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“You baby the boy, Pen. You baby all of them. How will they ever respect you if you’re constantly giving in to their demands?”
It was an old argument. So old it shouldn’t bother her anymore, yet it did. She ignored it, confirmed the rest of the weekend’s arrangements, and hung up.
Cyril’s penance on Saturday was expected to end at five o’clock. Penta pulled up outside the shop a few minutes before the hour, parked, and tapped her fingers on the wheel with indecision. She had no reason to go in. But she was curious as to how things were going with Cash, and she’d never get a straight answer from her recalcitrant son. With a rising sense of expectation out of all proportion to her errand, she pushed open the van door.
As she stepped onto the road, a familiar SUV pulled in behind and Mark exited from the driver’s side.
“What are you doing here?” Her question came out more accusing than she’d meant it to.
Mark’s face screwed up in a scowl. “Cyril’s staying with me tonight. Didn’t he tell you?”
CASH REMEMBERED BEING a teenage boy. He remembered being angry and confused and horny. He didn’t remember being sullen and silent, but if Cyril was a typical example of the species, he must have been.
Not that Cash wanted him to be chatty. He was used to working alone and appreciated quiet. Cyril took closed-mouthedness to a whole new level, though it was amazing what the boy could communicate with a single grunt.
He was also a decent worker. He did what he was told without unnecessary questions and rarely had to be corrected or closely supervised. Underneath that morose, rebellious exterior was a good kid. Right now, he was sitting on a tall stool beside the workbench, going through a box of odds and ends, sorting the pieces into small containers while listening to something on his phone through earbuds.
Cash straightened from his crouch next to the classic ’67 Triumph he was restoring. His knees creaked and his back ached as if in sympathy with the sorrowful-looking Baby Bonnie, which had been discovered abandoned, ignored, and neglected in a barn. The descendants of the recently deceased eighty-three-year-old woman who owned the ramshackle farm had practically paid him to take it away, overwhelmed by the task of dismantling a long life and not interested in his explanation of the Bonnie’s potential value. When it was done it would be a beaut, but it was a demanding project and would take months to complete.
He wasn’t sure what he’d do when it was finished. He’d make a pretty penny if he decided to sell, but couldn’t stifle the desire to keep it for himself. Not that he needed another bike. His first year out of prison, when he’d been rebuilding his business, he’d done major work on a 2003 Harley Road King Classic. The customer hadn’t been able to pay and signed it over instead. He probably should have sold it, because he’d needed the money more than he’d needed the bike. But he hadn’t, and speed-filled hours on the machine had saved his sanity more than once. It was lucky Cyril and his vandalizing buddies hadn’t found it in the small lockup at the back of the shop. If they’d damaged it, who knew what he might have done?
He wiped his hands on a rag and flapped it in the teen’s line of vision. Cyril flicked him a glance, tapped the screen of his phone to pause whatever was playing, and continued sorting.
“You’re done,” Cash said. “You can get back to it Tuesday.”
A shrug was the only indication the boy had heard. He finished the bits and bobs in his palm, slid off the stool, tucked the containers under the workbench, and made his way to the room in the back where his jacket and backpack were stored.
The front door opened and two people walked in, silhouetted against the sunshine washing the sidewalk. Cash couldn’t wait for the new glass to be installed next week. Not being able to see out onto the street was giving him prison flashbacks. Between nightmares he was back inside and restless dreams about his daughter, he hadn’t slept well for a while. Not that he ever slept deeply.
Even before the door closed he recognized Penta. Her curly brown hair and comfortably rounded body loosened something in his chest—and tightened something else lower down. He’d always been drawn to women with—as his mother would have said—meat on their bones. In the past, those women had worn tight jeans and blouses that strained at the buttons, not the roomy pants and oversized hoodies that seemed to be Penta’s preferred wardrobe.
The man was dressed in the suburban dad’s weekend outfit of jeans and short-sleeved polo shirt. He had the soft, puffy look of someone who spent most of his time behind a desk. His pinched mouth and creased forehead did nothing to change Cash’s impression of a pompous man dissatisfied with life—his least favourite kind of client.
Ignoring him for the moment, Cash dipped his chin to Penta. “Cyril will be right out.”
She opened her mouth, but the man spoke before she had a chance to say anything. “He’s coming with me, actually.” He stepped forward and held out a hand. “Mark Potter. Cyril’s dad. Pen told me about the trouble our son caused you.”
“Mark’s my ex-husband.” Penta’s voice was breathless, her whiskey-brown eyes wide. Her hands gripped each other, flexing and relaxing.
Cash hadn’t forgotten she was divorced. He hadn’t forgotten anything she’d said to him. He shook Mark’s hand, resisting the impulse to squeeze tighter than necessary.
“Cyril was supposed to let his mom know there was a change in plans. Should have known better than to trust a kid.” Mark’s laughter was bluff and hearty. Cash felt another ruffle of irritation, this time in defense of Cyril. “I figured it would be better if he spent a couple more nights with his dad. Get some man-to-man time. Pen’s a good mom, but she’s a little soft sometimes. Goes too easy on the kids.”
Despite the fact Cash had thought the same thing, hearing the other man say it made him want to punch him in the nose, especially when Penta squirmed and studied the floor as if embarrassed. His own mother had been exhausted from working two jobs and any spare time she had was spent with her nose in a bottle, not with her only child. In his opinion, Penta’s overprotectiveness was much better than the alternative. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She lifted her gaze from the concrete and stared at him, shock evident in the rounded O of her mouth.
Mark raised an eyebrow and huffed another insincere laugh. “You’ve got a champion, have you, Pen?” He raked Cash from head to toe and quirked his mouth dismissively. “Not exactly your type.”
“What does that mean?” Cash straightened his spine, squared his shoulders, and shifted his stance, looming over the other man.
And immediately felt ridiculous. Mark had said nothing but the truth. Cash wasn’t a member of Penta’s world, and never would be. It didn’t matter that he was attracted to her. He couldn’t imagine a universe in which Penta would be attracted to him, an ex-con biker mechanic.
Before he could make the situation worse, Cyril emerged from the back. Thank Christ.
His step hitched when he saw his parents. “Oh. Yeah, right.”
“Yeah, right, indeed.” Penta’s smile was overly bright, her tone a fraction too tolerant. It seemed he wasn’t the only one happy at the interruption. “Your dad says you were supposed to let me know the change in plans.”
