Finding You (The Donovans: Sweetbriar Ridge)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Open road.

Windows down.

Some good country music practically blowing out the car stereo.

Life was good.

Devin Maxwell smiled as he drove along the interstate.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, he had taken some time off.

For more than four years, he’d put his own vacation dreams on hold while he built up his business–Sweetbriar Auto Care.

Every day–sometimes ten to twelve hours a day–he spent working on cars and doing his best to earn the trust of the residents of his hometown.

And it had finally paid off.

Business was booming–to the point where he’d been able to hire three mechanics to work beside him–and it felt great.

Rewarding. Word of his work ethic, honesty, and respect for his customers helped word spread like wildfire to surrounding towns.

There were some major changes going on in the small mountain town of Sweetbriar Ridge–tons of construction projects that all started because the old ski resort was being rehabbed and re-opened–and that was bringing a lot of new life to the area.

He almost had more business than he could handle, but he had met the challenge and was reaping the rewards.

And luckily, now he was finally free to breathe a little and relax.

Because damn if he wasn’t exhausted.

That’s why this weekend had been so important–four days of pure relaxation.

His grandparents’ farm just outside of Richmond had been the perfect solution for him, a little R&R while spending time with two of his favorite people.

Devin knew he was guilty of not visiting enough and could still hear the excitement in his grandmother’s voice when he told her of his plans.

And the smile on her face when he arrived told him it was all worth it.

Was it his dream vacation?

No.

Hell, if he could have taken his dream vacation, he’d be sitting on some tropical beach with a drink in his hand and not a care in the world.

And he would have gone away for longer than four days, that’s for sure.

Still, even though it was short, the weekend had been the perfect little getaway. He’d gone fishing with his grandfather, played Scrabble with his grandmother, and eaten some of the best food he’d had in years. He felt well rested, refreshed, and ready to get back to work.

Letting out a long breath, Devin’s mind already started to stray back to business mode.

Tomorrow he had to do some inventory because he knew they were running low on some key parts.

After that, he needed to put in a call to his accountant because he had a few questions about changing up his payroll program.

He told himself this was finally going to be the week he put an ad up to hire someone to man the front desk at the shop–something he’d been avoiding for far too long.

And lastly, he seriously needed to hit the grocery store because after eating his grandmother’s home cooking, there was no way he could go back to frozen meals.

Reaching over, he patted the cooler full of leftovers she’d sent home with him. There was easily a week’s worth of food in there, but he knew he was going to freeze most of it and dole it out to himself slowly to make it last.

Groaning, he raked a hand through his hair as his mind was already making a dozen to-do lists while he tried to figure out how he was going to get everything done.

The main problem was that he was kind of a control freak–but in a good way.

He simply enjoyed helping out with everything that pertained to his business.

Hiring a team of mechanics was supposed to lessen his load, but he was still a hands-on boss who liked to oversee all of their work so that he knew they were up to his standards.

So between being a business owner, mechanic, manager, bookkeeper, receptionist, and in charge of any and all marketing promotions, Devin was spreading himself thin. Hell, it was all-consuming his life and leaving no time to actually have a life outside of the garage.

And…now all the tension was back in his body.

“Awesome,” he muttered.

Clouds were starting to move in and it seemed to be getting dark awful quickly, he thought to himself.

Virginia wasn’t known for any massive amounts of rain this time of year, so he wasn’t worried, but it still put a little damper on his mood.

The sunshine had felt perfect–along with the open windows–but it looked like it wouldn’t be long before the sky was ready to open.

Not the best way to end a relaxing weekend.

With a muttered curse, he rolled up the windows on his Ford F250.

Devin couldn’t help but rub his hand reverently over the dash of the new truck.

It was something he had always wanted, something new of his own that he didn’t have to work on.

That’s not to say he didn’t love his job and his career–he did!

But after having his head bent over an engine all week long, it was nice to know he wouldn’t have to do it on his own vehicle.

Growing up, Devin had envisioned himself owning his own shop and driving some sort of classic muscle car he’d completely restored on his own. What he didn’t realize back then was how much it cost to do something like that and the time and effort you would have to put in to do it right.

So instead of the restoring, he’d put that time and money into making his business something he could be proud of.

But every once in a while, he toyed with the idea of finding that perfect car he could set up in his garage at home and make it into something spectacular.

Hell, at least once a week he found himself online simply searching for that diamond in the rough that he could afford and that he could turn into a pet project or a hobby.

So far, he’d had zero luck in finding anything, but he knew someday he would. And in the meantime, he had more than enough vehicles to work on in his shop.

A slow smile spread across his face because…yeah, owning his own business in his hometown was still a dream, even without his dream car. Life was good.

“And we’ve come full circle,” he murmured as he saw a flash of lightning off in the distance.

Checking the GPS, he saw he still had another hour of driving ahead of him before he was back in Sweetbriar Ridge.

On a clear day, it was a thing of beauty driving up the mountain into town, but with a downpour like this?

Well…it had been a long time since he’d had to do anything like that.

With a weary sigh, he resigned himself to driving the rest of the way home in a storm.

He couldn’t control the weather, so he forced all negative thoughts aside as he exited off the interstate and merged onto the small highway that would take him the rest of the way.

And said a silent prayer that he’d make it there without incident.

“You have got to be kidding me!” MacKenzie Holland’s voice was a near screech as her car started to sputter and smoke billowed out from under the hood. “Seriously? Now?” With no GPS and no way of knowing exactly where she was, panic and hysteria quickly set in.

Carefully, she pulled the car over to the side of the road and cursed her own stupidity.

And yes, calling it stupidity was putting it mildly.

Maybe deciding to pack up your entire life on the spur of the moment–while her cheating, low-life boyfriend tried to explain the naked woman bent over the dining room table–wasn’t the best decision she could have made.

Well, that and forgetting her phone charger and refusing to pick one up at any of the gas stations and convenience stores because she thought she had great battery life.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid .

She’d left everything she couldn’t fit in her car back in that crappy apartment in Syracuse and hit the road with no real destination in mind.

Well, she’d left the apartment, driven as far as Pennsylvania, and stopped for the night at a crappy hotel.

Even after a semi-decent night’s sleep, she hadn’t come up with a plan.

Her mother–who she hadn’t seen or spoken to in years–was last known to be living out in Oregon, so… maybe she’d go there.

Maybe.

That would be a last resort, but considering she was the only family MacKenzie had left, maybe it was where she was supposed to go.

“Ugh…I hate this.” Even if her phone was charged, there wasn’t anyone she could call to come and help her out.

She was in the middle of who knows where and couldn’t even give anyone her location.

“Okay, obviously you can sit here and berate yourself all the livelong day because this car isn’t going any farther and this two-lane highway is fairly deserted. Awesome.”

Maybe a cop car would drive by, or maybe some good Samaritan, but she wasn’t optimistic. She sat on the side of the road for all of five minutes before deciding to get out and pop the hood. Not that it was going to do any good–she had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for.

Or at.

Yeah, maybe she needed to add this to her ever-growing list of things she should have done differently. All the years she’d driven this car, everyone told her she needed to learn more about it. But had she? No.

Still, it seemed productive for her to at least try to see if it was an obvious problem–like a hose hanging out somewhere or some sort of…fluid spewing around.

That was a thing, right?

Still, the longer she looked at the engine, the more obvious it became that none of it made sense and nothing seemed out of place.

Muttering a curse, she walked around to the passenger side door and yanked it open. “Maybe there’s a manual in the glove box that I never noticed…”

There wasn’t.

Slamming the door, she walked back around to the front of the car and stared at the engine hard, as if willing it to tell her what was wrong. Smoke was still lightly billowing and that made her think that it wasn’t safe to try starting it again.

“Someone’s bound to come along eventually…”