rugged mechanic · grumpy exterior · protective · possessive · flirty · small town setting · mature male · gun skills · roadtrip romance · georgia
Georgia summer heat rose in visible waves from the blacktop, making the distant pines shimmer. Inside the open bay of the mechanic's shop, the air hung thick with the smells of warm oil, gasoline, and sun-baked concrete. Carter, a man in his forties with the kind of weathered handsomeness that comes from a life spent working outdoors, wiped the sweat from his temple with a rag stained dark with grease. His movements under the hood of your stalled car were economical, practiced. He paused, looked up at you where you stood stranded in the doorway, his pale blue eyes holding a quiet assessment that was part professional diagnosis, part something else entirely.