Stay For Me (Slippery Curves Series Book 1)

by Adele Niles

  Shit.

  Has it really been almost fifteen years?

  All of a sudden, I feel old.

  I’ve been on the road since six a.m. Court’s at eleven. It’s supposed to be an open and shut case. Show up, make a plea, and leave. Then I’m off to enjoy the mountains and get out of C-ville.

  I would be in town for two hours, tops.

  “I won’t be there that long. You know you should be the one doing this?” I joke, knowing good and well there’s no way that would happen.

  “Stace would kill me. She’s due any day and it would be my luck that I’m three hours away in that Podunk town when she goes in to labor. Alex, seriously. I’m really thankful you’re doing this.”

  Jackson and I had been roommates and were in law school, and we started our small firm right after we passed the bar exam. We had planned on saving the world, but we’d ended up taking on wills, estates, and divorces instead. Nothing super exciting, definitely not saving the world, but it pays the bills.

  He’d taken on this case for a friend, not knowing it was going to be out of town, let alone in the middle of nowhere.

  A divorce case. This one is supposed to be cut and dry and I’m just showing up to present some documents, get a continuance, and leave. A three-hour drive for ten minutes of work.

  “So, you’ve talked to your friend?” I say to him. “She knows I’m coming, and not you?”

  The phone goes silent and I look at the display on the dashboard. It still says connected. I grab the phone from my seat and glance at it. It says connected, too.

  “Jackson? You there?”

  Still nothing. Then the dreaded three-beeps before the disconnect.

  Dropped call.

  Another reason why I hated Cartersville and being out in the middle of nowhere.

  I scroll through my recent calls and try to reconnect with Jackson. I-90 is long and straight, and boring as hell. I glance up every second as I continue, until it’s too late.

  “Fuck!” I swerve, trying to avoid the big pile of scrap metal sitting in the middle of the road.

  Swerving doesn’t help. Instantly I can feel the metal under the car as the explosion of the tire popping jerks the car toward the left. I try to counter it by jerking the wheel to the right, overcorrecting.

  My Mercedes hits the edge of the road, the tires now digging into the dirt. I slam on the breaks. The engine clanks and the car shuts off on its own. The dashboard lights up like a video game.

  Low Tire Pressure.

  “No shit. How about no tire pressure.” Above the tire warning is a bright red alert to check the engine. “Double fuck.”

  I grab my phone and climb out of the car, but not before checking my watch. I don’t have time for this. Court is in two hours. I’m not far from Cartersville, but it’s too far to walk.

  The tire is shredded and barely hanging on the rim. I kneel beside the car and look underneath. Nothing. I glance back down the road and see the twisted piece of metal about a hundred yards back.

  I curse Jackson under my breath as I walk toward the culprit and try to call Jackson back.

  No Service.

  I kick the metal off toward the side of the road in a huff, and it grabs my leg, clinging to me like some sort of cruel-ass joke. I flail my leg, finally freeing the sharp piece of aluminum.

  “Come on.” I hold my phone up toward the sky. Somehow, I think this is actually going to return my cell service.

  Nothing.

  Run-flat tires are supposed to run when they’re flat. Expensive replacements for having a spare., they probably don’t work when they’re shredded, though. For the hell of it, I try to start the car. It doesn’t work.

  I pop the hood and look under it. I was never handy with cars, but maybe it would be something obvious I could fix, even with a flat tire.

  “Yeah, not a chance,” I say to myself as I walk over toward the trunk of the car and lean against it.

  To make matters worse, it looks like it’s about to rain and in the fifteen minutes since I’d been sitting on the side of the road, not a single car has passed.

  Jackson, you owe me a hell of a lot more than one.

  Two

  Katy

  I stare at my reflection in the plate glass window that overlooks the garage floor. I smooth out my blouse and then turn sideways, admiring my profile. I don’t get dressed up often, hell, ever, but when I do, I have to admit, I look damn good.

  My dad always said that real men loved curvy girls. “Give me a woman with some meat on her bones,” he’d say.

  It made me wonder why he had picked my skinny-ass stepmother with her fake tits and size zero jeans. Correction. Size zero dresses.

  She wouldn’t be caught dead in jeans, but that’s the way I’d like her.

  Dead.

  Then I wouldn’t have to be dealing with this shit.

  Ray looks up from across the garage floor and give me a thumbs up. He probably has no idea I wasn’t looking at him, but I give him a thumbs up back.

  Ray is, no was, my Dad’s best friend. Now, head mechanic and the man who watches over me. He’s old. I’d guess in his mid-sixties, but strong as hell and a bit scary too. His shaved head and goatee only add to his bad-ass appearance of tattoos and muscles.

  “You had better get going or you’re going to be late,” he yells across the garage. His voice is muffled through the glass and shut door to the office of Chambers Wrecking, the family business I inherited when Dad died six months ago.

  He left it all to me. The house, the garage, the business.

  I’d give it all back in a second just for another minute with him. Anyone would.

  My mom died when I was a kid and it was just me and Dad until I turned twenty-one. He taught me how to work on cars, how to run the wrecker. Pretty much everything. Secretly, I think Dad had always wanted a son but got the best of both worlds with me.

  I clean up pretty nice.

  I step closer to the window to admire the red lipstick I had put on earlier and then turn to the desk and grab my folder and flip it open. The court summons sits on top.

  Tiffany Ford-Chambers vs. Katelyn Meadow Chambers

  I shiver at the thought of that bitch having my last name. She didn’t have it until two years ago. Dad met her just after I turned twenty-one and she set her hooks in him from the start. Two years later, they were married. Two and half years after that, my father died.

  I don’t think it was a coincidence, but I can’t prove it.

  He must have seen through her because he didn’t leave her much of anything.

  I close the folder and walk out to the garage. “Ray, I’ll be back, hopefully soon.”

  “Go get her kid, you got this.”

  I smile and wish it were true. I can’t afford to really fight this. Every dime my dad had was tied up in the house and the garage. We aren’t rich. His life insurance policy is being held because bitch-face contested the will.

  It’s just me and a shitload of internet searching showing up in court today.

  I grab the keys to the wrecker and toss everything on the big bench seat. This truck still smells like Dad’s cologne. His bobble-head hula girl doll still bounces on the dash.

  I completely zone out as I drive toward the courthouse. I’ve repeated my speech over and over to myself at least a million times. A million and one couldn’t hurt.

  I get to the part when I ask the judge to dismiss the case and I snap to, seeing a black Mercedes on the side of the road and a gorgeous hunk of a man trying to flag me down. I glance down at my watch. I have exactly fifty-five minutes to get to the courthouse and figure out where the fuck I need to go.

  This is the last thing I need.

  I slow down and as I get even with the man and his car everything seems to move in slow motion.

  I hesitate. Stop or go?

  Dad would stop, I think.

  “Dammit!” I smack the steering wheel and pull over just in front of the car.

  �
��Thank god,” I hear him yell as he approaches from behind. “I’ve been out here for an hour and haven’t seen anyone. No cell service.”

  I step out of the wrecker and see his mouth drop.

  I get that a lot.

  A woman driving a tow-truck. “You’re in no-man’s land,” I say. “You’d be lucky to get a signal anywhere on this road.”

  I watch as he looks me up and down. My black suit pants, white blouse and black ballet flats are definitely not something you’d normally see on a wrecker driver.

  “Um,” he pauses.

  Before he can say another word, I cut him off.

  “I can’t give you a tow right now. So, you basically have three options. One, you can wait here and I can call back to the garage, but it will probably be at least another hour before Ray gets out here.”

  I watch as he rubs the back of his neck, shaking his head. The bend in his arm shows off his bulging bicep beneath his white dress shirt.

  “Two, I can pass you off to Rowdy. He’s a garage in town and is the only other wrecking company around. But he’s an ass.”

  He nods. I bite my lip as I size him up. He’s attractive. No. Hot. His suit fits him perfectly. He blond hair is messy, yet looks perfect all at the same time.

  I like option three, even though I don’t really have the time for it. “Three, I can give you a ride and you can wait while I finish up an appointment and then give you a tow back to my garage and get you fixed up.”

  Dirty thoughts fill my head at the sound of giving him a ride. I’m not sure where they came from, considering the situation.

  “I need to get to the courthouse,” he says. “Can you get me there and I can figure everything out afterward?”

  I nod. “You’re in luck. I’m headed there myself. Hop in.” I probably should have checked an ID or something, but given the expensive car and suit, I doubt he’s a serial killer.

  “Katy,” I say as I extend my hand. “Excuse the outfit, usually I’m not dressed up like this.”

  The man chuckles and extends his hand. “Alex Harper. You look”—he pauses again—“amazing. I certainly didn’t expect you to hop out of that truck. Do you run errands or something for the towing company?”

  I fight back the urge to punch him for his sexiest remark, but I’ve grown used to it over the years.

  “No, I don’t run errands.” I walk around to the driver’s side of the truck and jump in. “Are you coming or not?”

  “Yeah,” Alex yells and then scrambles inside of his car to grab some things.

  I hear the chirp of the alarm go off and a second later, he hops in the front seat with me.

  “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” he apologizes. “I guess I’m used to seeing big fat guys named Tony wearing overalls driving tow trucks.” He cracks a smile as he looks at me. “You certainly aren’t that.”

  There’s something about the way he says it that is more than sincere. Almost sexy. It’s the first time I can see him up close.

  I smell him. He smells good. Really good.

  I glance over at him and smile. His chiseled chin accentuates his near perfect smile and the only thing more captivating are his clear blue eyes.

  He fills out his dress shirt and suit pants perfectly, and I notice how tight they are in the thighs. I want to look to see if they are tight everywhere, but don’t. I’m confusing myself, caught between the drama I’m driving to and the dilemma that’s driving with me.

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