Know Me Well

by Kait Nolan

  Through sheer force of will, Riley managed not to drool.

  If you lick it, that makes it yours.

  Before she could stop herself, she licked the seam of her lips. Liam’s eyes tracked the motion, and his mouth curved in a little half-smile that spawned a whole host of other wicked thoughts. Her cheeks burned and the synapses responsible for coherent thought exploded from sexual overload.

  “You’re on my foot.”

  “What?” Riley managed.

  Apparently tired of waiting for her to move, Liam picked her up bodily and shifted her over into the free space. He held on just long enough for her to lock her knees before turning away to survey the storeroom. Another minute of that and the fire in her face would’ve spread to her hair. This was why she’d avoided him!

  “I see you haven’t had any better luck with clearing this space out than Mom did.”

  Riley blessed him for not commenting on the awkward moment and desperately seized the change in topic. “I haven’t been able to get to it. Our hands are plenty full with the day-to-day running of things.”

  At some point in the old building’s past, this room had been part of the one that now housed the pharmacy. Some previous owner had blocked the whole thing off for storage. When the five and dime went belly up, the remaining stock that hadn’t been sold off had been piled in here, and Riley wasn’t certain the space had been cleared since. Like Molly before her, she kept meaning to get to it, but as a priority, it fell way down at the bottom of the list.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll do what?”

  “Clear it out. All this crap is a fire hazard. I’ve been telling Mom that for years.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Please God, don’t let him do that. “You’re already dealing with my car. And the renovation upstairs.”

  “And I’ll deal with this after.”

  Her brain scrambled to find some way to say no, to shove him out the door. “But I can’t afford to—”

  Liam turned back, one brow lifted. “I know you’re not about to insult me by suggesting I expect to get paid for doing a favor for a friend.”

  They were hardly friends. One friend did not come near to spontaneously combusting in the presence of another friend.

  “Let me help you Riley.”

  He could’ve ordered her. That would’ve been more his style, Mr. Alpha Marine I Know What’s Best, So Fall In Line as he’d done that morning. But he was giving her a choice—or at least the illusion of one—proving that as long as it had been, he still knew her, too.

  That was a real pisser.

  Riley took a bracing breath and made herself meet his gaze. “Thank you. I appreciate it. All of it. I know I probably don’t seem like it. I’m really bad at accepting help from people.”

  The lightning quick smile lit his gray eyes like sunbeams, and Riley had to lock her knees again, grateful he didn’t unleash it often. The damned thing was deadly.

  “I know. Why do you think I’m being so bossy?”

  “You’re the oldest. You were always bossy.”

  “Just sharing the benefits of my maturity.”

  Riley snorted at that, and pushed out of the storeroom. “Take all that maturity and go sweet talk my engine. I’ve got work to do.”

  “See you around, Riley Marie.”

  She watched him go, waiting until he’d walked out of sight before sinking down onto a stool. Like it or not, he was going to be in her space, so she’d better find a way to live with it.

  ~*~

  I am in serious trouble.

  Quite apart from the fact that Riley’s engine was toast and he’d just promised her he’d figure something out, he’d violated his strict look-don’t-touch policy—again—to keep her from landing on her fairly spectacular ass. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d stared up at him with those big, blue, drown-in-me eyes and licked her lips, like maybe she wondered how he tasted. It had taken every ounce of his self control to set her away from him rather than dipping his head to kiss her and exploring the rest of those sweet curves with his hands.

  “Maybe I should dunk my head in the fountain,” he muttered.

  “Well, you could, but a coin is the more traditional offering for a wish.”

  Liam jerked his attention away from the issue of Riley to find Autumn perched on the edge of the post-Civil War fountain that was the focal point of the town green.

  “I wasn’t making one.”

  “Oh come on,” Autumn teased. “It’s all the rage

  “Right now, the only thing I need is a miracle to tell me how I’m going to fix Riley’s car.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “The damned thing needs to be buried. But she can’t afford a new one, so I’m trying to perform a Dr. Frankenstein miracle and resuscitate it.” And he knew exactly what it had cost Riley to ask him.

  Autumn rose from her perch and looped her arm casually through his as they continued across the green. “Can you?”

  “My dad could and did on a regular basis before he died. It’s the least I can do to try.” He owed Riley, more than she could possibly know.

  “And if you can’t?”

  The last thing he wanted to do was face that look of heartbroken disappointment on Riley’s face.

  “Can’t isn’t really an option. I’d rather just buy her a newer used car that I know is road-worthy, but she’d never accept that.”

  Autumn lifted a brow at that. “You’d buy her a car?”

  “I’d do the same thing for my sister.”

  “Do you take this active a role in ensuring Wynne’s well being?”

  Liam brushed that off. “Lack of opportunity. Wynne would be the first one to applaud my trying to help. The two of them have been joined at the hip since they were five.”

  “Not so much the last couple of years.”

  That gave him pause. He hadn’t seen his baby sister since his welcome home party in December, but he’d assumed she was better at keeping up with Riley than she was with the rest of the family. “Are they on the outs?”

  “Not deliberately, but with Wynne being all caught up in her life down in the Big Easy, she doesn’t come home often and Riley’s tied to the business.”

  Liam wondered if she felt as abandoned by his sister as she had by him. “So who has Riley’s back?”

  “I do. And your mom does. But she misses Wynne.”

  “For a long time it was like they were two bodies who shared one brain. They were always so tight.”

  Autumn nodded. “And was Wynne the reason you looked out for Riley back in school?”

  Liam paused mid-step. “I didn’t think I was obvious about it.”

  “You weren’t. But I notice that kind of thing.”

  She would.

  “Riley hasn’t had the easiest life. There haven’t been too many people she could really count on, and she’s always been considered a part of my family.” Which was the absolute truth, even if he hadn’t thought of her as a sister in years.

  “So now you’re home, you’re just falling back into that old pattern, huh?”

  Autumn was an incurable romantic. Always had been. She was clearly fishing to find out more about his interest in Riley. Liam knew better than to bite.

  “I’m just helping out a friend. That’s it.” His protest did nothing to wipe the look of speculation off Autumn’s face. Time to redirect. “I didn’t know you and Riley were all buddy buddy.”

  “We weren’t growing up. Since she’s younger, we didn’t run in the same circles any more than you did. But when she came back to Wishful after college, she moved into the other half of the duplex I live in, so we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the last few years. I like her.”

  So did he, despite the fact that she was more apt to bite than smile at him these days.

  As they reached the Mustang, Liam patted Autumn’s arm and disentangled himself. “I gotta be gettin’ on. Have to figure out how I’m going to
perform an automotive miracle.”

  “Liam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a kind thing you’re doing for Riley. The latest in a long line of kind things you’ve done for all sorts of people since you came home. But remember it’s also important to take something for yourself.”

  “Do as you say, not as you do?” He gave her a pointed look.

  She looked suddenly weary. “What I want isn’t an option. What you do is.”

  “You can’t know that. I don’t know what I want.” He tried to forcibly shut out the image of Riley that popped into his mind.

  Her lips curved. “You’re a smart man. You’ll figure it out.”

  Shaking his head, he waved goodbye and slipped into his car, his mind full of the impossible.

  He had no right to act on this attraction, no right to complicate Riley’s life when his own was such a damned mess. Even if the attraction was returned—and it appeared that it was—he had nothing to offer her. He had nothing to offer anyone, for that matter. Until he figured out what the hell to do with his life, he didn’t have any right to look at a woman like Riley.

  No. Fantasies aside, Riley Gower was off-limits. And the sooner his brain got the memo, the better.

  ~*~

  A greasy nausea gripped Liam’s gut as he stared up at the faded lettering of the sign. Montgomery and Sons Auto Repair.

  He’d avoided this, like a goddamned coward. His brothers, his mother, and sister had been the ones to deal with the accounts, tidy up business affairs in the wake of John Montgomery’s death. Liam hadn’t managed to set foot inside since it happened. He couldn’t shake the sense of guilt that if he’d lived up to the legacy of the sign, if he’d been that kind of son, he’d have been there the day his father keeled over under the hood of his beloved ’69 Mustang. The same Mustang Liam now drove.

  But Liam had taken his own path, joined the Corps. His brothers had followed suit. And no one had been there that fateful Thursday afternoon. The others were able to cling to the fact that it had been quick. Painless, according to the doctors. He’d gone while doing something he loved. But Liam could only see a life ended far too soon. That was a reality he lived with in war. Not something he was ready for on the home front.

  The garage was locked up tight, as it had been since the weeks following his father’s death. Quiet. His mother hadn’t sold the place. It was there, waiting, in case any of the Montgomery sons wanted to pick up their father’s mantle and carry on the family business. He could do it. He had all the skills, the love of engines and puzzles. And he certainly had need of a legitimate vocation now that Uncle Sam wasn’t calling the shots.

  But to come here, every day? To be faced with all those reminders that his father wouldn’t be swinging through the door or hollering for a tool ever again? Coward or no, it was more than he could bear.

  Under other circumstances, he wouldn’t be here now. But he’d promised Riley. Though her car was at the house, he needed the service records his dad kept here, along with the supplier contacts. Maybe he’d luck out and some of the parts would be in the remaining inventory.

  Stale, musty air assailed his senses as he stepped into the office. The pin-up calendar hanging above the counter was still turned to October. Out of long-ingrained habit, Liam kissed his pointer and middle fingers and pressed them to the image of Jane Russell, his dad’s particular favorite, before moving to switch on the window unit air conditioner. Liam had always been more a Lana Turner, Loretta Young kind of guy, but he’d take the whole platoon of curvy, old school divas over today’s starved, waifish offerings. To his mind, a woman was ultimately the grounded center of a man, and as such, ought to be substantial.

  His hands flexed at the memory of Riley’s hips. Glorious, solid curves.

  “Focus.”

  Tugging open the ancient file cabinet drawers, he began to flip through. Why the hell hadn’t his father believed in alphabetizing? Or computers? He’d worked halfway through the second drawer by the time the door opened. Braced to say, “We’re closed,” he trailed off at the sight of his mother.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Saw the car. Wanted to check on you.”

  “I’m trying to find Riley’s service records.” She hadn’t asked, but Liam felt compelled to explain what had finally gotten him through the door.

  “They’re in the family files.” Molly reached past him and opened another drawer.

  Given the direction his thoughts had been running, he sure as hell needed a good reminder of where Riley had always fit in his life. She was family. It wouldn’t do for him to forget that.

  “Is she having trouble?”

  “Broke down on the way in to work this morning. I towed it to the house, but she needs a resurrectionist, not a mechanic.”

  “You’re thinking you’ll find the name of one in the file?”

  “Wanted to check the dates when Dad last replaced some stuff.”

  “Over the years, I think he probably replaced at least half of that car.”

  “Yeah, well, the other half needs to go now. Pretty sure the engine is shot.”

  “But you’re still going to try to fix it?”

  “Riley gave me the face.” Riley Gower, the woman who never asked for anything, had looked up at him with those deep blue eyes and he’d caved.

  Molly laughed. “What face?”

  “The face that, I’m sure, had her daddy wrapped around her pinky finger as long as he was alive. Damned thing’s lethal. Like the people version of that cat in Shrek. And here I am promising to bring her car back from the beyond. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

  “I expect you were thinking she never asks for help, so when she does you’ll do just about anything to deliver. We all would.”

  “Yeah, there’s that. So anyway, here I am. I guess I was hoping for some sort of miracle. Be nice if Dad were here to tell me what to do.”

  In a gesture that was purely Molly, she squeezed his nape and stroked the length of his spine, automatically soothing the same way she’d done since he was a punk troublemaker come to live under her roof. “He’s here. Just not quite as vocal as you’d like him to be.”

  “If he were here, he’d have some kind of sneaky ass plan to deal with this.”

  “Why do you need a sneaky ass plan?”

  “Because in truth she needs a new car, period. And since she bought the business from you, she’s taken on all she can handle.”

  His mother frowned. “I worried she bit off more than she could chew buying me out completely. But she wanted so much to prove that she could do it on her own. For the most part, she’s done that. Made some expansions in product lines, modernized a few processes.”

  “Do you ever regret selling?”

  “I don’t regret relinquishing control. I steered that ship for a long time. But sometimes I’m bored with retirement. It’s part of why I’ve been so active with the coalition. It gives me something to do, keeps me active in the community. You understand that need to keep busy or you wouldn’t be taking on projects everywhere.”

  Liam grimaced. “Busy isn’t necessarily productive.”

  Molly stroked a hand over his hair. “You know if you want the garage, it’s yours, no questions asked. Your brothers wouldn’t take issue with it.”

  He looked around the office, where he’d spent countless hours growing up, doing homework, answering phones, helping out. So many memories soaked these walls, but he couldn’t get past the bitter to the sweet. “It wasn’t for me at eighteen. It’s not for me now. I know dad was disappointed—”

  “You know no such thing,” she snapped. “Your father was proud of you. He never once took issue with the fact that you chose a different path. Neither did I. I’m not upset you don’t want the business, baby. I just wanted to put it out there as an option. I’ll support whatever you choose now, just like I supported you joining the Corps.”

  “Thanks Mom.” Liam slid his arms around her, thin
king that for all she was half his size, she still gave the best bear hugs.

  “I’ll let you get back to it. I’ve got a meeting with Norah to go over some final details about the playground renovation at Waldrop Park.”

  Alone again, he took a breath and opened the file. As his dad had been working on Riley’s car since she got it in high school, the stack of paperwork was thick. Every oil change, every tire rotation, every new part or repair was recorded in John’s neat block print. He’d rebuilt the transmission six months before he died, so that, at least, was probably okay. The list of repairs and replacements made to the engine were extensive, increasing in frequency over the last couple of years. At the last service, he’d made note of problems he expected to be facing before the year was out, and Liam thought Riley had been lucky that they hadn’t popped up until today. In the margin he’d written, Rebuild or replace?

  That was the question, wasn’t it?

  As he flipped to the next page, a loose Post-it note fluttered to the floor. Retrieving it, Liam read the brief notation he knew referred to a location in the parts racks on the far side of the garage. There was no indication what was stored there. It might’ve been from a repair already completed. But he had to check it out.

  The fluorescent lights flickered and caught, illuminating the wide, cavernous space. Industrial shelving lined the walls, most of them still filled with an assortment of parts his father always kept on hand for regular jobs. Years of oil and engine cleaner scented the close, hot air. He checked the shelves, looking for the relevant section. The crate had been shoved aside at some point, so somebody could retrieve something else. It was tucked in a corner, half beneath a tarp. Liam muscled it around and found the manifest from one of the parts auctions his dad sometimes attended. Sliding it out, he read the contents and began to laugh.

  “Sneaky, sneaky, Dad.” Still laughing, he went to get a crowbar to uncrate Riley’s new engine.