Page 40 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

The peace lasted approximately thirty seconds.

“So,” Clover said, unable to leave anything alone, “when are you seeing Carson again?”

“Her truck is at the garage.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” she sang.

“I’ll call her tomorrow with the estimate.”

“And then?”

“And then I’ll fix the truck.”

Clover stared at me as though waiting for something more. There wasn’t anything more.

Not yet.

Carson Rome had entered my life soaked, furious, and carrying enough problems to fill the entire bed of James’s truck. I had no intention of turning her difficult day into some romantic fantasy because I found her attractive.

She needed a mechanic.

I was one.

That was all either of us had agreed to.

Still, later that night, when dinner was finished and Jax had finally convinced Hunter to watch the football highlights, I found myself standing in Dad’s garage staring at an old photograph pinned above his workbench.

Dad and James stood beside the black Chevrolet, both of them younger than I had ever known them to be. James’s grin was wide beneath his dark mustache, one arm thrown over Dad’s shoulders while the other rested on the truck.

“He loved that girl more than anything.”

I turned, Dad had appeared behind me without making a sound. He handed me a beer and looked at the photograph.

I returned my gaze to it as well. “I figured.”

“Her parents were useless. James and Evelyn were everything she had.”

I glanced toward him. Dad rarely spoke badly about anyone, which made the words land harder.

“What happened to them?”

“Not my story to tell.”

I accepted that.

Rain tapped lightly against the garage windows, the storm finally moving away from Willow Creek.

Dad twisted the lid from his thermos, despite the late hour. “James helped build my first tow rig,” he said. “Stayed up two nights straight because I couldn’t afford to close the shop long enough to finish it myself. Never took a penny.”

“You want me to repair the truck for free.”

“No.”

I waited.

Dad’s gaze remained on the photograph.

“I want you to remember there’s a difference between helping someone and making them feel helpless.”