Behind the Wheel (Hearts & Horsepower Book 2)

by A. K. Evans

  And just like my father told me all those years ago, things happened. I only needed to get up and keep going.

  “Definitely” I replied.

  “Good. So, are you excited for your first day at LT Motorsports?” he asked.

  “You have no idea how excited I am to be here,” I told him.

  “Well I hope you know that we’re just as excited to have you here,” he started. “Especially me. I’ve been trying to do the job I hired you for plus tuning, prepping cars for the races, and any other odd things that happen to come up.”

  Wanting to make a good impression while also knowing what my capabilities were, I offered, “I’m more than willing to help out in the shop if it’s needed, too. With the exception of tuning, I can do just about anything else.”

  Logan dipped his chin and said, “I appreciate that. I’m hoping we won’t have to depend on you that heavily in the shop so you can focus your efforts in the office, but it’s really nice to know we’ve got an extra set of hands if it’s ever needed.”

  There was a brief pause before Logan suggested, “How about we head inside so I can show you around the office, how we handle orders, sales, and scheduling? Afterward, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team.”

  Grinning up at him, excited to start, I answered, “That sounds great.”

  At that, Logan jerked his head toward the front door to the office. I fell into step beside him and had to admit I had a few nerves the closer we got to the door. I knew I’d quickly learn Logan’s system and was good at what I did, but this was a new place. If Logan’s clients had grown accustomed to hearing his voice when they called, I was certain I’d be in for an uphill battle. Regardless, I was ready to work hard and prove not only to them but also to Logan and his team that he had made the right choice when he hired me over the other interested candidates.

  About thirty minutes later, when Logan had been in the middle of explaining how they handled scheduling based on the different jobs that came in, a guy had materialized from somewhere down the hall from the front office.

  Logan stopped mid-sentence and said, “Hey, Kieran. I was going to bring her around to introduce her to everyone after we went through the basics out here, but since you’re here now, we should just do it.” Extending his hand out toward me, Logan went on, “This is Avery Sullivan. She’s our new business manager. Avery, this is Kieran Decker. He’s our engine builder.”

  Kieran walked over to me, extended his hand, and declared, “It’s nice to meet you, Avery. Welcome.”

  “Thanks. It’s nice meeting you as well,” I replied.

  “Like Logan said, I’m the engine builder, which means I spend most of my time in the back in the clean room,” Kieran started. “Since you’re just getting started here, it’s not unreasonable to assume you might have some questions about things. Just know that I’m right down the hall if you need help with anything.”

  Wow. That was really nice of him.

  “Thank you, Kieran. I appreciate that.”

  He dipped his chin and insisted, “It’s not a problem at all. We’re all on the same team, right?”

  I nodded. “Yes, we are,” I agreed.

  Looking to Logan, Kieran said, “I didn’t realize you were training now. I’ll come back out later.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Logan returned. “I’ll take Avery out to meet the rest of the crew. You can do what you need to do and we’ll come back in a little bit.”

  “Sure?”

  Logan didn’t hesitate to respond, “Positive. Besides, it might help Avery to put a face to the names I keep saying.”

  At that, Logan ushered me forward toward the steel door that led out of the office. He opened it up, and we stepped into the garage space. It was huge inside, which I’d learned when I dropped my car off after the race yesterday. It became clear last night why Logan could offer the space for me to store and work on my car. He had plenty of it.

  I followed Logan as we walked across to the far side of the shop along the front near the garage doors. We had to maneuver around a few cars, mine being one of them, but eventually made it to where there was another guy bent over the engine bay of another car.

  He glanced up, saw us approaching, and didn’t stop what he was doing. He continued working as though he never even saw us. The moment we stopped in front of him, Logan said, “Ryker, I want you to meet our new employee. This is Avery Sullivan.”

  “What’s up,” Ryker said as he jerked his chin at me.

  I was a bit stunned by his greeting but tried not to look too far into it. Luckily, a moment later, Logan eased any concerns I had about Ryker.

  “Avery, Ryker Holt is our mechanic,” Logan shared.

  Nodding my understanding slowly, I directed my attention to Ryker and declared, “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Same here.”

  That was it.

  Nothing more. Nothing less.

  When my brows pulled together, Logan explained, “This is how Ryker always is. Don’t worry that you’ve done something wrong. He’s just always irritable. But he’s a heck of a mechanic, so we keep him around.”

  “Got it,” I started. Then, I offered, “If you ever need a hand, I’ll be right inside the office. I’m happy to help.”

  Ryker’s eyes went to my car, narrowed, and returned to me. “I should be good, but I appreciate the offer.”

  I didn’t know what his look meant, so I tried not to dwell on it. This was nerve-wracking enough already. Logan said Ryker was always in a mood like this; I couldn’t make myself crazy trying to figure out his thoughts.

  So, instead of being difficult, I simply replied with a smile, “You’re welcome.”

  With that, Logan turned and started to move away as he said, “Come on. You’ve got two more guys to meet.”

  Following behind Logan, we walked toward the back wall of the shop while heading back in the direction of the office. Suddenly, a guy stood up, saw us, and yelled out, “Hey, Knox. Come over and meet the new girl.”

  Logan started chuckling as he came to a stop. The loud guy made it to where Logan and I were standing in a matter of a few seconds. He extended his hand to me and introduced himself. “I’m Nash Stevens,” he started. “Chassis tuner.”

  “Avery Sullivan,” I returned as I shook his hand. “Business manager and race car driver.”

  Nash grinned at me.

  I twisted my neck to look at my car. When I turned back to Nash, I said, “Though yesterday it was more like race car crasher.”

  Instantly, Nash declared, “Shake it off. That car went rounds yesterday, and you did well. Shit happens. You’ll rebuild, right?”

  I was about to answer, but it was at that moment another guy walked up and joined the conversation. Only he didn’t speak. In fact, he seemed downright annoyed, even more than Ryker had been.

  In any other case I would have ignored him and answered the question Nash had asked, but there was just one small problem. Despite the fact that he seemed to be brooding about something, I couldn’t help but feel an attraction to the moody guy. From a looks standpoint, he was everything I didn’t know I was looking for in a man.

  But I could already tell I didn’t like his attitude. He hadn’t said a word, but there was no mistaking just how crappy his mood was.

  Unfortunately, the bad attitude did little to distract me from the fact that I was insanely attracted to this guy.

  Somehow, I tore my eyes away from that guy and returned my attention to Nash.

  I nodded. “That’s the plan.”

  “Well, if you need any help with it, I’m happy to lend a hand. Have you located another chassis?”

  “I’m sorry… what?”

  Nash’s eyes drifted to where my car was parked, lingered there a moment, and came back to me. “You aren’t planning to rebuild with this chassis, are you?”

  I looked back at my car, my baby, hoping to see whatever it was that Nash was seeing that caused him to ask me that question. I found nothi
ng there that gave me any answers. When my eyes were focused on Nash again—only after having to glance at the hot, moody guy on the way there—I dipped my chin and answered, “Well, I was hoping to do that.”

  Nash offered me a sympathetic look.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread. “I don’t like that look.”

  Nash’s voice dipped low as he shared, “When I got in this morning, I took a look at the car. My best guess is that you’re not going to be able to safely rebuild.”

  No.

  No. No. No.

  Months and months of hard work down the drain.

  “Are you… are you sure?” I rasped.

  The feeling of despair I felt must have been reflected in my voice and on my face because Nash took a step forward, put a hand to my shoulder, and gave me a gentle squeeze. “I’ve been doing chassis work for a lot of years, babe,” he began. “I’m sorry. But if you were my girl or it were up to me, I wouldn’t put you back in that car.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing she’s not your girl,” the moody guy interjected.

  My eyes flew to him, and I saw he was focused entirely on my shoulder, the shoulder where Nash’s hand was still resting.

  “Dude, what’s your problem?” Nash asked as his hand fell away.

  “I don’t have a problem, but you’re standing here wasting time when we’ve got plenty of other work to be doing.”

  “Knox,” Logan called, his tone indicating he was not happy about what was transpiring.

  Okay… yep.

  That was it.

  I definitely didn’t like this guy. It was such a shame, too, because he was incredibly hot. If he lost the bad attitude, I’d have seriously considered pursuing him. Coming from me, that was saying something.

  Even though I felt the way I did about his sour mood, I decided I’d go over the top to be kind to him. Though it wasn’t likely he would, I wanted to believe it would make him think about how he’d acted and feel a bit of remorse because of it.

  So, despite still trying to come to terms with the news about my car, I stepped forward, extended my hand, and smiled as I said, “Hi, I’m Avery Sullivan. I’m sorry for interrupting your work this morning.”

  I watched as this beautiful man stared at me like he thought I was pure scum. Like it burned his eyes to even look at me. Like being in my presence made his skin crawl.

  Though the look on his face indicated he was feeling that, he still managed to lift one of his hands to the other so he could remove what I knew was a welding glove from the other hand. He then extended his ungloved hand to mine, shook my hand, and returned a disgusted, “Knox Lee.”

  Yeah, definitely a shame.

  Letting go of his hand, I urged, “Please don’t let me keep you.”

  “It’s cool, Avery,” Logan said from beside me. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. You work here now. I hired you, and you’ll be treated with respect.”

  I bit my lip, feeling a bit of uncertainty about what was unfolding.

  It was my first day, I’d barely spoken a couple of words, and there was already somebody who didn’t like me.

  Just wonderful.

  I’d been concerned about how Logan’s clients would feel having to speak to me instead of him or the guys they’d grown accustomed to dealing with when I really should have been more concerned about my co-workers liking me.

  “And you need to cool it, Knox,” Logan ordered. “If you have an issue with something and we need to talk about it, I’m happy to do that after I finish going over everything with Avery this morning.”

  Knox shook his head, still not looking very happy, and clipped, “I’m good.”

  Logan nodded and instructed, “You’ll come and talk to me if that changes.”

  “Yeah. Am I good to go back to work now?” he retorted.

  Following a beat of silence, Logan shook his head in disappointment and said, “Yeah, you can go back to work.”

  Knox stalked off, and I stood there feeling more than just a bit awkward.

  “Hey, shake it off,” Nash urged.

  Not wanting them to think I was some weak or emotional girl that had been hired, I smiled at Nash and said, “I’m cool. It’s good.” Then I looked at Logan and asked, “What’s next?”

  Logan hesitated for a moment but ultimately answered, “Let’s head back into the office.”

  So, that’s what I did.

  And on my way there, I did my best to put the encounter with Knox out of my mind. I succeeded in doing that when I told myself it was good he didn’t like me. Because if he had been kind, I might have found myself distracted by him. I didn’t have time to be distracted right now.

  I had a job to do.

  And I had a car to rebuild.

  It was day two of my new job. And I was loving it.

  Of course, I was still learning the ropes about how Logan operated his business and managed things like the schedule, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

  Right now, though, it was lunch time.

  That meant I could finally do what I’d been itching to do since the weekend. I could start tearing into my car. So, the minute my lunch break started, I took about five minutes to eat a turkey sandwich before I walked out to my truck and grabbed my bag of tools.

  Yesterday, I’d gotten two good pieces of news. I asked Logan about whether he’d mind if I used my lunch break to work on my car, and he had absolutely no problem with it. Even better than that, I learned that my day ended at five o’clock but that the guys usually worked until at least six. It wasn’t uncommon, though, that one or two of them might need to stay beyond that if they were working on something pressing. Logan told me he was more than okay with me staying after work to get more work done on the car when at least one of the guys was there late.

  So, today I was getting started.

  And I didn’t have time to waste.

  First up on my list was to pull apart the rear suspension and differential so I could inspect what was usable. I had my suspicions about what I’d find, but since they were too heartbreaking to consider, I did my best to ignore them until I had actual proof.

  A few minutes after I’d entered the garage and gotten started on the tear down, I realized my one big mistake. I’d already had a problem and was halted in my efforts to get this thing torn down. I stood, looked around the shop, and realized I was alone out there. Everyone else must have gone out for lunch or to the break room.

  Not wanting to help myself to anything that wasn’t mine, I went in search of someone specific.

  I wasn’t convinced I’d find who I was looking for, but I didn’t want to waste any valuable tear down time. I made my way through the steel door back onto the office side of the building and down the hall toward the break room. Walking in, I quickly realized I should have looked out into the lot first.

  Because the minute I stepped into the break room, I found that the guy I was looking for was not there. Instead, Kieran and Knox were there.

  At least it wasn’t just Knox.

  “Sorry,” I said as I began to back out of the room.

  “Avery, wait,” Kieran called.

  I stopped, turned, and pinned my gaze on him. “Yeah?”

  “What’s up? Were you coming to have lunch?” he asked. “There’s plenty of room at the table.”

  My eyes slid to Knox, and I found that he wasn’t even looking at me. God, what was his problem?

  Shaking my head, I told Kieran, “No, thanks. I already ate. I was actually looking for Ryker. I’ll just wait until he gets back from lunch.”

  “He didn’t go out,” Kieran shared. “I think he just ran to the bathroom to wash his hands.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  As though on cue, Ryker appeared at my side. I took half a step to the side to allow him to enter the room. He moved to the refrigerator without so much as a nod or hello.

  Okay. I should have considered this before I came in here.
<
br />   Clearly sensing my predicament, Kieran called, “Hey, Ryker!”

  Ryker bent down to look into the refrigerator and replied, “What’s up?”

  “Avery was looking for you,” he told him.

  Ryker’s body froze for a moment before he stood and looked at me. “What’s going on?” he wondered.

  “Um, well, I was just… I figured you were the best person to ask,” I started. “I talked to Logan yesterday and he said it would be okay for me to work on my car on my lunch break and after work. Unfortunately, when I packed up my tools last night, I packed what I knew would be needed for a normal disassembly. I forgot to take into account that my car is mangled right now.”

  Ryker tipped his head to the side. “Did you need help with something?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, I just… I think I need a pry bar and a sledge hammer. I was wondering if you had them in your tool box and if it’d be okay for me to borrow them.”

  There was a half a second pause before he dipped his chin and said, “Sure. Bottom drawer on the black tool box for the pry bar. The sledge hammer is going to be in the drawer above that.”

  I smiled at him and replied, “Thanks so much. I promise to put them back when I’m done.”

  “It’s cool,” he insisted. “If you need a hand with anything, just give me a shout.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Any idea what happened, Avery?” Kieran asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “With the car,” Kieran clarified. “Do you have any idea what actually caused the crash?”

  Shaking my head, I answered, “I wish I did. My initial thought was that something had to have been on the track, but Logan went down ahead of me. His car stayed in the groove the entire way down. And I’m guessing you guys would have noticed if anything was leaking on his car.”

  “Yeah, so it sounds like something might have broken on your car,” Kieran guessed.

  “That’s my thought,” I agreed. “I’m hoping I’ll figure it out when I tear it down. The car was running dead consistent, so I’m not sure why it suddenly had an issue. I’m guessing I’ll find some random thing broke in the suspension or something. I don’t know.”