“Oh good. Phew,” I said. What I was thinking: Damn, which I sure as shit kept to my fool self because she would not have shared that reaction.

I knew she was confused when I begged off seeing her, but I blamed Riley’s appearance and the need to get a few things at the shop settled. Both were true—no way I was allowing her to cross paths with that jackass, and I had some serious shit to nail down before I saw her again.

“You won’t leave without seeing me, right?” she’d asked last night.

“No way.”

I heard her answering sigh and almost caved. I wanted to talk to her about her stepfather’s offer, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to tell her until I had something to fucking say. Until I’d removed the obstacle that stood between us. Until then, I was spinning my wheels, scrambling for enough solid ground to pull myself out, and I’d be damned before I’d drag her into the mud with me.

“Where’re you going?” Mom asked as I crossed the living room. “Ain’t the garage still open?”

“Not today.”

She said something else I ignored, then came to the door and hollered at me as I fired up the TA and cranked the stereo like I didn’t see or hear her. She hadn’t been around for my teenage years. I reckoned she had it coming to her.

• • • • • • • • • •

Dr. Frank closed his office door behind him and reached to shake my hand. “Boyce, good to see you. Have some questions for me, or have you reached a decision?” He sat behind the desk, and I took one of the chairs facing him. The positions were familiar enough that all sorts of smartass comments were pouring into my head. But this wasn’t school and I wasn’t in hot water. I was a businessman speaking to a potential investor.

I sat straight as a rod, pressing a fist to my thigh to pin down my leg, which wanted to judder a mile a minute. “You’ve made me a real fair offer, Dr. Frank, and I’ve got no reason to turn it down. But—and I’m sure I’m going about this all wrong—I have a proposition of my own.”

He nodded and sat forward. “All right.”

“I started working for my father ten years ago. He was an asshole, pardon my language, but he knew cars and he passed that know-how down to me. If I told you I’d thought that garage would be mine since then, that would be a lie. Truth is, I didn’t have any kinda goals or plans when I was a kid. I just… did what was easiest.”

What was easiest was surviving the loss of Mom and Brent and ducking my dad’s fist, but by seventeen I could’ve shaped up. I could’ve followed Maxfield’s lead and got the hell out. I chose not to, because staying required nothing. It was so fucking easy.

I’d dug my own hole, and it was time to dig myself out.

“A couple years ago, my dad was diagnosed with liver disease. He never quit drinking, so he was ineligible for a transplant. He was going to die fast and ugly and we both knew it. Once I knew—or thought I knew—Wynn’s was going to be mine, everything shifted in my head. How I saw the place, the customers, my work, my connection to this town—everything changed. So the thing is—I know I can do the work. I can run the place for someone else.” I swallowed. “But what I want is to own it.”

“Oh?” His brows rose and he steepled his hands on his desk. Dr. Frank seemed like a good-humored, plainspoken sorta guy. He’d gotten his MD from Baylor in 1986—diploma on the wall behind him—which meant he and my dad had been of an age. But whereas my dad had been a hard-living son of a bitch who believed a man taking care of himself was for pussies, Thomas Frank had a George Clooney thing going on. I could see how his sexploits got to be part of local folklore before I was even born.

And then he met Pearl’s mom.

“There are two paths to owning Wynn’s: purchasing it—cash on the barrel—or financing it,” he said. “I assume you don’t have the funds on hand to buy your mama out.” I shook my head, as he knew I would. “So that leaves financing a business loan. How might you feel making payments on something you thought was yours?”

“Well, I reckon that’d depend on the terms of the loan.” Thank Christ I’d looked this shit up last night.

He smiled. “My initial assumption was that your mama would sell Wynn’s to me at a fair price and I would pay you to run it. If you were to take on a loan for that property, you’d have to make that payment every month, as well as support the business and yourself. That’s a lot to ask of a young man with marketable skills who could command a steady salary and undertake no risk instead.”

Working for him was the easier path, and it should have been tempting, but it wasn’t. “I’m probably shooting myself in the foot to say this to the guy offering me a job, but I’m not sure I’d bring the same amount of dedication to something that isn’t mine.”

He eyed me more closely. “All right. Just a moment.” He pulled up some software on his computer and entered numbers and turned the monitor toward me. “My CPA sent over property and business valuations yesterday—both asset-based and income-to-value. Here’s the possible range of the loan payment amount—high to low—depending on what she’ll sell it for, at a typical rate of interest.”

I braced myself for something between barely doable and hopeless.

“That’s—less than a grand per month? For—uh, principal and interest? That’s all? I could do either of those.”