Chapter 3
Nolan
She smells like hope.
Hope. Pure and reckless.
I hate it because hope is how you get hurt. Hope is how you wind up believing in things that always, always let you down.
But there she is anyway, standing next to a car that should’ve been scrapped or sold, smiling at me like I’m not already a mile in over my head. She touches the fender as if she’s touching someone she lost.
I’ve seen that look before—grief rebuilt into determination.
Sally.
Hell of a name, considering the car she’s brought me.
Hell of a girl.
Blonde hair. Blue eyes. She looks like a fucking angel fell out of the sky.
Her jeans hug hips I have no business thinking about.
Not this soon. Not like this. The dip of her waist is a haven where a man’s hand could rest easy.
Her generous breasts strain against her shirt.
And that mouth—the way it curves when she smiles—soft, unguarded, and fucking lethal.
My body responds like a traitor. Heat pools in my groin, and pressure builds fast behind my zipper. I grit my teeth, angle my body away, and pretend I’m not seconds from losing every bit of the professional distance I wear like armor.
I force my attention back to the Mustang’s engine bay because that’s something I understand. Metal. Mechanisms. Things that break and can be fixed.
People aren’t like that. People break and stay broken.
“Fuel system first,” I say, grabbing a flashlight. “She’s been sitting for years. Bad gas turns to varnish. Lines gum up. Pump rusts.”
Sally gasps as if I said the word rust about her favorite pet. “Is that… bad?”
My mouth twitches with a reluctant smile. “It’s not ideal.”
She visibly steels herself. “Okay. We can handle not ideal.”
Who’s “we”?
She keeps saying it like she’s part of the equation. Which… maybe she is.
Damn it.
I jerk my chin toward the tool cart. “Socket set. Half-inch drive.”
She stares at me like I just spoke ancient tongues. “The… silver box?”
At least she’s not pretending to know. I hate pretenders.
“Yeah.” I nod. “Silver box.”
She lights up like she just passed the bar exam. “I can do silver box.”
Why does that simple sentence make something warm bloom in my chest?
She brings it over, and I set to work. Muscle memory takes over. The tools are like extensions of my hands as I loosen clamps, pull lines, and valuate.
Her camera sits on a tripod as if it’s waiting for attention.
“So, you film this stuff?” I ask, mostly to fill the silence so I don’t think too hard about the girl breathing beside me. The way she smells. The heat of her body close to mine.
“I’m trying.” She pulls her hair out of her face, leaving a streak of grease across her forehead.
She doesn’t notice. I do. I want to cup her face and savor the softness of her skin as I swipe it away with my thumb.
Get a fucking grip, West.
“…and my subscribers like restoration videos,” Sally is saying. “There’s something… hopeful about a comeback story.”
Her eyes soften as she glances at the Mustang like she sees her grandpa in the dull metal.
She steps closer. “You think she can be a comeback story?”
I know all about comeback stories. Mine didn’t take. But something tightens in my gut as I meet her gaze. “She already is.”
The air shifts. Becomes heavy. Charged. Like the moment before a lightning strike.
She swallows. “Thank you. For saying that.”
I grunt instead of admitting how her gratitude hits me dead center, like a wrench to the sternum.
“Grab the drain pan,” I say, my tone harsher than I intended.
She nods and heads to the corner. When she brings it back, our fingers brush as she hands it over. Just skin. Just a second. But it zaps through me like a damn live wire.
She shivers, but I pretend not to notice. I don’t look at her. Can’t.
I yank off the old filter. Fuel drips like sludge. It smells like a haunted lawnmower.
She scrunches her nose and fans her face. “That’s… strong.”
“Decay usually is.”
When the pan’s in place, I take the first deep breath I’ve inhaled all day. Not because of the fumes—those don’t faze me. Because she’s quiet, watching me like she wants to understand,
not judge.
Most people just want their cars back. They don’t care about the guts of it.
But she cares.
“So…” She clears her throat. “Do you, um… do you like working at Clover Canyon Autos?”
I slide out from under the frame. “I work with my hands. Prefer engines to people. It’s enough.”
“People can be… complicated,” she says gently.
I huff a laugh. “Engines don’t lie. They break, but they tell you how to fix them.”
“Maybe people do too,” she says softly.
I freeze. Because if that’s true… what the hell does that make me?
She crouches beside me, knees knocking the concrete, leaning in to peer at the filter. Her hair brushes my arm. I go rigid. Too close.
She’s all brightness, warmth, and that goddamn hope again. A man could drown in it.
“You okay?” she asks quietly.
Say yes, West. Say yes and get back to work.
Instead, I say, “You don’t know what you’re getting into here.”
“With the car?” Her lips quirk. “Or with you?”
I stop breathing. She does too.
This is not good. This is exactly how things get messy.
I push to my feet, wiping my hands. “Battery’s dead. That’s next.”
She follows slowly, confusion creasing her brow.
I walk to the workbench to grab a voltmeter I don’t actually need, just to put space between us. She studies me like she’s trying to decode the manual to my soul. That’s a manual I burned a long time ago.
“I don’t want to be a problem,” she says.
“You’re not.”
Too quick. Too honest.
Her eyes widen a little at that.
I curse silently.
“What I mean is—” I backtrack like a coward “—this kind of work takes focus. Distraction gets people hurt.”
“You think I’m a distraction?”
I look at her then—really look—and the words die on my tongue.
She is. More than she knows.
“Let’s just get you the help you came for,” I say, turning away.
“Okay.” She nods, but her voice is softer now. Disappointed.
I hate that too.
We work in silence for several minutes. She fetches tools without my asking now. Pays attention. Learns.
The sounds of the shop at night are familiar—metal on metal, the hum of the lights, the occasional drip of oil. But with her here, everything feels… louder. Closer. Charged. Like a fuse has been lit somewhere under my ribs.
When I turn, she’s holding the flashlight wrong. I move to adjust it, and our hands brush again.
Her breath hitches. So does mine.
I should step back. I don’t.
“You need to angle it here.”
She tilts it. “Like that?”
“Yeah.” It comes out hoarse.
Her eyes search my face. “I’m not trying to distract you.”
“You are,” I murmur before my brain catches up. “But it’s not your fault.”
Her lips part. Hope flickers.
I cut that off fast. “We should focus on your car.”
“Right,” she whispers.
But she doesn’t move away.
I’m the one who forces the distance. I turn to the battery, checking connections that don’t need checking to give myself something to do.
“You said this car meant everything to you,” I say after a minute.
She nods. “It’s all I have left of my grandpa.”
“Then we’ll bring it back.” My promise is simple. Certain.
Her eyes shine. Not tears, but something brighter. “Thank you, Nolan.”
Something stirs inside me, something I buried years ago.
I swallow the feeling down like a bolt that’s too big for the thread and hope it doesn’t strip something critical on the way.
“You hungry?” I ask abruptly.
She blinks. “What?”
“It’s past nine. You should eat. Spur and Spoon stays open late.”
She beams. “You’re asking me to dinner?”
“No.” Absolutely not. That would be… dangerous. “It’s food,” I clarify. “Fuel. You need fuel.”
She bites back a smile. “Okay. Fuel.”
But the way she says it makes it sound like more. Like she knows what she’s doing to me.
I grab my truck keys. “We’ll come back, get a baseline diagnostic. Then I’ll make a plan.”
Her smile softens. “A comeback plan.”
“Yeah.” I open the passenger door for her before I think about it. “That.”
She climbs in, her hand brushing mine as she settles. Electricity. Again.
This is just a ride to the diner. Just a meal. Just helping a girl fix her grandpa’s car.
Nothing else.
Right.
I start the engine and grip the wheel like it’s the only thing tethering me to common sense. Because one thing has become very clear…
Hope smells like her.
And I’m already inhaling too fucking deep.