Feeling like an idiot, he promised not to leave the guy waiting once again and then hurried to get off the phone before heading to the counter, where Sidney stood waiting for him. “Hey,” he said, staring into her rich brown eyes to keep his gaze from following the trail of shiny white beads leading inside her shirt. “Your car is out back next to my truck. I didn’t want to leave it up here, where someone could accidentally put a ding in it.”

She flashed him a bright smile. “Thanks. I always worry about that too. So how long did it take you to fix it?”

“Well, not counting the time it took to tow your car back to the garage, I’d say about four hours. An hour or so per tire. By the way, you have the most stubborn lug nuts I’ve ever seen on a vehicle.”

She cringed. “Oh no! That practically took you all night. Did you get any sleep?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, some. When I finished up with your car earlier this morning, I crawled into the backseat of my truck and slept for a few hours.”

“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it was going to be such a huge task to get those things off.”

“It happens. Sometimes a big job turns out to be a small one, and little jobs turn out to be a mechanic’s worst nightmare. You just never really know until you start working on something.”

She grinned. “So you’re saying this job was your worst nightmare?”

“Not really. But if you had heard the way I was cussing up a storm this morning while trying to get those damn nuts off, you probably wouldn’t believe a word I just said.”

Sidney laughed as she pulled out her debit card. “I’m just glad you managed to fix it. How much do I owe you?”

Brett pulled her keys from his pocket and slid them across the counter in front of her. “Nothing. You’re good to go.”

She shook her head and shoved her debit card toward him. “What? No way. I’m paying you for the work you did.”

He put the card back into her hand and closed her fingers around it. “I don’t want your money, Sid.”

“Then what the hell do you want?”

His fingers tightened around hers. Hell, that was a loaded question if he’d ever heard one. He grinned for a second as several sexy scenarios ran through his head, and then he forced himself to blow out a slow breath and behave himself. “Look, Sid. The way I see it, I owed you one after how I screwed up our relationship. So just let me do something nice for you, and we’ll call it even.”

“That’s not us being even. I broke up with you, remember? So this would put you one ahead of me.”