by Ally Blake
Fred and Ed didn’t have to be asked twice; they left so fast they practically laid rubber. Leaving Rafe with Stan and Neil Diamond crooning in the background.
“You okay, boy?” said Stan, eyes narrowed his way. “You don’t look yourself.”
Rafe held his gaze and considered his answer.
Stan had seen Rafe through plenty. Had stood beside him at his father’s funeral. Had sourced the jackhammer that had destroyed the foundations of his father’s house.
A single man, like himself. Never married. No kids of his own. And content with how he’d lived his life. Stan had been a role model in the way his own father had never been.
But this? Sable’s request? It felt too big. Too private. Even if he was unquestionably going to say no.
“I’m fine.”
“Fine, you say,” Stan grumbled., shaking his head. “Most dangerous word in the English language. Let me know if you need a hand?” He cocked his chin toward the cars that still needed tending. But Rafe knew the old man really meant he had two ears and would listen to anything Rafe had to get off his chest.
“Will do,” said Rafe, then he made a beeline for the rusty old Road Runner languishing in the end bay, hitched his jeans, lay himself down on the tray and slid underneath.
In the shade and the cool, surrounded by metal and rust and oil and purpose, Rafe made his decision.
He’d find Sable, and tell her no.
And then he’d head off to Sydney quick smart. Without her nearby, the mud in his head would clear, the unrelenting work ethic that had ground to a halt the moment he’d seen her sitting in the café would swing back into overdrive, and he’d get back to living the perfectly fine life he’d been living before she’d swept back into town.
CHAPTER FIVE
SABLE MANAGED TO work her way through two more espressos at Bear’s before he questioned why she was sitting in the window seat, watching the street as if it would disappear if she blinked.
“It’s the only patch of sunlight in your joint,” she returned.
He leaned in beside her, making a play at watching the street with her. “Sure you’re not waiting for a certain brooding, dark-haired hunk to wander by?”
She glanced right, trying to remember the layout of the town.
“Wrong way. His place is that way,” said Bear, pointing left.
“Oh, shush.”
When her phone buzzed, an incoming call from her agent in New York, she shooed Bear away and this time jumped on the chance to answer. Only to find herself looking at the original Norman Rockwell painting that lived behind her agent’s desk.
“Nancy?” Sable said.
“Sable, darling!” Nancy slid into view. “Is that really you?”
Sable waved a hand around her face to prove that it was she.
“Oh, my dear girl, how I missed that beautiful face! How’s Hicksville?”
Bear shot Sable a look. Sable just shook her head. “Radiance is...overcast.”
“Lovely. But not as lovely as Greece, I’m sure. That job is still yours if you want it!”
“Not the right time.”
“Darling, it’s always the right time for a paid trip to Greece.”
“I am fine, Nancy. Really.”
“Fine,” Nancy scoffed. “The most loaded word in the English language.”
Sable smiled. For there was no heat in Nancy’s words. They’d known and adored one another too long for all that. Nancy had been gifted to Sable as a part of the international art prize that had taken her to the States in the first place. She’d been the only one in Sable’s circle who’d never warmed to The Chef, despite the heightened profile he’d provided. The only one who’d stood by Sable when his truth had been exposed.
Nancy was more than owed a little sweetener. “What if I told you I found my old box Brownie camera in my mum’s house?”
Nancy’s mouth sprang open.
“With film in it.”
Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t mess with me, kid.”
“What if I also told you I’d taken a few photos on it too. Small town. Fall foliage. Hyper-nostalgic.”
Nancy grabbed the edges of her monitor, her face filling the screen. “What’s the name of that Nowhere Town, again? I’m coming to you. On the very next flight. So I can hug you. And steal that film and develop it myself.”
“No, you’re not. And I’m not letting you anywhere near my film.”
Nancy sat back, grinning from ear to ear, her cosmetic procedures making sure the smile only went as far as her eyes. “Fine. If Nowhere Town is your way back to finding your spark, then you stay right there, for ever and ever if necessary.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Sable glanced out of the window at the pretty oak-lined avenue right as a flurry of autumn leaves drifted daintily to the ground. Then a pair of little girls in tartan dresses and wintry tights skipped past, holding hands. “Not staying. Just...passing through.”
“Stay as long as it takes, then. Call me any time you need a hit of culture. Or an accent other people can understand. Deal?”
“Deal,” Sable said on a laugh. They said their goodbyes then both rang off.
And Sable’s gaze went to the window once more.
It was a truly pretty town. All park benches and picture windows and overflowing flower pots on the footpath that were still there the next day.
Picturesque and patently photographable as it was, she couldn’t stay. Not for much longer. She’d spent no more than ten minutes with her mother so far, and had already ground a layer off her back teeth.
Then there was Rafe, and her promise he’d never have to see her again.
Just thinking his name had her feeling warm tumbles in her belly and nervous jitters skipping over her skin. Needing to walk it off, Sable stood and slid her arms back into her big coat.
“You off?” Bear asked. “Need me to point the way to the nearest brooding, dark-haired hunk?”
She shot him a look. “No, thanks. I’m all good.”
Besides, the longer she could leave Rafe to think over her proposal, the better. Meaning she had to keep herself busy lest she spy him, drop to her knees and beg. “I think I’ll go check out the sights of the town. See what else has changed around here.”
The sights included a hill that called itself a mountain, a thick twisty forest in which tourists often famously got lost, a closed fairground, and the few local shops she could see from Bear’s front window, which was probably why the big guy snorted his response.
And yet, Sable kept herself busy. Checking out the ancient thrift store, the wool store, the sweet new community library, the cool bike shop.
Most people she met were friendly. Asking if it was cold outside. If they could help her find what she was looking for—and meaning it. But she also felt a few dark looks hit between her shoulder blades, saw a few locals whispering behind cupped hands.
She’d lived in Hell’s Kitchen when she’d first moved to New York. Then spent a year photographing nature, finding life between sidewalk cracks in South Central LA. Small towns really did do hostility like nowhere else.
After a long, long day, jet lag now tugging at her eyelids, emotions having run the full gamut from euphoria to panic, once the sun set behind her, the half-moon casting a smoky dark blue tinge over the hills beyond, she dragged her feet towards the top end of town.
The shops had all closed. Radiance was tucking itself in for the evening.
As if her footsteps had set off some switch, the street lamps along Laurel Avenue flickered to life. Then a zillion fairy lights—strings of orange, strings of purple, twirled prettily around the trunks of the big old trees lining the avenue—sparkled against the inky backdrop of the twilight sky. It was beautiful. Magical. Oozing small-town charm.
Then, right as she wondered if she’d been going the wrong
way, as her sense of direction was shocking, there it was. Radiance Restorations. And any feelings of magic, and ease, and charm dried up in a snap.
From memory Stan’s old garage had been a third the size, an old wooden building with a single petrol pump out front. Now it had swallowed the plots either side, boasted a huge flat-fronted building, painted matt black, with several big silver roller doors, one of which stood open, and an office door tacked on the side. Five gleaming, retro petrol pumps were lined up along the far end of the neat block. With a handful of fabulous-looking vintage muscle cars tucked along the fence line.
The name of the business was displayed across the entire top of the building, pressed tin in a chunky vintage font, then again down the side of each pump in fluorescent bulbs.
This was no small-town garage. It was the kind of place that made reality TV show producers salivate.
She moved in closer. Pale golden light spilled from the only open garage door. Her heart skittered at the sounds of metal on metal. The shuffle of wheels on concrete. The tinny sound of an old radio.
She suddenly felt nauseous. As if the rest of her life was hinged on the next few minutes. Which, in all honesty, it was. For if Rafe said no, she had no back-up plan.
She knew there were other options, of course. That a refusal wasn’t the end of the road.
But from the moment she first had the idea—sitting in a booth in an old diner in Encino, dried tears making her cheeks feel tight, deciding her recent troubles weren’t a loss so much as a gift, giving her a chance to create the life she truly wanted—it had felt right. As if everything she’d done, everything she’d gone through, had always been leading her back here.
Sable took a deep breath and strode into the garage where she found the husk of an old muscle car with a pair of legs poking out from underneath.
And it took her back so hard, so fast, to the times she’d walked in on Rafe in the exact same position—body hidden under a car, left foot flat to the floor, right foot resting on a heel—she was overcome with flutters in her chest, tingles over her skin, the echo of a soul-deep yearning she’d felt every time she’d seen him.
The scrape of the old rubber wheels broke the silence as Rafe rolled himself out from under the car and Sable held her breath as his long, strong body appeared, an inch at a time.
His belt strained at his hips, his now dirty black Henley clung lovingly to the rises and dips of his broad torso. Most of his dark hair was held back off his face with a tie. His jaw hard, rough-hewn, with just enough abrasive shadow to make her fingers curl into her palms so as not to reach out and touch.
Rafe hauled himself to sitting, his shirt lifting to reveal a hint of rigid stomach muscle, clenching as he moved. His eyes, when they met hers, were dark and full.
The air between them rippled with history and tension and things unsaid.
“Sable,” he said, his voice deep. Ragged.
“Rafe,” she managed. Then—because looking at him too long made her feel as if she might combust on the spot—she glanced around. “I can’t believe how much this place has changed. Care to give me the grand tour?”
He wiped his hands on a dirty rag, pulled himself to standing and said, “There’s cars. Tools. Spare parts. Front office. What you see is what you get.”
She wished.
No. No, she didn’t. She didn’t want what she saw. She wanted...other bits, currently not in view. Nothing more.
She searched frantically for something else to draw her focus lest he see the heat flushing her cheeks. “So, what are you working on here?” she asked, motioning to the car.
With a huff of breath he lifted the bonnet to show a sleek, clean engine, light glinting off the gleaming metal.
She leaned in closer. Their shoulders were a few inches apart but the hair on her arms stood on end, as if even they remembered what it felt like to be close to this man. “Tubes, wires, battery. Everything looks to be in the right place.”
His voice was deeper, grudgingly playful, as he said, “You have no idea what you’re looking at.”
“Sure, I do. That’s what those in the know call an engine. How many afternoons did I spend watching you fix cars? Years and years of afternoons before we became...a thing. I could probably strip this thing down and put it back together. If I wanted to.”
She looked up to find him close. Really close. Those dark eyes of his were too shadowed to read, but the shift of his mouth she saw, its edge kicking up, just a notch, hitting her like a thunderclap.
Sable knew she should look away before she did something stupid, like reach up and run a thumb along the new line at the corner of his mouth. Or grab him by the shirt front and haul him in for a kiss. To break the insane tension. Or simply to remember what it felt like to be held.
And then she did something stupid anyway.
“Fine,” she said. “I wasn’t watching you fix cars. I was just watching you.”
Rafe might have laughed it off. Or told her off for playing with fire. Instead—as if he was also done fighting the urge—his gaze dropped to her mouth.
Giving it the okay to run away from her.
“Something I’ve always wondered,” she said, her voice only a mite above a whisper, “did you know I had a crush on you, all those years before I finally did something about it?”
His gaze slid back to hers. “Yeah,” he rumbled, “I knew.”
The heat in his eyes, no longer banked, no longer coiled, had her heartbeat singing, Danger! Danger!
“Even when you kissed me that night? At the playground?”
He breathed in. Breathed out. Nodded.
“And it still took us another two years after that to actually get together. Wow. That was some admirable restraint I showed.”
“You showed?” he muttered.
But before she had the chance to respond, to push, he motioned for her to move back, and then he shut the bonnet with a metallic crack.
And he stalked over to the industrial sink and washed his hands.
Giving her a chance to breathe. And give herself a good talking-to.
What the heck is wrong with you, kid? You know that flirting with him is counter-productive! Is it the reflections in the oil spills you find overly stimulating? Or the winch chains waving in the breeze?
Next time she tracked him down, she’d do so in daylight. With an audience. And she’d certainly make sure she kept physical distance between them as well. Whatever it took to keep the heat blooming between them at bay.
She couldn’t let herself fall for him again. Even a little bit. Because when she fell, she had a bad habit of becoming who she thought her partner wanted her to be. Surpressing her needs so that they might love her back. A survival skill learned living by the changeable whims of her dearest mother.
That was how things had gone down with The Chef. Even while he’d turned out to be a liar and a cheat, the break-up wasn’t entirely on him. If she’d stood up for herself sooner, if she’d laid claim to her life from the very beginning, things wouldn’t have ended as they had. In all likelihood they’d have ended before they’d even begun.
But the harder truth was, she’d probably been that way with Rafe the first time around too. The only time around, she reminded herself. They’d been so close, she’d not known quite where Rafe ended and she began.
Feet firmly back on the ground, she watched Rafe move about the space. Switching off machinery. Lights. Checking everything was safe. Secure. So self-assured, capable, resilient, sturdy. No wonder she’d been so smitten.
But now those qualities were no longer reasons to want him, but reasons to want her child to be half him.
When he looked over, and the darkness in his eyes made her blood go from normal to full sizzle in half a second, she took a step back.
“I should go,” they both said, at the exact same time.
; Sable laughed, the sound a little strained. While Rafe simply looked at her. Into her.
Then he slowly strode her way.
She held her breath, waiting for his next words. Bracing herself. Readying to battle, if she needed to.
When he surprised her by saying, “I’m meant to be in Sydney right now.”
“Oh?”
He ran a hand up the back of his head, catching on the hair tie and yanking it loose, his curls falling around his face making him look a complete rogue. “There’s a refurbed Pontiac in my Surry Hills shop, owned by a Texan ex-pat who is road-trip-happy. Paid extra to make sure I signed off on the completion, in person. Yet here I am.”
Sable had no idea what to say.
Rafe, on the other hand, wasn’t done. “Later tonight, I’m meant to be on a flight to Dubai where I was to have first eyes on a Mustang GT Cobra Jet, which one of the royals found under a tarp in his father’s other palace.”
Lots to digest there, but Sable found herself stuck on the “Was? Meaning no longer. Because you’re here. You’re here because of me.”
He nodded. But he didn’t look disapproving. Or disappointed. Or stunned and confused as he had back at the fairground that morning.
He looked as if he could hear the whump-whump-whump of the blood pulsing through her. As if he too could taste the sensual tension in the air, above and beyond the tang of oil and steel. He looked as if it was taking every ounce of restraint to hold himself back too.
Then Rafe muttered, “To hell with it,” before he took three long strides, reached a hand around her waist and hauled her close.
Sable’s breath left her in a whoosh. Her thoughts following straight after. Until she was nothing but nerves and heat and a frantic pulse.
Then with a growl that sounded as if it came from the very deepest place inside him, Rafe leaned in and kissed her.
No hesitation. No softness. No finding his way.
He kissed her with a decade’s worth of built-up heat. And anger. And frustration. She felt it all. Every feeling, every drop of heartache, every wave of disbelief.
Sable couldn’t have prepared herself for such a kiss if she’d had a lifetime to try.