“What happened?” I tried again, quieter.
Drill and I weren’t exactly friends, but we were friendly acquaintances. My family’s history with the Wraiths was long and twisted, and keeping the peace with the local biker gang meant sometimes swallowing our pride when the matter wasn’t life or death.
He paused, giving me a cryptic look, before grumbling, “It don’t matter.”
“It better matter,” I said evenly, not understanding why I was pushing the issue. For some inexplicable reason, a flare of protectiveness for Miss Shelly Sullivan had me adding, “’Cause what I saw sure as hell mattered to me. I’d hate to think you’re going around screaming profanities at random women.”
Drill’s lip curled into a sneer. “You can’t have a woman looking like that, working in a place like this, and not expect someone to notice.”
“What. Did. You. Do?”
“Fine, fine. All right? I might have startled her a little.” He gestured wildly to nothing in particular. “I saw her bent over that bike and—damn, Beau. Have you seen those legs? Hell. And that ass. And, Christ, those eyes. I’ve never—”
“Drill,” I snapped, giving the bigger man a reprimanding glare.
He held his hands up. “I swear, I didn’t touch her. Alls I said was that she had a nice ass and I called her sweetheart. That’s it. And you’d think I’d called her mother a whore.”
“What’d she say?” Now I was just curious.
He hesitated for a moment, then admitted, “She said something about me being as sharp as a bowling ball.”
I lowered my chin to my chest, trying my best not to laugh.
“And there was more.” His gaze dropped to the ground and his eyes widened, as though he was recalling all her insults. “She was real mean.”
I believed him, about everything.
But he was a six-foot-four biker gang heavyweight. And he was near pouting because someone had been mean to him.
“Okay.” I sighed, glancing beyond Drill to the horizon. I needed to think.
On the one hand, it wasn’t right or appropriate for him to comment on his admiration for Miss Sullivan’s backside. On the other hand, this was Drill. He was by far the most even-tempered and fair-minded of the Wraiths. If it had been any of the others, Shelly would have been knocked around before I’d have had a chance to intervene.
“Listen . . .” I paused, still debating how to proceed. “You coming fishing with us on Wednesday?”
Drill eyeballed me, and then nodded once. “That’s right. Hank wanted me to bring Catfish and Twilight.”
“Good. That’s good.” I rubbed my forehead tiredly. “Why’d you drop by today? You need me to look at your bike?”
“No. Nothing like that.” Drill took a step away and kicked at the gravel of the drive, not meeting my eyes. “Razor’s old lady wants a meeting with you.”
I reared back, convinced I’d misheard him. “Say what?”
“Christine.” He said her name with a hushed kind of reverence, like he was talking about the boogey man. Or, in this case, boogey woman. “She wants a meeting.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t say.” Drill licked his lips and I knew this was a nervous habit of his. “Just that I wasn’t to ask Duane, only you.”
I studied the bigger man, quickly debating what this could possibly be about, and finally deciding her request for a meeting had to do with using my skills as a mechanic to man their chop shop. And honestly, this baffled me.
About a year ago, the Wraiths had approached Duane with a threat, telling him that he and I needed to disassemble their stolen cars—but only Duane and me, not Cletus. They had evidence against our oldest brother, Jethro, and if Duane and I didn’t agree to their demands, they were prepared to send Jethro to prison.
In the end, Cletus and his sneaky machinations saved the day.
Now, I presumed, they were after more of the same.
I grimaced at Drill. Not angry. Just a smidge irritated. “We settled this last year. I ain’t working for y’all.”
Drill was shaking his head before I finished. “No. Nothing like that. Between you and me, Christine may be crazy, but she was there when Cletus showed his hand. She knows that evidence against Jethro is worthless. This is about something else.”
“What could it possibly be about? Claire?” Claire being Christine and Razor’s only child. Claire was good friends with both Jethro and Cletus. She’d moved away from Green Valley about a month ago to take a teaching position in the big city, but she and Cletus were set to play in a music competition together in October.
Drill shrugged, his features arranged in a mask of helplessness. “I’d tell you if I knew. But, you know how she is.”
“Actually, I don’t.” I poked the inside of my cheek with my tongue. “I’ve never spoken to the woman.”
“Whether you want to or not, that’s about to change.” He gave me quick once-over tinged with what looked like sympathy. “What Razor’s old lady wants, Razor’s old lady gets.”
* * *
After I promised to think on the meeting with Christine St. Claire, Drill left, saying he’d give me two weeks to think about it. I’d talked him into a month.
Now, I dawdled.
I wasn’t much of a dawdler. Usually, I was a doer. But I’d rather have a root canal than speak to Shelly one-on-one about the events of the morning. It was Duane’s day off, and Cletus was in the office. I deliberated whether or not to brief him on the situation and let him handle it.
In the end, I wasn’t the one who did the seeking. Still dawdling by the entrance to the garage, Shelly strolled over. Like before, her steps were unhurried, self-assured.
I braced—instinctively—all my muscles tensing, and stared at her sideways as she neared. Duane had been right, she was hard to look at directly. She should’ve been on the arm of some billionaire in Hollywood or Paris, or walking on a runway someplace. People didn’t look like her in real life.
Jethro’s fiancée, Sienna, was the most attractive woman I’d seen up to now, until this woman mechanic. But Sienna wasn’t aloof. She smiled easily, told jokes, was kind to everyone, and that made her approachable. And Sienna being Sienna made us all forget she was gorgeous on the outside, ’cause her heart eclipsed her exterior.
Whereas I didn’t think I’d ever be able to forget Shelly’s cold beauty. It was like looking at someone through a wall of ice. It was all I could see.
“Is he gone?” The weight of her stare felt more physical than before, yet somehow less evocative.
“Yeah, about that . . .” I exhaled silently, preparing to say what needed to be said. “He shouldn’t have spoken to you in that way, and I’m sorry it happened. I had a talk with him and it won’t happen again.”
Shelly shoved her fingers into her back pockets. She was wearing cut-off jean shorts instead of the coveralls, which showcased her long, bronze, smooth legs. Part of me wanted to suggest she stick to the coveralls from now on, to avoid unwanted comments from customers.