by Vivian Arend
“You snooze, you lose,” Troy taunted. He ran a hand through his dark hair and grinned wildly. “It was between you and Len, actually, but he got in three minutes before you.”
The joys of working with family. “Fine. Is the truck ready?”
Clay shook his head. “Len went to hook up the trailer. Grab the manifest from Katy, and we’ll get the last of them loaded.”
He winked before turning away, and Mitch lost some of his irritation. It wasn’t a big deal—he’d handle the change in plans. His brothers weren’t that difficult to work with.
In fact, as he took the steps to the office area two at time, his good mood rapidly returned. He paused at the top of the landing to glance back into the work bay. Clay was ushering Troy out one of the oversized garage doors, the rear of the massive trailer moving into sight outside the building. Len joined them, and all three began pointing animatedly around the snow-filled yard at which cars needed to be loaded. Even from his perch, the good-natured banter between them was audible. The kind of noise and confusion only siblings would put up with.
They’d gone through a lot together, him and his family. After losing their mom when Mitch had barely turned sixteen, they’d dealt with whatever life tossed them together, and he was grateful.
The red flames on his wrists and arms were a reminder they didn’t all cope the same way, but overall they’d always been there for each other. There was no doubt about that.
He turned toward the office door, stopping in his tracks to watch through the window. His dad was explaining something to Katy who wore an expression of sheer frustration.
It was another thing they’d get through as a family. The only visible sign that remained of his baby sister’s accident was that her long hair had been shaved to allow for testing, and only a thin layer had regrown since. The lingering nonvisible results were far worse than her buzz cut.
He entered the office.
“You don’t need to do math, Katy. Just put the numbers from the receipt into the boxes, and the program calculates them for you.” Keith Thompson squeezed his daughter’s shoulder. “I can show you again.”
She shook her head and waved him off. “No, you have things to do. I’ll figure it out.”
Keith turned wearily to the door. “If you’re sure.”
“Dad, stop it. I’m good. Get out and let me do my job.” Only Katy’s smile melted far too quickly when their father finally left. She lifted tired eyes to Mitch’s. “If you want anything to do with numbers, I’ll warn you, I might scream.”
“Oh, Katy.” Mitch crossed the room and offered a hug.
She squeezed him gratefully for a moment before pushing him away. A quick wipe at her eyes cleared away the couple of tears that had escaped, and she put on a smile again. “Who knew that I’d have to repeat second-grade math at my age?”
“Stop it,” Mitch soothed. “Accidents happen. You’re doing the best you can, and you’re getting better.”
She shrugged. “Feels a lot like I’m spinning my wheels.” Katy made a face as she rubbed her stomach. “And I think I’m coming down with something, which isn’t helping.”
Mitch sat on the desk and glanced at the mess of papers scattered over the usually pristine surface. “I’m supposed to get the transport manifest from you so I can do the car drop this morning.”
Katy nodded. “It’s here somewhere.” She scrambled through the mess and pulled out a set of papers. “I did them up last night. All the VINs, the bills of sales.” She shoved everything into an oversized envelope. “Oh, wait. There was one more…”
She twirled and dug in a desk drawer. Mitch poured himself a coffee while he waited, filling the largest travel mug in the office. “You need me to pick up anything while I’m in Calgary?” he asked.
Her eyes widened, and this time her smile was real. “Seriously? Would you stop by the craft shop and grab me a package? I ordered it online, but forgot to hit the ‘deliver to residence’ option. It’s sitting at the north Michaels store.”
Mitch shoved the envelope she handed him under his arm so he could use his free hand to ruffle what little had grown back of her hair. “No problem. Give me the receipt.”
It took her another fifteen minutes to track that down, long enough for him to help load the final vehicles on the transport.
“Try not to get pulled over for speeding,” Troy teased.
Mitch resisted mentioning his favourite cop was currently passed out naked in his bed. He hadn’t made a big deal yet about the fact he was dating Anna. Len knew, and maybe Clay, but Troy didn’t always spot what was going on right under his nose. “I’ll ignore that you just tried to give me driving advice. It took you how many attempts to get your learner’s, baby bro?”
“Butt out, butthead.”
Len snickered. “Be thankful he finally passed when he did. Meant we didn’t have to drive him around and watch all his boring football games anymore.”
Mitch left them still taunting each other about some past wrongs.
If one of his coping strategies had been to tattoo reminders into his skin, each of his brothers had taken a different path over the years. Troy had gotten lost in sports. Len had gone quiet, vanishing at times in a rather astonishing way for someone of his size.
Clay? Had gone overprotective.
“You got everything?” Clay stuck his head in the passenger door and started going through the glove box. “Registration and insurance are—”
“—in the same place we’ve always kept them. Stop it. I don’t need two fathers.”
Clay’s frown didn’t fade completely. “Sorry. Just worried.”
Mitch understood his brother’s fears, but no way in hell was he going to take being babied, let alone by someone barely a year older than him. “I’m not going off the road, and no one else is going to get hurt. Relax, you’re driving me crazy. I can only imagine how much you’re pissing Katy off acting like a mother hen.”
“I should have…” Clay backed up and backed down. “Fine. I’ll lay off for now. Say hi to Denis for me.”
Mitch pulled out of the yard, soothed by the power of the enormous car-hauler under his control. He cranked up the music and hit the highway, settling in for the two-hour drive.
His thoughts wandered from Anna, to his family and back to Anna far too quickly. He was growing more certain what he and Anna had was more than explosive chemistry. They fit.
He would take her showing up at his house this morning as a positive sign she was thinking that way about him as well.
Dirty daydreams about her entertained him the entire trip, and he’d bet money there was a foolish grin pasted on his face as he pulled into the craft-shop parking lot to nab Katy’s order. He tossed the box on the passenger seat then drove the final fifteen minutes to the salvage yard they’d worked with for years.
For the first time ever a gate blocked the entrance.
“Bullshit on that.” Mitch laid on the horn. If he dropped the load in the next half an hour, he might be able to sneak home and catch Anna still sleeping. He could think of all sorts of interesting ways to wake her up.
He was pleased to see someone pop out immediately from the nearby Quonset. The man hurried over and pulled the gate aside, gesturing for Mitch to drive around the side of the oversized metal building.
Another man appeared, hands waving rapidly as he directed Mitch in pulling his big rig around the tight corner. “Jeez. I liked the old setup better,” Mitch muttered.
He rolled down the window to give Denis hell, but a man with an unfamiliar face strode to the driver side.
“The changes make it hell to drop off shit. What was wrong with having the delivery doors in the front?” Mitch leaned out the window to eye the torturous back-up job he was going to have to do to get free.
“Yeah, right.” The other guy laughed as if Mitch had told the most hilarious joke. “Drop them in the front yard. Good one.”
Mitch didn’t bother to hide his lack of amusement. “Whe
re’s Denis?”
The guy jerked a thumb toward a small ATCO trailer.
The back of the trailer was already down, the first cars being driven out, hitches in place to drag the dead vehicle carcasses out last. Mitch ignored the sudden buzz of workers swarming the place and carried the envelope Katy had given him into the office.
Conversation cut off completely as he stepped through the door, a half a dozen faces twisted his way. All of them stern and forbidding. He searched the room until he spotted Denis.
“Hey,” Denis called, rapidly stepping forward. “Thompson and Sons. Good to see you again.”
Mitch didn’t waste his breath complaining. Just held out the envelope Katy had prepped. They’d been bringing stock to this yard for years, but his father’s standard offer came out reluctantly—Mitch didn’t like how this entire situation felt. And it wasn’t only that everyone in the office was staring at him as if he were the main event at a circus. “You want us to send an invoice?”
“Cash is fine. Let me—”
An alarm sounded, and the silent crowd vanished, chairs overturned as they shoved past Mitch, or raced out the emergency exit at the back of the trailer.
Denis’s face had gone a pasty white. He ignored Mitch and ducked behind his desk, snatching up a sack and frantically shoving papers off his desk into it.
Mitch’s bad feeling spiked, and he backed toward the main exit. Screw getting their money—
The metal door behind him burst open, slamming into the wall. The order rang out, loud and clear. “Don’t anyone move.”
Uniformed police poured into the office. Through the window more bodies were visible sweeping into the yard and up to the open back doors of the Quonset.
Fuck. Mitch froze, thankful his hands were empty and in the open. “I’m just here dropping off a shipment.”
One of the officers approached him slowly. “Right. That’s a likely story.”
This was going from bad to worse. “I work at Thompson and Sons garage in Rocky Mountain House.” Mitch spoke softly and as calmly as he could under the circumstance. “That’s my truck out there. I was doing a routine parts drop. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
There were two of them beside him now, examining him closely as more men pushed past. A loud shout rang out, and he pivoted in time to see Denis make a break for the backdoor before being tumbled to the ground by his pursuers.
God, this was not going to end well at all.
One of the officers beside him caught hold of his arm, pulling it back. Mitch didn’t resist, but a cringe shook him as cool metal loops closed around one wrist, then the other, pinning his arms behind him. “Looks like I drove into something I didn’t intend to,” Mitch insisted. “On the desk. Transport papers for all the vehicles I brought. Bills of sale—it’s all there, I swear.”
“Don’t move,” the older officer in front of him warned, the nametag on his uniform spelling MACKIE in bold black letters. “Greyson, check out his story.”
“Company name is on the side door of the truck. My name is Mitch Thompson, and I have no idea what’s going on.” Other than his arms already going numb from the awkward position.
Greyson held up the envelope Denis had abandoned. “This one?”
Mitch nodded.
The police pointed at the truck. “Everything in there belong to you?”
“It should. Papers are in the glove box.”
Greyson nodded. “Keep cooperating, and we’ll check out your story.”
He vanished, leaving Mitch in the company of five officers, a couple of whom were systematically emptying desk drawers.
“Sit,” Mackie ordered, pointing at the flimsy plastic reception chairs positioned against the wall.
Mitch sat.
He watched out the window as a large group of officers led a line of cuffed and controlled workers into police cars, the yard filled with neon blue and red flashing lights.
Inside the office, police were now working at computer screens as well as the files. Mitch’s stomach was in his shoes as the activity continued. This wasn’t something small and innocent he’d stumbled into—not with this many police on the case.
Greyson was striding back already, and Mitch’s hopes fell further at the icy expression the man wore.
He stomped through the office entrance and handed the envelope back to Mackie. “Numbers don’t match the ones on the vehicles still in his truck.”
“What?” Mitch snapped. “That’s impossible.”
Greyson turned a cold eye on him and lifted the box Mitch had picked up from the craft store, the flaps on the lid swinging open. “Planning on doing a little Vehicle Identification Number etching, were you, Mr. Thompson?”
Oh fuck. What the hell had Katy bought? “No—I swear there’s been a mistake.”
Mackie shook his head as he grabbed Mitch’s arm and escorted him from the building. “Then we’ll sort it out down at the police station. Right now you’re under arrest for suspicion of involvement with grand theft auto.”
Chapter Seven
MITCH’S EXPRESSION remained stone cold as Anna waited behind the counter for him to be escorted from the holding cell he’d been stewing in for the past three hours.
Anna fought to keep from swaying, pushing aside the lightheaded rush that struck at seeing him in one piece. Her adrenaline count had to be off the charts—wakened from a solid sleep full of dirty sex dreams, she’d jerked on her clothes and hightailed it to Calgary as quickly as possible after Mitch had called.
Fortunately, showing her police identification had given her a chance to talk to the head officer of the raid. Detective Mackie had been more than reasonable, especially once they’d spotted the mix up on numbers between the manifest Mitch had presented and the bills of sale.
It was a mistake that would have been found eventually, but with the sheer number of arrests made that day it would have taken a lot longer to prove Mitch’s innocence if she’d been someone off the street.
“You okay?” she asked Mitch as he joined her.
He dipped his head, but avoided meeting her eyes. “Do I need to do anything before we get the hell out of here?”
Detective Mackie rose from his desk, holding out a thin envelope. Mitch eyed it with suspicion. Anna grabbed the papers as Mackie explained. “Receipt for the items you brought in. I can’t let you back into the yard today—you’ll have to make another trip to pick up your transport. Sorry for the inconvenience, but the teams are working through there nonstop.”
Mitch nodded then pushed past Anna to the exit door without another word.
Anna paused. “Thanks for your help, sir. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and help fix this mistake so quickly.”
Mackie’s gaze lingered on Mitch’s back where he waited by the door, shoulders rigid under his jacket. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need a hand with.”
Mitch had to be watching, because he had the door open as soon as she was within touching distance. Only he didn’t storm through like she expected, instead letting her step past him as he rotated to face the office.
“Detective Mackie?” Mitch called back.
The man looked up from where he’d returned to his paper-strewn desk. “Yes?”
“Thanks.”
That was it. No waiting for a response, Mitch caught hold of her and pushed her before him, out of the building and into the parking lot.
Anna couldn’t blame him for not wanting to stick around. “Come on, I parked over here.”
She linked her fingers through his and tugged him in the right direction. He squeezed once, then let her lead. Silence accompanied their walk.
He grunted in surprise, though, when they turned the corner. “You drove my truck.”
“You had a full tank of gas.” She looked up at him. “I hope that was okay.”
“Damn it, Anna.” Mitch pulled her to a stop beside the driver’s door and hauled her into his arms. The hold he had was less of an embrace
and more as if he were drawing strength from the contact. Anna wove her arms around his waist and clung tightly. Waiting for him to get past the moment. Hoping he’d open up and talk…
Realizing that she wanted more intimacy—she wanted to know what he was feeling inside—and that knowledge turned her heart over in a weird flopping motion.
Mitch exhaled long and hard, his breath heating the side of her cheek. “Thank you for coming and getting me. Thanks for keeping my ass out of jail.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Mitch,” Anna pointed out. “They would have found the proof eventually.”
Mitch opened his door and gave her a hand in. “Eventually might have meant time behind bars, and trust me, I’m not game to repeat that experience ever again in my life.”
He slid in after her and held out his hand.
Anna was in too much shock to understand what he was asking for at first. “Oh, your keys. Right here.”
She dropped them into his palm before examining his face closely.
Mitch’s dark eyes were pinned on hers. “You didn’t know I got arrested once?”
She shook her head. “Too many speeding tickets?”
The side of his mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “I’m surprised you never heard about this. I was hanging out with a bunch of friends during high school, and things went a little too far. Playing chicken with their fathers’ tractors ended badly—we destroyed property and the tractors. Unfortunately, one of the gang had pot in their pockets, so when the RCMP showed up and we all got hauled into the station we had that to deal with on top of it all. I ended up alone in a holding cell all night, and a juvvy arrest that’s since been purged from the records.”
“Wait—” Alone? “Where were the rest of the guys? And weren’t your parents called?”
Mitch nodded even as he got them on the road and headed back north. “All our parents were. The rest of the group got bailed out, including the friend with drugs. Everyone, except me. Mom and Dad came to the station, found out what I’d been up to, then went home.”
