Chapter 4
RAQUEL
The bell over the café door jingled as I pushed inside. The scent of coffee and bacon grease filled the air. I smiled. This place was practically a second home to me at this point.
I came here every morning for coffee on my way to work, seeing the same people sitting at the same cracked vinyl booths. Sometimes, I wondered if the nursing home got them assigned seating here for mornings out, but I’d never asked.
One of the regulars lifted two fingers in greeting over his newspaper. “Morning, Raquel.”
“Morning, Earl.”
“Your brother still owes me twenty bucks,” another one of the older men called.
I laughed. “You and me both, Jones.”
I headed for the counter, smiling at Miley when she looked up from behind the espresso machine. It’d been the best day of my life when she’d started working here, my best friend at my favorite cafe. What could be better?
“Good morning.”
“Morning,” she said happily, sliding a coffee over to Mrs. Collins before getting started on mine without waiting for me to place the order. “I’m glad to see you survived the weekend. I was wondering if I should be worried when I didn’t hear from you.”
“You probably should’ve been.” I chuckled as I dropped into a stool at the counter. “I spent most of the weekend on my ladder or under the sink, but I made it through.”
“Let me guess,” she said, giving me a bland look. “You worked on the house all weekend? Again.”
I shrugged. “The bathroom sink works now and I managed to waterproof part of the roof.”
She sighed and braced her palms on the counter. “Do you know what normal twenty-seven-year-olds do on weekends?”
“Uh, no?”
“They date, Raquel. Normal girls our age date. They do not become homebodies who disappear on a Friday afternoon and only re-emerge on Monday morning.”
I barked out a laugh. “They do if they’ve bought an old horse farm they need to fix up.”
“That’s not an excuse.” Miley rolled her eyes. “You have to stop acting like every man within a hundred-mile radius is a walking restraining order and dive back in.”
“Most of them are walking restraining orders, though,” I said. “Have you seen where we live? There are bad men aplenty and women are few and far between. I’d rather spend my time fixing up the house, thank you very much.”
She leaned against the counter, lowering her voice slightly even though nobody in the café was paying attention to us. “You can’t hide in that house forever.”
“Houses are more reliable than people,” I retorted. “If a wall cracks, there’s a reason. Give me a leaking pipe over a relationship any day.”
“Sometimes, pipes leak in relationships too.” She winked at me. “Just in a way that can lead to a lot more fun than spending a weekend under the sink.”
I laughed. “No, thanks. I don’t need that kind of pipe in my life again. Male attention definitely isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
She let out a heavy, dramatic sigh, giving me look that said she knew I was full of shit. Lifelong friends tended to know stuff like that, but on the other hand, in a town like this, everyone knew everything about everyone else anyway. Lifelong friend or not.
The only difference was that Miley also knew how hard of a hit I’d taken when my ex-fiancée had married my other friend just six months after I’d found out they’d been sleeping together behind my back. The revelation had pretty much destroyed whatever romantic optimism I’d once possessed.
I was good alone. Better off, honestly. At least I know I won’t betray myself the way Hunter and Farrah betrayed me.
The stranger with the motorcycle flickered briefly through my mind, those poison-green eyes, the oil-stained hands, and the weird, calm air of confidence. I immediately shoved the thought aside. Miley could practically read my mind, so?—
“What was that face?” she asked, leaning forward a little across the counter.
Fuck. Too late. I shouldn’t have thought about him at all around her. “What face?”
“That face you just had.” Her eyes widened. “Are you secretly seeing someone? Tell me everything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” Before she could interrogate me further, I stood up.
“Look, I bought an old house on a big piece of land and it’s outside of town.
Just getting supplies is an hour round trip and there’s a lot to be done out there, not only with the house, but maintaining the land as well.
I’m not hiding. I’m not seeing anyone. I’m just renovating. ”
She eyed me for another moment before she grabbed a to-go cup, filled it, snapped on a lid, and shoved it toward me along with a wrapped slice of pie. “It’s cherry and it just came out of the oven. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you, but think about going on a date, okay?”
“I’d rather lick a battery.” I pumped my eyebrows at her, swept my coffee and pie off the counter, and headed out.
I knew she was worried about me, and sure, Fancy Motorcycle Guy was hot, but he was just passing through. There was no point telling her about him. He’d be gone before I even learned his name.
Quartz Pass Autobody was only two blocks away from the café, and as soon as I turned the corner, I knew our dry streak was over. Our parking lot was not the same wide open space as last week. Instead, it was full, and every other thought—Fancy Motorcycle Guy included—vanished from my mind.
Relief spiraled through me, but so did urgency. I parked and climbed out of my truck, pausing for a second to survey the literal damage.
Two wrecked sedans sat near the bays, looking like they’d lost a fight with each other at high speed. Three more vehicles waited near the pumps for oil changes. Someone’s minivan was half up on a jack.
Through the office windows, I could already see people packed into the lobby. It was like the universe had heard me complain about slow days and had decided to humble me. Noise hit me full force as I walked inside, tools clanging and engines revving.
A slow smile slid across my lips. Now this is more like it.
I made my way to the front desk immediately, ready to dive in. I was primarily an engine mechanic, so I wouldn’t be involved in any of the body work, but I’d check in with Avery as soon as I’d cleared out some of the customers in the lobby.
Three small children were crying in overlapping frequencies and a woman waited at the desk, looking as haggard and tired as if she was one small incident away from complete collapse. The man next to her held a toddler who was trying to eat a crayon, seemingly equally close to tears.
My own version of triage completed, I headed directly to them. “Hi there. I’m Raquel. Is that your minivan in Bay Three?”
The man nodded, once again grabbing the crayon from the toddler. “We’re waiting on two new tires to be installed. They blew about thirty miles out of town.”
“Road trip casualties, huh?” I asked sympathetically. “That sucks. I’m sorry that happened. Are you guys hungry?”
The older kids stopped crying and looked at me with hope shimmering in their teary eyes while the parents just sagged in relief.
I smiled. “There’s a cafe just two blocks down the street.
My friend, Miley, just pulled fresh cherry and peach pies out of the oven.
Why don’t you go wait there? Tell her I sent you.
I’ll call you the second your van is done and they’re already working on it. It shouldn’t take long.”
“That would be amazing,” the woman rushed out. “Thank you.”
“Of course. I’ll see you soon.” They left and I turned to the next people in line, quickly making my way through payments and those who still needed to be helped before I finally went to work, jogging straight into the oil, noise, and metal.
Before ten, I’d cleared three oil changes, fixed the AC unit in a truck, helped mount and rotate tires on the minivan, and crawled halfway under the postmaster’s Jeep to fix a brake line leak.
By noon, sweat clung to the back of my neck and I had grease streaked across my arms, but the entire shop smelled like rubber, oil, and hot metal baking in the desert heat, and I loved it.
The radio blasted classic rock while Avery argued with one of the mechanics. “Duct tape is not a solution.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Luis yelled back at him from under the car.
“For six minutes.”
“That’s six more minutes than you had before!”
I walked past, pointing the toolbox I was carrying at Luis. “If I find duct tape on anything that rotates at high speed, I’m legally allowed to fight you.”
“You’d lose.”
“You say that because I’m pretty, but I’m stronger than I look.”
Avery snorted. “No, he says that because you’re little. He could just pick you up and deposit you outside the ring.” I shoved him as I passed and he stumbled into the workbench, cursing under his breath. “That counts as violence in the workplace.”
“It can’t. I’m little, remember? Little people apparently aren’t capable of violence. Aren’t you just going to pick me up and carry me out of the way?”
“Touche.” He chuckled. “Maybe I should let you fight Luis after all.”
I laughed. Working with family would probably drive some people insane, but for us, all it meant was that nobody wasted energy trying to be polite. I got back to work, tightening the cap back onto a container of coolant when I noticed Avery slipping out the back door.
Curious about what he was up to, I followed him out into the dry heat behind the garage. “What’s happening with the Silverado body job that came in from the crash over the weekend? The insurance estimate looked low.”
He glanced over his shoulder, not at all surprised to see me. “They approved supplemental damage this morning?—”
He stopped suddenly, grinning and waving at someone. I followed his line of my sight, my heart skipping when I saw Fancy Motorcycle Guy standing beside an old pressure washer.
“Hey, Theo,” Avery said, going over to shake his hand. “I see you found the pressure washer, and Kit’s old truck.”
My eyes flew wide open when I realized he was right. The old Ford pickup behind Fancy Motorcycle Guy—Theo—was faded blue and familiar, a truck that hadn’t moved in at least ten years.
“Who’s Kit?” Theo asked. “I thought it was Frieda’s.”
Avery barked out a laugh. “It is, but it used to belong to her husband.”
Theo’s eyebrows swept up a little. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Avery said. “Kit died over a decade ago. She parked it behind the motel and wouldn’t let anybody touch it after that. I offered to buy it once.”
“Frieda threatened to bury him in the desert for it,” I offered. “She ran him out of town for a whole summer.”
“I hope she doesn’t do that to me.” Theo grinned and my heart did the weirdest little flutter thing.
Shit, I hope I don’t need a doctor.
Avery chuckled. “Doubt it. You’d be dead already unless she was okay with you using it. What do you need to borrow the pressure washer for?”
“She wants the motel repainted, but I need to wash the exterior first,” he said. “I’m working in exchange for a cheap room while the bike gets fixed, so I guess doing whatever she wants is my job now.”
“Yeah, she’s kind of like the town matriarch,” Avery explained. “No one tells her no, but it looks like you’ve figured that out already.”
“She does drive a pretty hard bargain.” He grinned again as he grabbed the pressure washer and started back toward the truck. “Thanks for this. If I die in service to beige paint, I’ll make sure Frieda knows where to return it.”
Avery nodded, waving goodbye. Theo climbed into the truck and drove off without any fanfare, just going about his day like he’d been around for years.
“Frieda must really like this guy,” he commented as we watched him go. “She wouldn’t even let me touch that truck when I offered to fix it up for her. I wonder how he got it running again. It’s been collecting dust for so long, it was basically scrap metal.”
I nodded, but I was only vaguely aware of what he’d said. Instead, I was just staring at the truck as it turned onto the road, wondering how this out-of-towner nobody had gotten that old thing running again, all by himself, and in less than a week.
Maybe I was too fast to turn him down when he offered to help. It sure looks like he might have a trick or two up his sleeve after all.