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She brushed back a wisp of hair and left a smear of grease at her temple.
She was damned good in that garage. She didn’t do auto body work, but she was mean as hell on a car motor. He’d seen the auto manuals at the house, knew she kept up with the latest reports, standards, and trends. She had even signed herself and Rory up for classes in Odessa on the new crossover vehicles.
His perky little wife was a tomboy and he had never known it. She was strong, resilient, and she was slowly moving away from the memory of the man that had loved her with every part of his soul.
She had taken a lover. It didn’t matter that her lover had also been her husband, and she didn’t know. She had exorcised her husband’s ghost in her bedroom, in her home, and in his pickup truck.
He lowered his head and stared at his oil-stained work boots. She’d moved on. He didn’t have the right to change that. Once he left this time, she might shed a few tears, but she’d pull herself up, and she would find someone who deserved her. Someone whole. Without demons. Without a past to hide or hell burning just behind his back.
His head jerked up as Rory stalked into the office and closed the door. The boy was still pissed off. Closed, set expression. His eyes burning in pure anger, he tossed Noah a half sneer before he glanced out the window into the shop.
Sabella was watching Noah. Noah had felt that look, had kept his head down, almost afraid to meet her eyes.
Rory turned back from the door and glared at Noah. “If you leave her again, don’t come back.”
Noah rubbed at his jaw before shaking his head slowly. “Do your job, Rory. Stop bitching at me.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the old man, piss off,” he retorted. “And wrap those damned fingers around my neck again and I’m going to Grandpop.”
“You sound like a ten-year-old,” Noah snorted.
“If it works use it,” Rory muttered, grabbed a clipboard, and headed back into the convenience store.
Noah wanted to grin. Rory wasn’t above tattling and Noah knew it. He’d have to kill him to keep his mouth shut if the boy was determined to go to Grandpop.
Damn. Grandpop. Sabella. Rory. He shook his head. What the fuck was he doing? What the hell made him think he could do this and still survive walking away?
Because he was a fucking fool.
They closed the garage at seven. Business had been steady through most of the day, with only occasional lulls. The gossip running through town and hitting every business was high. Most of it made it to the garage; what didn’t, had been picked up in town as Nik and Micah made their way through it. Travis was watching the Patrick ranch house, where, surprise surprise, Federal Marshal Kevin Lyle had arrived late that afternoon with Delbert Ransome.
Chuck Leon was still missing and Rick Grayson was locked in his office going through files and on the phone yelling, it was rumored, and demanding answers about the leaked information.
Noah could feel the mission brewing now, a sixth sense warning him that something was getting ready to hit.
As he walked into the house ahead of Sabella, his senses seemed ultraalert, each speck of dust, each crack in the hardwood floors remembered, as he went through the house, checking it out.
As he returned downstairs it was to find Sabella sitting in the chair by the door. Like she used to do. But she wasn’t filing her nails or watching television. She was staring at the floor and twisting the wedding band she had slid back to her marriage finger.
She was frowning at it, glaring at it. Twisting it on her finger as though trying to figure out exactly what it was doing there.
“Everything’s clear.” He stepped from the stairs before turning and heading into the kitchen. “I could use some dinner. How do you feel about pizza?”
He stepped into the kitchen, his gaze caught again by that damned bottle of what used to be a hundred-year-old wine. Hell, he had been saving that for the day they paid off the mortgage on the house and garage. He’d gotten it for a song. Traded it for a ’57 Chevy he’d rebuilt for a collector for next to nothing.
Beside it was the bottle of wine she and Kira had polished off. He didn’t wince, but at one time, he probably would have pulled his hair out. His lips quirked at the thought of it as he felt Sabella step into the kitchen behind him.
“Making awful free use of my house now, aren’t you?” she asked him as he grabbed the cordless up from the kitchen handset and punched in the number taped to the wall beside it. Evidently, Sabella ordered pizza often.
“What do you want on your pizza?” He paused before hitting the button to dial it in.
The look she shot him was mocking. “Anything including the kitchen sink.” She shrugged.
At least that hadn’t changed over the years.
He hit the dial button, gave the order, and then disconnected. He lifted one of the bottles and turned back to her.
“Have more of these?”
