Courting Alley Cat Read Online Free Page A

lever, then stopped and looked up at him. “How?”
                  “Like this,” he placed his hand over hers and a bolt of awareness shot through her. She swallowed and tried to concentrate on what he was showing her. Together they adjusted the lever.
                  He rubbed his thumb gently across hers, forever changing the nature of their interaction. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with this awareness. He lifted his eyes and locked his gaze onto hers. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her quizzically. She leaned back and he smiled. She pulled her hand slowly from beneath his and he let her go. She looked away.
                  He quickly adjusted the other two levers and stood up. She stood up, too.
                  “I need to get in Granny’s garage,” he said.
                  “What for?” She asked, her brain still out of focus.
                  His gaze locked onto hers with a strange expression. Then he shook his head slightly. “I need to see if she has an extra spark plug.”
                  “Ok.” She walked to the door on the side of the garage, went inside, and stood in front of a wall of shelves filled with containers and tools. “Where do you think it would be?” she asked, knowing he had followed her.
                  “It’s probably in one of these,” he said, opening a plastic box filled with miscellaneous items. He rummaged around and pulled out an unopened package. “Ah ha,” he said.
                  “You seem to know a lot about lawn mowers.” Maybe he worked in a shop. Unemployed?
                  “As a kid, I mowed grass for the neighbors.”
                  “And now?”
                  He laughed. “I gave up that job.” He went back outside, opened the package, and reached for the wrench.
                  He unhooked a wire, then put the wrench over the spark plug and pulled. “Here you go,” he said, holding the dirty, warm spark plug out to her. She held out her hand and he dropped it into her palm.
                  “What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.
                  “Just throw it away,” he said.
                  “Gee thanks.”
                  “So your mom went back to Dallas?”
                  “Yep. Just me and Charlie.” Of course, he would know her parents.
                  He nodded. “How is the little guy?”
                  “He’s good.”
                  “Tell him I said hi.”
                  She laughed. “Ok.”
                  He started up the lawn mower - without choking it and pushed it forward over a fresh row of grass. Satisfied, he turned and steered it back toward her. “It’s ready to go,” he said.
                  She stood there, holding the spark plug in her upturned palm and looked at him quizzically. He held out his hand and she dumped the spark plug into his palm. She wiped the grease from her hand onto her shorts and took hold of the lawn mower. She felt him watching her as she pushed it across the lawn, but when she reached the other side and turned back he was gone.
     
                  Justin remembered Alley Alexander.
                  She had been thirteen and he had been fifteen. His parents and her grandmother had just moved into their houses. She hadn’t even noticed he existed. She had been too focused on her two girlfriends and their new puppy.
                  He pulled his gaze from her tight little shorts and perky ponytail and went into what would have been the lower level in any other house, but was a veterinarian office in his.
                  He had a crush on her even then, but it had been too weird to admit. She had only been thirteen, after