Pit Stop: Baby! (Crescent Cove 4)

“What? No.” He blew out a breath. “I put my name out to a few places, but garages aren’t what they used to be, man.”

“If you actually used your contacts, you’d have more business than you could handle.”

“Yeah, well, I have a family. I can’t be working fourteen hours a day on stock cars. And those grease monkeys never have money. They always want to trade favors. I am not about that life.”

“You’re wasted here.”

“Don’t start.”

“Jesus, Dare. You’ve still got the best hands in the business. You know how to pull apart an engine and rebuild it like fucking Macgyver.”

“I like working nine to five and going the hell home.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe. Don’t start blowing smoke here when you know you’ll be gone in a few weeks.”

“How do you know that? You don’t know shit about me.”

How could he, when I was still figuring out my next steps myself?

“Whose fault is that? And people don’t change.”

“Obviously, they do. The Dare I remember was excited about being under the hood of a car. Now you do oil changes like Valvoline.”

Dare twisted my shirt and pushed me back against the hot rod. “I take care of my family. I stick. Unlike you.”

I shoved him back, my heart racing. I hadn’t come back here to get into a fight with my brother, dammit. “Don’t.”

He backed up, his jaw tight. “Don’t talk shit about stuff you know nothing about. You’ve been the golden boy on the racing circuit for years. You don’t know what it’s like to work and worry. So don’t give me some crap advice about me being a good mechanic.”

I opened my mouth, but Dare sliced his hand through the air. “Enough. Get the fuck out of here.”

But I didn’t have a chance, because Dare stalked out first.

I slammed my hand on the rusted hood of the car. Well, that went well. I knew better than to push at my brother. He needed to think it was his idea. But I knew he was wasting his talents here. I hadn’t been blowing smoke about that.

With one last sigh, I smoothed my hand down the scoop of the hood. Rat rods were in big demand. Between the two of us, we could trick it out and sell it for ten or twenty times what we’d pay for the parts.

The garage and the junkyard was perfect for working on them.

I scrubbed my hands over my hair. Lately, I was striking out everywhere when it came to people. But for the first time in a long damn time, I was excited.

This was something I knew how to do.

And I knew plenty of guys who had money to burn on stupid cars that were tricked out and one of a kind. Even better, I knew of a handful of people who m

ight be interested in working on the cars. Custom fabrication was fucking expensive, but I had the start-up money. Especially when I had the perfect person to do it up right.

I pulled out my phone and dug through my contacts. This kind of thing required more than a text.

On the third ring, a purring voice came on the line. “Has hell frozen over?”

“Hey, Burns. How’re things?”

“Boring.”

“You’re no good at being bored.”