by Lily Baldwin
Sure, she was young, terrified, and completely alone in the world, but she wasn’t stupid.
She was about to write a note to hold up to the window telling him just that when suddenly his full lips curved in a slight and very sensual smile before his knuckle again lightly tapped the glass. Prompted by his sudden smile and her lack of writing utensil, she took a deep breath and cranked the ancient lever on her door to crack her window.
He rested his brow on his forearm, which was draped across the top of her door, and peered down at her. His gaze quickly scanned over her and the inside of her car. Then he simply said, “Pop the hood.” His voice was deep and unhurried, despite the traffic rushing by just inches behind him and the rain hammering down from above.
“I called my roadside service,” she blurted, her hands gripping the wheel in a death lock.
Once more, his gaze traveled over her. Then he angled his head as he looked through her windshield at the smoke rising from her engine, visible even in the downpour. “How long have you been here?” His deep voice sent chills up her spine.
“Ten minutes,” she said nervously.
“Then you still have a long wait. Pop your hood. Let me take a look. If I can get you back on the road, I will; otherwise, I can take you to the nearest garage.”
She gazed into his deep-set, blue eyes. He had a tan complexion, a broad forehead, a strong angular jaw-line, and full, wide lips. God, how she wanted to say yes to him. She had no desire to stay out on the roadway another moment. Still, even gorgeous men could be serial killers.
“Damn it,” she cursed under her breath.
His lips lifted in a sideways smile. “What was that? I didn’t catch what you said.”
She held her tongue a moment longer and continued to meet his gaze, but despite his breathtaking eyes and her desperate, not to mention already dangerous, circumstance, her fear won out, as always. “No…no, thank you,” she stammered.
He lifted a thick, black brow at her. “You know you could get killed out here, right?”
Damn the sluggish and half-assed roadside assistance people!
She swallowed. “I appreciate your concern.”
He looked at her for another moment before he shrugged. “If you change your mind before I’m out of ear shot, beep your horn.” He walked slowly back to his car as if to give her the chance to come to her senses. But all too soon, her would-be savior climbed into his Jeep and drove off.
Dammit! Come back here, she wanted to scream.
She sat there under the constant battery of rain and traffic for another fifteen minutes before the police showed up. At first, the officer told her she couldn’t park there. Again, she was forced to swallow the words—no shit. Instead, she explained her car wouldn’t start and roadside assistance was on the way. The cop looked at her sternly before returning to his car.
Her knuckles somehow blanched even whiter from her grip on the wheel. Was he going to write her a ticket? Was it somehow illegal to break down on the Zakim? She waited, watching the officer, her whole body beginning to ache from the tension. Then flashing blues caught her eye in the rearview. Another cop had pulled up behind her. She watched through her mirror, waiting for the officer to step out of the car, but he stayed put. She realized then that she had earned a police barricade for breaking down on the busy bridge. Her shoulders eased a little. She closed her eyes and rested her head back. What felt like hours later, though in reality was less than ten minutes, a tow truck slowed alongside her car. Now, two of the four lanes of north moving traffic were taken up—all because of her and her crappy car.
“This is humiliating,” she muttered as she watched the traffic slow to a crawl on the far-left lanes.
She held her breath, wishing for the tall man with the gray hoodie to jump down from the tow truck, but instead an older, ungainly man started toward her. He was certainly tall, but she likely out-weighed him with her one hundred and thirty pounds. Despite the police presence and the choir of car horns, the man walked sluggishly toward her. She glanced at the nametag on his loose, grey jumpsuit as she leaned forward and popped the hood. “Please, let Larry start my car,” she prayed to God, the universe—anyone who might hear the desperate plea of a girl whose checking account was overdrawn. Then she stepped from the car.
“Pop the hood,” Larry barked at her over the rain, horns, brakes, and sirens. The scent of salt and vinegar chips on his breath assailed her senses, overpowering even the stink of exhaust and oil.
“I already did,” she said lamely, wishing she was anywhere else in the world.
“That dump shouldn’t be on the road,” some asshole shouted as he slowly cruised by, while Larry disappeared beneath her hood with a portable jump starter.
“No shit!” she yelled after him, unable to stop herself. But she paid for her outburst. Immediately, her anxiety worsened. She fought the urge to climb into the backseat of her unworthy car to hide from the world.
A couple minutes later, the tow truck driver motioned for her to come over. “Gonna have to bring it in. Grab your things. You can ride in my truck.”
She could barely see his eyes through the thick lenses of his rain-splattered glasses. She grabbed her bag and dashed from her car to the passenger side of his truck and pulled herself up into the seat. After her car was secured behind them, her less-than-dashing hero climbed in next to her. One of the cops held back the traffic to let them in.
Finally, she and her car were getting off the bridge.
“Which one?” the driver asked.
She cut him a sidelong glance, noticing that he had not cleared the raindrops from his glasses. Resisting the urge to ask him if he could even see the road, she asked, “Which one…what?”
“Which garage?”
She chewed her lip and looked down, for the first-time noticing her foot was on an empty bag of chips—the source of the offensive smell that was twice as potent inside the cab of the truck. She forced herself to forget the odor and her ever increasing anxiety over how much it was going to cost to fix her car, to think about the man’s question.
She liked the guys a couple blocks down from her apartment. It was where she always went to get her oil changed. The manager was cute and nice and never made her feel like a moron because she didn’t know what a piston was. But she certainly wasn’t going to ask Larry to tow her car to Dorchester.
“Umm…the closest. Right, because the longer you drive the more I pay?” she asked.
“That’s how it works.”
“Then definitely the closest garage.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, they pulled into a freshly paved u-shaped driveway. Above the closed triple bay doors was a sign that read “Calloway Automotive” in shiny chrome lettering, and on top of the flat roof was a sleek motorcycle.
“You go ahead inside while I unhitch your car,” Larry said before he slid off his seat to the ground.
Angel quickly grabbed her bag and jumped from the truck cab, desperate to escape the lingering scent of his pungent snack. Hurrying across the parking lot, she swung open the entrance door, setting off a quick bell. As she approached the desk, a woman came around the corner. Cherry black hair skimmed the woman’s waist like a waterfall, bone straight and glistening. Her trim and clearly enhanced figure was wrapped in a deep purple dress.
“Hi there,” the woman said, a slow, seductive smile spreading across her face. “What can I do for you?”
She was the kind of woman that made Angel feel frumpy, especially after just finishing her shift at the bakery. She was everything Angel wasn’t—full but tight figure, perfectly applied makeup, breasts bursting from her designer clothing. Angel pushed a wayward lock of her dark brown hair behind her ear and resisted the urge to redo her messy bun.
Anyway, what would be the point?
Sure, Angel was fit—she worked on her feet all the time, but any curve she had was reserved for her bum alone. Her breasts had always been on the small side. The rest of her was as put together
as a demolition site. Her morning routine consisted of slapping a coat of mascara on her lashes and a layer of Vaseline on her lips before running out the door.
Next, to the woman at the counter, Angel felt utterly forgettable.
“My car was just towed here.”
“Okay. Just take a seat,” the woman said before walking away, her hips swaying in a perfectly feminine rhythm. As she disappeared through a polished swinging door, it occurred to Angel what a curious sight the woman was behind the counter. She looked like someone who might be on a poster, draped across a muscle car, adorning the walls of a garage—not working in one.
Angel took a seat. The chairs were comfortably padded. There was a TV suspended in the corner. She looked away from the sharply dressed newswoman predicting more rain for the Boston area. On the table, there was a mix of magazines: fitness, cars, home improvement. She picked up one on cooking but put it down just as quickly. She was too nervous to even pretend to read. What if her car was a goner? She had recently overdrawn her account renewing her registration. Hell, she couldn’t afford the inspection she needed by the end of the month.
Forget the universe. This time she just straight up prayed. Please, God, let it be a new battery.
Chapter Three
“Hey, boss…boss?” a voice insisted.
Ethan looked up from the tablet he was holding.
Lucky, his bike shop manager, took off his backward baseball hat and scratched his thick mop of flattened red curls. Giving Ethan an expectant look, he said, “You okay, boss?”
“Yeah, sorry, I guess I zoned out just now,” Ethan lied. He hadn’t zoned out. He knew exactly where his thoughts had been—out on the Zakim bridge with the girl with big, amber-brown eyes.
He shook his head, trying to chase her from his thoughts. He had offered to help her, and she refused. What else could he have done—forced her to get into his car? There was one word for that type of action, kidnapping. He did time once already in his life. He had no plans to go back to jail. Ever.
He gave his attention over to the newly produced custom motorcycle that was awaiting his final inspection. He stroked the sleek tank, but then the loud beeping of a big truck backing up pulled his gaze away from the bike to the windows on the far side of the room. He crossed to the window and looked outside at the tow truck backing up toward one of the open bays. A rush of adrenaline shot through him. He would recognize that heap of rust anywhere.
His receptionist, Brooke, appeared in the doorway. “Hey, boss, they’re bringing in a roadside call.”
A slight smile curved his lips. The wisp of a girl he had offered to help on the way had no choice but to accept his help now. He typically would not have spared a second glance at someone broken down on the side of the road. After all, it was the age of cell phones and roadside assistance. But when he saw the wreck smoking on the bridge and realized when he passed that inside was a young woman, he had to stop and try to get her off the road before someone rear-ended her car and sent her careening into the Charles.
He handed Lucky his tablet with the design specs. “Finish the inspection. Then make the call. Let’s get paid.”
Lucky looked up, his red brows raised with surprise. “But we’re not done. You always do the final inspection.”
“I’m working in the garage today,” Ethan called back. “You got this, Lucky. Do me proud.”
Ethan pushed open the aluminum door, leaving the bright custom bike room for the dark, greasy garage. He inhaled the scent of exhaust, oil, and tires. Man, he loved that smell. It had been a few months since he spent the day wrenching on cars…too long. Once upon a time, he never would have missed a day in the garage. It had always been his escape.
The first time he had stared down at an old, rusted engine, he felt a thrill. An engine was something that could be fixed and restored, no matter how old or broken, which had meant something to him after his father died. For that was what he and his mother had been—broke—in all senses of the word, broken hearted and overdrawn.
The bank repossessed their house three months after the nails were hammered into his father’s unfinished pine coffin. At first, he and his mom moved in with his mother’s parents, but his grandfather was a prick, always putting his mother down, which caused her to sink further into depression. She started drinking and popping pills. Then she met Eddie, who did nothing but dump on her. Despite Ethan’s protests, she married Eddie, and they moved into his rundown trailer in a park on Staten Island. Ethan had been thirteen at the time, and suddenly, he found himself living with a new dad who walked around in his stained white briefs and tried to tell him what to do—which was why Ethan spent most of his time away from home.
On most days, he could be found in an abandoned warehouse with his best friend, drinking a forty from a paper bag. Like his mother, he turned to alcohol and drugs to dull the ache. But numbness was fleeting and quickly wore off, leaving the ache worse than before. He was only a kid, but life had already knocked him down hard enough that he was ready to give up.
But then he met Carl.
Carl was in his late twenties and lived in a trailer on the other side of the park. He was always out in his yard, fixing cars. On his way home one evening, Ethan walked by Carl’s trailer. Carl peered out from beneath the hood of a car and asked Ethan to hand him a socket wrench.
And that was it—the moment Ethan was hooked.
Carl insisted Ethan go to school, but after the school day was over, Carl welcomed his help fixing up old beaters to sell. Ethan learned quickly, and soon Carl started to pay him for his time. Everything was turning around for him. He had met a girl at school, and with money in his pocket, he could take her out and treat her right. His mother was still a mess, but at least he knew if shit hit the fan and his stepdad walked that Ethan could support them. And it was all because of Carl. More than that, Ethan could talk to Carl. He talked to him about his father, and Carl would listen and offer advice.
But Ethan soon learned that nice guys weren’t always good guys.
Almost a full year after he met Carl, Ethan was helping him install a new timing chain when Carl got a phone call.
“Hey, I have to run out for a few minutes. You okay here?” Carl said after pocketing his phone.
“Yeah, I got this,” Ethan said, feeling pleased that Carl trusted him to finish the work on his own.
“All right. Cool. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Carl drove off and not two minutes later, three cruisers raced up the narrow park road, flashing blues and blasting sirens and stopped right in front of Carl’s trailer. Before Ethan could blink, guns were aimed at him, and he was cuffed and shoved in the back of one of the cruisers.
Turns out, Carl had been fixing cars he had stolen off garage lots. A cop-buddy who Carl had grown up with had tipped him off. Carl left so that Ethan could take the fall. In the end, Carl was caught and sent to prison, but with Ethan’s fingerprints all over the cars, the judge didn’t believe Ethan was as innocent as he claimed. He was sentenced to two years in juvie. After he did his time, the state ruled his druggie mom an unfit parent, and so he got caught up in the system and was placed into foster care for another two years.
But when he turned eighteen, he became his own man. He left New York behind and moved to Boston where he got a job wrenching and vowed not to look back and never to trust or rely on anyone else ever again.
And he had kept that promise to himself, except at night when his dreams took him back to those dark places.
But like his father, he had other dreams. He had vision. When he first moved to Boston, he rebuilt bikes in his spare time, and soon, he started designing his own custom bikes. At twenty-two, he sold his first few bikes and invested the money in his own garage. Soon he was winning awards for his designs. Now, at twenty-nine, his bikes sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he had a waiting list for a decade.
But he never forgot his roots. He still ran his simple garage and always would.
He walked over to the rack of Calloway jumpsuits along the wall just as Brooke brought him the details on the girl’s car. He yanked off his white t-shirt and handed it to her. Then he stripped down to his boxer briefs and gave her his jeans. “Take care of these for me.”
She brought his shirt up to her nose. “Gladly,” she said as she intently watched him pull on the loose, charcoal jumpsuit with silver lettering.
“Thanks,” he said, ignoring Brooke’s perusal of his body. She was hungry for him, but he made it a point not to sleep with the desk girls. He preferred the company of strangers. The few times he had fooled around with women he knew, they ended up becoming possessive of him, and he had to put an end to the fun. He didn’t do relationships, and he definitely didn’t do commitment.
“You know I love when you wear that,” she purred and circled around him. “I just wish it was tighter.”
“Is the girl here, too?” he asked,
Brooke stiffened at his question. “How did you know it was a girl?”
“Lucky guess,” he said.
“She’s not your type,” Brooke said quickly. “Not much to her. Totally forgettable.”
Ethan had found the girl anything but forgettable.
There had been something in her eyes, something vulnerable—not needy—he had no time for needy women. He sensed her fear was more than just being broken down in the worst possible spot imaginable. Her vulnerability surfaced, but she had tried to mask it as if she was used to keeping everything within her under wraps. And for some reason, the look in her eyes had made him worry, and he made it a point never to worry about anyone other than himself. Hell, he had barely checked over the new bike, worrying about her still out on the road.
“Hey, we’ve got the boss in here today,” Nathan, his head mechanic, called out to the other guys. He clamped his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “How’s it going, man?”
Ethan smiled. “It’s a good day for wrenching.”
He turned his attention to the girl’s wreck. “That’s not good,” he said to Nathan, pointing to the antifreeze dripping out the tailpipe.