Turn Up the Heat (26 page)

“Shane?” The sound of Jackson's voice rattled through Shane's thoughts, and he swung around, blinking.

“Jackson? What are you doing here?”

His friend's sheepish smile looked faded and tired. “Too jacked up to sleep. I thought a drive might clear my head; plus I figured someone should come out here and make sure everything was locked up.” Jackson shut the side door behind him and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“Thanks.” Shane picked up a socket wrench from the cold concrete. “I'm going to stick around, finish up with this tranny.”

“You're gonna need some decent muscle to mate that thing to the bell housing, you know,” Jackson said, pulling his coat off to toss it on the workbench.

“Yeah. It's not for the faint of heart.”

“Lucky for you I know just the guy to help you out. Hand me that input shaft, would you?”

Shane stopped, overwhelmed again by everything flying around in his mind. “Thanks, man.”

Jackson lowered his arms from the Miata's undercarriage. “You want to talk about it?”

He meant to say no. He meant to just work on the car, get his mind good and straight, and come up with all the answers. But instead, when Shane opened his mouth, the whole story came bubbling up.

“When I was a kid, my parents would host these fancy parties in the city for Philadelphia's up-and-coming socialites. They were no place for me and my sister, so we'd come up here to spend long weekends with Grady and my grandmother, Ella. We thought it was the coolest thing in the world to come play in the garage bays, eat homemade chocolate chip cookies and stay up past our bedtime to look at the stars. I used to peek under the hood of every car that came into this place, and Grady helped me memorize the makes and models while Ella played with my sister in the fields out back.”

Jackson's brow twitched in thought. “I don't remember Grady ever being married.”

Shane exhaled on a small, sad smile. “You moved here when you were eleven, right?”

Jackson nodded, and Shane went on. “She died the summer I was nine, and my sister and I never came back. By the time I was old enough to realize it wasn't Grady's grief so much as my father's strained relationship with the old man that kept us away from Pine Mountain, I was in middle school.” Shane shook his head at the fogged-over memory of it. “For a couple of years, Grady came up to the city to visit at Christmastime, but my dad was always conveniently in court on those days. After a while, the visits just stopped. I didn't see Grady at all when I was a teenager.” The guilt that threaded around the words hung in the air like a heavy aftertaste.

“So then you just went to college and law school? How'd you end up back here from there?” Jackson asked.

The smile that crossed Shane's lips grew a little bigger, and he tipped his head toward the Mustang. “On an impulse, I bought the car the summer after I graduated from college. It pissed my father off something fierce, which was half the reason I did it. But in the end, I'd earned the money for it by grunting it out at the firm, so there was nothing he could do about it.”

Recognition flickered in Jackson's eyes, and Shane could see him starting to fit the pieces together as he finished.

“So I kept the car at a hole in the wall garage outside of Princeton, fixing it up whenever I could, but I didn't know my ass from my elbow and I got in way over my head. I called Grady up, just for a pointer or two, and you know what he did? He showed up in Princeton three hours later.”

Jackson chuckled. “That sounds like something Grady would do.”

Shane shifted his weight, squinting through the harsh fluorescent glare of the garage. “We never talked about the ten years we spent apart, not that weekend or any of the others when he came to Princeton to help me with the car, but it always ate at me that I wasn't there for him when I should've been. Even when I graduated and passed the bar, I still stayed close with him, even though my father never knew it.”

“And that's why you came last year.”

He nodded, a single dip of his rough chin. “Yup. It was a no-brainer. I couldn't let Grady lose his business, not when he loved it so much. My father scoffed at the idea, even though he begrudgingly agreed to let me have the time off. We both thought it would be temporary, but as soon as I spent one day back here, I knew I wouldn't ever go back to the city.”

Jackson cleared his throat and looked at his boots. “So, uh, will you now?”

Shane's heart sped up in his chest. “No. Nothing's changed. I meant what I said in that hospital. This is who I am. I belong here.”

“And what about Bellamy?”

The sound of her name jolted through Shane, and he instinctively reached up for the bell housing on her transmission, itching to keep his hands busy so his brain would slow down. “I don't know.”

Seeming to sense that Shane was nearing the end of his rope, Jackson backed off. “Right. Let me grab a rubber mallet. We're going to have to pound the hell out of this input shaft to get it back in there right.”

Shane rubbed his palm over the ache in his chest, flattening it for just a second to hold the thought of Bellamy there, close to him. She'd been right about his keeping the truth from her, but goddamn it, it wasn't like he could just come out with all of it in casual conversation.
Yeah, by the way, I'm the son of one of Philadelphia's most powerful men, but we're not speaking because I decided to give up a prestigious career for a simple life in the middle of nowhere.
She'd probably have thought he was insane.

Christ, she probably hated him right now.

Yeah, well, she's not the only one
, he thought, rolling up his sleeves to finish what he'd started.

“Sorry for calling you in the middle of the night.” Bellamy stared out the window at the purplish light of predawn, seeing nothing as the scenery whipped by on Rural Route Four.

Jenna shrugged, her sloppy, honey-colored ponytail doing a haphazard dance behind her. “What're friends for?” She paused for a minute. “So do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Saying out loud that she'd fallen in love with Shane, only to have him play her for the world's biggest sap sure wasn't going to make the truth sting any less. Hadn't her past taught her pride it was a bad idea to lie down on the job?

It was better to just forget what had happened. God, she needed to put her stupid, trusting heart on lockdown. Look at what an idiot following the damned thing had made her.

“You're pretty upset,” Jenna ventured again, gently pressing.

Words percolated up from Bellamy's chest, followed by an ache and what was sure to be an avalanche of tears. How could she say any of this without it knocking her down even further? What her ex, Derek, had done paled in comparison to this, and admitting that she'd been played for a fool and then a
super
-fool all in time span of a week might just be enough to send her over the edge.

Oh, no you don't
, her pride roared, forcing different words from her lips.

“I'll get over it. I just want to go back to the city. I want to go home.”

Bellamy stuffed down the urge to talk about Shane—to even think about his dark, brooding eyes or the ultra-masculine, oh-so-good smell of him—with all her exhausted might.

She wasn't letting him get the best of her ever again.

 

 

Bellamy's head popped off the cool glass, jarring her awake with a gasp.

“What the hell?” She squinted against the sunlight filtering into the car.

“Effing potholes. Sorry,” Jenna said, making a face. “And it's rush hour, so you know. We're going to eat the bumper of this moron's Corolla for a while. No-driving bonehead,” she muttered with a shake of her ponytail. “Anyway, it's good that you got some sleep.”

Bellamy blinked, her brain railing against the command to catch up. “Oh, right.” Had she honestly been dreaming about the way Shane smelled? Hello, lame. She tucked her chin to her chest, surprised to feel the brush of flannel on her face. Damn it. She'd never taken off Shane's shirt, the one she'd snatched up off the floor on her way to the garage. Bellamy considered taking it off, right there in Jenna's car, but she was only wearing a thin tank top underneath it. Probably better not to flash morning traffic on 295 just to spite her ex . . . whatever Shane was. Boyfriend? Lover? Guy who stomped on her ridiculously trusting heart?

It was going to take forever to forget him.

“I should probably give you a heads-up. Holly's waiting, and she's at Defcon Oh-my-God. I told her you didn't want to talk about it, but you know how she gets.” Jenna hissed a curse at the box truck in front of them and swerved to avoid another pothole.

“You
told
her?” Bellamy felt what little energy she had seep out of her. Fan-freaking-tastic.
Hi, welcome home. Have some rehashing to go with that heartbreak. Little helping of feel-like-a-gullible-jackass to go on top? Don't mind if I do.
Bellamy sighed.

“Of course I told her. We're your best friends, dummy. She's making you breakfast.”

Bellamy groaned. “You let her into your kitchen?”

A wicked smile crossed Jenna's face. “Nope. I let her into yours.” She took a quick exit and headed toward Bellamy's building. “But don't worry. Last time I checked, her breakfast-making skills were totally limited to ordering Starbucks and pouring cereal.”

“Great,” Bellamy mumbled. At least her kitchen was probably safe. Her cereal, not so much. “I'm telling you, I really don't want to talk about it.”

“Okay. Just breakfast it is, then.”

Bellamy wrapped her arms around herself and slumped back into the passenger seat. She stared at the traffic, vowing to take the stupid flannel shirt off and stuff it in the Goodwill box the minute she walked in the door.

She was going to erase Shane Griffin from her memory if it was the last thing she ever did.

 

 

Shane worked on Bellamy's transmission until his fingers were numb, letting the movements and the feel of her car under his hands calm him into rational thought. Finally, somewhere between replacing the bearings and seating the bell housing, the answers started falling into place, and by the time the sun came up, bright and unyielding over the mountain, Shane knew what he had to do. He thanked Jackson for all his help and sent him on his weary way before flipping the cordless into one hand, cradling it in his palm as he dialed.

“Riverside Hospital,” the woman's pleasant voice purred into the phone.

“I need to check on a patient in the ICU, please.”

“Just a moment.”

After a brief conversation with one of the ICU nurses, Shane learned that Dr. Russell was scheduled to make rounds before his shift ended at nine. Shit, that wouldn't give him enough time to get back to the cabin to talk to Bellamy if he wanted to make it out there before the good doctor left. Measuring his options and liking neither, he coaxed the cordless to life one more time.

“Come on, baby. I know you're pissed. Just pick up the phone . . .”

When he was greeted by his own prerecorded voice, he wasn't exactly shocked. He was one hell of a candidate for the old silent treatment.

“Hey, Bellamy, I know you're there. Just hear me out.” Not that she had much choice. The cabin was so small, you could hear the machine from its four corners with sound to spare. “Listen, I know I screwed up. I should've told you the truth from the beginning. You have every right to be really mad.” He paused, hoping maybe she'd pick up the phone. “Anyway. I'm going to go to the hospital to check on Grady before Dr. Russell leaves. I'll be back soon and we can talk. I mean, I'd really like it if we could talk.” Man, he was no good at this. No wonder she wouldn't pick up. “Right. So I'll be back soon. I . . .” Shane stopped short, squeezing his eyes shut.

“I'll see you. Bye.”

 

 

“All in all, you're incredibly lucky, Mr. Griffin. Even though your episode last year was rather mild, people who suffer more than one heart attack usually have more tissue damage.” Dr. Russell flipped through the results of Grady's MRI, explaining the details. “You'll have to stay with us for a little while as you recover, but I don't think you'll need the ICU after today. We'll continue to monitor you, and you'll have to stay on your meds after you leave, of course. But for now, what I really want you to do is keep resting.”

“Got plenty of time to rest when I'm dead,” Grady rasped. His slate-gray eyes didn't miss a trick, even if he did look like he could use the rest and then some.

Dr. Russell chuckled. “Well, lucky for you, that day won't be today. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fill Dr. Edwards in on your status before I head out. I'll see you tomorrow.” He paused to look at Shane, who finally let himself sigh a breath of relief from the visitor's chair crammed in the corner. “Press the call button if you need anything, Mr. Griffin.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Shane got up to walk him into the hallway. Once he was positive they were out of Grady's earshot, Shane cleared his throat. “How long a recovery do you think we're talking about here?”

Dr. Russell weighed Shane carefully with his eyes. “It's difficult to say. It depends on how well he responds to the medication, but I'm not going to lie to you. For a man his age, it's not an easy road. I assume he's retired?”

Shane snorted. “Are you kidding? He was changing out a transmission last night before this happened.”

Dr. Russell's eyebrows skipped up. “Well, those days are done. Don't get me wrong,” he added in a rush, no doubt responding to Shane's look of panic. “I'm not suggesting he sit in a rocker all day. But at this point, he's going to have to dial back in order to stay healthy, that's all.”

Shane nodded mutely. Oh, this had bad things written all over it. Grady was stubborn in his sleep, for Chrissake.

“Look, let's not put the cart before the horse. As he gets better over the next few days, we'll work on a plan to keep him that way. For the next six weeks, he's looking at a lot of rest and not much else, but he's a lucky man. Not everyone has family members so close by who can help out. Speaking of which—” Dr. Russell stopped to eyeball Shane's rumpled clothes with a pointed look. “Go home and get some sleep. I meant it when I said you won't be able to help him if you're dead on your feet.”

“Thanks, Dr. Russell.” Shane watched the man disappear down the hall before heading back into Grady's room. “Done talking about me, are you?” One corner of Grady's mouth lifted slightly in a halfhearted smile.

“For now.” While there wasn't much sense in lying about it, Shane wasn't about to wax poetic on the subject, either. “The doctor says you need to rest, so rest is what you're gonna do. You want me to see what's on TV?” Shane started to rummage for the remote to the TV anchored on the wall across from Grady's bed.

“I owe you an apology.”

The words took Shane by complete surprise. “For what?”

“I told you I'd call you when that tranny came in, and I didn't. Guess I lied to ya a bit so you could spend time with your girl. I'm sorry.” Grady was breathless just from the handful of words.

“I'm not worried about the tranny, Grady.” The last thing Shane wanted to do was open up the can of worms that involved Grady's work habits. That conversation would have to wait for another time. “The only thing that matters is you're okay.”

Grady managed a throaty chuckle. “Boy, you don't even know what you don't know. Someone offers you an apology, you got two choices. You either accept it, or you don't. It's called making amends.” More raspy breathing.

Damn it, this wasn't resting! “Okay, okay. I accept your apology. Jeez, Grady. You need to take it easy.”

“And you need to pay attention, son.”

“Huh?”

Grady gave him a knowing smile, and recognition flooded through Shane as his gut did that foreboding end-around thing it did whenever he was about to get into a fight.

“I take it he came to see you, then.” Shane's voice was full of tension. It was just like his father to beat him to the punch.

“Ayuh. Left just before you got here.” Grady nodded, unwavering steel eyes on Shane's dark ones. He could read the message in the old man's eyes from a mile away.

“I'm not making amends with him, Grady. It's too late for that.” Shane crossed his arms over his already-tight chest. Hell, no. He'd rather be skinned alive than kiss and make up with his father, no matter what Grady said.

“Funny, he said the same thing. Crossed his arms just like that too. Hardheaded, both of ya. Too stubborn to see past what you want to know what you really need.”

Shane set his mouth in a mulish line. “Really? And what is it that I need?”

Grady laughed in a short little burst. “Swift kick in the ass, same as your father.” His face sobered as Shane scowled. “Listen, Shane. Life's too short to argue like this. He might blow a lot of smoke over it, but he's finally figurin' out that deep down your passion is for somethin' other than the law. You really gonna blame the man for wanting you to love what he loves? You're his son.”

Well, fuck. Of course the old man had to go and make sense.

“It's not that easy,” Shane argued. “He paid off my loan to blackmail me. Wanting me to love the law is one thing. Not giving me a choice in the matter is another.” He thought of his father's ultimatum. Fact of the matter was, his father had wedged him between one hell of a rock and a hard place. Shane had no idea how he was going to pay off his law school debt working at the garage.

Grady arched a graying eyebrow. “Ah, you've always got choices. You may not like 'em, but you still got 'em.”

“Grady, I don't know how I'm going to pay him back. Selling the car won't even turn up a third of what I owe him, even if I get what it's worth.” Dread pinballed through Shane's chest at the thought of selling the Mustang. He wasn't even sure it would be worth it.

“I'm retiring, Shane.”

All of Shane's thoughts slammed to a halt in his head. “You're closing the garage?” No way. No
way
.

Grady shook his head. “No. I'm giving it to you.”

Shane's mouth fell open. “What?”

“I'm gettin' too old for this, son. You practically run the place, anyway. It's about time we just made things official.”

Shane gave his head a vehement shake. “I don't want the garage.”

Grady chuckled, a small, gruff sound. “Even so, it's done. I told your father.”

That
must've been a hell of a conversation. “What did he say?”

“That's for the two of you to discuss.” He dismissed the subject with a wave. “Where's your lady friend?”