“WHY DON’T YOU like her?” Sam climbed into her twin bed and slid her legs beneath the denim quilt Athena’s mom had made for her. “I think she’s cool.”
“Who?” Joe feigned ignorance, picking up Sam’s dirty clothes and stuffing them into her blue wicker hamper.
When he scowled in Turo’s shop, guys backed off. When he scowled at Brittany, she came forward. When he threatened dire consequences at Turo’s shop, guys gave his threats credence. When he threatened Brittany, she came to dinner. He was trying to rebuild order in his life. She was chaos.
“Dad.” Sam wasn’t buying his act. “Brittany? The lady who cut your hair? The lady who ate dinner here?”
“Oh, her.” Joe picked up an empty cardboard box and broke it down, wishing he could flatten the unsettling feelings Brittany gave rise to. Because despite her blatant disrespect for his rules, for the law, and despite the pandemonium she caused, a part of him wanted to like her.
That streak of purple in her hair said she was a rebel. Her black polka-dotted fingernails said she was independent. The sparkle in her clothes matched the sparkle in her eyes. And as much as he wanted to hate her mermaid sculpture, the craftsmanship was top-notch.
“Oh, wow,” Sam said after several moments of silence. “You like her. I was thinking Regina was more your speed.”
“Don’t start.” He looked around Sam’s room, forcing himself not to think of Brittany or her passionate ideas about junk. He should be thinking about how to return Sam to the standard of living she was used to. Her room didn’t have a fold-out couch loaded with stuffed animals. Or a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. It didn’t have a walk-in closet or its own bathroom. God love her, she hadn’t complained beyond the initial hit of ew. “We should get you a lamp in here.” She liked to read at night and there was only the overhead light.
Sam grinned. “Oh, you like her, all right.”
“Quit with the matchmaking. You’re no good at it.” There’d been the painfully awkward time she’d asked Joe to pick her up at Holly Prichard’s house and Holly’s single mom had expected him to take her to dinner. And the painfully awkward situation she’d put him in during a parent-teacher conference when Sam told Miss Carson that Joe had a crush on her. And…well…he’d rather avoid round three of painfully awkward.
No matter how intriguing Brittany’s unexpected smile was. He’d been trash-talking and bam! There came her smile. He’d nearly smiled back…but he had nothing to smile about.
Sam snuggled deeper in her bed, yawned and closed her eyes. “I’m as good a matchmaker as I am a mechanic.” She looked small and fragile, her dark eyelashes thick against her cheeks.
So like her mother, yet so different.
Athena had been tough. She’d managed mixed martial arts fighters and was on the road three to four days a week, accompanying her clients to matches, meeting promoters, recruiting new fighters and making deals. Athena’s style had been boots, blue jeans and a black motorcycle jacket. The first time Joe had seen her, she’d been riding her motorcycle on the freeway as if an angel rode shotgun on her shoulder. She’d been gutsy, but she hadn’t been careful.
He was trying to raise Sam to be careful. He should have been more careful about his own life. If he had been, he would’ve seen the signs at Uncle Turo’s shop that something wasn’t right. He would’ve left sooner, like day one.
“Good night, baby.” He kissed her forehead, flicked off the light and closed the door.
He went to stand at the living room window, staring out into the night, trying not to look at the house where he’d grown up, at the weathered swing set in the backyard or the pile of bald tires stacked next to the garage. But he focused on them anyway and found himself wondering how Brittany would make those things functional.
* * *
“HALLOO!”
Joe slid out from under the tow truck Sunday afternoon and sat up. “Hey, Irwin.” With the music on, neither he nor Sam had heard Irwin drive up. “You’re not here for the tune-up, are you? That’s not until Monday.”
“No.” The older man unzipped his red leather jacket. He had a red bandanna tied around his head, but it’d slipped to one side. He sat on a stool near the main workbench. “What is that racket?” He turned off the radio, silencing the boy band. “There. That’s better.”
Sam didn’t slide out. She kept working on installing the oil pan, leaving Joe to entertain their customer. They’d bought gaskets that morning and spent hours putting the engine back together. A little more lube, several quarts of oil, and the tow truck would be ready for a test drive.
“Can I help you with something?” Joe asked Irwin.
“No. Just thought I’d stop by and hang out with the other bikers.” His brow creased. “Where are the other bikers?”
Joe felt his own brow crease. “What other bikers?”
“The ones in your club.”
The man thought Joe was in a motorcycle gang? Worse, he wanted to hang out with Joe because of it?
Joe opened his mouth to tell him to get out and Sam coughed. She knew they needed Irwin’s money more than Joe’s pride.
“I’m not in a club.” Joe rolled back under the tow truck. The muffler had a rusty spot from years of condensation. It wouldn’t last much longer than Joe’s patience.
Sam chuckled. “You must have been hell on wheels as a teenager, Dad. A real punk.”
“There were worse kids.” Maybe not in Harmony Valley. But he’d make sure his daughter didn’t follow in the Messina footsteps.
Irwin got down from his stool and walked toward them, boots clumping on the concrete. “I don’t see your hog either.”
“I don’t have a motorcycle.” Joe’s eye twitched.
“I must not have heard you right.” The boots stopped, possibly rooted in disbelief. “You say you don’t have a motorcycle?”
“I don’t have a motorcycle!” Joe applied pressure to the bone over his eye.
“Dad,” Sam whispered. “He’s just an old man. Go easy on him.” She patted Joe’s arm. “I’ve got the oil pan. You take care of our customer. Our one customer.”
Joe wasn’t cut out to be the front man for a business. That’s why he’d loved working for Turo. All he’d had to do was fix cars.
And look where that got you.
He rolled out from under the tow truck.
Irwin paced the perimeter of the empty service bay. “You don’t have any calendars up.”
“I’ve got a calendar upstairs.” Eager to please, Sam slid free of the truck and ran upstairs before Joe could stop her.
“We don’t have what you’re looking for,” Joe said, feeling the words curl in his chest like a fist. Irwin expected Joe to have a racy car calendar, the kind with bikini-clad women. The ones that were politically incorrect for upstanding businessmen and inappropriate for little girls.
“I like to know what date it is.” If Joe looked past Irwin’s wrinkles and his white chin stubble, the old man’s disappointment with Joe looked surprisingly similar to Sam’s—same thin downturned mouth; same disenchanted slant to the eyes.
Sam returned with a calendar Joe had given her for Christmas, one with cartoony smiling unicorns that glowed with the promise of happily-ever-afters and dreams that came true.
Irwin frowned at the unicorn for April, despite it sliding gracefully down a rainbow onto a green grassy field. “This isn’t what I was expecting from the Messina Garage.”
“We’re the Messina Family Garage.” Sam hung the calendar from a hook in the pegboard.
Irwin pretended not to hear her. He waved a hand toward the radio. “Where’s the hard rock? The pictures of na—”
“Watch it,” Joe warned, feeling his anger press against his ribs.
“Where are the pictures of nice women?” Irwin crossed his arms over his out-of-shape chest. “The tattoos? The chains on your wallet? You don’t even have a bandanna around your head!” He swiped the one off his noggin’, crumpling it in his hand. “This isn’t the Messina Garage that I remember.” He clomped out into the crisp afternoon sunshine.
“I’ve got a chain on my utility knife.” Inside his pocket. Joe held up the knife.
Sam looked from Irwin to Joe and back. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He doesn’t believe in unicorns.”
“Barbara won’t start!” Irwin shouted, his face red as he stomped back into the service bay. “Unbelievable.”
Joe and Sam exchanged a glance and then went for the case of oil on the workbench. Who knew how long it’d take to get Irwin’s motorcycle running. It would be easier to give him a lift home. It was as good a time as any to test the tow truck. And maybe he’d convince Irwin that he was no longer the hoodlum of his youth.
* * *
GRANDPA PHIL WAS having a yard sale.
Good. Maybe he’d cleaned out his overstuffed garage.
Brittany had to park in front of the house next door because there were cars double-parked in front of Phil’s gray-and-white ranch home. She’d spent most of the day in Santa Rosa stocking up on hair products and trying to find chair hair dryers. The only units she found were bank-breaking new. She had appointments for wet sets starting Tuesday and no dryers to put her clients under. When she’d envisioned coming to Harmony Valley, she hadn’t considered that there’d be a high demand for her services and therefore a high demand on her time to be able to deliver said services efficiently and properly.
Phil sat in a webbed folding chair on the lawn, legs crossed at the knee, lanky elbows propped on aluminum armrests as two women wrestled with a wheelbarrow in a truck bed.
It wasn’t until Brit got out of her own truck that she realized they weren’t loading the wheelbarrow. They were unloading it! Adding to the clutter in the driveway.
“What’s all this?” she asked Phil.
“It’s for you.” Phil beamed. “I told you I knew people who had stuff they wanted to give away.”
“But…” It’s junk, she wanted to shout.
There were boxes and bags of heaven only knew what dumped in front of the house. Bicycles and tricycles parked on the side yard. A refrigerator door with a shovel sticking out of it. Four Volkswagen hubcaps. A blue ceramic elephant plant stand with one chipped ear. And that was just what she could see.
Brit turned to the ladies and their cement-caked wheelbarrow. “Ladies, please don’t hurt yourselves. I can’t take that.”
Their sweaty, wrinkled faces fell.
“There’s more coming,” Phil said stubbornly, his face shiny from too much sun.
“More?” Brit considered sitting on the elephant plant stand and burying her face in her hands. Instead, she moved forward to help the ladies push the wheelbarrow back onto the truck.
A bright red Thunderbird convertible zipped around the corner, Rose at the wheel. She parked it cockeyed in the street. A tall metal floor lamp was strapped into the passenger seat. The lamp shade was pink and had elephants marching around it. “I’ve always hated this lamp.” Rose glided around the car, smooth as silk. “When Phil said you were looking for junk, I rushed right over.”
“Unbelievable,” Brit muttered.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” Grandpa’s smile practically lifted him out of his webbed chair.
Brit was so overwhelmed, she didn’t reject the women’s second attempt to remove the wheelbarrow. “I can’t use 99 percent of this stuff.” She nudged a box of mismatched serving bowls with her toe. “What are we going to do with it all?” She had yet to clean out a space in the garage for her worktable.
“You can’t use…” Phil sank back in his chair. “Shoot and darn.”
“You can’t use any of it?” Rose gazed sorrowfully at her lamp.
“What were you looking for?” The yearning to be a help was palpable on Grandpa’s face. “If you tell me, I can find it for you.”
Brit shrugged. “I look for things that speak to me.” Like Joe’s hair and the BMW grille, soft-spoken as the latter was in comparison to mermaids that whispered in her ear, urging she bring them to life.
Phil and Rose made disgruntled sounds as if her answer had boiled down to belittling their attempts to help her.
“Maybe I’m too tired to see a diamond in the rough.” Worn-out from her argument with Reggie. Perplexed by her reaction to Joe. Stressed about the popularity of her beauty services. Down in the dumps due to her creative block. “Or maybe it’s just because I’ve had my pragmatic hat on today. I’ve been looking for hair dryers for the barbershop.”
“Oh, no,” Phil said. “Not that again.”
“Hair dryers?” Rose frowned. “The kind you sit under?”
Brit nodded. “If I can’t find some, I’ll have to reschedule a lot of appointments.” And rescheduling meant cutting into the time she needed to get back in the creative saddle.
“I might be able to help with that, but—” Rose did a shuffle step across the driveway “—I might not. I need to check with Agnes.”
A faded red truck trundled around the corner and came to a slow stop next to Rose’s car. An old woman slid out of the driver’s seat. She didn’t carry anything and she didn’t unload anything from her pickup. She moved in between the piles of donations with the slow deliberation of a tugboat working against the tide.
And then she turned to Phil. “This is the worst yard sale ever. All this stuff should go to the dump.”
“It’s not a yard sale,” Phil grumbled. “It’s my granddaughter’s art supply.”
The wheelbarrow ladies hightailed it out of there.
“That’s it.” Brit tilted her face skyward. “I’m going on a dump run.”
“Hey,” Phil protested. “I spent hours on the phone arranging this. Why, I practically had to beg!”
If Brit didn’t at least look through the piles, she’d be the most ungrateful grandchild ever. She dutifully scanned the detritus and then met her grandfather’s stubborn gaze. He seemed as hurt as when she’d suggested she cut Joe’s hair. “I suppose there might be something here I could save.”
Brit worked her way through the paraphernalia while Rose did the same. Brit held on to a fire poker set, a garden fountain with a black faux marble ball, a metal trash can, rusted metal fence posts with knots of barbed wire and a box of old screws and bolts.
Rose picked up a flour sifter and sifted the driveway with residual flour. “Do you need this, Brittany? I used to have one just like it. Can’t remember where I put mine.”
“It’s yours.” Brit considered the bicycles next. Most were too new to interest her. She preferred rust, not paint. But perhaps if she left them outside for a year or two…
“That’s it?” Phil sat up in his chair, taking stock of her pile. “You should at least keep this…this…” He cast about for something near him. His hand landed on a large wooden magazine stand. “This! And what about Rose’s lamp?”
A large engine rumbled from a nearby street, coming closer.
“Normally, I recycle the electronics from lamps, but that lamp is really old.” A fire hazard. And really, that lamp shade…
The engine rumbled closer. A banana-yellow tow truck came around the corner.
* * *
“LOOK AT THAT, DAD. It’s either a yard sale or a whole lotta cars broke down.” Sam leaned around Irwin to grin. She’d called shotgun, leaving Irwin the center seat in the tow truck.
Joe hadn’t been in the mood to argue about respecting your elders and giving them the best seat, considering Irwin thought Joe was a biker thug. Maybe it was time to get his hair cut shorter. The memory of Brittany’s fingers in his hair had him downshifting with an epic gear grind.
“Hey, that’s Phil. My next-door neighbor.” Irwin, who’d been pouty since having to leave Barbara at the shop, perked up. “And he’s got friends over. They’ll see me in my street gear and with you. This is great.”
“Irwin, I don’t want to tell you again. I’m just a mechanic. I’m not in a motorcycle club.” Joe registered the cars, the stacked boxes in Phil’s driveway and a woman with long brown hair with a purple streak. His pulse shifted into high gear, making Joe brake too hard. “Let’s just drop Irwin off. We still have to inventory the vehicles in the field.” Pulse pounding aside, the last thing he wanted was his impressionable daughter getting more exposure to Brittany.
“Please, Dad. They might have clothes.”
“Polyester pants, maybe,” Joe mumbled.
“Please…”
The road was blocked. Joe had to relent, pulling behind Brittany’s truck and parking in front of what Irwin said was his house.
Sam hopped out before Joe could set the parking brake. She ran to the edge of Phil’s driveway and then skidded to a stop, asking Rose, “Are there any clothes?”
“Only hard goods.” Rose stopped digging through a large lopsided box long enough to look up and say, “How are you today, Samantha?”
“Fine.” Sam’s shoulders slumped, but she didn’t return to their rig.
What was the big deal about clothes lately? Joe came around to help Irwin out of the truck.
It was a big step for an old man, made more difficult by the tightness of his leathers, which creaked louder than his deep, wheezy breaths. “Is she—” wheeze “—looking at me?”
“Who?”
“Rose,” Irwin whispered. With his back to the yard sale, the old man rearranged his leathers. “She’s got spunk. Heard she’s going to go red.”
An older woman Joe didn’t recognize, the one wearing faded overalls, caught sight of Joe and scurried toward her truck as if afraid he might mug her.
Joe’s head pounded. Maybe they should relocate somewhere else, someplace where Messinas didn’t have a checkered past.
Irwin thrust out his chest, sucked in his stomach—no small feat—and turned. “Rose would look mighty fine on the back of Barbara.”
“Barbara isn’t a two-person bike.” Joe drew Irwin aside and shut the door.
“Did you bring anything, Samantha?” Rose was lucky to be oblivious to Irwin’s fantasy. “This is something of a swap meet. I left a lamp and got a flour sifter.”
“We should have brought Barbara to trade,” Joe muttered.
“I should find Barbara a proper mechanic,” Irwin grouched in return. “You’re ruining all my street cred.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Joe watched the old woman he’d scared off turn the corner sharply toward Main Street. “Some people still think I’m a badass.”
Brittany had noticed the old woman leaving. She gave Joe a sympathetic smile.
And some people think I’m pitiful. Joe didn’t want Brittany’s pity.
Irwin’s phone beeped. “It’s time for my meds. I’ve got to take them with food.” He fixed Joe with a hard stare. “Keep Phil away from Rose while I’m gone.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” Joe saluted.
The breeze rustled the leaves overhead, sounding like polite laughter.
Irwin didn’t laugh. He looked at Joe as if he was a tremendous disappointment. “Don’t salute, man. A simple grunt goes a long way.”
“I’ll remember that.” The next time the FBI called. Thankfully, he’d had no calls today from anyone.
“This isn’t a yard sale?” Disappointment darkened Sam’s words like gathering storm clouds.
“This is a repository for Brit’s art.” Phil leaned forward in a rickety lawn chair, intent on imparting important news. “A veritable well of inspiration.”
Brittany clapped a hand over her eyes, which Joe took to mean she’d found the well dry.
Joe joined Sam on the driveway, pausing to appreciate Brittany’s legs and the red Thunderbird convertible. In that order.
“Why this—” Phil tapped a wooden magazine stand with his hand “—this could be a…a…a rocket platform.” He got to his feet with a huge wobble. “You could make a merman rising out of it, shooting to the stars.” He raised a foot as if about to try standing on the piece of furniture.
“No acrobatics,” Brittany warned, hurrying over to steady Phil and lead him back to his lawn chair.
“I love this lamp.” Sam gripped a cast-iron floor lamp with a pink lamp shade. “Look, Dad. It has monkeys dancing around the base and elephants on the lamp shade. How cool is that?”
Joe withheld judgment. It looked like something you plugged in if you wanted to start an electrical fire.
“Can I have it?” Sam carried the lamp to the beautician-artist-trespasser-thief. “Or do you want it for one of your projects, Brittany?”
“Call me Brit.” She put her fingers in the fringe of Sam’s hair.
Brit. The nickname didn’t do her justice. It was too short. Brittany had layers. A three-syllable name suited her. A woman like her could’ve handled a fourth syllable.
Not that she had admirable layers.
Not that you’re completely admirable either. The voice in his head sounded too much like Athena’s.
Not that Messinas are ones to judge. The voice switched to Uncle Turo’s.
“It’s all yours.” Brittany fluffed his daughter’s short locks beneath her cap.
Next thing you knew, Brittany would want to cut and curl Sam’s hair. She’d be having Sam in makeup and heels. She’d be encouraging Sam to ride a motorcycle and it wouldn’t be Barbara.
“Sam.” Joe didn’t know what else to say.
“Yeah, Dad?” There was hesitation in Sam’s eyes. She expected him to reject the lamp. His concern wasn’t about a hand-me-down.
Step away from the bad influence.
He wanted his little girl to stay sweet and innocent and unpolished awhile longer, but that statement wouldn’t go over well. “I’ll need to rewire that lamp before you use it.”
That earned him a smile from Brittany that put his pulse back in high gear. What was going on here? He had to remind himself he didn’t like her.
“Thanks, Dad.” Sam’s eyes lit up. She hurried back to the piles of junk in the driveway. “Oh, wow. This is great.” She sat on a three-foot-high blue ceramic elephant. “There’s only one chip in him and you can barely see it. Maybe I can use this to sit on in front of a computer desk.” Her gaze turned wistfully manipulative. “If I had a computer desk.”
“You have a tablet, not a computer.” Their laptops had come from Turo. Also confiscated by the FBI.
“That’s actually a plant stand,” Brittany said. “If you want it, I have some nail polish that might cover that chip.”
“Okay.” Brittany’s gaze wandered again and before Joe could say anything, she caught sight of the wooden magazine rack at Phil’s feet. “And that. That would be great to store my books.”
“It’s yours,” Brittany said.
Joe collected the magazine rack and the plant stand and put them by the lamp. “Time to go, Sam.”
“But…what about this?” Sam held up a plastic shoe rack.
He got the impression she was picking indiscriminately just to fill up the truck. “You only have three pairs of shoes.” That’s all a kid needed.
“Oh, yeah.” Sam’s expression crumpled.
Brittany draped her arm around Sam and said in a scolding tone, “She only has three pairs now. That’ll change. Soon she’ll have flats and sandals and slides and killer boots.”
“No killer boots,” Joe said reflexively. “She’s not that kind of girl. Don’t put ideas in her head.”
Sam leaned into Brittany and made her little-girl pouty face.
“I mean—” Joe regrouped “—Sam’s not into clothes and shoes and stuff. She likes engines and cars.”
“I’m into engines and welding,” Brittany said in a voice that suggested Joe should have seen this coming. “And I like pretty clothes and fancy shoes and makeup.” She high-fived Sam.
Phil chuckled. “She’s got you there, son. And usually when a woman has you, you owe her a favor.” He gave his granddaughter a sly look and gestured to the spread of items before them. “You need a favor from someone with strong arms and a truck, don’t you, Brit?”
“Why, yes. Yes, I do.” Brittany hugged Sam before releasing her to focus on Joe. “The town has politely donated things they don’t need in the hopes that I can use some of it in my art. But it’s slim pickings.”
Joe looked around at the collection of junk, agreeing. “And so…”
“I need help getting it off Grandpa Phil’s driveway.” There was a contagious twinkle to Brittany’s eyes.
Joe had been inoculated against twinkles. Still, he could almost feel her sparkliness soothe the anger inside.
“And she needs help transporting it to the dump,” Rose added, squeezing the squeaky handle of a dented flour sifter.
“Who’s going to pay for the dumping fee?” Money matters were the best way to squelch sparkliness.
“You are.” Phil’s tone was definitive. “You owe the family for joyriding with Leona’s car.”
Joe’s eyes narrowed. “That was over a decade ago.”
“People in Harmony Valley have long memories,” Phil continued.
True that.
Phil wasn’t done. “And if you do this dump run, I’ll recommend your garage to others in town.”
“We’ll help,” Sam blurted. “But only if I can pick through things first.” And then she added softly, trying to only let Brittany hear, “Are you sure there aren’t any clothes?”
“Sam, you have clothes,” Joe said firmly.
“New school, Dad,” Sam said in her duh tone of voice. “Everybody gets new clothes when they go to a new school.”
“Dads never understand.” Brittany’s mouth curled up on one side, threatening to burst into that smile that had slipped past Joe’s defenses a number of times.
Beautician-artist-trespasser-thief. If he said it often enough, he’d be okay.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Rose snapped her fingers. “Mildred thought you’d like some car parts. I’ve got them in my trunk.”
“Car parts?” Joe perked up.
“She brought them for me, Shaggy Joe.” Brittany hurried over to the trunk of the T-bird.
“Watch out, Rose.” Joe followed them to the convertible. “Brittany might take a liking to your car and steal your fender in the middle of the night for some funky art project she has in mind.”
“Well, if she did—” Rose unlocked the trunk “—I’m sure it would turn into something beautiful. That mermaid sculpture is exquisite.” Rose pointed a finger at Brittany. “But don’t you dare think about it.”
“Never fear. I prefer rusty fenders, Rose.” Brittany turned to Joe. “And since you’re nosy, you can help carry my gift over to my house.”
There were two boxes filled with clean car parts—a camshaft, two pistons, a small manifold cover and some O-rings.
“Dibs,” Joe whispered reverently. “These aren’t rusted.”
“Clean car parts work better in my smaller pieces, like man-cave lamps made from camshafts. You can have what I don’t use,” Brittany added magnanimously.
Joe leaned closer, running a finger over the name of the manufacturer stamped into the manifold. “This is German made.”
“Well, Mildred has a fondness for Volkswagens, so that makes sense.” Rose waited until they’d each taken a box before slamming the trunk. “If you like rust, Brittany, there used to be an abandoned Volkswagen out by the north bridge and the highway by the Messina Garage. I don’t know what happened to it. It could have been hauled away or overrun by those wild blackberry bushes.”
“Dibs.” Brittany grinned at Joe as they walked back to Phil’s. “I’m smiling, but I mean it. That car is mine.”
That smile of hers brought forth a lot of things Joe didn’t want to feel, including a competitive streak Joe had almost forgotten he had.