Pop The Clutch: A Second Gear Romance

by Kristin Harte

  Was…before he’d left town on a whim. And before I’d come into my own. “I’m a far better mechanic than that man ever was.”

  I realized my mistake the moment Rick grinned. He’d gone in for the low blow but had come up swinging high instead. And I’d totally fallen for it.

  “Then you can handle this job.” Rick reached out and grabbed my hand as I dealt with the fact that my mouth had just written a check my ass—and that bastard known as time—might not be able to cash. “The wife’s at the bowling alley.” He jerked his finger over his shoulder, as if I didn’t know there was a bowling alley fifty yards from my front door. “I’ll leave this here so you can get right at it. Thanks, Easton. You guys are the best.”

  Best, my ass. If he thought we were even close to the best, I wouldn’t have been his last hope. But it was too late to back out of the deal. Unlike the sperm donor linking Rick and me together, I always followed through on my word, which meant my life was about to become one long workday focusing on a vehicle I wouldn’t buy with other people’s money. Wonderful.

  Silently cursing myself for not being more careful with my words, I trudged over the hot asphalt and into the icy coldness of the shop office. There was no air conditioning in the garage, so we kept the office close to freezing to be able to cool off when needed. Bonus was that the cold air seeped into the customer waiting area, so we didn’t need a second AC unit for that. Win-win in my book.

  I wiped the sweat from my brow as I double-checked the weekly log for incoming jobs. Each one represented a chunk of time and needed a spot inside the work area. With only three lifts, one of which was being taken up by a custom muscle car build that wouldn’t be ready for delivery for at least another three weeks, space was at a premium. Every job on that list was a promise, though. Ones I intended to make good on. Ones that needed to run smoothly and stay in a reasonable sense of order.

  I dragged a finger over the notes, calculating time and staff as I went from one job to the next. Hour, three hours, four hours, could be bumped, six hours, overnight… Shit.

  I tapped the note on the log and opened the door to the garage to find one of my two business partners. The more reliable one. “Hey, Brogan. You think you can flip that radiator replacement and body work for Ms. Foster in two days instead of four?”

  Brogan backed away from the Thunderbird he’d been bent over, wiping his hands on a rag and frowning. “Maybe. Depends on what else I’ve got on the books.”

  “That’s what I figured. I was just looking over the schedule, and we’ve got a conflict. I’d like to move her up to this week instead of next to alleviate it. If we work the schedule right and I put in some extra hours, we’ll finish hers just in time to bring in that Mustang engine upgrade we’ve got booked and make an even swap.”

  Brogan shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Fit it in wherever. I’ve got nothing to do this week outside of work. I’ll get it done.”

  He always made my life so much easier. “Great. Thanks.”

  I headed into the office and grabbed the note I’d left myself with Ms. Foster’s information. I’d have killed for that phone number when I was in high school, though not to call Ms. Foster. Her granddaughter, on the other hand…

  The phone barely rang once before she picked up. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ms. Foster. This is Easton over at Second Gear Auto Repair.”

  “Hello, Easton. How are you? Did you and the boys get the cookies I sent over?”

  Yeah, that pulled a grin from me. Ms. Foster made sure we were well taken care of. Especially Colton, the third partner in the shop. I think she had a soft spot for the guy, which was pretty shocking, considering his history with one of her granddaughters. “We sure did. Thank you for sending them.” I was going to have to work out hard for a month to burn off those cookies. Worth it, though. “I’m calling because you’re scheduled to come in for service on your Oldsmobile, and we’ve got a block of time available this week. You think you can bring the car over here on Wednesday so we can start working?”

  “Oh, sure. No problem. It’s not like I have a rip-roaring social schedule or anything.”

  Jackpot. “Great. Thanks for being so accommodating.”

  “Anytime. And you let me know when you want some more cookies. I can have my granddaughter bring them over to the trailer park for you.”

  “I will, and thanks again.”

  When she disconnected, I hung up but fiddled with the phone cord. She said she’d send her granddaughter, which meant Dahlia. Star soccer player, math whiz, and ex-girlfriend to Colton’s twin brother, Wyatt. That relationship hadn’t ended well, and even though it’d been a number of years since they’d dated, Colton still seemed to hold a grudge against the woman who’d almost sidelined his brother’s hockey career. I’d have to make sure he wasn’t around or was at least prepared to face her again. Last time…well, it hadn’t gone well. Those two running into each other never went well.

  Thinking of Dahlia got me wondering about Ms. Foster’s other granddaughter. Violet. Cheerleader, bake-sale champion, and my high school crush. Man, what I wouldn’t give to see her again. To know how she grew up and what sort of person she was. Was she married? Did she have kids yet? Did her hair still hit at just the right length to tease her breasts the way it had when we’d been in school? Did her eyes still light up whenever someone made her laugh?

  Was she still the sweetest, most beautiful girl I’d ever met?

  “Shit.” I rubbed a hand over my face. Violet fucking Foster. I’d been obsessed with her, been completely in love from the time I’d realized girls didn’t have cooties, even though we hadn’t ever really spoken. But at that time, kids from my side of town didn’t mingle with kids like her. All that rich-versus-poor shit that got handed down from generation to generation tended to muck up things like getting the most popular girl in school to go out with you when you were the kid from the trailer park. I’d wanted her, but I’d never acted on it. In high school, she’d gotten a boyfriend, Jace, and I’d gone on with my own life and my own relationships. Until that night in the rain, the first time we’d ever been alone together. After that…

  Well, there’d been the video taken in the bowling alley, inside the same business I could see through the front window of the shop, and it had seemed as if the whole town had flipped its collective wig. By that time, I’d been used to judgment—being from the only trailer park for miles around didn’t exactly lend itself to mingling with the kids of the middle managers at the plant. Two-bedroom houses on wheels couldn’t compete with quaint ranches and colonials or five-bedroom brick minimansions. Especially when you were using a government aid card at the local grocery store to keep your family fed since your father had decided to move on to greener pastures.

  Violet, though, had been one of the good kids. I remembered her as kind and funny, easygoing. Hot as hell in a soft, approachable sort of way too. Everyone had loved her…until the video. She’d gone from everyone’s best friend to the town slut in the space of a sitcom rerun. At least to those who’d supposedly been her friends. That girl had gotten worked over in the rumor mills like nothing I’d ever seen. Why the whole town had made such a big deal out of her doing exactly what every other kid had been doing never did make sense. Neither had why she’d never defended herself. Of course, that was during the darkest time in my life, so I could have missed something along the way. Probably had. Your family falling apart had a way of stealing your attention.

  “What’s happening?” Colton, the artist of the group and the one business partner who sometimes needed to be reminded of what his job was, barged into the office with a bag of chips in hand. I was glad for his presence at that point. I needed to get my mind off the past and back on the job at hand. I had shit to do.

  “Got Ms. Foster’s car coming in this week,” I said.

  Colton nodded, obviously not seeing where I was going with my information. “Cool.”

  “Dahlia might be bringing it.”

  He toss
ed his empty bag in the garbage and wiped his greasy hands on his coveralls. “When is she coming?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Get a time from her if you can, and I’ll take a long lunch.”

  “Good call.” I hopped up and followed him into the garage, into the heart and soul of Second Gear Auto Repair. We had two cars up on lifts and one on the floor with the hood up, all ready to be worked on. All promises to customers that we had to keep. All money to be made if we could just get them running right.

  I headed for the muscle car at the end. That one was the least of my worries, but I needed to finish some prep on the driver’s side quarter panel before closing her up. If I worked double shifts for a few days, I might even be able to finish the body work and get her out for painting. I needed that bay, which meant I was about to have no life outside of the shop. That was okay, though. This place had always been my dream, ever since my dad had let me crawl underneath his old Chevelle and taught me where the oil plug was. I’d do whatever it took to make the shop a success.

  “All right, gentlemen,” I said. “Let’s get to work so we can bring in the next round. These bays are going to be busy for a while.”

  “Turn and burn,” Brogan said. He flipped on the music and turned the volume up loud before ducking under the hood of the Thunderbird he’d been working on all morning. Colton headed for the little hatchback in the middle spot, ready to change out the brakes. I grabbed the parts I needed and dialed in on the job at hand.

  Time to get shit done.

  CHAPTER TWO

  VIOLET

  “I need a favor, honey.”

  “What’s up?” I finished my pencil stroke and looked up from my notebook. Not baking for the past few days had left me antsy, so I’d spent a lot of my time planning instead. Sweets tables, cakes, chocolate collections…my notebook was almost filled already. But doodling icing designs for a fall season of petites fours was better than staring at the television.

  Grandma set the phone on the charger as she walked past. “That was Mary. She’s having computer issues and needs to borrow mine to make a slave of her hard drive, but I have an appointment to get my car looked at. Can you take the car in for me? The shop owner will bring you back home.”

  My heart paused for a second, then sped to an almost painful beat. I’d been at Grandma’s for three days and had so far successfully avoided walking out the door for anything more than mail retrieval or taking out the trash. Apparently, my hermitting time inside was up. I’d agreed to stay for a few weeks while Dahlia was at her yearly work retreat. I’d known I was going to have to leave the house eventually.

  “Sure,” I said, my voice nearly hoarse.

  “Great. I’ll get you the keys.” She hurried into the kitchen, looking far more pleased than I’d have expected over such a simple thing.

  “Where am I taking it?”

  “Second Gear Auto Repair.”

  I drew a blank. “Where’s that?”

  “Over on Van Horn. You know, the business complex right behind the bowling alley?”

  My stomach sank. The bowling alley…Jace’s dad’s bowling alley. Where Jace and I had made out in the black lights after cosmic bowling nights. Where our group of friends had spent so much of their time during and after business hours. Where we’d all felt comfortable just hanging out.

  Where I’d learned a tough lesson about closed-circuit surveillance cameras.

  My throat grew tighter as I mumbled, “I thought that auto shop was Mr. Cooper’s place?”

  “Oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t know. Mr. Cooper sold the business. The new owners seem to be doing a right job of it, and they have a senior discount. I’ve been taking Betsy there for her service calls and repairs for about a year now.”

  The back door opened. Gram’s neighbor, Mary, came walking in without knocking, just as she’d been doing since I was a little girl. She might as well have lived here with us those few years after her husband had left.

  “Oh, hi there, Violet.” Mary hustled into the kitchen, a laptop and knot of cords in her arms and her reading glasses askew. She fit the bumbling professor stereotype to a tee. “I was wondering when I was going to see you. You haven’t stopped over to say hello since you’ve been back.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Michelson.” Her eagle-eyed stare was, as always, harsh and appraising in a way that made me feel like a kid who’d gotten into trouble in her classroom. “Sorry I haven’t stopped by. I’ve been working on menus for a big catering job and trying to organize them into some sort of workable, profitable plan.”

  “I could have helped you with that. I’m pretty good with a spreadsheet and research.” She peered over her glasses right into the most secret places in my brain. Okay, probably not, but it sure felt that way. “I believe you remember that?”

  Remembered… I still had nightmares. Mrs. Michelson had been the high school computer science teacher, one of the most feared teachers in the district. There were no breaks for anyone in her class and no second chances. Scraping by with a B was considered an accomplishment. The other kids had been terrified of her, but she’d been friends with my grandma since the two were the only young mothers on the block. That didn’t mean she hadn’t scared the crap out of Dahlia and me back in high school, but it had been different for us. She wouldn’t just mark our grades lower if we’d screwed up—she’d tell Grandma before we’d even had a chance to walk in the door. But she’d also fought for us when we’d needed her to during those tumultuous teenage years, and she’d stepped in to try to help me when my life had hit the proverbial skids.

  “The internet is forever, Vee. There’s no erase, no way to shred the evidence. You’re going to have to figure out a way to live your life around it.”

  Grandma dragged me away from that particular memory. “Violet’s going to take my car over to Second Gear while you and I figure this issue out.”

  Mary stopped short, the movement harsh. “You are?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, why?”

  Mary ran her eyes down my body and back up before darting a glance at my grandma. “No reason.”

  I had a sudden urge to cover myself, though I didn’t get the chance to.

  “Ignore her,” Grandma said, pushing me toward the door. “Take my car. Someone will bring you home. No rush, though. We’ll be here. Working.” She grinned and turned away, totally focusing on an equally absorbed Mary. Something about computer crashes and data backup companies and the latest game they both wanted to be able to play. Things more their speed than mine, seeing as how I avoided computers as much as possible.

  I left without another look back, trudging through the humidity toward Grandma’s gold sedan. Dark clouds hung heavy above, ominous and threatening, forcing the air to feel even hotter and thicker than earlier in the day. It was going to rain. Scratch that…it was going to storm. I needed to get to this shop, drop off the car, and be back before it started. I hated storms and always had. Storms in the Midwest were unpredictable, dangerous things that could swoop in and destroy everything in their path. Everyone, too.

  I drove hard and fast, nearly going airborne over the train tracks cutting the town in two when I hit them. A five-minute drive took less than three…I considered that a win. Pulling into the lot behind the bowling alley, I immediately spotted the Second Gear Auto Repair logo at the far end of the multi-unit building. I headed toward it, driving along the back of the bowling alley. The shadows had built up between the buildings, the darkness settling into the corners and across the black asphalt. The stretch of driveway felt so much more ominous than it should have. The storm was blowing in faster than I’d expected, bringing a heaviness with it that seemed almost impossible to shake. Same as that day. I’d walked home from the bowling alley as it had poured, as the sky had lit up with lightning bolt after lightning bolt and thunder had shaken the ground. It’d stormed so hard and so fast, in fact, that the streets had flooded. That was what I remembered. Cold, wet, and water everywhere. In my boots, s
oaking my clothes, running down my face and mixing with my tears.

  Refusing to let that memory take hold in my mind, I parked in front of the glass door with the same logo as the overhead sign. Bright and colorful, the place didn’t quite look like an auto repair shop. The windows were filled with swirls of paint advertising oil changes and brake jobs, the logo a modern take on a vintage circle design. Classic but updated, a new twist on an old standard. It was as if an artist had become a mechanic and used the windows to display his talent. And maybe one had. I’d never know if I didn’t get off my butt and actually walk inside.

  You can do this. I took one last deep breath to calm my nerves before stepping out of the car. It was just an errand, a simple, quick transaction that would be over in minutes. I hoped. I clenched my jaw and walked inside, trying to convince myself that whoever ran the place had moved in to town after I’d left. Hell, they probably didn’t even know who Vee Foster was.

  Or Cowgirl.

  Cowgirl Vee. I still hated the name my classmates had given me. That name and the feelings it brought up in me were the reasons I couldn’t let people call me Vee any longer. I wanted nothing tying me to what I’d done, nothing to make people associate that moment with me. I never wanted to be her again.

  “One second,” a deep, male voice called when the bell dinged overhead. I let the door close behind me, welcoming the almost icy chill of the place. Someone liked their air conditioning…and their mineral spirits—the metallic scent of it permeated the air and took me back to mornings spent following Grandma’s second husband around. Of time spent at his side while he’d worked on his car in the garage.

  Posters in the same bright style as the logo covered the walls at rakish angles. Advertising engine rebuilds, custom paint jobs, tires…they were beautiful, and they made the small space seem lively and alive, which really was an odd thing to think about in regard to this type of business.