Shifting Gears (3 page)

Don't be crass, Annabelle.

She couldn't help but smile. She
liked
being crass, at least in her mind. But she was supposed to be on her best behavior. At least for now. No sense rocking the boat when the boat was already one rough wave away from capsizing and drowning her completely.

“Did you do it by hand?” Mrs. Hart was looking at her expectantly.

Oh, dear.
What had she asked? Oh, right. They were talking about pie crust.

Sigh.

“Um, no. I used an engraved rolling pin.”

Listen to yourself.

Was it just her imagination, or did even Mrs. Hart look bored? For goodness' sake.
Really?
For the life of her, Annabelle couldn't imagine
this
was what a man really wanted—even the polite homemaker next door was bored with pies.

And yet, no matter that she'd saved his business and kept him in beer and whiskey, she had to admit that Donnie had loved her better when she'd been a pie-baking teacher making shitty money—the years of coveralls and grease-stained fingers had cost her a marriage, no matter how miserable that marriage had been.

Annabelle suppressed a sigh and followed her hostess into the kitchen, where the older woman went about fixing a pot of tea and serving slices of pie onto two plates.

“Oh, Mrs. Hart, please, that's too much for me. I'm trying to watch my weight and—”

“You're too skinny by half, Annabelle.” Mrs. Hart turned and gave her a stern stare. “And call me Nancy, please. You're not the little girl next door anymore.”

Annabelle nodded, watching as Nancy set the plates on the table, followed by a teapot and two cups. She thought about Nancy's words.

You're not the little girl next door anymore.

No. At least, not on the outside. But on the inside, she felt like she'd been pushed back into her twelve-year-old self. Stuck at home with her mother, feeling small and miserable and trapped, but incapable of breaking away. And without a miraculous windfall of cash, life would go on like this for God only knew how much longer.

Why was money so often the root of all problems? She'd only taken over Donnie's garage in the first place because they'd needed money so badly. She'd just been doing what she had to do.

But you liked it, too.

Yes. Of course she had. Finally, a chance to
use
all that knowledge she'd built up, to put it into practice. Too be someone significant.

She'd loved it. Reveled in it.

Once she'd gotten over the growing pains, that was.

Even though she'd picked up a lot just from hanging around the Hart's garage as a teen, actually doing the work had been hell at first. And running the business side of the shop, on top of that, was its own challenge. The whole experience had pushed her well out of her comfort zone.

But after the first year of so many mistakes and quietly-shed tears in the bathroom, she'd been someone. She'd built up that place and made it into something truly successful.

Right before Donnie had torn it all down.

I was the one who made that shop you play around in every day. I was the one who moved you out of Charlotte like you'd always wanted. You'd be nothing without me, Annabelle.

He'd said those things to her. And she'd believed them. After all, the first two were true, and that had made the last statement all too easy to believe. Even though she'd reminded herself that she could build an entire car from scratch in her sleep, that she was capable of doing more than she'd ever dreamed, that she could stand on her own two feet and be independent …

Well, those first two things were true.

Ironic, really. No matter how unknowingly at the time, she
had
jumped into marriage with Donnie in order to escape her too-restrictive upbringing, only to end up back where she started.

Maybe he was right, after all. Maybe she would be nothing without him.

But she had realized recently that she hadn't been anything
with
him, either.

Not that anyone else seemed to think that was important. Her mother was still urging her, none too subtly, toward reconciling with Donnie. Momma's preference for daughters who dressed like ladies and did as they were told was why Annabelle was suffering through looking like Miss North Carolina. She was willing to suffer through it for a little while if it meant a roof over her head.

Nancy sat down next to her and began to pour some tea into Annabelle's cup. “I hope you don't mind if I say this, but I have to admit, it was a surprise when your mother said you and Donnie were divorcing. But I will confide in you that I think you made the right decision.”

She did?

Annabelle blinked at her.

Nancy kept talking. “Oh, I know how people talk, and I'm sure you've gotten your fair share of resistance. But it takes courage for a woman to do something like that. I'm proud of you.”

She set the teapot down and slid the sugar bowl and the small milk pitcher toward Annabelle, who was having a hard time speaking past the sudden tightness in her throat. Courage? Someone was saying that she had courage? Annabelle had just been thinking about how terrified she was of leaving her mother's house and facing the world on her own with no friends, no money, no job …

But Nancy seemed to think she was brave. And that being brave was a good thing.

How was Annabelle going to respond, when she was having a hard time breathing through this sudden, overwhelming feeling?

Fortunately, Nancy seemed to sense what was going on, because she straightened and changed the subject, saying in a less solicitous tone, “Your mother mentioned that you were a teacher in Texas.”

At least it wasn't a total lie. Annabelle
had
been a teacher for the first couple of years, anyway, after she'd gotten her teaching degree. Until having to pull double duty at the shop and at school while Donnie drank away their income proved too much for her, and she'd quit teaching to save the business.

But apparently, her mother was not only upset over how Annabelle had lost Donnie—she hadn't wanted anyone to know that Annabelle had been running a garage, either. Especially not one that got pulled out from under her in the end, anyway.

Annabelle stiffened. She'd worked hard to save that place. Why couldn't her mother allow her even that small victory? The anger she'd been suppressing for the past ten days at home started to bubble over, making her protest, “I wasn't just a teacher. I worked in Donnie's garage, too. I helped…”

She trailed off at the curious look on Nancy's face. God, she must be coming off like a child desperate for approval, bragging about all the things she'd done. She shook her head slightly and gave a small smile. “But that's not important. I did work as a teacher, yes.”

Nancy studied her for a moment, as though waiting for Annabelle to say more, but finally asked, “Will you go back to it here in Charlotte? The school year starts pretty soon, but we're always looking for good teachers.” She took a sip of her tea, her eyes never straying from Annabelle's face.

That direct look made Annabelle think of Grady. Funny, how he'd gotten his mother's eyes—inquisitive, and just on the green side of hazel—but otherwise he looked so little like Nancy. By the time he was seventeen, he'd been a little taller than his late father, with broad shoulders and a big smile. She remembered him being into sports, and his body had been lean and muscled back then … but it was his eyes that were burned into her brain.

She hadn't seen him in years, but she remembered those eyes.

She shrugged. “I suppose so. It seems like the appropriate thing to do, especially if I can start right away. I hate imposing on my mother.”

And the sooner I start making money, the sooner I can leave.

Nancy gave her a small smile. “The
appropriate
thing to do?” Then, to Annabelle's surprise, Nancy put a hand on her arm and leaned close. “But what do you
want
to do?”

Oh.

When was the last time anyone had asked her that?

Never, if she was being honest. No one had ever asked her what she wanted to do. Her parents had raised her to be soft and submissive, and she'd run away from that life by marrying Donnie, who hadn't given a damn what her desires were, either. Even in Texas, when she'd been running the show, no one had asked her what she
wanted.

With the garage, she'd loved being there no matter what the circumstances around it, and she'd thought that was enough. But now all the assets were gone—and then some—and she'd been so busy she'd not had any time during her marriage to make any friends.

She had nothing back there that she
wanted.

Mrs. Hart was watching her, and she blinked as she came out of her thoughts, the feeling of possibility lingering in her bones and, without thinking, the words simply slipped out.

“I want to be someone
significant.
”

Chapter 2

Grady pulled his truck into the driveway of his mother's house and idled there for a moment, staring at his childhood home. He didn't usually come out here during the week, but driving home from the garage last night, he'd gotten the idea that Mom might be the perfect person to ask about the team manager position.

Not that he was going to ask her to take the job. More like, she knew everyone in town, and if anyone could point him in the right direction, it was Mom. She knew what the job involved. She'd actually been the manager for a couple of years, way back when Dad had first started Hart Racing, though most people didn't remember that.

He turned off the engine and got out, heading up the short walk to the front door, where he gave a courtesy knock, then turned the handle. Mom never locked it. He kept chiding her for it, but she never listened. Once, he'd come over while she'd been napping. Vulnerable. He'd stayed and waited for her to wake up, then asked,
What if I'd been some kind of violent criminal?

She'd just looked at him in that way that only mothers can and said,
Then I'd be very disappointed in you.

He pushed the door open and walked inside. “Mom! It's Grady! Are you decent?” he called out.

But instead of his mother's voice echoing back at him, he heard a duet of feminine giggles coming from the kitchen.
Great.
She had company. Probably one of her friends from her weekly Bunco night. He walked toward the kitchen in slow motion, trying to figure out what to do. He wouldn't be able to talk to her about the job while she was entertaining a guest. He didn't want to share anything private about Hart Racing with someone else.

Too bad. Now he'd probably have to sit here for the next hour, listening to some older woman drone on about how he should find a nice girl to marry and settle—

Holy shit.

He stopped in his tracks as he walked through the archway into the kitchen, his body going haywire at the sight of the woman sitting next to his mother at the table. Flame-red hair brushed sleek and straight down her back, light blue eyes that were both serious and mischievous at once, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, lending a sweetness to her sexy, heart-shaped face.

Annabelle.

Annabelle Murray was back. The girl next door, whom he'd thought about morning, noon, and night before she'd married a guy she'd met in college and moved to Texas seven years ago. Hell. He'd even thought about her almost daily even
after
she'd left, and mourned his lost opportunity. He'd always wanted to ask her out, but she'd always been so reserved and shy-seeming that he wasn't sure how to approach her. She wasn't like Kerri's other friends—all you had to do was shout at them or get them moving in a group and let momentum carry everyone along. But Annabelle …

Well, he still felt that way about her. Like he didn't have anything to offer her that might entice her to go out with him, other than a couple of temperamental siblings and a fledgling company that didn't even have a product yet.

You're ridiculous. And you need to say something.

“Hello, Grady.”

Oh, damn. Her voice. That low, husky voice, so at odds with her flowing, feminine appearance. And her eyes …

They were always alert, always watching. Despite how quiet she'd been when they were younger, her eyes always seemed to be saying something. And as she rose from the table to greet him, Grady could see that hadn't changed. Those eyes were intense and focused … on him.

Except—maybe he was imagining it, or maybe he'd just forgotten in all this time, but he couldn't help but think she'd gotten a lot thinner.
Too
thin, like she'd been through something rough and lost a little strength along the way.

It pulled at something protective—almost possessive—in him. It made him want to reach for her and hold her close and soothe away whatever had happened to her, to make her forget it completely.

Instead, he simply said, “Annabelle. It's been a long time.”

He was responding too slowly, and she was already moving, coming toward him, arms outstretched.
Shit,
they were supposed to hug. Wasn't that what long-time neighbors did? Of course they did. But not when one of them had starred in a lot of hot fantasies of the other, often when he'd been alone in his bed—

“Seven years, in fact,” she laughed, just as her arms came around his back and she rose on her tiptoes, ever so slightly, to be able to reach her chin over his shoulder as she hugged him. She smelled like sunshine and sugar as his arms came around her in an automatic reflex, his hands settling over her fine shoulder blades, feeling the rise and fall of her back as she breathed.