11. Riley
Riley
Riley slid the last socket into its slot and reached for the loose wrench beside her tool chest. Fourteen days ago, Graham would have found some excuse to stand beside her bench and force another conversation.
Instead, he had spent two straight weeks hauling leather, scraping machine traps, and taking whatever miserable job Mac assigned him without asking her for a thing.
That was becoming a problem.
She set the wrench with the others and grabbed the screwdriver he had borrowed yesterday.
The weather radio on Mac’s front counter erupted in static.
“Severe thunderstorm warning remains in effect for coastal Silver Creek and surrounding areas. Residents should seek shelter—”
Thunder cracked over the roof.
Every lamp in the shop died.
The compressors gave a final hiss before the production floor went silent. Riley turned from her bench as the orange glow of the bonding stations faded out, leaving only gray storm light through the delivery bays.
“Kill the controls,” Mac called from somewhere near the main line. “Nobody touch a pedal until we know what still has pressure.”
A flashlight beam cut between the presses. Mac came around the nearest machine with his flashlight, already reaching for the emergency-release valve.
Riley swept the loose tools toward the back of her bench. “Make some room. I need the generator tools where I can reach them.”
“Riley.” Mac aimed the flashlight toward the press line. “Forty pairs are sitting in those machines.”
The linemen’s order.
Twenty thousand dollars of custom work.
Without the compressors, the presses could no longer hold the soles under the required pressure while the contact cement cured. Once those bonds set wrong, no clever repair could save them. They would have forty pairs of expensive garbage.
Not happening.
Riley grabbed her wrench set and flashlight. “Tell me what you need checked first.”
“I need power.”
“The generator hasn’t run since winter.” She headed toward the rear doors. “Carburetor floods every time it sits. Give me forty minutes to open it up, clear the fuel, and patch the starter wiring.”
“Forty?”
Wade came off the production aisle with his apron smeared in leather dust and dried cement. He looked from Riley to the dead presses, then crossed to the first release valve.
“Forty minutes is too long,” he said. “Those soles will set before she gets the generator breathing.”
Mac swung the flashlight toward him. “You got another answer?”
Wade pointed across the shop.
The old cast-iron hand presses sat against the far wall, relics Mac refused to scrap because he claimed anything built before his birth deserved respect.
“Pull the jigs,” Wade said. “Move every pair to the hand presses and crank them down ourselves.”
Riley stopped at the rear doorway.
Rain hammered the loading bay outside. Behind her, Mac was already reaching for the first release while Wade cleared a path across the floor.
The generator repair alone wouldn’t save the order in time.
They had to do both.
The old hand presses were their only chance.
Riley tightened her grip on the wrench set and stepped under the rear awning into the storm. Water sheeted across the yard toward the drains, turning the packed dirt at the edges into mud.
An engine cut through the storm.
The Aston Martin rolled into the lot and stopped near the bay. Graham got out into the rain, one hand pulling his jacket closed as he crossed the gravel. He took in the powerless shop, Mac wrestling with a boot jig, and Wade setting up the manual presses.
Riley expected a question.
He gave her none.
“Heard the sirens off the highway,” Graham said as he reached the doorway. “Put me to work.”
Mac pointed toward the production floor without slowing his hands. “If you’re staying, get inside and pull that bay door down enough to keep the floor from flooding. Generator’s down, and I’ve got forty pairs setting in those presses.”
Graham caught the door, dragged it partway shut, then looked toward Wade. “Where do you need me?”
“Gloves are under the bench,” Wade said. “Take the spare pair.”
Graham stripped off his jacket and laid it across the end of the workbench. Water ran from his hair onto his shirt as he crouched, found the gloves, and pulled them on.
Mac hauled another jig free. “I’ll feed the line. Wade takes the near wheel. You take the far side and keep cranking until I call it.”
“Got it.”
That easy answer stopped Riley longer than it should have.
No argument. No insistence that he knew better. No attempt to turn the outage into another excuse to stand in her way. He had walked into a crisis, taken orders, and moved where someone needed him.
Wade braced both hands on the first crank. Graham stepped toward the matching press.
Riley looked from the iron wheel to his shoulders. Two weeks of freight hauling and Grinding Room work had left him sore by the end of each shift. Those old presses did not care how many hits he had taken on the ice.
“Graham, you can’t fight cast iron for that long,” she said. “Your shoulders are going to be wrecked.”
He looked at her across the aisle.
“Then they get wrecked.”
“Don’t be stupid. Wade can—”
“Wade can’t run both sides.” Graham pulled the gloves tighter at his wrists. “You’re the only person here who can get that generator back.”
Thunder rolled over the shop. Mac shoved another jig onto the transfer cart.
“Riley,” Graham said, “go fix it. We’ll buy you the time.”
For one moment, she stayed where she was, tools in hand, rain blowing through the narrowed doorway behind her.
Then Mac called for the next press.
Riley turned toward the generator.
Graham took the far press beside Wade.
Rain swallowed Riley the moment she left the loading bay.
She pulled up her hood and crossed the gravel with the flashlight tucked under one arm and the wrench set in her hand.
Water ran beneath her boots as she reached the generator, set the tools on its metal housing, and aimed the beam at the casing.
The first retaining bolt fought her.
“Come on,” she muttered, resetting the wrench.
It broke loose on the next pull. Riley removed the panel and leaned closer to the carburetor while rain struck the housing above her hands. Gasoline fumes rose from the flooded bowl. Exactly what she expected after months of neglect.
Inside the shop, iron ground against iron.
Mac’s voice carried through the open bay. “Next jig! Get this one across!”
Another screech followed as someone forced one of the old crank wheels around.
Riley kept her attention on the generator. Graham was in the dark beside Wade, leaning his weight into machinery that had been obsolete for years. Thinking about what that much resistance would do to his shoulders would not clear a flooded carburetor.
She loosened the bowl, drained the excess fuel, then wiped the fitting before reseating it. The flashlight slid on the wet casing.
“Stay put.”
A thunder crack rolled over the yard.
The engine remained dead.
Riley moved to the starter housing and yanked the access cover free. Rain washed down the wire bundle before she shielded it with her body and reached for the screwdriver.
Footsteps splashed through the gravel behind her.
“Riley!”
Maisie appeared beneath the edge of the awning, hair plastered against her face.
“You need another light?”
“No. Keep that one aimed here.” Riley pointed toward the starter assembly. “Tell me where they are on the batch.”
Maisie shifted the flashlight. “Last row. Wade and Graham are already on the last row.”
Riley went still, the screwdriver resting against the terminal.
Fourteen days of Graham taking whatever job Mac handed him. Now this. No cameras. No audience. Just a dead production line and a man inside ruining his shoulders to keep her shop from losing twenty thousand dollars.
She turned the screw.
“Engine’s clear,” Riley said over the rain. “If I can get this starter patched, we’re back in business.”
“How long?”
“Ten minutes if these connections cooperate.”
Maisie glanced toward the loading bay as another grinding scrape carried through the rain. “I’ll tell Mac.”
“And make sure Wade and Graham keep pressure on those presses. They cannot let the torque drop.”
“Got it.”
Maisie ran back toward the shop.
Riley picked up the wire stripper and returned to the exposed connection. The manual presses groaned beyond the doors.
Graham was still holding the line.
She bent back over the starter wires.
Riley tightened the final starter screw and tugged the wire once to make sure it held.
Rain struck the generator casing above her hood, running in streams over the metal.
She set the screwdriver beside the wrench set, grabbed the flashlight, and shoved the access panel closed enough to shield the repair.
“Starter’s ready!” she called as she ran for the loading bay.
The shop remained black beyond the reach of her light. Water had blown across the concrete near the open doors, mixing with dust into a slick film. Mac moved between the dead pneumatic line and the old presses, feeding jigs forward while Wade and Graham worked opposite crank wheels.
“Then get to the panel!” Mac shouted. “We’ve got one rig left to move.”
Riley swung the beam toward them.
Graham’s shirt clung to his back, soaked through with sweat and rain. Dust streaked his arms above the gloves. He looked nothing like the man who used to stand under arena lights while a team of assistants carried his bags and sharpened his skates.
The crank wheel fought him anyway.
Wade leaned into the opposite station. “Leave that clamp. I’ll shift it after this one.”
“We’ll lose time.” Graham reached for the clamping rig beside the bench.
“Watch the floor,” Mac warned. “Water’s coming in under that door.”
Graham hoisted the rig from the bench.
His boot slid.
The iron slipped from his grip, scraping off the bench with a brutal shriek and dragging the trapped boot down with it. Graham dropped to one knee and threw himself under the falling weight before it hit the concrete.
“Graham!”
The rig slammed against his chest.