4. Chapter 4
Beau stood in the mess of parts he’d made and closed his eyes. His heart was pounding, and he was breathing hard, a bitter taste in the back of his throat as he shook out his hands. They were shaking.
Later, Merc.
Like that little shit was sent specifically to haunt him, this was the second time in four hours that Beau’s past had slammed into him going full speed.
And now all of his carefully organized parts were scattered across the floor.
His own fool fault. He’d let his temper get the better of him, and now it would be hours before he got the carburetor back in, if he could at all.
With the way the parts had hit the floor when he’d kicked his bench, he was going to be damn lucky if nothing was broken.
He sank to the ground to gather parts. A pin under the left wheel well.
A bolt sitting against his toolbox. A hose had slithered under the car and curled up, and his goddamn leg cramped up on him as he reached for it.
Once he’d snagged it, he sat on his ass right there on the garage floor and pressed his back against a wheel.
Once the floodlights cut, the crickets started up again, screaming into the dark.
And Beau was tired. Bone-deep, soul-sucking tired.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he grunted as he lifted his hips to pull it out only to find an email from his supplier letting him know the shop towel delivery was running late.
Since his phone was out anyway, Beau opened up his search engine and typed in Colton Rourke.
An invasion of privacy, probably, but so far as he was concerned, this was a case of turnabout being fair play.
If the kid could throw Beau’s past at his feet like tacks to be tread on, then Beau could find some of his own.
Not a kid, apparently. Twenty-seven, said an article about his recent arrest, the kind of article that gushed about his tattoos and his smile even as it talked about the danger of what he’d done.
The article mentioned a pedigree that had to be a crock of shit.
Prep school and karting champion? That punk?
Beau rolled his eyes and tried another search, adding ‘kart racing’ to it.
The most recent article was from eleven years ago, and it highlighted the budding career of a young Colton Rourke who had been racing unsponsored since he was eight years old.
There were images of a young boy, unmistakably the same one who had just stormed into his garage, with those same messy curls.
He was holding trophies, sitting on his kart, getting bigger each time Beau found a new article.
There were never any parents with him, but always the same young man.
Standing next to him or holding him on his shoulders.
Ruffling his hair, just a shade or two lighter than the other boy’s but lacking that slight red undertone.
The older boy had one dimple instead of two, and he was listed as Connor Rourke.
Colton’s brother. Looking him up was a mistake.
’Local Man, Connor Rourke 25, Dies in Tragic Accident on Morrow Peak.’
Beau fished and hiked up Morrow Peak all the time, and he recognized the road the article showed photos of.
There had been two cars in a race, his and a girl’s, and they’d been driving down in the dark with no lights.
A deer had run across Connor’s path, and he’d skidded off the road, decimating the guard rail entirely.
The girl lived.
Connor had died on impact.
Finally, there was a picture of the parents.
A severe looking woman with straight hair the same shade as Colton’s, wearing stiletto heels and standing next to a grave next to her husband, whom Colt had gotten his face shape from.
They were local and wealthy enough to have a building named after them at ASU.
Colton was a teen, standing in a fitted suit with no tie at least ten feet from his parents. His arms were crossed, and he was carrying all the grief for the whole family in his face.
Beau turned off his phone.
***
It was five in the morning when Beau pulled up to his shop, his truck tires crunching on the gravel in the employee parking lot.
The sun was reaching up over the horizon already, and when he stepped out of the cab, early-morning heat washed across his face.
He walked through the back entrance and into the lobby, his back pissed all to hell from the hours he’d spent on the garage floor.
Forty-two was too damn old for it, and he’d hardly slept besides.
He’d spent the night haunted by memories he’d worked hard to bury.
Fourteen-year-old Sutton with his wild curls and his wilder smile, standing across from him at a track at four in the morning and raging because Beau wouldn’t let him stop until his times improved.
The only way he’d have gotten through qualifiers in his borrowed kart. He’d wrecked his own.
When he’d finally drifted off last night, Sutton’s carefree laugh had been bleeding into Colton Rourke’s.
He was about to flip on the lights when he caught movement out front.
There was someone sitting on one of his benches, his back pressed against the front window.
The curls were a dead giveaway, peeking out of the skull cap Colton Rourke had on his head.
Beau crept closer. The kid had a thermos in each hand, and he brought the one with a peeling neon design up to his mouth while balancing the shining, pristine one on his knee with two fingers pressed to the lid.
Even after Beau had shot him down so thoroughly, after the kid had left with red eyes and tears in his long lashes. With coffee, apparently—one for Beau, too.
What was he supposed to do with that?
This kid clawed his memories up from their graves, was the ghoul of the worst parts of Beau’s dead best friend. Reckless, stupid, impulsive, with a startling lack of respect for his own life. And for what? The girls? The thrill? It had been both for Sutt.
A delivery truck rumbled up to the curb in front of his shop. It was Tuesday, so that one was Joyce getting a supply delivery. Joyce and her wife had owned the diner next door since before Beau had bought his shop. It was just Joyce now, seventy-two and still running.
Colton turned to listen as Joyce hurried out in one of those puffer jackets that went all the way to her ankles and a bright yellow hat to talk to the driver. The big guy who usually helped bring her delivery to the back didn’t show at the door.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the driver said as he rubbed the back of his neck. His voice was deep and loud enough to carry all the way into the shop. “I would if I could. But it’s a liability, you know.”
Joyce said something back and patted his arm, and the driver ambled up into his truck.
He came out a few seconds later, wheeling the first load of boxes, and Joyce lifted two with a smile.
The usual guy must have called out again.
Beau dropped his keys on the counter and took the last few steps toward the door, but movement outside caught his attention.
Colton had left both thermoses on the bench and was sprinting across the lot to pick up the next box on the pile.
He didn’t insult Joyce by taking either of hers.
Just picked his own up and called after her.
She deliberated, and he stood still as she took in his bright red sweat pants and too-short t-shirt. Then she nodded and turned back toward the door, and he followed with a big grin.
Beau watched the two of them take several loads of boxes before he opened the door and sat himself on the bench.
He plucked up the shining thermos and opened the top, the scent of dark roast curling up into his nose as he took a long drink.
It was black, which was Beau’s preference.
Especially when the roast was good, which it was.
“You ought to come have breakfast in the diner when we're done, dear,” Joyce was saying as she walked out with Colton on her heels.
She picked up a box and handed it to him before grabbing another and stacking it on top.
Colton's knees wobbled briefly before he steadied.
“I make a very nice omelet, you know. Goat cheese and spinach.
You're a strong boy. Bet you need the protein.”
Colton chuckled and waited for her to get a box for herself before following. “That's kind, ma'am, but I kinda have plans.”
Mhmm. Plans like staking out Beau's shop for the foreseeable future, probably.
They took another trip inside, and Xavier’s piece of crap Foxbody rumbled up into employee parking around the back. Two doors shut, and the back door to the shop opened and closed again.
“Morning, boss,” Xavier yawned as he stuck his head out the front. “What’s shakin’? Watching the sunrise? That’s a real old man thing to do.”
“Go inside and start on that Dodge.” Beau crossed one of his arms over his chest and took another drink. The last thing he needed was for these two idiots to see Rourke and lose their minds about it. “Go on, kid.”
“Aye, cap,” James said from behind Xavier. The door shut, and Xavier’s laugh echoed across the lobby.
Colton and Joyce returned thirty seconds after the Xavier left, Colton smiling a charming, dimpled grin as Joyce laughed and patted his shoulder. The driver set down the last load of boxes and tipped his hat at Joyce before driving off.
If there had been a second for him to think about it since Colton had barged into his life, he’d have said the kid probably did sloppy work.
If he worked at all. Beau would have guessed that Colton Rourke was the kind of kid who would rather rush through than do a job well.
He’d have been dead wrong. Colton was polite and thorough, steady.
Patient enough to go at Joyce’s pace. He lifted with his knees and held the boxes at textbook height.
And there was no justification Beau could make.
Rourke had no idea he was being watched, no clue that Beau had breakfast at Joyce's diner three times a week.
No idea that Beau was connected at all. He'd just seen someone who needed help and done it.
The way a good man did, the way a good person did.
Which was annoying. Mostly because Beau wanted to shove him into a neat little box and file him away, and the kid was slipping out of the cracks in that box like grease.
Beau stood and leaned against the doorframe as Colton and Joyce took the last boxes inside.
When they came back out, Joyce tried to hand Colton some cash.
He refused with an easy smile, and she tried to shove it into his pocket.
Colton danced out of reach, put his hands in his hair and smiled at her.
“Thanks, but I was happy to do it.” He let go of his hair, leaving it to stick up all over the place as he pulled his hat out of his pocket and tugged at it. “It was a lonely morning for me, and you were great company.”
“Oh, you are a charmer, aren’t you?” Joyce slung an arm around his neck and kissed him square on the cheek.
Colton was too busy blushing to notice her hand slipping down to tuck the bills into his pocket.
“Don’t let that old grouch over there dim that smile, huh?
You were waiting for him. If you’re looking for a job, he takes a good handmade toffee as a bribe. ”
Colton turned and caught sight of Beau watching them. His eyes flicked to the coffee in Beau’s hand before he fixed that easy smile on Beau. Hesitant, maybe, dimples half as deep as they’d been when he was smiling at Joyce.
Humming, Beau turned around and walked inside. One foot in the lobby, he looked back to see even that half smile slip. But it ratcheted up by ten when Beau kicked the door fully open and left it that way, sipping his coffee as he headed to the front desk.