How to Rebuild (Hearts & Horsepower #4)

by A. K. Evans

  “We need to prepare a statement, but I need to figure out what’s going on first,” I explained. My phone buzzed. I had a feeling those were the links to the videos from Skye. “I have some time right now to watch the vlogs. I need to do that before I can even think of the next step. Do you have any ideas yet?”

  “I’ve barely gotten any coffee in me, Elise,” he began. “This came as a bit of a shock this morning. Do what you need to do to figure out what the story is, and I’ll see what I can find out from our customer service team. I’m guessing there will be a large number of returns and complaints now, but I want to see if there were any complaints before this blew up.”

  That was an excellent place to start. Maybe we’d have a valid complaint—not that I wanted any—that would explain in a bit more detail what the problem was.

  “Okay, that sounds good. I should be in around three, and I’m coming right to the office,” I started. “I want a meeting with you, Skye, and Kat at a minimum. If we learn anything else between now and then that requires someone else to be involved in the meeting, make sure they are there. I’ll call you before I board my flight.”

  There was a long pause, and I thought Porter and I got disconnected. Just as I was about to call out to him, his voice got soft, and he asked, “Are you okay, Elise?”

  I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. I was a far cry from okay, but hearing his voice like that helped. “I’m falling apart, Porter,” I rasped.

  “We’ll figure this out,” he promised.

  “Are you sure?” I pressed.

  “We’re a good team. We always do,” he remarked. “Don’t you remember what happened with the holiday bath products?”

  I did. We were set to launch our holiday bath set at the end of October but experienced an unexpected delay. Porter and I worked through it, put out a statement about the delay, and launched the product two weeks later. It was a bummer, but we managed to get it done.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “I remember.”

  “Alright, do what you’ve got to do while I get myself ready and into the office,” he instructed. “We’ll talk when you call, and I’ll see you when you get back.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “No problem. Love you, Elise,” he returned.

  “Love you, too.”

  At that, I disconnected and pulled out my laptop. After setting up a hotspot using my phone, I put on my headphones and visited the first of three links Skye had sent me. Roughly thirty minutes later, I wished I hadn’t traveled alone to New York.

  Because I knew this scandal—if that’s what I could call it—had the power to destroy my company.

  And more than anything else, I needed a shoulder to cry on.

  “I can’t believe it’s time for you to go already.”

  I wrapped my arms around my baby sister and hugged her tight. “I know. It went fast this time, didn’t it?” I returned.

  “Too fast,” she confirmed as she continued to hold on to me.

  I hated this part. Always did.

  I loved my family. I hated leaving them.

  “Shannon, you’ve got to let him go,” my mother interrupted. “We all need to say goodbye to him.”

  Shannon begrudgingly loosened her hold on me and stepped away as my mom took her place. My mom might have sounded tough as she spoke to my sister, but the truth was that she was a big ball of love, and I knew her heart was hurting right now.

  After she slid her arms around my waist, she said, “I wish one of these times you’d come back and stay here.”

  “I have a job,” I reminded her. “A job that I enjoy immensely.”

  “I know,” she mumbled. “Well, maybe you could come back and visit more than just once a year. That would be nice.”

  “Yeah, and maybe you could bring a girlfriend with you one of these times,” my nan interjected as she approached.

  I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a chuckle.

  Keeping hold of my mother with one arm, I reached the other behind my grandmother’s back and pulled her in for a hug as well. Once she was there, she pressed, “I’m serious, Kieran Decker. You’re getting older. It would make me happy to see you with a girlfriend. I want to see you get married before I die.”

  “You’re not dying, Nan,” I declared.

  It wasn’t uncommon for my grandmother to use her age and impending death as a way to get what she wanted. The thing was, it rarely worked for two reasons. First, my grandmother was in her late seventies, sharp as a tack, and in phenomenal health. My grandfather was, too. The other reason she didn’t get what she wanted was that the only thing she ever seemed to want from me was for me to get a girlfriend.

  The problem wasn’t that I was against having a girlfriend; I just hadn’t found anyone that I liked well enough to want to bring home to New York to meet my family. Nevertheless, I couldn’t break her heart, so I promised, “I’ll see what I can do. Maybe next year. Who knows, right?”

  After they both gave me one final squeeze, my mom and my nan stepped back. I moved toward my grandfather and hugged him. “It was nice catching up with you, Pop.”

  “You too, Kieran. You have a safe trip back,” he replied. When I loosened my hold on him, he held on to my arm and begged, “Please bring a girl back with you next time. For my sanity.”

  I smiled at him and gave him a nod before moving toward my father.

  “See you, Dad,” I said, hugging him.

  “Yeah, it was nice to see you, Kieran. Glad to hear everything is going well at the shop,” he returned. “One of these days, we’ll have to take a trip out and check it out.”

  Pulling back, I looked at him and confirmed, “That’d be nice. A gearhead like you… you’d love seeing some of the cars we have come through the shop.”

  “I know I would,” he replied. “I’ll have to try and talk your mother into flying.”

  Laughing, I returned, “Good luck with that.”

  I wasn’t going to hold my breath that my parents would make the trip out to visit me in Wyoming. My mother was terrified at the thought of flying.

  Standing beside my father was my younger brother, Ashton. “Ash,” I said, turning fully toward him. “Keep doing your thing.”

  “Yeah, bro. You, too.”

  We hugged each other, and when I stepped away, I declared, “Love you.”

  “Love you, Kier.”

  Finally, I looked toward the front door and saw my brother, Cameron, waiting for me. “You ready?” I asked.

  “Just waiting on you, big brother,” he replied.

  At that, I gave him a nod and reached for my suitcase as I slung my backpack over my shoulder. I walked to the door, turned back, and said, “See you all next Christmas… unless you come out to visit me. Love you all.”

  “We love you, too, Kieran,” everyone replied.

  Cameron opened the door and stepped outside. I followed behind him. A few minutes later, I’d waved at my family standing outside my childhood home and tried to memorize the looks on their faces as we pulled away.

  “Thanks for offering to drive me to the airport, Cam,” I said after we turned off our street.

  “No problem,” he replied. “Besides, I figured I was your best choice. Dad and Pop would have both driven like snails, Ash might have killed you with his driving, Nan doesn’t drive, and Mom and Shannon would have cried the whole way there.”

  He was right about that. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Thanks for saving me from certain doom.”

  My brother laughed. “Don’t think you’re getting off easy with me, though,” he started. “What’s the deal with you?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean, it’s been years that you’ve been living out in Wyoming,” he began again. “Is there any chance you’ll ever come back here?”

  “No,” I deadpanned. My answer was firm. I didn’t need to be defensive, but I never wanted to give them false hope. “I love it where I am.”

  “What about what Mo
m and Nan are hoping for?” he pressed. “It’s not often I agree with everything they say, but are you ever planning to get a girl one of these days?”

  “Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to do this now, too,” I pleaded.

  “I’m just saying that maybe you could find one if you move back home,” he reasoned.

  I shook my head in disbelief. I wasn’t angry. In fact, I had a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. My family—all of them—had been on this kick for the last two or three years. Every time I walked through the door when I came back for the Christmas break, I could see the hopeful look in their eyes when I stepped inside. When nobody followed me into the house, there was no denying how disappointed they were.

  At first, it bothered me. But I eventually began to understand where they were coming from. They hated that they were all well within driving distance to one another, and I was the only one who wasn’t. I think they believed I was miserable and lonely out in Wyoming, where I’d decided to move years ago.

  I did my best to convince them that it was not the case, but I wasn’t sure they always believed me.

  “You know,” I started. “I know this might be a difficult concept to grasp, but they do have women in Rising Sun.”

  “And yet you’ve never mentioned one or brought one back in all these years,” he noted. “It makes me wonder.”

  “I’m fine, Cam,” I assured him.

  “I know. It’s just that… we want to know you’ve got someone out there,” he replied. “We know you’ve got your racing family, and we’re happy you have that. But what about a real family? Don’t you want that?”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my racing family was a real family. I worked for LT Motorsports, a premiere performance automotive shop. My boss, Logan Townsend, was the owner and tuner. Ryker Holt was our mechanic, Nash Stevens was our chassis tuner, Knox Lee was our fabricator, and Avery Sullivan was our business manager and a racer. I was the engine builder.

  I loved my team. I loved my co-workers. We were a close-knit bunch that knew we could rely on one another, no matter the circumstances, just like I knew I could depend on my family here in New York.

  Admittedly, things on the dating scene hadn’t exactly been the best for me lately. I had a feeling it was because for nearly a year now, I’d seen some of my co-workers fall in love. First, it had been Logan. Knox was next, and he’d fallen for Avery after she started working for us last spring. Both their relationship and the one Logan had with his woman Kendall had started rather tumultuously, but in the end, they all worked it out. I was happy for them.

  It wasn’t until the one guy I believed we all thought would be single forever ended up in a committed relationship that I started thinking more about my situation. Ryker was the grumpiest guy in the bunch. Of course, we all always thought it was just the way he was. But not long after the last racing season ended, we learned he’d been in love with a girl since he was sixteen. When things hadn’t worked out, it changed his mood. And now we were all seeing a completely different side of him because he and Scarlet had finally gotten back together.

  Though I was feeling a bit downtrodden about my situation, I tried not to overthink it. Unfortunately, my family didn’t forget to remind me. And the last thing I wanted to do was make them think I was upset about it. They’d practically force me to move back home.

  Not wanting to give any of them, even Cam, the slightest inkling that it bothered me I hadn’t found someone yet, I turned toward my brother who was focused on the road and answered, “I do want that, Cam. And I’m sure it’ll happen when the time is right.”

  He glanced at me a moment and pointed out, “You always were the most patient one of the bunch of us.”

  Yeah, I was.

  I had always been that way, but when I started working at LT Motorsports years ago, it had become even more a part of who I was.

  I built engines for a living. Engines that sometimes made significant horsepower. Engines that, if not built properly, wouldn’t ever make it off the dyno—the piece of equipment Logan used to tune the car’s computer and measure its horsepower and torque—let alone down a racetrack.

  So, I’d perfected the art of patience. Patience led to precision. Patience allowed me to avoid making mistakes. Mistakes that could be very costly.

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “What about me?” my brother shot back.

  “Everybody is so concerned about my personal life,” I started. “What about you? You aren’t that much younger than me.”

  Cameron grinned as he stared out the windshield. “I’m looking,” he declared.

  “You mean you’re a manwhore,” I corrected him.

  “How am I supposed to find the one if I don’t see what’s out there?” he countered. “At least I’m trying.”

  “Maybe you’re not having any success because the women you’re fucking know you’re not serious about them,” I reasoned. “I get the feeling the one isn’t going to just fall in your bed because you smiled and winked at her.”

  “Oh, thanks for that bit of advice. I should probably get a bunch of tattoos, grow a beard, and get a cock piercing like you, shouldn’t I?” he retorted.

  “Shut up,” I said, shaking my head with a smirk on my face. I knew he wasn’t being serious and trying to insult me. This was typical banter for Cam and me. If Ash had come along for the ride, he’d be doing the same thing. The only time we tried to keep it clean was when Shannon was around.

  God. I didn’t need to be discussing my cock piercing with my sister around.

  From that point forward, Cam filled me in on some of his recent escapades. He and Ash had a few nights out in the city together that gave us enough conversation to last until we reached the airport. It made me feel a bit nostalgic. I hated not having more time with my family, but I wasn’t going to walk away from the place that had become home for me.

  When we arrived, I got out and moved toward the back of the car. Cam met me there. He hugged me and said, “You know I’m just giving you a hard time because I love you, Kier. We want you to be happy.”

  After I loosened my hold on him, I stepped back, looked him in the eye, and promised, “I know. And I am.”

  With a downward jerk of his chin, he confirmed he believed me.

  “See you, Cam. Love you.”

  “Later. Have a safe flight.”

  At that, I wheeled my suitcase behind me and walked away. It was time to get home. Time to get back to work. We’d be entering the racing season in a few weeks, and that’s when all the fun started.

  Before I knew it, I’d successfully checked my bag, gotten through airport security, and was walking toward my gate. It felt a bit surreal to be heading home to Wyoming. I’d left to come to visit my family before Christmas. Luckily, I wasn’t taking substantial time off away from the shop.

  Every year, Logan shut the shop down for two weeks over the Christmas and New Year holiday. It was nice to have an extended break away from the shop. Because it wasn’t often that I needed off for any other reason, I used a few of my vacation days and spent a bit more time with my family on the east coast. From a work standpoint, I had gotten all caught up with everything pressing before the shop shut down for the remainder of the year last year, so I wasn’t worried about taking the extra time. I knew I wasn’t going to come back to a mountain of work. There was work to do, but nothing was particularly pressing.

  I strode through the terminal, intent on getting to my gate. After I found it and made my final approach to it, my eyes immediately fell upon a woman. From a distance, she stuck out among the crowd of others there. There were two reasons for that.

  First, she was exquisitely beautiful. She had long dark hair; it fell in luscious loose waves down to just below the middle of her back. She wasn’t short, but she was much smaller than I was with my six-feet, two-inch build. She had delicate features on her pretty face and eyes that I swore would have any man fantasizing about having her on her k
nees gazing up at him.

  The other reason it was hard for me to miss her was that she was standing in the corner, pacing, and it was evident she was upset.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

  I found a seat that gave me a perfect view of her, where I’d be able to watch her and not be so obvious about it.

  She was mesmerizing. Captivating.

  I couldn’t understand why I was having this reaction, but part of me really liked the way it felt.

  She got off her phone, collapsed into the chair beside her bags, and buried her face in her hands. I was surprised at how much it bothered me to see her so distraught. I immediately got a sense of why she might have been upset and assumed she was either leaving a boyfriend behind or had just broken up with one.

  Then I found myself wondering if she was flying to Wyoming for work, pleasure, or if it was home.

  Why did it matter?

  For the next few minutes, I quietly watched as she swiped at the tears on her face and tried to make herself look presentable. Tears or not, I thought she was breathtaking.

  Then, even though I hadn’t wanted her to notice, she looked in my direction. Her gorgeous plump lips instantly parted, and I thought about having them wrapped around my cock with those beautiful eyes staring up at me.

  There was no denying the electrifying current between us, but as quickly as it came, it left. Because she looked away.

  I watched her for just another few seconds before I did the same.

  And a moment later, the gate agent announced that they would start boarding for the flight. When the agent called my section, I stood and stole one last glance at the mysterious woman without her noticing. Then I walked away.

  What I didn’t know because I never turned around was that she had her eyes pinned on me the entire time as she walked behind me.

  A few minutes later, I thought I was the luckiest man in the world. Because after I sat down in the aisle seat, I looked up and saw her there.

  “Um, I’m the window seat,” she rasped.

  I grinned at her, stood, and allowed her to move past me. Fuck, she smelled incredible. If only I’d have chosen the middle seat.