Torque

by anna snow

  Torque

  By Anna Snow

  Book One of the Full Throttle Series

  Chapter One

  He was a dick.

  A complete, total, egotistical dick, and I wanted to smack him upside his over pomaded head.

  Who in the hell did he think he was, standing there barely acknowledging me through those chocolate brown eyes like he’d rather set me on fire than listen to what I had to say?

  We’d known each other all of our lives, yet there he stood, acting as though I was some spoiled stranger wasting his time.

  “All I’m saying is that Harry would work with me on the price. We had a set price for all of my repairs.”

  He peered at my car, then reached up and rubbed his goatee. “I understand that, but I’m not Harry.”

  “Damn right you’re not.”

  He glowered at me for a mere second, then looked away as though the sight of me repulsed him.

  An action I’d grown used to over the last two years.

  Reaching up and slapping the arrogant expression right off his handsome face didn’t seem such a bad idea at the time, but I controlled myself.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

  “What in the hell do you think it means?”

  “Look,” He put his hands on his hips. “Grandpa’s retired. I run this garage now. You pay what I charge, or you can take your business elsewhere.”

  “Why are you being so damn pigheaded?” I threw my hands in the air.

  “Who are you calling pigheaded?”

  “You!” I pointed at him. “You’ve been pigheaded since we were kids! Why won’t you just honor the price Harry set for me? This isn’t even my drag car. It’s my personal vehicle. I need it before this big winter storm hits or I’ll be stranded at my cabin until the roads clear. There’s no reason for you to charge me so much.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your drag car and I never will. Pay what I asked, or get out and take your shitty truck with you.”

  “That’s what all of this is about, isn’t it?” I mimicked him by putting my hands on my hips. “You’re still pissed off that I’m still racing and you’re not. Well guess what, buddy? That’s not my fault. You quit. I didn’t. So get over it!”

  He moved toward me. “Shut your mouth, Celeste. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Oh, but I did.

  I knew all too well what I was talking about. I knew everything there was to know about Luke Mathews.

  Luke and I had grown up together. Our parents had been best friends until they were in a car accident when I was ten and Luke twelve. After their deaths, his grandfather Harry, took us both in and raised us like we were his own.

  “Keep telling yourself that, Luke.”

  His eyes met mine for the briefest of moments before he caught himself looking at me, and jerked his gaze away.

  “I throw this garage a lot of business, and not only with my drag car. Other racers bring their business here because of me. If I leave, that business goes with me. Can you afford to lose customers?”

  He inched closer to me. His size dwarfed me by at least a foot and more than a hundred pounds. I could feel his agitation pouring off of him, but I wasn’t afraid. I knew that no matter how angry Luke became with me, he would never hurt me.

  It was hard to believe, but we’d been best friends at one time.

  Luke clenched his jaw and peered over my head at something in the distance.

  “I’ll survive.”

  I’d had enough. I needed my truck fixed, and I needed it by the weekend or I was screwed. I was so riled up that my usual level-headed self was nowhere to be found. Luke had a way of doing that to me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone.

  “Who in the hell are you calling?”

  “Harry. I’ve had enough of your bull.” I started to dial Harry’s home number.

  “You’re not calling Harry.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who’s going to stop me?”

  I knew it was a bad idea before I even pulled the phone from my pocket, but Luke was the one person who could make me lose control, who could make me lose my head so completely, that I reverted to childish behavior.

  He lunged forward and tried to take the phone out of my hands.

  I twisted in his hold. My back was now pressed against his chest while he reached around me still trying to take the phone.

  We looked like two eight year olds fighting over a ball on the playground.

  It was pathetic.

  Apparently the whole spectacle was hilarious. The other eight mechanics in the garage gathered around the trunk of a car, their arms crossed over their chests, and grins spread across their faces. They were used to mine and Luke’s disagreements, had been witness to them for over eighteen years.

  Luke and I worked our way through the shop and were struggling just outside the large, rolling doors of the garage.

  “Give me the damn phone, Celeste!”

  “No! I’m telling Harry!”

  I’m telling? Did I really just say “I’m telling?” Could I be anymore childish? Probably not, but I was mad, and Luke wasn’t helping matters any with his attitude. Besides, this was how we’d always solved our problems growing up.

  The only difference now was that we were no longer children. We were supposed to be responsible adults.

  Supposed to be.

  But the minute you put the two of us in a room together it took mere seconds before we were snapping at each other, or worse, wrestling around like spoiled children.

  “Stop being a baby, Celeste.”

  “Screw you, Luke!”

  “Enough!”

  We froze in place. His arms were still around my waist, hands gripping my wrists. My back was pressed firmly against his chest. My ass against his crotch.

  “What in the holy hell is going on here?”

  Luke released me, and stepped back. I stood up straight and pocketed my phone.

  “We were just having a little disagreement.” I motioned between Luke and myself.

  “I can see that.”

  Harry walked out of the garage.

  His long life of working hard, raising a son, and then his grandson and me, had finally caught up with him. He walked with a slight hunch and a bit of a limp. What hair he had left was now snow white. The years had lined his face. But beneath the aging exterior, I still saw the same vibrant, intelligent man who had taken me in and loved me, faults and all, and raised me to be the best person I could possibly be, all those years ago.

  “You two are never going to grow up, are you? You just don’t see it, do you?” He looked pointedly at me as he approached. His blue overalls hung a bit baggy on his once robust frame.

  “See what?” I asked.

  Luke continued to stare off into the distance.

  “Never mind. You’ll see it eventually.” Harry waved away my question. “What are you two fighting about now?”

  “She doesn’t want to pay what I quoted her.” Luke grumbled.

  “He’s trying to overcharge me.” I defended.

  Harry held up a hand to stop our argument from revving up once again.

  “Here’s the deal.” He frowned at us. “Luke is running this garage now. What he says, goes.”

  “Ha!” Luke pointed at me.

  “But,” He interrupted Luke’s celebration. “Celeste is family. If I had my way she wouldn’t pay a dime, but she insists on paying her way. That’s why I set a certain price for all of her repairs. She also brings a lot of business into this shop with her drag car and the other racers who follow her in here. That’s business that we can’t afford to lose, so I suggest you honor our agreement and let her pay her set rate, or run the risk of losing business.”

  Luke ran both hand
s through his hair, and then planted them on his hips.

  “Fine.”

  I grinned.

  “And you,” Harry pointed at me. “Really, Celeste? You were going to tattle on Luke? How old are you again?”

  “He ticked me off. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” I couldn’t help but smile now that I thought about my comment and how Harry had found us. Jesus, we really were a couple of overgrown children.

  I wished I could repair the rift that had grown between Luke and myself, but I didn’t know how. I wasn’t even sure what that rift was all about.

  “Clearly.” He chuckled. “You two need to get over whatever this is that’s lodged itself so firmly between you. When I’m gone, you’re all each other will have left in this world.”

  Luke and I shared a quick glance.

  Harry limped forward and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then clapped Luke on the back.

  “Now, get back to business. I only came in to see how things were going because I was bored at home. I’m glad I did. If I hadn’t you two would be rolling around in the middle of the street right about now, and I’m pretty certain that the last thing you want is the cops finding you two acting like babies.” He waved and made his way back into the garage and out of sight.

  Luke blew out a frustrated breath, and then once again shoved his fingers through his hair.

  An action he’d done all of the years that I’d known him.

  “I’ll have your truck finished before the weekend.”

  “Thank you. Will you call and let me know when it’s finished? I’ll have someone bring me to pick it up.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  What in the hell did he care whether or not I had a boyfriend?

  Nosey much?

  “Um, no. I don’t have one.” I cocked a brow. “I was thinking about calling a cab, like a normal person.”

  He gave me a curt nod and peered into the shop.

  He refused to look at me.

  Two years into our racing career Luke married some bubble-breasted blonde who was obviously only interested in his money and popularity.

  I’d caught Luke’s wife, Lucy, and our friend Jesse, in the storeroom of the garage a year after their wedding.

  I’d tried to tell Luke.

  He broke my heart when he believed her over me.

  She broke his when he found her in their bed with Jesse a week later.

  After their divorce, Luke stopped racing, sold his car, and started working in his grandfather’s garage.

  He also started keeping his distance, and his gaze, from me.

  “I’ll call you. Do you need a ride home?” He asked.

  “No, I called a cab before I got here. It should be here any minute.”

  As if on cue, a yellow cab pulled up and honked.

  He nodded in my general direction, then walked away.

  I watched him as he strode into the shop, tension radiated from him with his every step.

  What in the hell had happened to us? Once inseparable, now unable to even look each other in the eye.

  Two years of this tension. I wasn’t sure I could take much more.

  The cab honked again. I hurried to it, slid inside, and gave the cabbie the directions to my home.

  Fighting with Luke always left me feeling sad and alone, which left me wondering why this time I felt different.

  Why, this time I was…turned on.

  Chapter Two

  It was Friday evening, the storm had hit, and I was still without my four-wheel drive.

  In other words, I was stuck.

  The road leading to my newly built home was still all dirt with a small bridge over a creek that always flooded during a heavy rain storm.

  I’d tried to drive down the dirt road in a regular car once after a storm and had gotten so bogged down in the mud that it had taken two hours to pull the car out. I’d had every intention of having the road paved, but never seemed to have time. I raced all across the United States.

  Down time at home was limited.

  I peered out the picture window in the living area and frowned.

  The small spurts of snow had quickly morphed into a blizzard. I couldn’t even see the tree line surrounding my cabin.

  Luke knew how important having my truck back before the storm was. I couldn’t believe he’d lied to me. If there was an emergency I’d be stranded. It was a good thing I’d hit the grocery store the day before. I was good on supplies for about two weeks, and there was plenty of firewood.

  My anger at Luke for how he’d treated me, not only at the garage, but over the last two years, lingered. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how he could discard me so easily. Was I that easy to forget? Even after a lifetime?

  We’d grown up together in the garage with Harry teaching us everything there was to know about cars, motorcycles, basically anything with a motor.

  Luke and I started racing one another on foot, then bicycles, then when we were old enough, in cars.

  It wasn’t long before Harry signed us both up to drag race at the speedway and from that first race on Luke and I started raking in wins, sponsors, and money by the handfuls.

  He’d been a part of me since we were children, and I hated him for being able to cut me out of his life so easily, and without explanation.

  If I said he and I had been like brother and sister, I’d be lying. We were more.

  We’d always been the best of friends, sharing every single thing about each other with one another. But there had always been a tension between us. Something neither one of us had ever mentioned or understood, but knew was there.

  It was like the proverbial elephant in the room. We just couldn’t identify what that something was, exactly.

  No matter what I did, I couldn’t mend the rift that had grown between us, so I’d thrown myself into my racing. I’d only taken the next three months off to spend some quality time with Harry. Although he wouldn’t let on because he didn’t want to worry me, his health was deteriorating quickly.

  Losing Harry wasn’t something I was prepared to deal with. I shook the rancid though of his departure of this world from my mind, and turned away from the window. I made my way back to the sofa situated before the fireplace.

  I grabbed my book off of the table, pulled the fluffy blanket I kept across the back of the sofa across me, and snuggled down. I was about three chapters in when a pounding sounded at my door.

  At first, I wasn’t sure what to do. Who would be out in the middle of nowhere late in the evening in the middle of a blizzard?

  The image of an axe-murderer flashed in my mind’s eye.

  “Open the damn door, Celeste. It’s freezing out here!”

  “Luke?”

  Tossing the blanket aside, hurried to the door, and pulled it open.

  Luke stumbled inside, then pushed the door closed behind him.

  He was wrapped in his coat and stocking cap. Snowflakes decorated his goatee and eyelashes.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  He pulled off his cap and coat, hung them on the peg beside the door, then rubbed a hand over his face. The snowflakes disappeared.

  “Harry asked me to come out here and check on you. I lost track of time at the garage and before I knew it, the blizzard hit when I was half way here.”

  “How’d you get out here? Did you bring my truck?”

  He shook his head. “My car is stuck in a snowdrift about halfway up your drive. Why would I have your truck?”

  “You never called for me to come pick it up.”

  “Kevin was supposed to call to let you know it was ready the day before yesterday.” He looked puzzled.

  “He never called.” I shook my head, then turned and made my way to the kitchen before he could respond.

  I grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and prepared us each a steaming hot cup of coffee. Luke had to be freezing.

  When I turned back to set the mugs on the breakfast bar, I caught sight of him removing his boo
ts by the entry. His dark head of hair, slightly mussed from his cap, was bent to watch what he was doing.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him.

  The muscles in his back and shoulders rippled with every movement beneath the material of his gray thermal shirt. My eyes lowered to his well sculpted backside, down his long, strong legs, then back up to his ass.

  Why had I never noticed his body before?

  Why was I noticing it now?

  My eyes never left him as he made his way over to me. He moved like a lion stalking its prey.

  With purpose.

  Something else I’d never noticed before now.

  But what I did notice was that he still refused to look directly at me.

  Why did that bother me so much?

  He reached out and took the cup of coffee I slid in front of him. “Thanks. It’s getting wicked out there.”

  “Harry asked you to come out here and check on me?” I sipped my coffee.

  He stared out the sliding glass door and nodded.

  “Why didn’t he just call and find out for himself if I was all right?” I asked while I made my way back to the sofa and settled in, knowing Luke would follow me. The fire was roaring in the fireplace and I was sure Luke would like to warm up.

  He followed me into the living room and settled himself into the chair farthest away from me.

  “He did.” Luke took a drink of coffee. “He said you wouldn’t answer. He figured that your phone was dead, so he nagged me until I said I’d come out and see for myself that you’re fine. I’d intended on getting out here before the snow started, but like I said, I lost track of time at the garage.”

  I reached over and checked my cell phone. “My cell doesn’t have service, and with the storm, my landline is probably out, too.” I sat the phone back on the side table.

  “It is. I tried it before I came out here.” He confirmed.

  “It happens with every storm.” I turned the coffee mug in my hands, enjoying its warmth. “The phones go out and if there’s enough rain the bridge floods, then I’m stuck here for a few days until the water recedes.”

  We sat in complete silence for what felt like eternity but in reality, was no more than a couple of minutes.

  “We have a problem.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, already knowing what he was going to say.