Touched by Angels Page 0,31

smile. "If I could please have my bill," she said with stiff politeness.

Roberto gestured toward his brother. "Emilio will take care of that."

Brynn hesitated before leaving the garage for the small outer office where Emilio stood. Although Roberto had been deliberately rude, she felt obligated to him. "I want you to know I appreciate your help."

Involved once again with another vehicle, Roberto didn't bother to answer. It was almost as if he were ignoring her. His lack of a response to her peace offering offended her pride. Swallowing the small hurt, Brynn brushed the hair from her face.

"Your car runs like new," Emilio told her as he stepped behind the cash register. "Roberto asked me to test-drive it around the block. I hope you don't mind that I let a couple of my posse join me."

"Four is more than a couple," she informed him primly.

"I know," the youth said with a flash of pearly white teeth. "But it isn't every day that we can say we rode in a teacher's car."

Brynn decided it was best to not comment.

Emilio located the work order for her vehicle and scanned its contents. Brynn had been waiting for this moment, praying that the expense wouldn't wipe out the meager remainder of her budget for the month. The Escort had well over two hundred thousand miles on it and thus far had been relatively problem free. With the dread building up inside her, she opened her purse and took out her checkbook.

Something didn't appear to be right, because Emilio looked up from the bill. "I need to ask Roberto something," he said, and walked around from behind the counter. In the other room, the two brothers talked in hushed tones.

Emilio returned, wearing a wide grin. "It's on the house," he announced.

Brynn wasn't sure she understood. "What do you mean?"

Pride gleamed in the youth's dark eyes. "You don't owe us anything."

"But I can't let you do that. . . ."

"Roberto insists."

Still Brynn argued. "That wouldn't be right."

"It's a gift, Miss Cassidy," Emilio said with a deep sigh of frustration. "Didn't you ever learn you're not supposed to question someone when they give you a gift? Some lady with manners wrote it up in a book. You read all the time . . . you must have read that."

Brynn was uncertain. "Let me at least pay for any parts."

"No way." The teenager held up both hands as though she were holding him up.

"But carburetors can be expensive." She didn't want Roberto absorbing the cost of this.

"Roberto says he found another carburetor at the junkyard and got it for next to nothing. Besides, he let me do most of the work myself." His dark eyes pleaded with her to accept this small gift.

"Emilio, I don't know how to thank you."

His face erupted in a wide smile. "I'll think of something."

Roberto shouted from the other room, and Emilio's smart smile disappeared. "Think nothing of it, Miss Cassidy."

"Thank you both again." Brynn felt like a fool for having made such an issue of Emilio driving her vehicle. She glanced toward the garage, but Roberto was bent over the side of the truck, busy at work. "Tell your brother that I'm grateful."

"I will." Emilio followed her outside and held open her car door for her.

When she couldn't find her car keys, she eyed the youth. A desperate look came over him, and he slapped his hands over his shirt and pants pockets, then laughed and withdrew them from his hip pocket. "I had you worried there, didn't I?"

Brynn rolled her eyes, then started the engine. As Emilio had said earlier, it purred like new. Her car sounded better than it had in years. She backed out of the driveway. It was as she started down the street that she noticed Roberto Alcantara watching her from inside the building.

* * *

He owed her an apology, Roberto reasoned. He'd been angry and frustrated the day they'd met, and he'd taken his irritation out on her. True, he believed the things he'd said, but generally he kept his opinions to himself. It had helped relieve his irritation to sound off at Emilio's teacher; but it hadn't been fair.

An hour before he'd met Brynn, Roberto had learned his offer to lease a building in another neighborhood had been rejected. It hadn't been the first time a landlord had refused to rent to him. Naturally he'd been given some flimsy excuse, but Roberto had learned long ago the real reason. No one wanted a Hispanic taking