CHAPTER NINE
“Derek!”
“What?”
“Phone!”
Derek wheeled out from under Jenny’s car and sat up, wiping his hands on a grease rag. “Who is it?”
Burke leaned his upper body through the office doorway. “Harry’s kid.”
Sighing, Derek pushed to his feet. He didn’t exactly like Harry’s son, Marshall, but since the man owned the premises Derek ran his business from, he was obliged to take the call.
“Thanks,” he said, accepting the phone from Burke. “Get the door?”
Burke ambled out of the office, shutting the door with a soft click behind him.
Derek perched a hip on the edge of the desk and lifted the phone. “Marshall. What can I do for you?”
“Hello, Derek. How’s things?”
“Good. You?”
“Yes. Uh. Listen, there’s something we need to talk about.”
Derek had started working for Harry Rawlings straight out of high school, and when the old man retired a few years later, he’d given Derek the option to buy him out.
Harry was a good man. He’d known that a twenty-two-year-old Derek couldn’t put together enough money, and they’d made a deal.
All Harry had wanted was enough income to keep living his life his way, and he didn’t need a lump sum for that. Derek had bought the business in installments while renting the premises, leaving Harry free to jump on his beloved Harley and ride off into the sunset.
For Harry, the sun had set six months later when his heart ran out of juice in a small town in Montana.
Harry had been an old-school mechanic, seeing to Emerson’s basic automotive maintenance needs and barely changing the prices since he’d started the garage back in the late sixties. Derek took over, shook things up, and the business boomed. He was proud as hell of what he’d built.
Marshall’s voice recalled him to the present. “Thing is, Derek, I’m retiring in a couple of months.”
Derek blinked. Harry had been old as dirt when he’d died, but Derek hadn’t realized that Marshall was close to retirement age. “Good for you.”
“Yeah. Wife and I are moving south.”
“Florida?”
“Texas. Wife’s from there, never much liked the northern climate. Anyway, I’m starting to wrap things up before the move.”
Derek’s shoulders tightened. “Uh-huh,” he said, and even he could hear the growl of impatience.
“I’m selling the house, and the…the garage. Listen, I thought about it, and it doesn’t make sense to hang on to the place.”
Marshall was some sort of salesman, mattresses or furniture or whatever, and had never had any interest in Harry’s work. He lived in Emerson but had never once come to visit his dad. Derek hadn’t even met the guy until Harry’s funeral.
“I don’t know about that, Marshall. It’s a good investment. Solid. Money you can count on coming in.”
“I know, I know. But like I said, I thought about it. I’m sixty-eight and I don’t plan on moving again once we’re settled in Texas. I’m looking to buy the best house I can. Getting a nice lump sum from selling the garage makes sense.”
“This is not good news for me, Marshall.” Derek’s fingers tightened on the phone.
“I get that. It’s why I called. I wanted to give you a heads-up, and see if you’re interested.”
“In buying the building?” Derek made good money, but not that good.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think—”
Marshall talked over him. “Thing is, I can’t guarantee that the buyer is going to want to buy as a rental.”
“What?”
“That’s how I’m going to list it, of course, but I want this done nice and quick. If it doesn’t attract anyone who wants to buy to rent it out, then I’ll be forced to sell it to anyone interested.”
“Gonna make it real hard for me to keep running my business, Marshall, if you sell the building out from under me.”
“I know. Shoot. I know. But my hands are tied.”
“Are they?” He didn’t know the man’s life, maybe they were, but…fuck.
“Don’t worry, it won’t be for a few months. We haven’t even found anywhere in Texas yet. But it’s happening, and I hoped you’d buy the garage. Dad loved that place. It’d be kinda nice, you know, that even with Dad gone and me and Julie moving, Rawlings’ Auto Repairs will still be here in Emerson. Family legacy, and all.”
For the life of him Derek couldn’t think of a reply that didn’t begin with fuck you and your family legacy. He glared at the floor and kept quiet.
“Anyway, I wanted to call and tell you myself. I really hope you’ll consider buying it.”
He had to at least run the numbers whether he liked it or not, didn’t he?
Derek ended the call and sat staring at the calendar on the wall opposite. The calendar was stuck on the wrong month, April, and had a picture of a kitten sitting under a tiny umbrella. Disturbingly, despite being under the umbrella, the kitten was wet.
It was Burke’s choice. The guy was a bear of a man who looked like he’d lean more toward a calendar that had Miss April as a statuesque woman in a tiny bikini—or no bikini—rather than a bedraggled kitten, but Burke had a whimsical side that he didn’t even try to hide, so.
Kittens.
Derek rubbed his hands over his face. The day had been going so well, too.
Apart from two key moments.
The first was when he’d been at Megan’s, standing in line behind Lila when she’d answered her phone and said, “Jenny, what’s wrong?” That had gotten his attention. Then she’d told Jenny to calm down, and that had really gotten his attention.
He’d leaned over Lila’s shoulder, bumping her right into the counter. Scowling like she was going to shank him with the plastic stirrer clenched in her fist, Lila had turned on him with an angry, “Hey!” When she’d seen he was the one who’d bumped her, she smiled.
With teeth.
The worry that had gripped Derek when Lila told Jenny to calm down—why, what did she have to calm down about, what was wrong, was she okay, what?—faded at Lila’s smile. She wouldn’t have been smiling if it was anything serious.
Which wasn’t to say he’d stopped worrying entirely.
Anyone who knew Lila knew to worry when she smiled with teeth.
He’d impassively returned her gaze while she finished her conversation and then informed him that Jenny and Kate were sobbing on the side of the road somewhere between Emerson and Jenny’s house. Did he want to do anything about it, or—
Derek didn’t know what the alternative option was. He’d hurried out as soon as he’d heard the word, sobbing.
Of course, they hadn’t been sobbing at all. Although for a second, when she had spotted him, Jenny had looked like she was considering it. After the obvious relief, that was.
And the flattering, and intriguing, flash of yearning.
The relief that they were safe and unhurt had lasted up until Kate dropped the bombshell about Sterling.
Fucking Gabe Sterling.
Derek used to like the man. He’d like him still, if not for the fact Sterling was running around on the sly with Jenny. He was Alex Zacharov’s best friend, and seemed to come and go as he pleased. Derek supposed a billionaire was free to do pretty much whatever he wanted, when and wherever he wanted to do it. He wasn’t envious of Sterling’s billionaire status.
He was envious of his sleeping-with-Jenny-Finley status.
And, briefly, of his impregnating-Jenny-Finley status.
Call him a Neanderthal, but that was an honor that Derek had been planning on claiming since before Sterling had ever set foot in Emerson.
Although, he probably shouldn’t phrase it like that.
Even to himself.
Derek’s whole world had stopped when Kate mentioned the baby. When Jenny had said the baby was due in a few months, that stopped world had iced over.
And then everything had heated and started right back up when she’d smacked him, telling him she was fat, not pregnant.
The fat comment was bullshit, but thank God, thank God she wasn’t pregnant.
For three whole hours, the future that Derek wanted with a fierce, unquenchable desire, had looked like it was within his reach.
Then came key moment two: Marshall Rawlings wanted to sell Derek’s garage, putting his livelihood at risk.
As he’d said to Rawlings, this was not good news. But he’d find a way.
Derek stared at the calendar. The wet kitten gazed mournfully back. With a sound of impatience, Derek strode over to the wall and flipped the calendar to the correct month.
He rolled his eyes when he saw the picture. This kitten was on a tiny picnic blanket, a what-the-fuck look on its face as it glared at the spread of miniature knitted cupcakes and sandwiches.
He grinned. He’d find a way to keep the garage.
And he’d find a way to keep Jenny.