Assassin by Tom Cain Page A

from the open-fronted, three-bay garage nearby, so he ambled across the compound till he came to a radio, left on a concrete floor next to a plastic bottle of mineral water and an open toolkit. Maddy’s German Shepherd, Buster, was lying asleep beside them. Her open-top, metallic champagne Ford Bronco truck was lifted up on jacks just beyond him.
    A pair of feet in battered old workboots poked out from underneath the truck, attached to legs encased in oily blue dungarees. Carver took a sip of coffee, put down his cup and peered under the Bronco with an inquisitive frown on his face.
    ‘Hello?’
    There was a muffled, high-pitched ‘Shit!’ then the boot-heels pushed down on the concrete and pulled their owner out from under the truck on a low mechanic’s trolley.
    Maddy got to her feet. One hand held a wrench, the other was making a futile effort to neaten the hair pinned up on the back of her head. Rebellious dark brown strands had escaped and fallen either side of her face, which was bare of make-up, other than a few smears of motor-oil. The top of her dungarees was tied around her waist. All she was wearing above that was a cap-sleeved white T-shirt with the words ‘[semi]sweet’ written across the chest. The shirt was lightly speckled in dust and grime, as was the strip of flat, caramel-tanned tummy peeking out beneath it.
    ‘Shit!’ she repeated. ‘I was hoping to get this done before you got up. Figured you’d be out for hours, the way you were lying there, snoring like a big ol’ hog.’
    She stopped for a moment and looked at Carver. He suddenly realized he was grinning like a village idiot.
    ‘Yeah, go ahead, laugh,’ she said. ‘I know I look like crap.’
    ‘No, you don’t, you don’t at all,’ he said, slowly shaking his head, but still unable to take the smile off his face. ‘You look great.’
    ‘I do?’
    Now she was smiling too and the way she was looking at him had changed. Carver was suddenly uncomfortably aware that not only had he not bothered to shave before he came looking for her, he had not brushed his hair or even put on a shirt.
    Maddy pulled off her gloves and ran a single finger down Carver’s chest. ‘Well, you don’t look so bad yourself, Mr Six-Pack. Couldn’t resist showing it off, huh?’
    Her finger was still moving down.
    He reached out for her backside and pulled her towards him.
    ‘We can’t!’ she said, giggling. ‘Not in front of Buster!’
    ‘He’s asleep,’ he said, and kissed her bare neck. ‘How about the back of the truck - reckon the jacks’ll hold us?’
    Carver started nibbling Maddy’s ear. She squirmed with pleasure and whispered, ‘You’d have to take it real slow and gentle. Think you can manage that?’
    ‘I can try,’ he said.
    He let go of her for a moment, clambered up into the back of the Bronco, then turned to give her a hand as she climbed up to join him.
    The last words she said before his mouth covered hers were, ‘Remember, slow and gentle …’
    A while later they walked back up to the house, arm in arm, with Buster bounding along beside them, wagging his tail so hard it was making circles in the air. He didn’t seem too traumatized. They took a shower that seemed to take a little longer than the business of getting clean necessarily required. Then Carver sat on the edge of the bed and watched Maddy dry and brush the tumbling mane that fell halfway down her back.
    She looked at him over her shoulder and said, ‘So, you freaked out by a girl who does her own auto-mechanics?’
    ‘Not at all. I respect all forms of competence. I like people who are good at things.’
    There was just the hint of a dirty undertone in his voice as he said that.
    ‘I agree, skill is very important,’ she said with impeccably ladylike cool.
    Carver wasn’t sure he had the strength to take that thought any further, so he took the conversation on to safer ground: ‘Seriously, how did you learn all that stuff?’
    ‘I was an only child. I guess