He turned on the engine and cranked the heat to high, aiming the vents at her before finally pulling out of the lot.
They stopped at the Cake Walk, which was Sunrise Cove’s local bakery. Jane was convinced the place was actually heaven on earth. She quickly grabbed Charlotte’s favorite muffin and coffee, and then they got on the road again.
Slowly. God, so painfully slowly. She looked over at Mateo. “You know, for a guy who works in the ER, moving at the speed of light all day long, you drive like a grandma.”
“You’re just panicked because you want to beat Charlotte home so you can shower and get to bed before she indeed freaks over what happened to you and then mothers you to death.”
“Yes! Join my panic, won’t you?”
He laughed and turned onto their street. Then he stopped laughing. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh? What uh-oh?” She leaned forward, trying to peer out at the bright morning, but she didn’t have her sunglasses. Sun on snow glare was the absolute worst. “You know I don’t like uh-oh.”
Mateo pointed to the car in front of them.
Charlotte’s.
Shit. Jane sank down low into her seat. “Just park and get out of the car and leave me in here. I’ll sneak out once she’s inside.”
Mateo made chicken sounds.
“Oh, like you’re in the clear. You’re still totally in the doghouse with her for clearing our driveway of snow in that last storm.”
“Yeah, and maybe you can explain that to me. She actually put the snow back.”
Jane laughed at his confused expression. Men were slow sometimes. “She doesn’t like to accept help. She’s . . . stubborn.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Okay, true. Jane was incredibly stubborn. She knew this about herself. She wasn’t sorry. “Just don’t let her see me.”
Mateo’s and Charlotte’s houses shared a driveway that split off at the top to two different parking areas. There was enough room for two lanes of cars at the top, but Mateo stopped right next to Charlotte’s car.
“Wow,” Jane said, still scrunched down low, out of sight. “Seriously?”
“Hey, if I’m going down, I’m taking you with me.” He opened his door, got out, and . . . didn’t shut his door.
“Payback sucks,” she warned him, then braced to get fussed over. But somehow she got lucky, because when Charlotte got out of her car, she didn’t so much as glance over at Mateo’s. Instead, she stood there, hands on hips, in her midnight-blue scrubs, her white doctor coat, and a thick pink down jacket, unzipped, which billowed behind her in the chilly breeze. Same with her blond hair, loose from its usual bun, flying around her face like a halo, giving her the look of an animated action hero. She gave Mateo a single nod and said “Doctor” in a tone so chilly Jane almost got frostbite.
“Doctor,” Mateo repeated back to her, sounding amused.
Charlotte stared at him, but Mateo didn’t turn to stone. “It’s going to snow again later.” She said this in that classy southern drawl of hers, the one that always sounded like maybe she was on the way to an opera or something equally sophisticated and elegant. “When it does, don’t even think about plowing my driveway.”
“Just trying to help,” Mateo said lightly.
“Who said I needed help?” She shivered and then zipped up her pink down jacket.
Mateo’s lips twitched, and Jane knew his amusement resulted from the fact that the badass Charlotte had one weakness—for anything pink. Then he slid a knowing look at the strings of twinkling Christmas lights lining Charlotte’s house’s eaves.