Dirtiest Little Secret

That succinct evaluation hit Isaac a little sideways, but he wasn’t sure why. He also wasn’t completely sure he was following Roach’s convoluted correlation between a rusty bike and integrity.

He was still wrangling with the concept when Roach said, “Let me think about it. She just turned out to be something different than I expected. Once I get my mind around that, I’ll come back.”

Roach shook Isaac’s hand, turned, and strolled toward the bike he’d come in riding.

Isaac glanced at Grim. “The bike talks to him?”

Grim grinned, shrugged. “Roach is…deep.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Isaac muttered.

He crossed his arms and watched the men ride off together, puzzling out the discomfort gnawing in his gut.

“Integrity… She makes you think you’re going to get one thing, but you end up with something else. What’s on the outside doesn’t tell the whole story.”

Just like Isaac had led Ava to believe he led a simple life when there was way more to his story. He’d justified his behavior by telling himself he hadn’t lied to her.

But he had lied. Just not in words.

Shit. Now Ava was on his mind again. Or, rather, how his stupidity and pride had pushed her away.

Isaac rolled the bike to the yard, where he lined it up with the others. The garage phone rang right as tires crackled on the gravel out front. Isaac closed his eyes, dropped his head back, and exhaled heavily. “All I want is a fucking moment.”

With a sigh, he entered the garage through the side door and picked up the phone. “Revival.”

“Hi,” a woman said. “I saw your help-wanted sign when I was driving by. Are you still hiring?”

“Yeah. Why don’t you give me your name and number? I’m screening with phone interviews. I’ll give you a call back when I can.”

He picked up the pen stuck to the wall by the phone, but there was no paper left in the scratch pad. Isaac wrote it on his hand with a promise to call her later today and hung up. He slammed the pen back to its spot on the wall so it didn’t disappear like the paper and turned to face the soft footsteps entering the garage.

He pulled in a breath to greet the customer and found Ava. All his breath left him in a swoosh. Shock hit him first, then a burst of other emotions collided in his body all at once—excitement, hope, fear, guilt. Love.

A tentative smile lifted her mouth. “Hi.”

Isaac wanted to wrap her in his arms and bury his face against her soft, fragrant skin. But he couldn’t make himself move. “Hey.”

The phone rang behind him, making him jump. “Sonofabitch.”

He swiveled, picked up the phone, then slammed it down again, hanging up on whoever had called. Then he lifted the receiver again and let go. The phone dropped to the end of the coiled cord, stopping just above the concrete floor, and bounced there.

Isaac stared at it with a sliver of satisfaction. “I should have done that a long time ago.”

“No Becky Rae?” Ava asked.

“No Becky Rae.” He wandered a few feet toward her, with so much to say but no words gathered to say it. She was in her cutoffs, a pink tank top, and flip-flops. Her hair was down and loose. And Isaac ached to feel her against him.

“Business still good?” she asked.

“Still good.”

She smiled and pushed her hands into her back pockets. “That’s great.”

“How are you?”

“Oh, you know…” She scraped her lower lip between her teeth and nodded. “I took a new job.”

“Yeah?” He smiled. Just having her in the same room changed his outlook on the world. “That’s great. Where?”