Daddy's Little Liar - Maren Smith Page 0,3

to auto mechanics, with everything from old calendars to motor oil advertisements to a 1920 Rolls Royce sale’s slip hanging on the walls next to a black-and-white picture of the car.

There were pin-up girls everywhere. Lord, there were pin-up girls—on posterboard and old magazine papers, lacquered to cuts of wood to stave off wear and tear, and even on sheets of metal. Some looked new, while some looked as old as the World War II mottos they extolled—Lady Luck in a black bikini, riding a bomb; a girl in a very short GI-brown skirt, sitting on a suitcase while removing her panties; another, in the skimpiest fireman outfit ever to come out of the 1940s, sliding down a pole. Standing in the doorway, surrounded by auto parts and the reek of rubber, leather, and oil, she felt very much an intruder in what had all the bearings of an old men’s club.

The old-time misogynistic décor didn’t offend her. Rather, she was fascinated. She loved historical things, and the pin-up girls were pretty to her eye, not demeaning.

Limping a few steps inside, she got a closer look at one near a closed door leading into the office. Her smile soon matched that of the playful, curvy, and fully—if not revealingly—dressed redhead grinning back at her. This whole shop was an ode to days long past, and these pin-ups through the decades didn’t seem at all out of place, interspersed as they were among old bills and thank-you notes from past customers.

Holy crap—Georgia leaned in closer to study the Elvis Presley signature that caught her eye on a laminated repair slip, Burt Reynolds’ on another. That made her feel better about having literally no other repair options.

A clipboard and several pages of what looked like an inventory list were hanging directly over the top of another old pin-up page. Georgia reached for it, slipping her fingers under the bottom corner to peek at the girl underneath. The door directly beside her suddenly swung open. She jumped, grabbing the wall as her weight came down wrong on her bad ankle, and only just barely swallowed back a cry when the owner came barging in.

Well, not barging. It was his garage, but at first glance, Georgia couldn’t help being both startled and a little betrayed. The sign outside said Dad’s Garage. It was decked out with decades’ worth of auto ads and 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s sex symbols. The mechanic who came through that door should have been at least in his seventies.

He wasn’t. In fact, he couldn’t have been more than five years her senior, a man in his physical prime, with broad shoulders, lean hips, and a full head of hair as dark as the oil on his work-roughened hands. His chin was square, stubbled with maybe two days’ worth of growth, and his eyes—a man with hair that dark should never have had eyes that blue.

“Hi,” she stammered.

A corner of his mouth curled into an easy smile. “Hello, yourself,” he replied, wiping his hands on an oily rag.

Shit. She liked his voice—smooth, not too high or too low. His masculine tone went straight through her lady bits and trembled in her tummy. She squeezed her legs together, but she could already feel that slight tickle of interest melting down through her core, saturating the crotch of her panties.

“Are you, um, Dad?” Georgia cleared her throat, trying her best to keep her voice even and the heat from stealing up from her stomach to stain her face. She wasn’t flirting, and it wasn’t a sexual question, no matter how embarrassingly hot the flush that burned through her when she said it. It was the name on the damn garage, for heaven’s sake.

The other corner of his handsome mouth curled and sexual or not, her face scalded as he chuckled.

“No, although I have been called Daddy a time or two. What can I do for you?”

Definitely don’t answer that.

There went that tickle again. Full-on molten liquid spilled through the folds of her sex, heedless of how hard she fought not to indulge the rush of inappropriate images that filled her head. What do you want to do to me? came right to the tip of her tongue, followed quickly by, Anything you want. She rolled her lips, forcing her mouth tightly closed until she was sure she could control herself.

“My car broke down.”

He nodded, still smiling and yet at once all business. “Is it outside?”

“No, I tried to limp it into town but