“He seems like a decent young man,” Thomas said. “Been running that garage alone, hasn’t he, since his father died?”

“He’s been running it alone since his father got sick a few years ago. He was half-running it when we were in high school.”

“So Wynn’s belongs to him now?” he asked. Thomas drove Mama’s Mercedes and his Nissan pickup to the dealership in Corpus when they needed maintenance. He’d never used a mechanic on the island.

“No. His parents never divorced, and there was a will leaving everything to his mother. The garage, the trailer, everything belongs to her now. She abandoned Boyce and his brother—who died in Iraq right before Boyce started high school—to fend for themselves with an abusive, alcoholic father. I don’t blame her for running from him—Boyce doesn’t blame her—but he was seven! How could she leave him there?”

Mama said nothing, but her lips pressed so tight they’d lost color and her hands were tight fists. She’d left her home and everything she’d known to protect herself and me before I was even born. I’d watched her refuse everything Thomas offered until he extended his proposal to adopting me, until he swore to love and care for me as if I’d been his natural-born child.

Thomas frowned. “I remember when his brother died. Brent Wynn. True hometown hero—decorated for bravery postmortem, I think. I had no idea about their father. Will Boyce remain at Wynn’s working for his mama, then?”

I shook my head. “We think she just wants whatever cash she can get for it now. He built that place up to what it is now, thinking it would be his. He’s proud and strong, and he’s survived things I can’t even let myself think about. Now he’s losing the one thing that mattered to him—that garage. He’ll probably find a job as a mechanic, but not here. He can’t stay and watch her dismantle everything he’s done.”

I pulled at a loose thread on my skirt to hide the desolation I felt at the thought of his departure. Once he put down roots elsewhere, a rift would begin to form between us. It was inevitable. There would be nothing for him here anymore.

• • • • • • • • • •

La Playa was always packed wall-to-wall, but on Fridays it was overrun. There were usually as many people waiting for a table as there were people eating, but the owner was one of Boyce’s numerous satisfied customers. We’d been seated at a pieced-together table for ten in less than twenty minutes.

I had introduced Boyce as my best friend. “He’s generously volunteered to be my DD for the night and get me home safe, so none of y’all are stuck with that job,” I added. Everyone chuckled and a few people said Thanks, man. “First round of margaritas are on me! And your iced tea too, Mr. Wynn,” I said, nudging his solid arm with my shoulder.

As soon as the drinks, baskets of chips, and bowls of salsa arrived, someone posed the inescapable question: “So Boyce, what do you do?” Kyle wasn’t a total jackhole, but he could be an intellectual elitist. He was still learning not to make discriminatory remarks about the locals around me.

“I’m a mechanic,” Boyce answered. His right hand lay fisted on his thigh. Otherwise, he looked wholly unruffled.

“Ah,” Kyle said, flicking a glance my way. “Cool.” His tone didn’t imply cool so much as a sense of superiority. Boyce didn’t give two figs about that and never had.

“Where do you work?” Shanice asked, blinking big dark eyes at him while curling a springy coil of hair around her finger, a thing I’d assumed studious doctoral students were incapable of doing. Wrong. “I’m sure my hand-me-down Pontiac will need some work over the next few years. I’d love to know someone who could keep it running.”

“Yeah, me too!” Milla said, her blue eyes skipping over Boyce’s torso and arms.

His dark green T-shirt was just snug enough to show off the muscularity of his broad chest and defined arms. I prayed the low growl in my throat would remain there, unheard. There was no good reason for me to be territorial. Oh, yeah? my brain snarled, flashing images of Boyce hovering over me in the darkness, that chest and those arms bare under my appreciative hands. Dammit.

Gustavo slid an arm over the back of Milla’s chair with a perturbed scowl. They’d been an item for about two weeks, and the rest of us had wagers going on how that would end. Prediction: messy.

Battling the desire to stake a claim on the beautiful man next to me in all manner of unacceptable ways, I sympathized with Gustavo. I had nothing against Shanice or Milla… but I wanted to knock their brilliant heads together at the moment.

“I’m at Wynn’s Garage,” Boyce answered.

“But your surname is Wynn—correct?” Kaameh asked. “You are the owner, then?”

I rarely saw Kaameh because she was working on her dissertation. She was also the research assistant for Dr. Kent—the professor whose grant-funded research focused on oil spills and their effects on the biodiverse marine habitats of the Gulf Coast. I hoped to take her place when I returned from Austin.

Boyce’s jaw twitched, but he produced a thin smile. “Actually, my mother is the owner.”

Her eyebrows arched high and she returned the smile. “Your mother is a mechanic too?”

He shifted in his seat, and I wished my colleagues would stop giving him the third degree. “No. My father died recently and ownership passed to her. I do all the repairs and run the day-to-day operations.”