But obviously, had I met the man that was now staring down at me as if I was a bug, I would’ve realized that Cole wasn’t the perfect looking man, this guy was.
“What do you think, Trinket?” the mechanic behind my back asked. “You think I should do it?”
Price, the man that was no longer looking at me, but at the mechanic, shrugged. “Whatever.”
One word. Three syllables.
But it was enough to make my knees weak.
God, did he have a deep voice.
And he’d whatevered as if he didn’t know me at all.
As if that week in Florida, at the beach, where he’d helped me through one of the most awful times in my life, never even happened.
“All right, girly,” the mechanic said, causing me to turn slightly to now have both men in view. “I’ll do it.”
The mechanic promised to keep the truck, only after me agreeing that in addition to the five hundred dollars, I would also pay storage for the truck until such time as Cole relinquished the title and allowed me to buy it.
All the while during my negotiation, the man at my back, the biker that stole my breath away, worked quietly in the corner on his car.
Never once saying a word to me.
“But only if you tell me why.”
I frowned at the older mechanic.
“I, uh…” I hesitated. “Why what?”
I had told him why.
“Why did you break up with your fiancé?”
I felt my stomach seize.
I looked down at my hands and said, “You really want to know?”
The mechanic crossed his arms over his chest.
For being old, he wasn’t fat.
He still had a rather impressive set of guns on him.
“I, uh…” I hesitated awkwardly. Then blurted out everything, starting with the night that Cole told me what he’d expected of me. And ending with, “So that’s that.”
The mechanic looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“I won’t charge you for storage.” He uncrossed his arms. “But if that asshole comes in here, I will definitely get him to pay the storage fee.”
“What if he tries to take it somewhere else?” I asked, slightly panicked.
The older man smiled. “He won’t. I’m the only one in the area. And if he did have it towed, I know every mechanic within twenty counties.”
I swallowed, then allowed my eyes to drift to the man still in the corner.
He wasn’t looking at me.
He was on his phone, typing away, with most of his back toward me as he leaned against his motorcycle.
I felt my stomach drop.
But, because I was raised to be polite, I said, “Bye, Price.”
Price’s eyes came to meet mine, and they were completely blank.
He didn’t say a word.
Just tilted his head toward me and gave me a chin lift in response.
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” the old mechanic said. “I’ll get it all taken care of for you.”
Indeed, I knew he would.
That didn’t stop the ball of horrible, no good, very bad to start to grow bigger in my stomach.
God, what had I done to deserve this?
That week had been the worst, and the best, week of my life.
And the one person to make it the best wouldn’t even give me the time of day anymore.
Seriously, what had I done?
I didn’t know what.
I did know that the entire family avoided me if I saw them out.
I knew that Price looked, gave a chin jerk, but never spoke.
I knew that I’d thought we’d parted on great terms.
And now I was persona non grata.
What gave?
Fisting my hand, I curled it into a tight ball and marched out of the mechanic’s shop, anger infusing my every limb.
CHAPTER 12
You can run and you can hide, but you can’t change the fact that Scooby Doo’s real name is ‘Scoobert.’
-Text from Tide to Price
PRICE
At first, I was just going to keep an eye on her to make sure that nothing bad happened to her. Watching was okay, right? Stalking was where I’d drawn the line.
But then I’d realized that I wasn’t able to watch her because she literally never left her house unless it was to go to the grocery store or the fast-food places around the corner.
She didn’t even have a pet that would bring her outside at all.
Which had started me thinking… what was she doing online? Could I talk to her, make sure she was okay, and still not act like I was me?
That’d been how I’d gotten into a Reddit forum, sent to me by a good friend when they’d tracked her email address being used, and gotten myself involved in a scheme.
It’d been my suggestion that had her moving out into the dead of night and stealing a spark plug off her ex-fiancé’s truck.
It’d also been with my help—as well as Hunt’s, my good friend—who’d turned off the security cameras that Cole Swanson’s family had set up around their property, so she wouldn’t be seen.