Working for the Runaway Bride (Hard Hat Hotties #5)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

GRAYSON

The carburetor spread across my workbench isn’t the problem.

I’ve cleaned it twice, checked the float, adjusted the mixture screws, and inspected every passage with a flashlight. The damn thing is nearly as old as I am, but it’s in good shape. Better shape than the rest of the truck it belongs to, if I’m being honest.

Still, the engine won’t run right.

I lean over the open hood of the faded red Ford and listen to it sputter. The uneven rhythm fills my garage, echoing off concrete floors and corrugated steel walls before the engine finally gives up.

Silence settles around me.

“Yeah,” I mutter, wiping my hands on the rag tucked into the back pocket of my jeans. “I know how you feel.”

Some days, a man can do everything right and still end up stalled. I reach inside the cab to turn off the ignition. My phone starts vibrating somewhere beneath a stack of invoices on my desk.

I let it ring.

Anyone who knows me also knows I don’t answer when I’m working. If the building is on fire, I’ll smell the smoke. Anything less can wait.

The phone stops.

Then it starts again. I straighten and stare across the garage. People who call twice in a row are either selling something or bringing trouble. Since my number is on the national do-not-call list, I’m betting on trouble.

I cross the garage, shifting an unopened box of spark plugs before finding the phone beneath a parts catalog. Carter’s name glows on the screen.

Definitely trouble.

I swipe to answer. “What happened?”

“Nice to hear your voice too, Dad.”

“If you wanted to say hello, you wouldn’t call twice.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.”

He sighs. “Fine. I need a favor.”

I look at the truck sitting dead in the center bay. I’ve owned Gray’s Auto Repair for twenty-six years, and in that time I’ve learned that favors usually cost more than paying customers.

Especially when those favors are for family.

“What kind of favor?”

“Molly’s car needs work.”

I glance at the clock over the office door. It’s ten thirty in the morning, and I already have three vehicles waiting outside. “Then tell her to bring it by.”

“She can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s at work.”

“And she’ll eventually leave work.”

“Not if her car won’t start.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You said it needs work. You didn’t say it was dead.”

“It’s not dead. I don’t think.”

“You don’t think?”

“It’s making a noise.”

I close my eyes. People have been describing car trouble to me as a noise since I opened this place. The noise could be a loose heat shield, a dying alternator, a failing wheel bearing, or a family of squirrels building a condominium under the hood.

“What kind of noise?”

“A bad one.”

“That narrows it down.”

A woman laughs in the background. The sound is soft and breathy, followed by a hurried shush. It pulls my attention away from the grease beneath my fingernails and every repair waiting to be finished.

I lower the phone slightly, then bring it back to my ear. “Who’s that?”

There’s a pause.

“Who’s who?” Carter asks.

“The woman laughing.”

Another silence follows, longer this time.

“It’s none of your business.”

Every muscle in my body tightens. I turn away from the open garage doors and walk into the small office at the back of the shop.

The space is cramped, barely large enough for a desk, two metal filing cabinets, and the coffee machine that has been threatening to die for the last six years. I kick the door shut behind me.

“Is it Molly?”

“None of your business.”

His answer lands like a wrench dropped on concrete.

Carter has always been quick with an excuse, but he’s a terrible liar.

When he was eight, he tried to convince me that our dog had colored on the living room wall with a blue marker.

At fourteen, he swore the cigarettes in his backpack belonged to a friend.

At nineteen, he claimed he didn’t know how my truck had ended up with a dent in the tailgate.

He’s twenty-eight now. Apparently, he still thinks silence counts as innocence.

“It becomes my business when you call me asking for help with your fiancée’s car while some other woman is laughing beside you.”

“You don’t know what you heard.”

“I know exactly what I heard.”

“You always do this.”

“Do what?”

“Assume the worst.”

“I asked a question. You refused to answer it.”

“Because I don’t have to explain every detail of my life to you.”

“No. But Molly might appreciate an explanation.”

“Don’t bring her into this.”

I stare at the framed photograph on the corner of my desk.

It’s an old picture of Carter sitting on my shoulders at a county fair.

He’s six years old, missing both front teeth and holding a wad of blue cotton candy in one hand.

I’m smiling up at him as if carrying that boy is the greatest privilege anyone has ever given me.

At the time, it was. It still should be.

But the man on the other end of the phone doesn’t resemble that little boy. Not in the ways that matter.

“You’re marrying her next week,” I say.

“I know when my wedding is.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Jesus, Dad.”

“Who is she?”

“I told you—”

“That it’s none of my business.” I sink into the chair behind my desk. “Fine. Then handle Molly’s car yourself.”

“I can’t.”

I wait for an explanation. He doesn’t offer one.

“Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“With the woman who isn’t my business?”

“Can you stop?”

“Can you answer a simple question?”

“No, because you’ve already decided I’m doing something wrong.”

“I haven’t decided anything. You’re the one acting guilty.”

“I’m not acting guilty.”

“You’re acting exactly like someone who doesn’t want his fiancée to know where he is.”

The line goes quiet. Through the office window, I see my employee, Luis, walk into the garage carrying a paper bag from the diner down the street. He looks toward my office, sees the expression on my face, and immediately turns around. Smart man.

“Look,” Carter says, lowering his voice. “Molly called me this morning. Her car started shaking on the way to school, and the check-engine light came on. She barely made it into the parking lot. She needs it fixed before the wedding.”

“Then why didn’t she call me?”

“She doesn’t know you.”

“I’ve seen her in your car one of the few times you’ve been over.” I lean back in the chair and look at the ceiling.

“Exactly. She doesn’t know you.” He huffs.

“Give me her number.”

The woman in the background says something too muffled for me to understand. Carter laughs.It’s a low, familiar sound. Careless. Amused.

“Who is that, Carter?”

“Dad, just forget it.” He hangs up.

I keep the phone pressed to my ear for another second before lowering it. I look down at the grease stains on my hands and feel disappointment settle in my chest like a stone. Maybe I tried too hard or I made things too easy. But I know I didn’t raise my son to humiliate a woman who trusts him.

Every instinct I have tells me to drive to wherever my son is and demand an answer face-to-face. But Molly is sitting at an elementary school with a car that may not be safe to drive, less than a week before she’s supposed to walk down the aisle.

I pick up the photograph on my desk, staring at the boy with the wide grin and sticky blue fingers.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask him.

The boy doesn’t answer. Neither does the man he became.

I set the frame facedown. A knock sounds against the office door before Luis pushes it open and leans his head inside.

He’s been working for me for twelve years, long enough to know when to keep his distance and when curiosity is worth the risk.

“Everything good?”

“No.”

He holds up the paper bag. “I brought you a breakfast burrito.”

“It’s almost lunch.”

“That’s why I bought two.”

I point through the office window at the Ford. “I need you to finish checking the fuel delivery on that truck.”

“I thought you said the carburetor was the problem.”

“It isn’t.”

“You sure?”

I give him a look.

He raises both hands. “Fuel delivery. Got it.”

“I have to go pick up a car.”

“We have a tow company for that.”

“It’s Carter’s fiancée.”

“Molly?”

“Yes.”

His eyebrows rise, but he wisely keeps whatever thought he has to himself.

I grab my keys from the desk drawer. “Her check-engine light is on, and the car was shaking. Call Rick and tell him to meet me at Sunnybrook Elementary with the flatbed.”

Luis drops the paper bag onto my desk. “Sunnybrook? That’s across town.”

“I know where it is.”

“Do you?”

I pause at the door.

His mouth twitches. “You got lost going to the dentist last month.”

“The dentist moved.”

“Three years ago.”

“Finish the Ford.”

“Yes, boss.”

I leave before he can say anything else.

The August heat hits the second I step outside. Sunlight flashes off rows of windshields, making the asphalt shimmer beneath my boots. My black pickup is parked beside the garage, and the cab feels like an oven when I climb inside.

I start the engine, turn the air-conditioning as high as it will go, and pull up the school’s address on my phone. Luis is right. I do know where Sunnybrook is… kinda.

It sits on the east side of town in a neighborhood full of old oak trees, narrow streets, and houses painted colors no grown man would willingly choose. Pale yellow. Mint green. One place is purple with blue shutters.

I pass it twice before finding the school. A brick sign stands beside the driveway, decorated with painted sunflowers and a message spelled out in plastic letters.

HAVE A brIGHT AND HAPPY SUMMER!

School started a week early because of snow days that are anticipated this winter. Carter mentioned it right before he spent twenty minutes complaining that Molly was too busy grading end-of-year projects to finalize the seating chart.

At the time, I told him chairs would still work whether his name was written on a card or not. He didn’t find that helpful.