Chapter 2
Sally
I dial the number before I can overthink it. It goes to voicemail.
I leave my number and hang up before I start rambling about ghosts.
Well. I tried. Now what?
Pouting won’t make the engine turn over. Neither will begging the universe or uploading raw footage of me crying into a greasy handkerchief for twelve subscribers named things like carbutt69.
My phone buzzes. Unknown number. My heart catapults into my throat.
I answer. “Hello?” Too chipper. I dial it back. “Uh… hi?”
“Nolan West. I got your message,” a deep voice rumbles through the line. Jesus, he sounds like he eats lug nuts for breakfast.
“Oh, hi. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. As I said—”
“I can look at it,” he cuts across me with pure, unfriendly efficiency. “Tonight, at seven. Be here by then if you want the extra hours.”
7 PM.
Tonight.
“Oh, yes. Absolutely. Thank you.” I try to sound confident rather than like a woman begging a stranger for help to rebuild a car’s entire identity.
He doesn’t respond.
The moment of silence that follows is so thick that I consider refreshing my phone service.
Then:
“Don’t be late.”
He hangs up.
Well. That was… encouraging.
The garage is lit up like a lighthouse when I pull up at 7 PM sharp with the Mustang on a rented trailer behind my Jeep.
Evening air bites at my skin, crisp and clean, while streaks of pink still cling to the darkening sky.
The scent of warmed asphalt and cooling metal clings to the dusk.
Only one other vehicle sits in the lot—a hulking pickup parked near the shop doors.
I steel myself, picturing metal armor surrounding me. I am shiny and impervious and—
The shop door swings open before I reach it.
He fills the frame.
My Popeye vision evaporates faster than Bluto spotting a tin of spinach in a fistfight.
Tall, dark hair, messy curls shoved back hastily.
Blue T-shirt streaked with engine oil like war paint.
Arms—God, the arms—veins and muscle that speak fluent horsepower.
He glistens faintly in the overhead light, a mix of sweat and grease and something inherently male that tightens something low in my belly.
He assesses me like he’s taking apart an engine. “Sally?”
“That’s me,” I squeak. Kill me now.
“Car’s on the trailer?” He walks past me without waiting for a reply. He moves like someone who knows his body takes up space—purposeful, unbothered, all raw heat and cool indifference.
I follow like a duckling.
“It’s my grandpa’s Mustang,” I say. “She’s been sitting a while, but we—”
“How long?” He crouches, flashlight in hand, inspecting the undercarriage even from down here.
I tilt my head, mesmerized by the flex of his shoulder muscles as he moves. “Um… since he passed. Almost five years. Grandpa had to stop working on her when he got sick.” I twist my fingers together, then force myself to stop. “I’ve kept her covered.”
“That’ll help,” he murmurs.
He stands, and the flashlight beam catches his face. Sharp jaw. Shadowed stubble. Dark eyes until the light hits them, highlighting the green flecks mixed in with the brown.
He wipes his hands on a rag. “Keys?”
I hand them over, trying not to look like I’m parting with a sacred relic. Which I am.
He slips into the driver’s seat and tries the ignition. Same whine, same refusal. He listens, eyes narrowed. My heart tap dances.
After a beat, he gets out. “She’ll need a full fuel system flush. Battery’s dying. Starter’s fighting for its life.”
He says it like a doctor delivering a mild diagnosis rather than a cop giving a homicide report.
My lungs start working again.
“So… is she fixable?” I ask.
He looks at me like I just asked if water is wet. “Everything is fixable if it’s worth fixing.”
I feel that sentence settle somewhere deep inside my ribs.
He nods toward the shop. “I’ll tow her in.”
I hover, useless but eager. He backs the truck, hooks the trailer, and maneuvers the Mustang as if she’s weightless, rolling her into the warm glow of the garage.
Inside, the shop smells like metal and heat and every memory I loved as a kid when I chattered away while Grandpa tinkered on this car.
Nolan drops the Mustang into place and turns to me. “Ground rules.”
I straighten like I’m being sworn into the army. “Okay.”
“Don’t touch anything unless I say.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t film me without asking.”
“Okay.”
“No live streams.”
“Yes. I mean, okay.”
“And when I say it’s time to stop, we stop.”
I nod. “I can follow rules.”
He raises an eyebrow as if he doubts that very much.
“And you can… actually help?” I ask tentatively. I’m hopeful but braced for disappointment.
He looks at the Mustang, then at me. “Yeah. I can help.”
The relief hits so hard it’s stupid. Tears threaten, but I blink them back aggressively.
Nolan’s gaze softens a flicker. “We start with diagnostics. Then see how much of the original we can save.”
My chest expands like someone installed a turbocharger in my lungs.
He hands me a set of gloves. “If you’re gonna be here, you work.”
I grin. “Yes, sir.”
His eyes darken at sir in a way that is entirely too distracting.
Focus, Sally. The car. The dream. Not the man built like sin and sexual temptation.
I pull on the gloves. “Where do we start?”
He steps close enough that I smell him—soap and gasoline and a hint of cedar. Jeez, who knew the smell of gasoline could be so sexy? He should bottle it and call it Combustion, with a warning label that says, May Cause Reckless Attraction.
His voice drops to a rumble. “Pop the hood.”
With a snap of metal and a creak of hinges, the Mustang’s heart is laid bare.
Nolan studies the engine, hands braced on the chassis. “She’s a beauty,” he mutters.
“She’s mine,” I whisper, surprising myself with the fierceness in it.
He glances at me. That spark hits me again—the kind that lights wicked things in secret places.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I can tell.”
And for the first time all day… something turns over in the region of my heart.
Something catches fire.
Not the engine.
Not yet.
But me.
Oh, shit.