Riley talked about plenty of things when we worked together. The problem was that the stories were always surface-level and never got close to the present. The moment a conversation drifted anywhere near why she’d ended up stranded in Crossbend or what she’d been doing before she arrived, she redirected so smoothly that most people never would’ve noticed it. But I did.
I also caught that she still tensed around strangers, scanned a room when somebody new walked in, and carried herself like somebody expecting trouble. It bothered me more than I wanted to admit because every time I caught a flash of wariness, I was reminded that there was something out there she wasn’t telling me about.
At least she wasn’t looking like she wanted to run anymore.
For the first couple of days, she’d seemed ready to bolt every time a door opened unexpectedly. That edge had softened. She laughed more now. Smiled more. She’d started teasing the mechanics, arguing about setups, and making herself at home in ways she probably didn’t even realize.
Seeing that happen gave me a level of satisfaction that would’ve been embarrassing if I’d had any intention of changing my behavior. I wanted her to be comfortable here. Safe. Looking at The Pit the way everybody else did—as a place where nobody could touch her.
Maybe that was possessive and overprotective. Probably completely irrational, considering how little I actually knew about her. Didn’t matter, though. The instinct was there anyway, and I wasn’t interested in fighting it.
And it wasn’t lost on anyone…except maybe Riley. I wasn’t sure. She certainly hadn’t called me out on it.
A few mornings into her first week, I walked out of my office and spotted two mechanics pushing equipment toward bay three. Riley was already there working on a motorcycle, her dark hair pulled back and a pencil tucked behind one ear while she studied a service manual spread open across a workbench. I changed direction immediately.
“Don’t use bay three.”
Both men stopped.
One looked at me, then at bay three, and back at me. “Why?”
I jerked my chin toward the far side of the garage.
“Riley’s working there.”
The silence that followed told me exactly what they were thinking.
The older mechanic looked over at her again before turning back to me with an expression that suggested he was debating whether this conversation was worth having.
“You’re shutting down an entire bay for one employee?”
I held his gaze. “Did I stutter?”
He stared at me for another second before common sense finally won the fight. “No.”
“Good.”
Without another word, both men turned around and started pushing the equipment somewhere else. I watched them go before looking back toward bay three again. Riley hadn’t heard a damn thing. She was still focused on the motorcycle in front of her, unaware that I’d just rearranged part of the shop because I didn’t want people crowding her workspace.
I knew exactly how ridiculous that sounded. I also didn’t care.
My single brothers would call me a possessive idiot or make some smart-ass comment about me needing professional help. And the married ones would laugh their asses off that I was finally experiencing what they’d all fallen victim to at one point or another.
None of that made a difference, for good or bad.
Riley was settling into life at The Pit, earning respect, making friends, and slowly starting to look like she belonged. Every instinct I had wanted to protect that. More importantly, every instinct I had wanted to protecther.
Edge showedup at The Pit late one Friday afternoon, pulling Reaper’s Edge into bay four without asking permission or bothering to announce himself. That car was one of the most carefully built and aggressively tuned vehicles in our entire fleet, a black monster with enough horsepower to scare seasoned racers.
Edge had built it himself and rarely let anyone near it. But he had a race that night and hadn’t had time to work out a kink he’d noticed during practice runs since his fourteen-month-old son was teething and not sleeping much.
Normally, I’d have immediately stepped in because I was one of the few allowed to touch Reaper’s Edge. Instead, I wiped my hands on a shop towel, leaned back against my workbench, and nodded in Riley’s direction.
“Riley, take a look at Reaper’s Edge and tell him if the suspension feels right. He said he was having some feedback in the corners, and if I have to hear him bitch about losing a tenth of a second one more time, I might just burn the car to the ground.”
Edge rolled his eyes at my comment but stayed silent as Riley walked over to the car. I was surprised when he went along with it, considering how touchy he was about his ride, but I also knew he trusted my judgment. If I let Riley near Reaper’s Edge, then as far as he was concerned, she belonged there.
Watching her approach the car was its own form of entertainment, because the second she got close enough, her entire face lit up. She circled slowly, her gaze trailing over every curve, line, and component like she’d just been handed the keys to something she’d dreamed of touching.
