Chapter 2
RAQUEL
When I dropped my purse on the metal workbench, it hit with a dull thud that echoed across the unnatural quiet of the shop. Quartz Pass Autobody & Tire was in a lull, not even the whining of an electrical saw or the telltale buzz of welding in the air.
I glanced around the workshop, usually such a hive of activity but with barely anything in it now. Barely anything, that was, except for the motorcycle sitting in the middle bay.
A motorcycle that definitely didn’t belong in Quartz Pass. Avery, my brother, and two other mechanics were circling it, low whistles escaping from them every so often.
“What is that?” I asked, slowly moving closer.
Avery didn’t look up from where he was bent over the handlebars. “It’s a BMW R80 G/S.”
“Yeah, I got that part.” I joined them next to the bike, blinking hard as I tried to decide if it was real. “Where did it come from?”
One of the mechanics, Marco, wiped his hands on a rag and nodded toward the front office. “We picked it up this morning.”
Avery finally straightened. “The owner broke down in Yuma County last night. Poor guy is probably not getting it back for at least a month.”
I arched an eyebrow at my brother, wondering what the hell had happened to it to land it here, with us.
This thing was one of the original adventure bikes, the granddaddy of the modern GS range, built for long-distance travel and endurance.
It was expensive as shit and rare as hell, especially in such good condition.
My eyes narrowed. “That’s a restored… no, hang on, that’s original. Where the hell did he even find something like this out here?”
Avery shrugged. “Beats me, but he rode it hard enough to cook the engine.”
Marco scoffed down a laugh. “At this point, that bike is basically being held together by hope. If we’re going to try bringing it back to life, we’re talking specialty parts, some of which will have to be ordered, not salvaged, and no one in at least four counties stocks it.”
“Then it should go to Phoenix,” I said. “If we can’t help him here?—”
Avery shook his head before I could even finish the sentence. “Nope. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we haven’t exactly been slammed lately. If we can close this deal, it’s a full rebuild. That should keep us afloat until things start picking up again.”
“Sure, but it’s not going to be slow this week,” I said. “I’ve got four diesel jobs coming in on Friday and I’m going to need help. The bike won’t be a quick turnaround. You said it yourself, it’s a month at least if we’ve got to order the parts.”
“That’s a win,” Avery replied easily. “You’ll have your help. The parts aren’t going to be here by Friday. Hell, we’ll be lucky if they’re here by two Fridays after that.”
“Fucking idiot,” Marco muttered. “Who runs a bike like this into the ground? It’s crazy.”
“Yeah.” Avery snorted, crossing his arms over his chest as his gaze skimmed across the bike. “It’s weird for sure. Guys who buy this kind of thing are usually collector types that are a lot more careful. If they ever take the damn thing out of the garage at all.”
I glanced back at the bike. It was in real good shape generally, but it had a worn-in look about it, like it’d been ridden for miles and miles before the engine had given out.
“This guy probably should’ve left his in the garage, too, but fine.
Take the job if you can get it. We’re not busy enough to send it away without even trying. ”
Before he could respond, I turned on my heels and headed for the office, where I found Dad behind the cluttered desk, hunched over an ancient computer he refused to let us upgrade. He was cursing under his breath and repeatedly hitting the space bar, but the image on the screen didn’t change.
“That won’t work,” I said. “It’s frozen, Daddy. We really need to get you a new one.”
He shook his head. “It works. It’s just taking a minute. The answer to everything in life isn’t to upgrade.”
“It is when the life you’re talking about is tech,” I countered, finally pushing off the doorframe and walking inside. “That stuff has a lifespan and this one is about twenty years past due.”
He glanced up at me, looking more like a crazy professor than a mechanic who hadn’t touched a wrench in at least eighteen months. His shirt was misbuttoned, his white hair sticking up in all directions, and his spectacles askew on his nose.
“You’re cranky today,” he said. “What happened?”
“Boredom.” I shrugged before dropping into the chair across from him. It squeaked under my weight, but it, too, was about twenty years past retirement. “We do have a new bike in the shop, though. Some guy broke down out in Yuma County.”
“So fix it.” He frowned, his features twisting in confusion. “What are you coming to me for?”
“I was thinking of calling Phil Forbes. He does bikes full-time, so he could help us with a proper, specialized rebuild if the customer chooses to do the repair here.”
“He has to do the repair here,” Dad said, still looking vaguely confused. “He’s stuck in town without his bike. That means we’re fixing it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Stuck doesn’t mean what it used to, Daddy. He could have a towing company take it anywhere he wants and they’ll even bring him a rental car to get himself home. Or he could call a friend, a family member, or even just a shuttle service, or a taxi. Should I go on?”
“All that costs money,” he said as if that settled it. “Just start with the quote for the repair work and let him know that we’re his best shot.”
I sighed but left his office, dropping into the rolling chair at the front desk to get started. It spun once as I sat down, slow and lazy, like it’d inherited the town’s personality during the last decade it’d been serving under us.
The road outside shimmered, tumbleweeds bouncing up and down past the main doors. I watched it go, propping my chin into my hand and wishing it was Friday already. It wasn’t normal for the shop to be this quiet.
It should’ve been loud and busy, with tools clanging and engines coughing while Avery shouted at the crew about timelines. Instead, it was just still.
Lulls like this weren’t common for us and I always forgot how much I hated them when I was so busy that I couldn’t see past the oil stains and metal. I really did hate them, though.
Since it was all I could really do right now to pass the time, I kept spinning lightly in the chair, mentally running through my to-do list for the renovations at my house, when I felt a subtle shift in the air.
I looked up immediately, my instincts on high alert. For a second, I thought it was because I’d sensed danger, but instead, I found myself faced with a guy who was standing just inside the doorway, looking like he was from a different world but had accidentally landed in mine.
Just like the bike, he didn’t belong in Quartz Pass. We didn’t build ‘em like this here. Even the most attractive guys in town were a buck short compared to this one.
Maybe a few bucks short.
Dark hair brushed the collar of his fitted T-shirt, framing a face so perfectly sharp and symmetrical that it had to be surgery over genetics. He looked at the world through poison green eyes lined with lashes longer than mine, his shirt stretching across a broad chest and sculpted arms.
Yep. He’s definitely not from here.
I stopped the chair with my heel and tilted my head as I met his gaze. “You’re either lost or you’re the guy who owns the fucked-up bike in my garage.”
A slow smile spread his lips, reaching his eyes and making the corners crinkle. “I might be that guy.”
“Might be?” I repeated, eyebrows arching. “Well, if you don’t want it anymore, you’re welcome to just leave her with us and go. It’s an expensive fix, so if you’re not sure, you should probably just forget about her.”
Those eyes widened and his head started shaking slowly back and forth. “I could never forget about her. She’s mine. I am, in fact, the owner of the fucked-up bike in your garage.”
I nodded, desperately trying to hold back a smile. In my experience, guys who looked like him didn’t usually have a witty or modest bone in their bodies. This one, on the other hand, seemed to have both.
“Alright,” I said, folding my arms and dropping into my spiel before I ended up losing myself in his eyes.
“Here’s your situation. We’re essentially looking at a complete rebuild of several very important components in your engine.
They’re fried, but they’re also not the kind of parts anyone has just got lying around.
We’ll have to order them in and it could take a few weeks for them to get here. ”
He nodded like I’d just told him the weather forecast of a place that only ever gets one season. “Okay. So you meant it when you said it was an expensive fix.”
“I did. You can have her towed to Phoenix if you want. I can arrange it for you, but there will be a fee involved,” I said. “Thing is, you’re going to wait just as long, if not longer, and pay a much steeper price at a brand-name dealership than you will with us.”
He scratched lightly at his jaw. “Can you do it?”
“We can, and we’ve also got a friend who works on that brand specifically. He’s not local, so I’d have to call him in and there’s a fee for that too, but it’ll still be less than you’d pay at the dealership.”
His eyes focused fully on mine. “What kind of deal can you cut me if I just come in and help fix it?”
I blinked hard, then laughed, but he didn’t laugh with me. Instead, he just watched, obviously waiting for a response.
“Oh,” I said, the laughter abruptly cutting off. “You’re serious.”
“I tend to be when it comes to Martha.”
“Martha?”
He tipped his head in the direction of the workshop. “The bike.”
“You call her Martha?”
“It’s a good name. Strong. Classic.” He inhaled a deep breath and cocked an eyebrow. “So, do we have a deal?”
I glanced at his hands. It was an instinct I’d developed as a mechanic. People could fake a lot of things, confidence, competence, and even charm if they tried hard enough, but hands never lied.
His were rough and callused, slightly stained with oil in the creases like it had become part of his skin. Obviously, this wasn’t a man who just watched others fix things. He did it himself when he could, but still.
I didn’t know him and I wasn’t taking on a potential liability. “We’re not hiring right now.”
He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “That’s a damn shame. I’ve been bored lately and I’ve been working on her myself on the road. I might really have been able to help.”
“Sorry,” I said, a tiny little part of me even meaning it. “Does offering your help mean we’ve got a deal?”
He pulled a checkbook out of his jacket without even asking for a ballpark figure, the look on his face no more concerned than if we’d been discussing spare change.
“You’re writing a check,” I said, surprised that someone as young as him—only a year or two older than me at most, if I had to venture a guess—was still carrying around something that old-fashioned. “You know you can pay electronically in this century, right? Like with your phone?”
He shrugged. “I enjoy the suspense of whether I have funds.”
An unexpected laugh bubbled out of me and he tensed at the sound, but then cleared his throat, tore out the check, and handed it over. “Do you have any idea of the shipping timeline?”
“Six weeks,” I said. “It could be a week or two more or less, but that’s a safe estimate. Where do you live?”
After I took the check from him, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his thumbs hooked around the denim. “The motel across town.”
That wasn’t exactly what I’d meant, but I guess my dad had a point. The guy was sticking around in town until his bike was fixed, which meant the motel was a perfectly reasonable—and the only—option if he wasn’t going to head to wherever home was while he waited.
He gave me a small shrug and started turning before he suddenly stopped. “Six weeks, huh?”
I nodded slowly, afraid he was going to change his mind, but not about to let him see that. “Like I said, give or take, but these parts aren’t easy to come by.”
Unless I was very much imagining things, there was a smile ghosting across his lips when he nodded, completed his turn, and strode to the door. He disappeared as quickly and quietly as he’d arrived, and I frowned after him once he was gone.
Odd man. Handsome but odd.
Head shaking, I looked down at the check in my hand and started toward the office, calling out to my brother as I went. “Avery! We got the job. Call Phil. We’re going to need his help on that bike.”