Stone Princess

by Devney Perry

  The last person who’d intimidated me this much had been my father before he’d fallen from grace.

  Wavering under that livid blue gaze, I glanced around the room. My eyes landed on a framed photo tacked to the wall. I leaned closer, taking in the man I knew had been Draven Slater—yet another Google score. His sons, Nick and Dash, stood by his side and beside them were three motorcycles.

  The door behind me opened and my feet came unstuck. I turned as one of the men from the photograph stepped inside.

  Dash cleaned grease from his hands on a red rag. He eyed me from head to toe as I did the same, noting we were about the same height and build.

  “Dash Slater.” I held out my hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Shaw Valance.”

  His handshake was firm, his expression guarded. “What can I do for you, Shaw?”

  “I’m looking to build a bike.” The idea came from the ether and spewed from my mouth.

  “A bike?”

  “That’s right.” I nodded, pretending that I hadn’t just hatched this brainchild. “I heard you’re one of the best.”

  “Sorry. We don’t have openings in the schedule.” Dash crossed his arms over his chest and looked past my shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Presley?”

  “Yep. We’re booked out for two years.”

  Damn. That actually sounded like the truth.

  Their wait list was my way out the door. I’d stopped to introduce myself. I’d offered them business. Neither one of them seemed to want to know anything about my film. So why was I still standing here? Why did I suddenly feel guilty about filming a movie in their town?

  This was good commerce. We’d bring money to this town during production and, afterward, notoriety. Didn’t everyone want that elusive claim to fame?

  No. Not everyone enjoyed the limelight. Not even me.

  I should leave, but once again, I didn’t even glance at the door. Now that the idea was out there, I did want a bike. I wanted to get to know these people who’d only been characters on a page until this point.

  “I should have figured you’d be busy and called sooner. It was a last-minute idea. Sorry. We’ll figure something out for the movie. I’m sure Harley-Davidson will send over something stock for the guy playing your dad to ride. It won’t be as cool as that bike in the picture, but I bet people won’t notice.”

  “Stock?” Dash’s jaw clenched.

  He knew I’d just baited him, and he knew he was going to take it. Because Draven Slater, the man in the picture standing in front of a fifty-thousand-dollar bike, would never have ridden a stock bike.

  Dash would build the bike so his father’s image was as accurate as possible.

  Shelly might not understand the concept of authenticity, but Dash Slater sure as hell did.

  “It’ll cost you,” Dash said.

  “Dash—”

  He held up his hand, silencing Presley’s protest.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Seventy-five grand. Three months. I have design control.”

  In three months, we’d be long gone from Clifton Forge. “Six weeks. Design whatever you want, and I’ll pay ninety for the rush.”

  “Done. Presley will draw up the contract.” Without another word, Dash exited the office and returned to the shop.

  When I turned around, I was met with an icy glare.

  “Please have a seat.” Presley pointed to the chair across from her desk.

  I obeyed. As I sat across from her, the scent of citrus and sweet vanilla wafted over the desk. The smell was inviting, unlike the woman whose eyes were aimed at her computer screen.

  “Name?” she asked.

  “Shaw Valance.”

  “Your legal name.”

  “Shaw. Valance.”

  Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard before punching in my name. She took down my address and phone number, clicking her mouse about one hundred times and never once looking at my face. Then she twisted in her chair to pick up the contract pages fresh from the printer.

  She set them down in front of me along with a pen. “Sign the last page.”

  I scribbled my name.

  Presley slid the sheets from under my hand before the ink had a chance to dry. She signed her own name below mine.

  My lips fought a grin the whole time.

  Who was this woman? When was the last time a single female—I’d checked, there was no ring—hadn’t thrown herself in my direction? Presley was ice and fire with cool blue eyes that blazed with fury. Except every word, every movement, was full of indifference.

  She pretended not to care, but her eyes betrayed her.

  “I’d like a copy of that.” I nodded to the contract.

  “And I’d like a deposit.”

  I shifted to yank my wallet from my back pocket. I pulled out my credit card and tossed it on her desk. “Run it for the full amount.”

  Her eyes flared but only slightly. Not a lot of people could charge nearly one hundred thousand dollars on a credit card, and yeah, it was a gross display of wealth. But her attitude, this apathy, was making me fucking crazy.

  Presley dragged the credit card through the machine beside her computer, giving it back as the receipt printed. She ripped it off with a clean tear, pushing it across the desk for another signature.

  I signed it and stood, walking for the door. I paused at the handle, glancing over my shoulder. I expected to see her eyes snapping up from my ass—that was normally what happened when I walked out of a room. But there was nothing. No look. No glare. Presley’s attention was firmly fixed on her screen.

  Huh. That dented the ego.

  “Goodbye, Presley.”

  She blinked. The mouse she’d been moving froze for two seconds, then she was back to work. Not a damn word . . . because I’d already been dismissed.

  When I returned to the motel, I didn’t stop by to tell Cameron or Shelly that I was back. I went to my room and stared at the ceiling, not thinking about the movie or the murder.

  My mind was fixed on Presley.

  She was different than the women who’d caught my fancy these past few years. They’d all been beautiful, but Presley stood apart. She had strong cheekbones and a pretty chin. I’d been right about the lips. When she wasn’t pursing them tight, they had this perfect, soft swell. She’d caught the bottom one between her teeth as she’d signed the contract and I’d almost reached to set it free. Presley had slight curves because she was a slight woman, which happened to be just my type. And goddamn those eyes.

  She was . . . real.

  I craved real.

  “Damn,” I muttered. I shouldn’t have given Dash design control over that bike.

  Because now I’d have to think up another excuse to visit the Clifton Forge Garage.

  Chapter Three

  Presley

  “What about Leo?” Genevieve asked.

  My face soured. “Ew.”

  “Emmett?”

  I gagged. “Double ew. I just ate. Do you mind?”

  Genevieve laughed. “Sorry. I had to ask. They’re both single and not hard on the eyes.”

  “Yeah, they’re easy to look at, but the idea of kissing them . . .” I shuddered. “No. They’re like annoying older brothers and always have been.”

  When I’d started working at the garage, there’d been no shortage of handsome men to gawk at and drool over. There’d been a couple Tin Gypsies who’d caught my eye, but not Dash, Emmett or Leo. Yes, they were handsome, equally so in their own way. But I’d always seen them as friends—the closest thing I had to older brothers—and nothing more.

  Besides, back then, I’d been too busy figuring out how to survive adult life to dare bring a man into the mix.

  When I’d started at the garage, I’d been a naïve eighteen-year-old girl working her first job and living on her own in a new town. I’d grown up fast because there hadn’t been another option. Despite the smile I’d worn to work every day, I think Draven had suspected I was frazzled and at my wits�
�� end.

  He’d sheltered me from the men in the club those first few months, afraid I’d either break or quit. He’d hired me to take over the office duties because he’d decided to retire. Except retirement hadn’t really been Draven’s style, so he’d cut his hours some but showed up at the garage each day.

  To this day, I wasn’t sure how he’d warned the club members away, but whenever one of the guys would see me in the office, he’d nod politely, then scurry in the opposite direction.

  Draven had been my guardian while Dash had become my champion. Dash had slugged down cup after cup of my shitty coffee, never once complaining. When I’d finally gotten the hang of it, he’d just shrugged and said he’d known I’d figure it out eventually.

  Emmett had worked at the garage then too. He’d come into the office on his lunch breaks and ask me what I was having. After two weeks in a row of watching me cook ramen noodles with a coffee mug in the microwave, he’d accidentally started cooking double the night before. One morning I’d shown up at the garage to find two Tupperware containers sitting side by side in the fridge, both marked with sticky notes. One had my name, the other Emmett’s.

  His hair had been shorter then, and he’d been going through a rough time. Morning after morning I would take him coffee and wince at the dark circles beneath his eyes. On particularly bad days, he’d reek of alcohol and smoke. But no matter how thick the grief, no matter how dark the cloud that threatened to swallow him whole, Emmett had never failed to bring me lunch.

  Until the day I’d figured out how not to burn Hamburger Helper and brought in plastic containers of my own.

  Draven, Dash and Emmett. My protectors. Not that I’d needed them. The one and only time a member of the club had dared hit on me, I’d handled it fine on my own.

  It had been Leo.

  He’d been drunk by five o’clock, which at the time had been Leo’s norm. He hadn’t started working at the garage yet, and to this day, I didn’t know what he’d done for money. I suspected it had something to do with the club—I’d never know.

  Leo had been loitering outside the office, hovering beside my car with an amber beer bottle dangling from his fingertips.

  Presley, right?

  I’d nodded.

  You feel like—burp—goin’ for a ride?

  I’d burst out laughing, doubling over and nearly peeing myself. When I’d recovered, I’d told him to stop by the office the next morning, promising to give him lessons on how to ask a sober woman out on a date.

  Much to my surprise, Leo had stopped by the next day, though not in the morning. Leo didn’t do mornings. He’d come by around noon with sandwiches for us both and another for Emmett. Obnoxious as he was, there was a sweet streak to that man. Someday, I hoped a woman would whip Leo into shape. She’d have a fight on her hands, but it would be worth it.

  A smile tugged at my mouth as I thought of the day we’d get to meet her.

  “What?” Genevieve asked.

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “I was just thinking about the old days.”

  “You’ve worked here for, what, ten years?”

  I nodded. “Ten years in August. A lot has changed since then.”

  “I bet. You were here when the club was still going, weren’t you? What was it like?”

  “Wild. Even from the outside, you could feel the energy and excitement. It scared me a little, though I’d never admit it to Dash or Emmett or Leo. Draven kept me pretty far removed from it all, but I sit here. I can see.” I gestured to the window. “I’d catch glimpses of the guys as they rode into the parking lot. They’d breeze by on their way to the clubhouse, wearing their cuts. There were so many of them. Eventually, I stopped trying to figure out who was who. The only ones I really knew were the guys working in the shop or some of the older ones who’d come in to bullshit.”

  “Were all the mechanics a part of the club?”

  “Yeah. I was the first non-club member to work here. Draven told me that once. Isaiah was the second.”

  “Huh. I didn’t know that.”

  I nodded. “Draven ran everything in the office. He didn’t do much work in the shop by that point. That was Dash and Emmett’s domain, especially after Emmett’s dad, Stone, was killed.”

  “Oh.” She blinked. “I didn’t . . . I don’t know much about Emmett’s family. I’ve only ever heard him talk about his mom.”

  “She’s lovely, and he adores her.”

  “Tell me again why you’d never be interested in dating Emmett?”

  I giggled. “Never gonna happen.”

  “Worth a try.” She took a bite of her sandwich, then lowered her voice. “Emmett’s dad was killed? Was it because of the club?”

  “I think so. No one ever told me the details. I only know that he died shortly before I moved here and Emmett was devastated.”

  The drinking had been obvious. I’d worried there’d been drugs. On more than one occasion, he’d come to work with cuts and bruises on his hands and face that I’d known had come from fighting.

  “He worked it out eventually,” I said. “Leo told me once that Emmett smiled a lot more back then. He was kind of like Dash—he loved working alongside his dad.”

  “I had no idea.” Genevieve’s eyes turned sad.

  “A lot has changed.”

  Genevieve had only spent a year around the garage before she’d gone to law school. When she’d lived here, the Tin Gypsies had been just a memory.

  But I’d seen it all. I’d seen them in their glory. I’d watched on as they’d lost members and hadn’t replaced them. I’d been here the day the bikes had stopped roaring into the parking lot.

  There were still days when I missed the noise.

  I yawned, quickly covering it up and slugging down another gulp of Dr Pepper.

  “Tired?” Genevieve asked.

  “Leo,” I muttered. “The jerk called me at one thirty in the morning last night to pick his drunk ass up from The Betsy.”

  “And you went?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “He’s Leo.”

  “But it’s a no on dating him.” She smirked.

  I giggled. “A firm no. The man’s a child.”

  Genevieve had come into the garage for lunch today. She’d picked up sandwiches for the entire crew to celebrate the end of the week. Since they’d moved back, she’d been working full-time for Jim Thorne, the best lawyer in town. Jim had closed the firm down early, so Genevieve had surprised us with food.

  Except the guys were too busy watching Leo freehand airbrush a hood panel in the paint booth to be disturbed. There was no way I was waiting for those slow asses to show so I could eat my food, so Genevieve and I had started—and finished—without them.

  She’d asked me if I was ready to start dating. I’d surprised us both with my yes.

  I hadn’t dated. Ever. Not once had a man taken me out on a first date to dinner and a movie. Jeremiah and I hadn’t dated, we’d just been . . . together.

  I was almost twenty-eight years old and wanted to be desired. For once in my life, I wanted to be pursued.

  The only problem was no man in Clifton Forge had piqued my interest. Granted, I’d been with Jeremiah, but Clifton Forge wasn’t known for its singles scene. I knew most of the single guys around, had met them when they’d come to the garage with their vehicles, and they were single for a reason.

  The newest single man in town—at least, I assumed he was single—was a movie star, and there was no way I’d ever be sitting across from Shaw Valance in a restaurant.

  Gorgeous as he was, I’d let millions of other women lust after him. It was fitting that he’d played a Greek god not long ago. He had the body for it. With his dark blond hair styled to perfection and those straight white teeth, Shaw had probably melted all the female togas on set.

  I was not interested in melting.

  And the last thing I needed was Hollywood glamour.

  I needed real. Honest. I needed a man with a kind smile, a steady job and humbl
e roots.

  Jeremiah had been that guy, minus the job and the humility. If only the idea of kissing Leo or Emmett didn’t sour my stomach.

  “So . . .” Genevieve glanced over her shoulder toward the shop, making sure we were alone. There was still no sign of Emmett, Leo or Isaiah. Our other two mechanics, Sawyer and Tyler, usually ate their lunch out back at the picnic table, and Dash didn’t work on Fridays. “Has Jeremiah reached out?”

  “Not. A. Word.” I poked the last bite of my turkey sandwich, discarded on its paper wrapper.

  “Asshole.”

  “You said it.”

  I pretended it didn’t hurt that in the six weeks since the wedding, Jeremiah hadn’t reached out once. I pretended that things were better this way. They weren’t, but I was good at pretending.

  I’d been pretending life was peachy since birth.

  “Did you get the landlord thing squared away?” Genevieve asked.

  “For the most part.” I sighed. “I’m trying not to think about how much money I lost.”

  On rent. On the wedding.

  Jeremiah hadn’t offered up a penny because the bride paid for the wedding, right? Or the bride’s parents? As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have parents, so I’d carved a chunk out of my savings to pay for the entire disaster myself.

  The landlord in Ashton hadn’t been pleased when I’d called to cancel my lease. He’d kept my deposit and the first month’s rent I’d prepaid.

  Thankfully, I had my job. I could kiss Dash for refusing to accept my resignation until the wedding was over.

  It wouldn’t take me long to rebuild my savings cushion, especially now that I wasn’t funding Jeremiah’s poker habit. Or his drinking habit. Or his rent and utilities. I wouldn’t be spending hundreds of dollars in gas each month driving back and forth to Ashton each weekend to visit my fiancé.

  Since Jeremiah had joined the Warriors and moved to Ashton, he’d only been back a handful of times. Each time he’d left, I’d noticed all the cash in my wallet had left with him.