by Shannyn Leah
“Is everything put away?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good work today. See you tomorrow.” Dax turned toward the front door and heard Rusty’s steps track along beside him.
“Jake is coming to pick up his bike today and I thought I could be there when he does.”
Dax shrugged, knowing the boy would end up there anyway.
“Great! I’ll go grab my bag.”
When Dax entered the shop, he found that Jake had already arrived and was standing by the custom cruiser listening to Stone outline the details of the reconstruction. Dax joined them.
“What’s up?” Jake held out his hand and Dax grabbed it and pulled him against his side. Both men patted each other’s backs with their free hands.
“Finished this beast in time for a couple rips before the snow falls.” Dax stood back and admired the smooth lines, wide, swept-back bars and an insanely massive twenty-six-inch front wheel. What a kickass piece of machinery.
“I’m taking it out tonight. Taking Haylee and driving the open road until dusk.”
“Haylee?”
Jake nodded, folding his arms over his chest. “Sydney’s reluctant to get on bikes. She’ll ride if we have a destination in mind and the destination is close. My daughter, on the other hand, will drive until the next morning. I brought her along. I don’t know where she went.” He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes drew to thin slits. Dax followed his gaze and saw Haylee by the garage door laughing with Rusty.
“The newbie,” Dax said.
“I don’t like him,” Jake said.
Dax shrugged. “He’s not bad.” He heard Stone grunt at his admission. “He’s a hard worker and he assisted Stone with customizing your bike.”
“But do you trust him? Is he trustworthy? Look at him.” He hiked a thumb in the teenager’s direction. “He’s too close to my daughter, too nice, and too smart. Smart guys always have a strategy and I don’t think I like the strategy that involves my daughter.” Jake glanced at Dax. “When you have a daughter, you’ll understand.”
Dax thought about Olivia and almost grinned at some guy trying to outsmart her. She’d likely kick him in the sack and send him on his way. She was a tough girl, and smart. If her skills at the shop were any indication, she’d grow into a strong, independent woman. Besides, if she ever had any trouble, Dax would pound whoever was giving it to her.
Jake, Haylee and Rusty hung around a while longer before Jake drove away pleased with the restoration. Rusty walked Haylee to her car.
“Growing a soft spot for the newbie, are you?” Stone didn’t wait for a reply. He slapped his shoulder, chuckled loudly and then walked to his office.
“Ass,” Dax muttered, walking in the opposite direction. He didn’t stop until he found himself standing inside a bay he rarely—if ever—frequented. He hit the light switch and the heavy duty shop lights suspended from the ceiling lit the black Impala. Everything was exactly how his father had left it, almost immaculately shipshape. Some tools hung on the walls, others in neatly closed tool boxes. A jack sat by the car while a welder and compressor sat beside one of the work benches.
Dax walked around the Impala, intending to assess the work done or needed, like a new paint job and some kickass rims. But he couldn’t get beyond the thought of Olivia not coming back to work on Charlie. Having spent weeks away from a car she’d spent her entire life working on must be bothering her deep down. Her grandfather had died and so had the dream or hope of finishing Charlie.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, letting out a frustrated groan which echoed off the metal walls before slamming his hands on the roof of the car.
He couldn’t just pop in and out of Ava’s house and act like nothing was wrong when Ava needed to be reminded of what life felt like. Olivia needed to come and see her baby Charlie.
Screw decency. His family needed him and he wasn’t about to watch them all crash down around him because he gave Ava some dumbass four-week promise.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
~
“NOOOO!” OLIVIA YANKED THE T-SHIRT right out of Ava’s hand. “You’re not washing this shirt.” She turned and marched her short legs to her bed where she climbed atop. Folding her legs and clutching the filthy T-shirt in her arms, she sent Ava a glare.
The ongoing battle with this one T-shirt would drive Ava to her point of crazy.
Ava moved the wicker basket of full laundry to her other hip. “You’re not wearing it until you wash it.”
Olivia perked her eyebrows and rebelliously pulled the T-shirt over her head and the pink knitted sweater she wore. Old oil and grease stains smeared across the wrinkled front. If Ava wasn’t always at school when her daughter was at school, she would have washed it weeks ago.
She took a deep breath to keep from crossing the room and yanking the shirt right off her daughter. The idea was tempting. Very tempting.
The doorbell rang, erasing the enticing prospect.
“We will finish this later,” she sternly told her.
Olivia rolled her eyes and plopped back on the bed mumbling Ava’s sentence with more rebellion. Most of Olivia’s days were good, but Ava didn’t think she’d ever get used to this new rebelling side of her daughter.
Downstairs, Ava set the basket at the bottom of the stairs and answered the door, a gush of fresh air cooling down her irritated state.
“Ava Anderson?” A delivery man asked, holding a bouquet of blooming burgundy and orange, fall-colored flowers.
“Yes.”
“Sign here.” He passed her an electronic device and she quickly scribbled her name down before passing it back. “Here you are.” He handed her the bouquet and Ava smelled them, knowing only one man would send her flowers.
Inside the house, she secured the flowers under her arm and opened the card to read the scribbled note. Tonight. 8:00pm. Casual. Maybe a good pair of biker babe boots. Wanda is babysitting. Xoxo Dax.
This was his first attempt to spend time with her alone and her insides lit up, heating her body for an entirely different reason. Dax referencing the biker babe comment from the night at Buck’s only fueled the thrill. He’d visited often enough, not too much or too little, just the right amount of time. But, quite often, he practically ran out the door when she sent Olivia to bed and never had made another move since the evening inside the pantry.
Ava felt a mixture of excitement and reluctance reading the note again. It had only been a couple weeks since Rowdy died. Four weeks hadn’t seemed like enough time for him to distinguish what he wanted for his future and now he was asking—more like demanding—a date after only a couple weeks.
Olivia trotted down the stairs, still sporting the filthy T-shirt, and walked by Ava at the exact moment she considered refusing his invitation.
“I am going to wear it to bed and to school so you don’t take it and wash it.” She didn’t even look at Ava as she stomped straight by her and to the art desk set up in a corner of the living room.
Ava looked at the invitation and back up to her daughter slamming crayons on the desk and tearing paper out of a blank book, then back down again. She needed a night away.
As if Dax could hear her inner thoughts, her cell phone rang on the hall table flashing a message from him. She swiped the screen open. Will I see you at eight?
She smiled and typed back: I think I have a pair of cowboy boots hanging around.
The dots of his upcoming response popped up and she waited for his reply. The brown ones with the turquoise stitching?
Her heart pitter-pattered that he remembered a pair of fall boots she didn’t wear that often.
She responded with only: See you at eight.
More excited than she’d admit, she skipped the laundry and decided to go ensure an appropriate outfit.
~
FLOWERS IN HAND, Dax knocked on Ava’s front door feeling surprisingly anxious about the first date of his life. Even on his graduation day he’d gone solo. Today, he’d planned, made a f
ew phone calls and hoped Ava wasn’t expecting dinner and a movie because he wasn’t interested in sharing her with anyone else tonight.
However, his nerves calmed when Olivia pulled open the door and sent him a nasty look. It was cute. Her narrowed eyes and squished nose looked a lot like her mother when she was angry.
He held out a small bouquet of bright pink flowers. “For you.”
Her eyes moved to scrutinize them with a wrinkled forehead. “I like pink.”
“I know you do. I chose they especially for you.”
Her lips curled upwards as she took the flowers. “Thanks.” She backed into the house giving Dax the okay to follow and flashed her flowers at Wanda.
“Aren’t they beautiful.” Wanda smelled the petals Olivia thrust in front of her giving a satisfying sigh. “We’ll have to put these into water.”
Olivia smiled proudly and, when she turned to Dax, he noticed her oil and grease stained shirt. He set Ava’s flowers on the hall table and bent down in front of Olivia, tugging at the hem of the shirt. “That’s quite a shirt you have there.”
“She won’t let me wash it.” Dax glanced up the stairs at Ava. She slowly descended wearing a pair of damn sexy, tight jeans that reminded him how long her legs were with a white blouse tucked in the front. She’d left her wavy hair down, just the way he liked it, and it bounced across her shoulders and disappeared down the open front of her blouse.
It was hard to drag his eyes away from her and back to Olivia, but he had all night alone with Ava. He smiled at the little girl who was now closely watching him. “I thought maybe we could go work on Charlie this week. You can tell me where Grandpa and you left off working on her and maybe we can do some work on her, too. Would you like that?”
Olivia nodded ferociously, her eyes wide with excitement. “Yes.” She swung her arms around Dax’s neck and squeezed so hard she dug into his throat.
When she stepped away, he said, “You’re going to have to wash this shirt before we go.”
Olivia looked down at the shirt. “Okay,” she reluctantly said before she pulled the T-shirt off. She looked at it, then up at Dax still clutching it with a deadly force. “Will all the stains come out? Grandpa used to wear clean shirts and they sometimes had stains. Will this one still have my stains?”
Dax tilted his head. “Do you want the stains to come out?”
Olivia shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Because me and Grandpa made these stains. I wanna keep them.”
Dax glanced at Ava quickly, watching her facial features twist into sadness for her daughter’s pain.
“I know how to keep those stains exactly as they are,” Dax told Olivia. “How about I wash your T-shirt with my shop shirts?” He held out his hand.
Olivia beamed a huge smile. “Is that okay Mom?”
Ava nodded, but said nothing. She didn’t have to. Pain etched her face.
Olivia handed him the shirt and he said, “I’ll have it clean and stained when we head to the shop.”
“Thanks, Uncle Dax.”
“You’re welcome, kid.” He ruffled her hair and stood, turning his concentration onto Ava. He would erase her pain for the night too if she’d let him. “Are you ready to go?”
She nodded before turning to her daughter. “Be good for Wanda.” She kissed her cheek.
Olivia pouted. “Why can’t I come?”
Wanda wrapped her arms around the younger girl’s shoulders and pulled Olivia back against her front, patting her chest. “Because you and I have an evening of events planned, remember?”
Olivia pouted again.
Ava grabbed a denim jacket from the coat hook and Dax helped her into it. “Goodnight, kid,” he said to Olivia. He picked up Ava’s flowers and handed them to her. “Will you put these in water, too?”
Olivia took them with a little force of attitude. “Sure.”
“Thanks.”
“Be good,” Ava repeated before walking through the door Dax held open for her. Outside, she let out a little groan. “She’s picked up this saucy attitude the last couple days.”
Dax touched the small of her back and led her to the truck. “I think she’s missing Dad. At first, his absence wasn’t as real, but now it’s been a couple weeks and it’s starting to settle in.”
Ava stopped and turned to look at him. He almost stumbled over top of her. “Are you referring to her or yourself?”
“All of us.”
She touched his chest, laying her hand flat against him. “I’m sorry. Are you feeling up to tonight? It’s last minute and I don’t mind—”
Forgetting his promise, he bent down and kissed her, lightly, but forcefully enough to make sure she understood. “This is exactly where I want to be.”
She touched her lips. “Me too.”
With that out of the way, he walked her to the passenger’s door of his truck and then climbed in the driver’s side and started the engine.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He grinned at her before pulling onto the road. “It’s a surprise.”
“Hmm.”
“What? You don’t like surprises?”
“I can’t say I’ve ever had many surprises in my life so I don’t know.”
“I guess this is the time for you to decide if you like them or not.” He eased on the brake at the stop sign at the end of the road and looked at Ava, his stare moving down her body and back up. “You look beautiful today. I like your ass in a nice pair of jeans and those were exactly the boots I had in mind.”
Ava laughed which only added to her beauty. “You like my ass in a nice pair of jeans…. That’s the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”
“Sweetheart, that line wasn’t a cheesy line, it was the damn truth.” He pressed on the gas hard, spitting a few stones before peeling down the street, heading out of town.
“I guess if we’re telling the damn truth, I like your surprised, unannounced visits. I especially liked when you, Wanda, Stone and Hawk stopped by the house for movie night. Although, I don’t think Hawk likes me very much. Or this idea of you and me.”
“He’s just missing his drinking buddy.”
“Or his wing man.”
Dax hoped she’d moved beyond envisioning him at the bar picking up random women. He supposed it wasn’t something that disappeared overnight, but tonight she would damn well understand she was the only one for him.
He shrugged. “He’ll get over it.”
Ava didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride and he hoped she wasn’t losing herself in her thoughts regarding his past. When they arrived at their destination, he said, “We’re here.” By the dazed look on her face, he knew that was exactly where she’d been.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
~
DAX TURNED HIS truck into the empty, fenced-in parking lot of Abberman’s Apple Orchard.
“They’re closed at this hour,” Ava said.
“I pulled some strings.” He parked closest to the long wood-paneled building and cut the engine.
“Some strings to what? Pick apples? We could have come during the day.”
Dax reached across the seat and touched her hand. “I wanted time alone with you, and not with a wild bunch of kids racing around picking apples or pumpkins or whatever the hell this place offers.”
“If you’re not sure what they offer, why are we here?”
Dax grinned at her. “They have a corn maze.”
Ava grinned back. “A corn maze?”
“How often do you and Olivia come here?”
“Every year with Rowdy…except this year.”
“I’m saving that information for later.” He nodded and glanced out the window. “There she is now. Sina owed me a favor.”
Ava followed his nod to a tall brunette making her way across the dirt path in a pair of black fringed cowboy boots. A burnt orange and grey-colored parka blew in the breeze and Ava couldn’t help wonder if he’d had the woman’s legs wrapped arou
nd him and this “surprise” was repaying the favor.
Dax walked around to her side of the truck like the perfect gentleman. He was always the perfect gentleman—sort of—he had his crude moments, but was never disrespectful.
She hopped out of the truck, but when he took her hand, she didn’t move. His curious look made her feel foolish for doubting him, but she had to know. “Have you slept with her?” There were other questions plaguing her too. Did Dax go to Buck’s on the nights he didn’t visit her? Was he still interested in sleeping with other women or missing the freedom…or had he never stopped?
“No.” He said it so serious and hard, she couldn’t doubt him. “I have a rule: I don’t sleep with locals. It makes it too complicated and I don’t like complicated.” He leaned in closer. “I’ve only slept with one local and her complication is the only kind I ever want.” He bent down and brushed a kiss across her forehead. “I’m talking about you, just so there’s no confusion.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
“I restored her father’s car as a gift from her. We were secretive about it and her father had no idea. Like I said, she owes me.” He kissed Ava before turning to meet their hostess.
“Dax Colyn, I promised you that one day you would visit my orchard.” She held her arms out and Dax moved in for a short hug.
Ava ignored the pangs of jealousy which only lasted as long as they embraced. Once the other woman stepped away, she beamed at Ava. “We haven’t had a chance to talk, but I’ve seen you here with Rowdy plenty of times and he just spoke the world of you. It’s as if we’re all family.” She wrapped her arms around Ava, another surprise she wasn’t sure she liked. She caught Dax grinning behind the woman and scowled at him before Sina pulled away, leaving Ava feeling neither worried nor threatened.
“My daughter loves your orchard. It’s a tradition to come here apple and pumpkin picking.”
“I hope we see you this year.”
“You will,” Dax said. “We’ll plan a day out of it, right Ava?”
Ava nodded, picturing Dax struggling not to lose his shit around a wild zoo of screaming and laughing children. Maybe he’d surprise her. Or maybe he’d hide in the truck until they were finished picking. Time would tell.