I need someone to pretend to give a damn about the fact that this whole life is falling apart. He shook his head, pushing off the counter. I don't need an employee. I need a wife. So unless you're offering that, get out."
The silence that followed wasn't actually silent. The phone was still shrieking. The air compressor was still roaring, but the space between Dean and Clare had snapped tight, pulled taut by the sheer ugly vulnerability he had just spat onto the counter. Dean expected her to flinch. He expected her to huff in offense, maybe threatened to call the Better Business Bureau as if he cared, and storm out the door to whatever pristine, temperature controlled life she had wandered in from.
He was already turning his back, already reaching for the clipboard holding the Chevy's diagnostic sheet, ready to dismiss her. Clare didn't leave. She walked past the counter, stepping behind the laminate divide that separated the customers from the business. She moved with a frightening predatory calm. She didn't look at Dean.
She walked straight to the wall, picked up the receiver of the shrieking phone, and put it to her ear. "Miller's Auto." Her tone was absolute ice. It wasn't customer service. It was a command.
Dean froze, the clipboard hovering inches from his hand. "No," Clare said into the receiver. "I don't care what you were told yesterday. The parts are on back order. Yelling at the mechanic does not fabricate metal out of thin air.
We will call you when it arrives. If you call back before then, your vehicle will be moved to the street and you can pay for the tow." She hung up. The click was sharp and final. Dean stared at her.
His mouth was slightly open. Down on the floor, the little girl had stopped crying over her broken chalk and was looking up at Clare with wide, calculating eyes. Clare turned to face him. She leaned her hip against the desk, crossing her arms over the cheap canvas jacket. "I'm not going to be your wife," Clare said, her voice perfectly level.
"I'm not going to cook your dinners, and I'm not going to pretend to care about your emotional state, but I will reorganize this desk so you actually know who owes you money. I will handle the angry idiots on the phone, and I will make sure she Clare pointed a manicured finger down at the girl on the floor. Doesn't eat chalk or wander into the street while you fix the cars. Dean just looked at her. He felt a weird, jarring whiplash.
"Who the hell are you?" "My name is Clare." I want $$20 an hour cash at the end of every week. She held up a hand before you could interrupt. No tax forms, no background check.
You ask me zero questions about my life before I walk through that door. And I ask you zero questions about why a grown man is throwing a pity party over a stack of invoices." It was offensive. It was blunt. It was exactly what he needed.
Dean looked at her hands. Her nails were clean, buffed. There were no calluses. "$20 an hour is steep for a secretary." "I'm not a secretary," Clare corrected him. "I'm a firewall.