what might happen at the pound.

“Did he have relatives?” asked Crystal. Maybe there were children or grandchildren who’d take the dog.

“The dog?”

“The man.”

Another shrug. “Didn’t know his name. Came in here alone a lot.” She took a sugar cone from the stack and opened the ice cream bin.

Crystal watched the girl form a scoop of the swirled butterscotch, feeling like a heel for indulging in something as silly as ice cream when the poor dog was probably about to be put down.

It’s not like somebody was likely to adopt him. The pound was full of bright, lively puppies. Who would choose an old, gray-whiskered dog with a bad ear?

The girl balled up a second scoop, while Crystal felt an impulse growing within her.

“If I give you my name,” she said, half her brain telling her to shut up, the other half urging her on. “Will you tell the pound people I’ve got the dog?”

The girl stopped mid scoop, staring blankly at Crystal.

“I’ll take care of him until they check for relatives,” Crystal explained. How sad would it be if somebody put the dog down, then a relative showed up later? She knew the pound didn’t keep stray animals for long.

“You’re taking the dog?” the girl asked, clearly confused.

Crystal nodded. “Do you have a pen?”

The clerk seemed to remember she was in the middle of making a cone. She added the second scoop and handed the cone to Crystal. Then she pulled a pen from under the counter.

Crystal quickly jotted down her name and number on one of the Treatsy-Sweetsy napkins and handed it to the girl. “Tell them to call me if they find a relative.”

The clerk nodded bemusedly, while Crystal turned for the exit, telling herself she hadn’t lost her mind. There was nothing wrong with occasionally being a Good Samaritan.

Out on the hot sidewalk, she gingerly petted the dog. He sighed and gazed up at her, giving his tail only a cursory wag. But his round eyes closed while she scratched between his ears.

Okay. That was one question answered. It didn’t look like he’d bite her.

Carefully balancing the melting cone, she untied the rope from the shrub and coiled a few loops around her free hand.

“There we go, doggy,” she crooned. “You want to go for a car ride?”

Predictably, he didn’t answer, but stared silently up at her with an expression of benevolent patience. He seemed confused when she started to walk. But after a moment, he came willingly enough.

Across the parking lot, she opened the passenger door. Again, he gave her a curious stare.

“Up you go,” she prompted.

He jumped onto the floor of the truck.

Crystal patted the seat.

He gave her a look that questioned her wisdom, his brows knitting together. But when she patted it a second time, he gamely hopped up, curling into a little ball.

She shut the door, refusing to examine the logic of her actions. It was a temporary fix, just until the old man’s family could be contacted. And if no relative showed up, well, she’d deal with that later.

On the way around the cab, she licked a dribble from the back of her hand, then she swiped her tongue across both scoops a few times, making her way down to the solid ice cream before hopping into the truck.

She turned the key in the ignition.

“Okay, dog,” she said aloud, with a forced note of bravery in her voice. “Looks like it’s you and me for a while.”

She gave the dog the rest of her ice cream, then put the truck into Reverse.

RUFUS, AS CRYSTAL HAD decided to call the black Lab, slept soundly on the soft seat, even as she maneuvered the Softco truck in front of the Dean Grosso garage. Engines fired through the open bay doors, compressors clacked and impact tools whined as the teams tweaked their race cars in preparation for qualifying.

As always, when she visited the garage area, Crystal experienced a vicarious thrill, watching the technicians’ meticulous, last-minute preparations. As the daughter of a machinist, she understood the difference a fraction of a degree or a thousandth of an inch could make in the performance of a race car.

She muscled the driver’s door shut behind her and waved hello to a couple of familiar team members in their white and pale-blue uniforms. Then she rounded to the back of the truck and rolled up the door. Inside, five boxes were marked Cargill Motorsports.

One of them was big and heavy; it had slid forward a few feet, probably when she’d braked to make the Treatsy-Sweetsy parking lot entrance. So she pushed up the sleeves of her canary-yellow shirt, then stretched forward to reach the box. A couple of catcalls came her way as her faded blue jeans tightened across her rear end. But she knew they were good natured, so she simply ignored them.

She dragged the box toward her, over the gritty, metal floor.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” a deep, melodious voice rumbled in her ear.

“I can manage,” she responded crisply, not wanting to engage with any of the cat-callers.

Here in the garage, the last thing she needed was one of the guys treating her like she was something other than, well, one of the guys.

She’d learned long ago that there was something about her that made men toss out pickup lines like parade candy. And she’d been around race teams long enough to know she needed to behave like a buddy, not a potential date.

She piled the smaller boxes on top of the large one.

“It looks heavy,” said the voice.

“I’m tough,” she assured him as she scooped the pile into her arms.

He didn’t move away, so she turned her head to subject him to a back off stare. But she found herself staring into a compelling pair of green…no, brown…no, hazel eyes. She did a double take, as they seemed to twinkle, multicolored, under the garage lights.

The man insistently held out his hands for the boxes. There was a dignity in his tone, and little crinkles around his eyes that hinted at wisdom. There wasn’t a single sign of flirtation in his expression, but Crystal was still cautious.

“You know I’m being paid to move this, right?” she asked him.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be a gentleman.”

Somebody whistled from a workbench. “Go, Professor Larry.”

The man named Larry tossed his own back-off look over his shoulder. Then he turned to Crystal. “Sorry about that.”

“Are you for real?” she asked, growing uncomfortable with the attention they were drawing. The last thing she needed was some latter-day Sir Galahad defending her honor at the track.

He quirked a dark eyebrow in a question.

“I mean,” she elaborated, “you don’t need to worry. I’ve been fending off the wolves since I was seventeen.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” he countered, attempting to lift the box from her hands.

She jerked back. “You’re not making it any easier.”

He frowned.

“You carry this box, and they start thinking of me as a girl.”

Professor Larry dipped his gaze to take in the curves of her figure. “Hate to tell you this,” he said, a little smile coming into those multifaceted eyes. “Odds are,” Larry continued, a teasing drawl in his tone, “they already have.”

Something about his look make her shiver inside. It was a ridiculous reaction. Guys had given her the once-over a million times. She’d learned long ago to ignore it.

She turned pointedly away, boxes in hand as she marched across the floor. She could feel him watching her from behind.

He was just like the rest.

But then, she remembered his apology for the team member’s ribald remark. She couldn’t help but smile at that. When was the last time anyone cared how she felt about being the subject of sexual overtures?

“Hey, Crystal.” Dean Grosso greeted her as she set the boxes down on the workbench. “I see you met my brother, Larry.”

Crystal glanced back at the tall man who still stood beside her truck. Dean’s brother? Really? She would have pegged Larry as much younger than Dean.

“Is he really a professor?” she asked, dusting off her hands and tucking her chestnut hair behind her ears. In the past couple of months, her hair had grown out to a nondescript style. But until she figured out her economic life, she didn’t want to spend any money on a haircut. Plus, anything she could do to look plain and boring was a good thing in her world.

Crew chief Perry Noble approached, pulling a pen out of his shirt pocket.

“Applied Mathematics at State,” Dean said to Crystal, while Perry signed the packing slip for the custom parts.

“He doesn’t look like a nerd to me,” she noted, thinking Larry looked a lot more like a businessman than a mathematician.

He appeared urbane and classy, with dark, neatly trimmed hair. He had intelligent eyes and a serious, square chin, and he wore a gray, pinstripe dress shirt and a maroon tie, with charcoal slacks and a pair of black loafers. Even without a suit jacket, he could probably stroll into any boardroom in America and look right at home.

Dean chuckled. “Get him talking about string theory, and you’ll see just how nerdy he is.”

“That’s unlikely,” said Crystal, accepting a copy of the signed packing slip from Perry. “I can barely understand trigonometry.”

“Only thing I need to understand is acceleration,” joked Dean.

“And chronology,” his wife Patsy put in, joining the conversation. “Hi there, Crystal.”

“She thinks I’m getting old,” Dean said, frowning at Patsy.

“You’re getting older every year,” she pointed out.

“Mathematically correct,” Crystal agreed.

As one of the veteran NASCAR drivers, Dean’s age was a matter of public interest. Fans and commentators alike were fond of speculating about his possible retirement. His brother Larry looked to be in his early forties. Maybe ten or so years older than Crystal. Not such a big difference. He was definitely nowhere near retirement.

Then she gave herself a little shake. What did the difference in their ages matter? She’d barely been introduced to the man. He’d offered to carry her box, not take her out on Saturday night. She was getting way ahead of herself.

“Say hello to your dad for me?” asked Patsy.

“Absolutely,” Crystal said, nodding.

Softco Machine Works had provided custom machining to NASCAR teams in Charlotte since before Crystal was born. Her father was friends with most of the NASCAR families.

She gave Dean and Patsy a cheery wave goodbye as she headed back to the van.

Larry was in the bay’s doorway, talking to a red-shirted race official. Crystal grabbed the rope on the rear rollup door. She caught herself in time to keep from tugging it down too quickly. She didn’t want the clattering metal to scare Rufus.

As the door lowered into place, she caught Larry’s movement in her peripheral vision. She gave him a wave goodbye. He smiled and nodded, and she felt an unaccustomed pull toward him.

Strange. She rarely had a desire to prolong a conversation with a man. It inevitably became complicated and uncomfortable. It didn’t seem to matter how plain her clothes, or how understated her makeup and hair, she had to remain on guard for leering looks and blatant sexual innuendo. Her late husband had treated her like a sex object and she would never let that happen again.

Ignoring the urge to move in Larry’s direction, she secured the door latch and strode back to the cab and Rufus.

The dog lifted his head to blink at her as she clambered back into the high seat, but he immediately settled down again. She supposed the comfort of the truck seat, along with his three-quarters of the large butterscotch cone, were enough to keep him sleepy and content for the moment.

She pushed the truck into gear, refusing to glance in the rearview mirror for a final glimpse of Professor Larry.

STRETCHING OUT HIS STROKE, Larry made a beeline down one of the fast lanes at the Northstar Recreation Center’s pool. He touched the wall, did an underwater turn and counted fifty in his mind, the blue lane buoys a blur beside him. He was halfway through his workout, had burned approximately four-hundred calories, and had compensated for five hours of sedentary, computer time on his major muscle groups. He made a mental note to check the wall clock on his next turnaround to make sure he was on pace.

When his fingertips brushed the painted concrete at the shallow end of the pool, he glanced up. His view of the clock was blocked by a pair of tanned legs-female legs that curved into smooth hips and a snug, ocean-blue one-piece bathing suit.

“Hello, Larry,” came a voice that triggered something primal in his nervous system.

Facts and figures fled from his brain as he craned his neck to look up at…the woman from the garage. Crystal Hayes, his brother had told him.

His vocal chords didn’t immediately form words.

Her brow furrowed. “Do you remember me?”

Did he remember her? Hell, yes. He’d dreamed about her last night, spent most of this morning reliving their short conversation, cursing the fact that he was so formal around women, that he couldn’t carry on an easy, bantering chitchat like most men could.

He’d also cursed the fact that he’d offended her by offering to carry her package. He’d wondered if she was still annoyed with him. He’d also wondered if she’d caught on to the fact that he considered her one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

Which was a totally inappropriate thought, and one he’d fought hard against.

“From yesterday?” she prompted into his silence. “At the garage?”

“Yes,” he blurted out.

And then she smiled. “Oh, good.”

He smiled in return, searching his brain for something intelligent to say.

Imagine, a tenured professor, published in the American Mathematics Journal and Quantum International, a NASA consultant, and he couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say to a beautiful woman.

The large pool facility was almost eerily quiet for 2:00 p.m., save for a couple of swimmers splashing a few lanes down.

“Strange that I’ve never seen you here before,” said Crystal. Her gaze took in his arms, chest and shoulders, apparently concluding it wasn’t the first time he’d been swimming.

Okay, his ego could handle that.

“I usually work out in the pool at State,” he said, grateful he hadn’t completely lost the power of speech.

“Your brother said you were a professor?”

Larry nodded. Words, man. Words!

“I teach mathematics.”

“Interesting.”

“That’s not what most people say.” Most people’s eyes glazed over at the mention of his profession.

She grinned, and something about her smile warmed him inside.

“You here to do laps?” he asked.

“Three times a week.”

“You can burn up to eight hundred excess calories doing an hour of freestyle.”

She glanced down at herself.

He cringed. “Not that I’m suggesting…That is, of course, you don’t need to worry about burning excess calories.”

She chuckled at his horrible faux pas. “Trust me. I do it to feel good. I couldn’t care less about the visual pleasure of others.”

She moved to the next lane and sat down, dangling her feet and calves in the water.

Larry noticed that she was providing him with all kinds of visual pleasure at the moment, from the curve of her tanned hip, to her nipped-in waist, to the hint of cleavage. Visual pleasure didn’t get much better than this.

“Guess I’d better get going,” she said, slipping into the water.

“And I’d better get back at it.” He’d never stopped in the middle of a workout before. It simply wasn’t a logical thing to do. He quickly decided he’d better add a few laps to get his pulse rate back to optimal.

“See you later,” she called, pushing off the wall, arms curling, legs scissoring, gorgeous derriere poking out of the water.

Larry cursed between clenched teeth. The woman’s derriere was absolutely none of his business. He stretched into his own length, deciding three extra laps would do it.

He arrived at the far wall of the pool and was surprised to discover he hadn’t passed Crystal. Logic told him to stick to his own pace, but his ego urged him to swim a little harder. In a rare move, his brain let emotion override logic.

But at the end of the next lap, she was still ahead.

He pushed harder, determined to catch her.

Five more laps, and they were even at the turn.

She flashed him a smile that said she was onto him then pushed hard off the wall, obviously prepared to give it all she had. They moved neck and neck the entire length, both laughing when they reached the wall.

“How many’ve you got to go?” she gasped.

“Forty-five,” he responded.

“Might want to pace yourself,” she suggested.

“What about you?”

A competitive gleam grew in her green eyes. “Looks like we tied in the sprint. I’ll race you again for distance.”

“Forty-five laps?” he asked.

She nodded toward the scattered tables of the on-deck snack bar. “Loser buys fruit smoothies.”

“You’re on.”

Larry pushed off with determination.

At ten laps, he was surprised by her strength.

By twenty laps, he realized she must have done a whole lot of swimming in her life.

By thirty laps, he began to fear she might actually beat him.

But by forty laps, her speed began to slow.

He drew a deep breath of relief. He could have kept up the pace right to the end, but he might not have been able to walk afterward. He let himself slow down with her, and touched the final wall mere inches ahead of her.

She smoothed back her slick, dark hair, smiling brightly at him, looking like something out of a fantasy movie. “You’re very good,” she acknowledged.

“What about you? I take it you’ve done some swimming in your time?”

“Wesleyan College swim team.”

“You telling me I’ve been hustled?”

“Fork over the smoothie, baby.”

“I’d call it a tie.” He was prepared to be gracious.

She placed her palms on the pool deck, slipping her slick body out of the water. “Photo finish, but I won.”

“You sure?”

“I’m positive.”

He laughed and gave it to her, resting his gaze on her clinging swimsuit. Fact was, he’d buy her a hundred smoothies, or anything else she wanted, no race necessary.

He hopped out of the pool beside her. She was taller than most women. He had maybe four inches on her, and he couldn’t help thinking she was the perfect height.

“Do I get a rematch?” he asked.

“Not today.” She made a show of stretching out her arm muscles.

He smiled at that. He didn’t have a rematch in him today, either.

They strolled across the deck in silence, stopping at the bank of lockers for their towels.

Larry draped his around his shoulders and retrieved his wallet. “You live in Charlotte?”

She nodded, rubbing her towel over her hair before securing it at her waist. “I grew up here. Funny that we’ve never met before.”

“I don’t spend a lot of time in the garage.” When he came to a race, he was often in a motor home or up top with his son Steve who spotted for his nephew Kent, another NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver.

“And I’m usually somewhere else,” she said, as they headed for the all-weather carpet and white plastic deck furniture of the snack bar.

“Do you watch the races at all?”

“If I’m at my parents’ house, yeah. My dad hasn’t missed one in about thirty years.”

“But you don’t come out to watch at the track?”

She shrugged. “Occasionally.”

They crossed into the snack bar where a dozen tables were clustered in an atrium. About half were full of families or couples.

“Ever seen a race from the pits?”

“You mean a hot pass?” She stopped beside the semicircular counter and gazed up at the painted menu.

“A hot pass,” he confirmed. The pits during a race had to be experienced to be believed.

“Never had one of those.”

It was on the tip of Larry’s tongue to make the offer. She was obviously cleared through track security for her job. He could get her a hot pass for Sunday, and they could watch the cars thunder down the straightaway together. But it would be almost like asking her on a date. And he was pretty sure that was inappropriate.

“I’ll take a strawberry-banana,” she said to a teenage clerk with short, streaked hair and a silver ring through her eyebrow.

Just like that, the moment was lost.

“Pineapple-mango,” said Larry, dropping his credit card on the green Arborite.

“I guess you have access to everything behind the scenes,” she said.

There it was again, another opportunity to invite her to the track. “Some things,” he said, wondering if he could phrase it in a way that didn’t make it sound like he was coming on to her. He could invite her to meet the family-his brother Dean, son Steve and nephew Ken. Would that make it better or worse?

The whine of the blender filled the air.

“Do you like racing?” she asked.

“I love it,” he answered honestly.

“But you’re not involved?”

“I love it as a spectator and a fan. But I’m not mechanically inclined, and I’m definitely not a driver.” Larry had learned a long time ago that his brain liked concepts better than hands-on. He might be able to help design a racing engine, but somebody else had to put it together.

Crystal looked him up and down. “You’d look cute in one of those uniforms.”

Even though he wasn’t crazy about the “cute” adjective, his breath caught again on her smile. “I have absolutely no desire to go 180 miles an hour. My family knew early on I’d never be a driver.”

Then he rethought the burst of honesty. Did it make him sound timid? Nerdy?

The clerk slid the smoothies across the counter, and Larry signed the credit card slip.

“I’d try it once,” said Crystal, capturing the plastic straw between her white teeth. “Just to see what it felt like.”

Larry’s gaze caught on her red lips as they wrapped around the straw and took a pull on the thick drink.

Then she grinned. “Of course, there’s every chance I’d scream my head off.”

She stirred the straw through the drink as she turned away. He watched her long legs, the sway of her hips, and the smooth skin of her bare shoulders. She was gorgeous enough to be on a Paris runway. And for the first time since his wife died three years ago, Larry felt a rush of sexual desire.

He tore his gaze from her body, scooped the other smoothie from the countertop, and followed her.

Crystal chose a corner table between a potted fig and a glass wall that overlooked the park. The ceiling was lower here than in the pool area, dampening the echoes of the growing swim crowd.

Larry rushed forward to help with her chair, and she turned to give him a bemused smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He took the chair opposite, setting his drink on the table.

“So, you bucked the family business,” she began, dabbing her straw up and down.

“I did,” he agreed, struggling to keep his gaze from straying below her neck.

“Were they disappointed?”

“That I became a professor instead of a mechanic?”

She tipped her head sideways. “It sounds strange when you say it that way.”

“Only to people who don’t understand the value of a good mechanic.”

“And you do?”

“I became a professor, because I’d make a lousy mechanic.”

“And I became a parts driver, because I made a lousy model.”

“You were a model?” It didn’t surprise him.

“For a couple of months. I hated it.”

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue.

“The sum total of your being is reduced to the size of your waist and the length of your legs.”

He couldn’t help it, his gaze dipped down. Luckily, she didn’t notice.

She wiggled forward in her chair. “I felt like some kind of a mechanical Barbie doll. Face this way. Walk that way. Frown, pout, stare. And all those people.” She shuddered. “Ogling you. They pretend it’s about the clothes, but half of them are checking out your body.”

“Why did you try it in the first place?”

“I was in college, and the money was good.”

“What was your major?” he asked, feeling himself relax in a way he rarely did around women.

“Creative writing, plus some history and anthropology.”

“But you became a parts driver?”

“Unlike you, I didn’t buck the family business.”

He nodded, remembering the logo on the side of her van. “Softco Machine Works.”

“Mom and Dad are good for a paycheck.”

“Do you write at all?” He knew it was tough to make a living as a writer.

She nodded, sliding her fingertip through the condensation on her glass. Larry had to remind himself to take a drink of his own melting concoction.

“Short stories mostly, based on the lives of the women who settled the South. That’s why I like driving for Softco. It’s part-time, and the hours are flexible. If I’m working on a story, I can come in late or take off early.”

“That sounds fascinating,” he told her honestly.

“Mostly it’s traffic lights and getting cut off by sports cars.”

“You know what I meant.”

“It’s fascinating,” she agreed. “Particularly the interviews. And I’m working on a cookbook and anthology that my publisher thinks might pay off.”

“Tell me about it.” Larry took a long pull on the pineapple-mango smoothie, wondering how he could possibly segue from a cookbook to a date.