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with ALS four years before. It was, unfortunately, not suited for transporting a woman in a wheelchair, which her mother now was, so Lisa had traded in her own reliable Honda for a van roomy enough to serve the purpose. With the farm's finances in the state they were in, they couldn't afford another car, and she wouldn't dream of distressing her mother by getting rid of one more symbol of the way things used to be.
    Which meant she got stuck with the Jag.
    Lisa was fumbling in her purse for her cell phone when the sudden opening of the driver's-side door made her jump and squeak with alarm.

3
    Even as Lisa's heart shot into her throat and her gaze darted around to discover who was accosting her on this lightly traveled country lane, she recognized Scott with a rush of relief.
    "Problems, Princess?" His voice was dry. With one arm resting on the roof, he leaned down to look at her sardonically through the open door.
    The annoying part was, she was actually glad to see him.
    "The damned thing just stopped. I told you this morning I was having car trouble, so maybe now you'll believe me. And don't call me Princess."
    His lips thinned. "Want to turn off the ignition?"
    As she complied, he moved away from the door and rounded the fender to stand in front of the car.
    "Pop the hood," he called, looking at her through the windshield.
    She did; then, as he lifted the hood and disappeared behind it, she got out, closing the door and walking around to join him. A distant droning told her that although she couldn't see it, somewhere in the vicinity farm machinery was at work. The faint, sweet smell of just-cut hay provided a soft undertone to the more acrid scent of something burning. That something being, she very much feared, a vital part of her engine.
    Damn it, anyway.
    Having shed her jacket when she'd gotten into the car, she welcomed the evening's heat as it caressed her air conditioner-chilled bare arms. Scott, too, had shed his jacket, she saw. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he'd lost the tie and unbuttoned his shirt at the throat. A narrow black belt circled his trim waist, anchoring his gray suit pants just above the hipbones. Bent over the engine, he was jiggling wires and loosening caps. Reluctantly, she noticed, as she had countless times many years before, that he had a nice butt, small and tight and as toned as an athlete's.
    She believed that she just might have told him so, on one memorable occasion when she'd been an arrogant and hormone-fueled teenager. In fact, she knew she had. Her exact words had been "Nice ass" when she'd come across him, clad in shorts and a sweaty T-shirt, bent over a recalcitrant lawn mower. His reply? A scornful "Go play with your dollies, little girl."
    The memory was embarrassing, and she immediately did her best to banish it.
    "You got a loose battery wire. That's what made the car stop," Scott said from under the hood. "I fixed it."
    "So, I'm good to go?" she asked hopefully. He was handy with engines of all types, so she wasn't really surprised. Being the son of a mechanic, though in the case of this particular mechanic it definitely came with its own set of issues, had an upside to it. From the time he first got his license at sixteen until, as far as she knew, just about now, he'd driven a series of junkers, but he'd always managed to keep them running. She'd known him to fix kitchen appliances, the occasional broken air conditioner, and farm machinery of all types.
    "Nope." Tightening a cap he'd loosened, he straightened to look at her. "The big problem is you're out of transmission fluid. Lucky you didn't burn the thing up."
    "They just worked on the transmission today!"
    Disengaging the support, he shut the hood with a thunk. "Well, either they forgot to put the fluid back in or you've got a leak. You're lucky the battery wire came loose when it did or you'd need a new transmission. Come on, I'll give you a ride home. Unless you want to wait here for