Hard and Dirty
by Melissa Devenport
♥
Table of Contents:
Chapter 01 - A Yes Man
Chapter 02 - At First Glance
Chapter 03 - No Room At All
Chapter 04 - Hope
Chapter 05 - An Anomaly
Chapter 06 - A Rare Smile
Chapter 07 - A Kiss That Didn’t Happen
Chapter 08 - Butterfly Kisses
Chapter 09 - The First Move
Chapter 10 - Drive Her Away
Chapter 11 - The Last Time
Chapter 12 - Absolutely The Last Time
Chapter 13 - Burning Bright
Chapter 14 - Losing The Fight
Chapter 15 - His Real Name
Chapter 16 - No Attachments
Chapter 17 - Running
Chapter 18 - The Call
Chapter 19 - Truly Matter
Chapter 20 - Capable Of Anything
Chapter 21 - Loss
Chapter 22 - The Interim
Chapter 23 - The Return
Epilogue - You Just Know
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Hard and Dirty
Written by Melissa Devenport
Published by Perfect Harmony Publications
© 2018 Perfect Harmony Publications
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission in writing from the publisher.
Chapter 1
A Yes Man
Carrie
They called her father a yes man. Lawrence Rand knew it, so she knew it. It was just one of the many reasons Carrie, as his daughter, hated going to the garage. In general, people didn’t understand her father, but then again, he wasn’t the kind of guy who talked about his shit past.
She alone knew that he’d been born to a single mother who preferred crack over her son. It wasn’t her fault, he used to insist, on the once in a lifetime occasion the conversation came up. He didn’t blame her. He’d been taken, at two years old by his grandparents, after being found in a playpen where he’d been left in his own squalor, unfed, for days.
His grandma and grandpa were some of the best people in the world. He made sure everyone knew that. Unfortunately, his grandfather passed after a stroke. Lawrence had his grandmother, but only until age sixteen. After she died from a massive heart attack, he was alone. He dropped out of school so the system couldn’t find him. Took off and lived on his own. Got a GED eventually, went to night school, and worked his way up. All the way up, until he was qualified enough to manage that damn garage Carrie hated picking him up from.
Because he was her father, because he’d given her everything in the world, because he’d spent the better part of his life giving her everything he never had, Carrie sucked it up, drove up to the front door, and walked into his office the same way she did every single day, Monday to Friday.
Her dad sat in his usual spot behind his desk. It was after five, since traffic sucked, but he never minded her being late. He clocked out but kept working until she showed. That was her dad. It didn’t matter how many unpaid hours he put in. He’d never say a word to the owners or ask for extra money.
He was a good man. It rubbed her the wrong way that the guys at the garage gave her dad a shit time of it. She knew they called him Mr. Yes. She knew they thought he was greasy because his hair was thin and balding and he used too much hair oil on the few strands. They made fun of the way he dressed, since he never bothered with buying himself anything. He liked the old school brown trousers and the faded white dress shirts. He laundered things himself and he wasn’t good at it, so his shirts were sometimes stained, his pants never ironed the right way. He never let her help, no matter how many times she insisted.
It hurt her that though they weren’t well off, she’d been given everything in the world. And that no one else seemed to notice or appreciate her father since on the outside, he wasn’t anything spectacular.
“Hey, dad. Sorry I’m late.” Carrie glanced down at the small carrier in her hand. “Jennie had a blowout right before I left. It took me a good half an hour to get her changed and then she decided she needed to be fed and then she puked on herself, so I had to change her again and… well- you know how it goes.”
Lawrence nodded slowly. Eyes that everyone else thought were shrewd, assessed her, but his look was always gentle and loving when it was directed her way. She was his angel, his princess. Even if he had to raise her himself, alone. Even if after being given everything in the world, she’d still managed to get herself pregnant at twenty-two, right in the middle of her second year of college. Even if she dropped out and moved back home to have her daughter.
Jennie was the apple of her grandfather’s eye. He doted on that kid. It didn’t matter how many dirty diapers or sleepless nights it took. Her dad should have been over that, well over it, seeing as he did it for her after her mom took off, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he was often the only one who could get Jennie to settle at night or put her down for a nap. As much as Lawrence adored Jennie, Jennie adored him right back.
“That’s alright. How are my girls this afternoon?” Her dad pushed away from his desk and stood slowly. He reached for the brown tweed suit jacket that matched his outdated pants.
“Jennie appears to be happy now. But you know, that’s how it goes for three months old I guess. They don’t care if they keep their mom and grandpa up all night crying.”
“Sounds just about perfect.” Lawrence looked at the little sleeping face in the bucket hanging from Carrie’s hand. She could tell her dad wanted to hold Jennie, but she didn’t dare risk waking the baby up now that she’d finally decided to get a few minutes of sleep.
“Unfortunately the only times she likes to sleep is when we can’t. Like when I’m driving.”
“You should have let me know you didn’t get any sleep today. I wouldn’t have asked you to pick me up. I would have taken a cab.”
“No, it’s alright. I don’t mind. I actually did sneak in a ten-minute nap. And I got a good night sleep the night before last, so that’s holding me through it. I should be used to it by now. It’s been three months.” She paused. “How come no one ever tells you how massively hard it’s going to be to have a baby?”
“Having it is hard enough. It’s the raising that gets to you.”
“Oh. Right. I agree. Although, I would say the actual having is no walk in the park. Every woman should be allowed a nanny for the first months, gratis. It’s really hard when you don’t sleep and you don’t eat. I think it should be a law.”
“I’m sorry, I wish I could be home more-”
“Nope. No way. Don’t apologize for anything. I was just kidding. I feel like I should be allowed a certain amount of complaints seeing as my darling daughter never actually sleeps and prefers screaming the rest of the time. That is, for me. For her grandpa, no way. She’s a little angel.”
“Aren’t all children?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m never having another one.”
“I’m sure one day, when you meet the right person-”
“Heck no. You’re the one who saves me, even after working all day. If you weren’t here, I seriously wouldn’t know what to do. You’re the best, dad, really.”
Her dad blushed violently. He glanced out the window and suddenly his blush turned into the rising scarlet tide of anger. Carrie was well acquainted with how little patience her dad had for the guys at the garage. It made sense, given that they were
pretty much a bunch of clowns. She didn’t like them. Any of them. Even though she hadn’t really met any of them and didn’t actually know any of them, she knew enough from her dad not to like them. It was the same when she was growing up, before she left home. She assumed it was the same while she was gone, since it sure as hell was the same after she got back. They were always swearing and womanizing and on and on. She was so over that. She was over men in general. They were usually just pieces of shit anyway. She couldn’t be bothered to waste her time on people who didn’t deserve it.
“Oh no. Hell no.” Lawrence cast a side long look at her. “Sorry, honey. And Jennie. Good thing she’s sleeping.”
“No shame in saying hell. As far as swearing goes, I wouldn’t really count that one.” If only her dad knew what slipped out of her own mouth sometimes, in moments of sheer frustration. It was a hell of a lot worse than hell.
“Still, I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”
Carrie turned and watched as her dad pushed out the front door and marched across the parking lot towards the bays where the mechanics worked on cars all day. She wasn’t sure how her dad managed to work at a shitty, mundane job and still be stellar at it. God knew if it was her, she wouldn’t care enough to actually try and succeed.
She watched her dad gesture wildly at the guy who was attempting to wheel a bike off a flat deck truck and into one of the bays. She assumed the guy worked there, although she hadn’t seen him before.
That made her pause. When the guy turned around… she really paused.
Her hold on her daughter’s little bucket seat tightened. She knew her knuckles turned white, her grip was that deadlocked around it.
The guy was- god, he was really far away, but man, he was gorgeous. Not in the traditional, Hollywood, model like kind of way. No, this guy was rough around the edges. He had long hair. Like, way too long, halfway down his back, blonde hair. And a huge blonde beard. Lots of tattoos on those bulging, thick as tree trunk arms. His jeans were dirty and stained, but somehow looked just as fabulous as anything designer. He had black steel toed boots on, at least, she guessed they were and it somehow filled out the look.
Carrie strained her eyes, staring unabashedly through the glass. She couldn’t hear anything that was being said, but the guy gestured to his bike and back at the bay. Her dad shook his head and started going on one of his famous rants. She’d been through more than a couple of those when she was a kid. She winced. She nearly felt sorry for the other guy. He turned, just a little, and she realized he had a tattoo on his neck. He raised his hands in some gesture of his own and those were tattooed too.
Holy shit. Is every single inch of him tattooed?
Wondering about tattoos only made her think of bronzed skin and muscles and features as hard as the guy’s face. He had strong features. No, that was an understatement. His jaw was probably rigid under that beard. His cheekbones were high and sharp. His broad forehead gave eyes that were a color she could only guess at, a sharp look. She imagined the rest of him was just as sharp and hard, defined and glorious, as that face.
Why do I always find the worst kind of men attractive? It got her into trouble. She knew she should have stayed away from Cal. She’d tried, but apparently not hard enough.
Carrie thought the thick glass windows would protect her. She thought that maybe the guy wouldn’t be able to see in, or that he wouldn’t notice her.
But he did.
She wasn’t fast enough to tear her eyes away. He stared at her, right above her father’s left shoulder. Green eyes the color of a tropical sea, that strange almost blue, locked with hers. She gasped but couldn’t look down. She couldn’t look up either. She couldn’t look away. Not until the guy blinked once, twice, and finally, mercifully, went back to arguing with her father.
Chapter 2
At First Glance
Sean
Who the hell is that?
Sean Ryan let his manager go on with his tirade about how after-hours work had to be approved by him and himself alone. He let the guy vent his anger, about how bikes were a menace to society, about how guys like him were a menace, a scourge, about how if he had his way, Sean would be long fucking gone. Even better, if he had his way, Sean wouldn’t have been hired in the first place. Guys that showed up out of nowhere with sketchy references but stellar talent- they didn’t exactly deserve a chance.
Finally the tirade seemed to be over. The guy, Rand, took a deep breath that only slightly faded the reddish purple that flooded his face. The sweat stains under his arms were obvious when he waved his arms around and Sean really tried not to look. He knew what the other guys in the garage thought about Lawrence. They hated him. He hadn’t cared one way or the other, but then again, he hadn’t had a problem with the guy until then.
“What’s the issue with me working on my bike after hours? This is my time. These are my tools. Jay and Rone work on their classic cars all the time. Sam brought in his wife’s car two days ago to do the brakes.”
“And they have my prior approval. Those are vehicles. Vehicles! This is a damn bike. There are rules at this garage about things like this.”
“So because my method of transportation happens to be a bike and it broke down and I need a shop to work on it since I don’t have a garage where I’m staying and I happen to work at a garage, have my own tools and my own labor, that’s somehow a major transgression. The bike.”
“Yes. We don’t do bikes at this shop. You know that. There are reasons why.”
“Why is that exactly?”
Rand turned an even darker shade of purple. “You know why!”
Sean slowly crossed his arms over his chest. He was at least four times as broad as Rand and probably a good half a foot taller. The guy wasn’t a shrimp. No, it was just that Sean knew he was that damn imposing. He hadn’t connected with his family in over five years, but that didn’t change the fact his dad lent him a decent set of genetics height wise and his mom contributed to everything else. His two younger brothers all looked like he did. Blonde giants. He’d been told he should try out as an extra for medieval films or those renaissance fairs. Not that that would ever fucking happen, but it was laughable.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.” He kept his cool, just because he knew it infuriated Rand.
“Because… because-” Rand spluttered.
“Because bikers own bikes? Is that why? Because bad people drive bikes? Bad people who have long hair and tattoos?”
“I…” Rand didn’t even bother to look ashamed. “Yes. Because bikes are a menace on the road and the people who drive them are even worse.”
“On the road or in general?”
“You take that damn bike and you load it back on that trailer. That is final.” Rand pointed harshly in the direction of the flat deck.”
“You should pay for my fucking tow then,” Sean insisted. “If you’re going to be irrational, I’ll load up the fucking bike and take it back home, but I’m going straight to the owner and I’m filing a complaint. I’m going to say I’m being harassed because of how I look. I’m going to call you out on your own damn prejudices. I’m going to make you look like a fucking idiot.”
“Do you think I care what you say to the owners? I’ve been here, managing this garage, dealing with cocky little shits like you for well over two decades. You go right ahead and make that complaint. Until I hear otherwise, you load that bike up and you don’t bring it back.”
“I have no other transportation. Are you going to foot the bill for cabs?”
“Walk. Take the damn bus. Use a cab. I don’t actually care. Some of us manage to get around just fine without any vehicle at all. I’ve managed my entire life so you and your prejudiced against fucking ass can manage for a few days until you find somewhere else to get that obnoxious bike fixed. I have no doubt that in no time at all, you’ll be back on the road causing harm and near accidents and splitting ear drums every morning when you pull up.”
“Oh good. I thought you n
ever noticed when any of your staff showed up to work to make this shithole actually function.”
“Shithole or not, that bike isn’t going in my garage. Pack it up. Now.”
Sean was going to offer a few choice words for his piece of shit, greasy, balding, paper pushing, sack of shit manager, when his eyes strayed to the car that was parked on the edge of the parking lot. It was a faded blue station wagon. One of those old import cars that still ran deceptively well even though it looked like a piece of junk. He’d never seen it before.
He realized, then, that Rand must have a ride to and from work every single day. He wished he had a damn chauffeur. Must be nice. Who in their right fucking mind would actually be with a guy like that? Certainly it would be a shock to them all if Rand had a wife he’d been hiding. As far as he knew, and the rest of them knew, the guy flew as solo as they came. It wasn’t hard to see why either.
The car there in the parking lot, that was a real surprise. Curious, Sean’s eyes flew to the office. The glass wasn’t tinted. There, just inside, was the real shock. Sean nearly stumbled back.
The woman was beautiful. Absolutely ethereal. She wore a flowing back dress, since it was hot out. She was slender, petite really. She had long, long, dark hair. Hair that was brown but had those gold strands that caught and held the sunlight. Her face… lord, her face was gorgeous. Heart shaped. Sweet, dark eyes, long lashes, full red lips, a dainty nose and jawline. Her neck was long and slender like the rest of her. He could see something flashing at her earlobes, some kind of earrings.
Her eyes met his and his heart literally stopped beating. It hurt, that skip. It hurt the same way it hurts when you just about rack your bike out in from of a fucking truck and become some kind of goo that had to be scraped off the road.
Those dark orbs held his. She didn’t back down, even though she probably sensed the danger. Any person in their right mind who took one look at him knew something was off.
With a harsh exhale, he tore his eyes away. It just so happened, as his line of sight dropped down, he realized the woman was holding a baby carrier thing. One of those things people carted young babies in around in cars. He didn’t know what the right word was.
Hard and Dirty: Bad Boy MC Romance Page 1