2. Garret
GARRET
The Bentley was someone's retirement dream and someone else's nightmare, and right now, it was mine.
I had wedged myself halfway into the engine bay with a wrench and a timing belt that kept slipping off the tensioner every time I got it close to seated.
The car belonged to a man named Edwin Howell who'd driven it up from Springfield thinking the Grove Hill shop would be cheaper than the dealership.
He wasn't wrong, but cheaper didn't mean easy, and this particular car had clearly been ignored for longer than Howell was willing to admit. It made my job harder to do, and all for the same amount of payment.
I heard the garage side door swing open behind me and didn't bother looking up. "If you're here about the Indian, it's not done," I grumbled, already bracing for that angry twat who kept checking in every day asking about his rebuilt engine.
"I don't own an Indian."
I straightened up fast enough that I caught my shoulder on the hood prop and winced as I spun around. Peter Ducette stood in the shop doorway with his hands in his jacket pockets, with an unhurried scowl on his face and narrow eyes.
I'd seen that look a million times and I knew Peter well enough to know there was trouble brewing.
"Peter." I set the wrench down on the fender on a shop rag I laid there to keep my tools from scratching the paint. "Sorry, thought you were someone else."
"Clearly." He looked around the shop and pursed his lips, then turned back to face me. "How are you, Garret?"
"Can't complain." I wiped my hands on a rag and nodded toward the Bentley as I managed to keep my face from screwing up in a dirty look. My name wasn’t Garret anymore, but try telling that to a man who never had a crooked thought in his life. "Working through a to-do list. You?"
"Same." He moved a little farther into the shop and glanced at the car. He'd always had an eye for engines even if his specialty was smaller work. "What year's that?" His particular drawl was more southern than Midwestern, but it was familiar, like a memory stored away in my mind.
"Ninety-Eight Continental GT. Owner let the timing belt go too long and it's a bear… I've got it mostly figured out." I pulled the rag from my breast pocket on my overalls and wiped the grease from my hands as I looked up at him. "What can I do you for?"
Peter nodded like he was actually interested, which he probably was.
The man could talk engines all day if you let him.
We'd done it plenty of times, back when I was working at his shop and he was teaching me the difference between the kind of mechanical work that pays and the kind that just eats your afternoon.
That was almost seven years ago now. I'd come into Grove Hill with sixty bucks, a duffel bag, and a prospect patch that wasn't worth much yet.
Peter had taken one look at me and put me to work, though he made it clear my colors were not welcome in his shop.
He kept me off the street while I figured out whether the Gravehounds and I were a match.
"Garret," he said quietly, and I winced.
"Crank?" I responded, but Peter ignored my correction.
"I need to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
He looked at me straight with eyes that saw through me. "Were you at the race yesterday?" This man was a human lie detector. Unfortunately for both of us, he'd been around me long enough to know I was horrible at lying, and there was no point in trying.
"I was," I said, already knowing what he'd say. I made a promise a while ago to steer clear of his family, the day I became a full member of my club and Peter decided it was a risk to his family.
Peter had never been a man you could run a line on, and I'd learned that early enough that I wasn't going to embarrass myself trying now, especially when all he did was stare at me with disappointed eyes and pursed, angry lips.
"I wanted to see her run. That's all it was. I kept my distance." My throat worked around the lump there. If he asked me outright if something was going on between me and Sara, I'd have to fess up. I just hoped he wasn't that brazen.
He had no reason to suspect that, as far as I knew, but I never could tell.
My slip up of being seen at the races wasn't the first time, though. I went to watch Danny and Andy race too.
It just never had him showing up to chase me off before. Sara was different.
She was his prized possession, and I understood why every time I took a drink from that well of hers.
"You remember what I asked of you." Peter's stance changed—chest puffing out, hips rocking forward the way stodgy old men stood when they had something to prove.
I did remember, word for word. I'd hated it then, and I hated it now. The Ducettes had been my family for years, and then one day, it was over and I was out. Just like that.
"I remember," I told him.
"Then you know why I'm here."
"I do." I picked the wrench back up, more to have something in my hand than anything else. "It won't happen again."
The thing about Peter Ducette was that he'd been the closest thing I had to a father since I was about fifteen years old and the man who was supposed to be filling that role stopped bothering to show up.
I wasn't going to say that to him—I'd never said it to anyone—but it was true, and it sat in the back of my chest like an unquenched flame.
When he'd walked me out of his life, it was the right call, and I'd always known it.
The Gravehounds weren't a hobby for normal men like Peter, and they weren't safe for his sons or his daughter.
So to feel the weight of breaking this promise I made was crushing. And I wasn't a man who often felt guilt or remorse. But this one got to me.
Mostly because he didn't speak, which seemed to make everything worse.
"I'm not trying to cause problems for you," I said. "Or for her."
"I know that," he said, which somehow made it worse. "That's why I'm asking instead of making noise about it. Sara's worked hard for this. She doesn't need distractions."
His words weren't harsh, but they felt like a kick in the balls. Being reminded of a failure came easier from Fox.
I honestly had no emotional connection to him or any other club member the way I did to the Ducettes.
As seriously as I took my oath to the club, I took my obligation to Peter much more strictly.
Without him, there would be no Gravehounds for me.
"Understood," I said.
He gave one short nod and said, "Take care of yourself, Garret."
"You too, Peter."
He walked out, and I listened to the sound of his truck starting and pulling away, and then I set the wrench down again and sat on my stool and stared at the Bentley's engine bay without seeing it.
I made him that promise three years ago and I meant it.
Those boys were only twenty and twenty-one at the time, and Sara turned eighteen only a week before it.
I fully intended to respect that wish because they were like family, and if Peter wanted his boys to stay far away from the life required by a sworn member of the motorcycle club, I had to honor that.
The problem was Sara.
Not the idea of her—the actual woman.
God, she was addictive and had this sway over me I couldn't shake.
I ran my hand through my hair and tried to forget the way her soft lips felt on mine when I kissed her or the way she moaned my name when I filled her, but who was I kidding?
I was in so deep there was no way out, and lying to Peter felt like my only option.
Because letting Sara down would never be one.
I'd just have to be more careful or something.
Standing to lean over the engine again, I took my frustration out on the Bentley instead of stewing in it.
Peter was a good man, but he sure made one tempting daughter I couldn't stay away from.
It meant skipping the race finals. I knew that, and I'd have to tell Sara. She'd be discouraged, but it was better that way.
She didn't need him breathing down her neck, and if his suspicion went from my presence at her races to my position in her life, we'd be staring down the barrel of a different problem entirely. One I didn't feel like bringing up.
A man my age had no business with a woman that young. She was legal, but her father would have me strung up on a pole in a split second and I knew it.
If it went the other way—Peter expecting me to step up and commit something to her—it would ruin the verbal agreement I'd made with her. We were just having hot sex.
Nothing more.
It was better that way. I didn't need relational baggage and she didn't need the scrutiny that would come with being attached to a club member. Not to mention the risk. I didn't want that for either of us.
I was elbows deep in grease again when footsteps crossed the shop floor behind me, and I heard the distinct sound of someone whispering and giggling.
It was Lightning's voice. I'd have known it in my sleep. I paused my work, realizing he didn't know I was there, and just listened for a minute.
"—been thinking about you since last night, I'll tell you that much."
So he wasn’t on club business, which meant overhearing something wasn't a problem. Unless he cared that I heard his pillow talk, and what would I do with that information?
"That thing you did—" He let out a low laugh, obviously not meant for general company. "Yeah. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about."
I fit the belt over the pulley and held tension on it with my thumb, trying to stay focused on the job.
Tony kept talking, and I caught enough pieces of it to understand that this wasn't a conversation he'd want an audience for. But I was here first. He had to know I was out here working on Mr. Howell’s car.
"Miss you too, Mandy, I?—"
My thumb pinched between the belt and the pulley and I clenched my jaw to keep from cussing as the door swung shut loudly. Then I yelped and tugged it out.
So Lightning had a thing going with Fox's wife?
I stared at the door and the back of his head visible through the small, round window.
He was still talking, and if I had the nerve, I could eavesdrop and give Fox an earful, but I didn't have the energy to care that much.
That man had a nasty attitude and a loud mouth, and he threw fists way too quickly.
If he wanted to horn in on the president's wife, let him.
I had bigger fish to fry.
Like how to tell Sara her dad caught me snooping around the race and I wouldn't be able to make it to the finals now. She was gonna be ticked off, but there wasn’t much I could do. If the old guy found out the truth, it'd be way worse than just a lecture.