Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) (4 page)

Despite her dead car, she smiled again. She couldn’t wait to catch up with her old friend.

Mr. Miller started talking about oil levels and starters . . . something about a block. Everything he said was all over her head.

The sound of a motorcycle drew their attention to the front of the garage.

Luke still wore black and leather . . . his frame had filled out in ten years, but he still had that swagger that drove Zoe crazy in high school. Melanie always thought the two of them would ride off into the sunset on his bike.

Life happens, and that wasn’t their path.

“Mel?”

She dropped her daughter’s hand and accepted his hug. “Luke!”

He picked her up and swung her around. “Jesus, look at you.”

She knew she didn’t look bad. Ten years had filled her curves out as well. Staying in shape was easy when your car broke down all the time and walking was a better option than taking the city bus.

She punched his arm when he set her back down. “Look at me? Look at you. There should be a law for looking better than you did in high school.”

Luke winked, just like his dad, and swung an arm over her shoulders. “Good to see you, too.” His eyes traveled to Hope. “This must be your girl.”

After introductions and another attempt at winking out of Hope, they started back into the garage. “Jo dropped in earlier, said this was your car. I took the liberty of taking it apart.”

If there was one person she could trust under the hood more than Mr. Miller, it was Mr. Miller’s son.

“Your dad says it’s bad.”

“Our car died,” Hope said from the side.

“It sure did,” Luke agreed.

“What are we going to drive if our car is dead, Mommy?”

Melanie glanced at Hope. “I’m sure Luke and Mr. Miller can fix it.”

Only one look at Luke and that assurance blew away. “Or not.”

Hope drew her brows together with worry. “But we need a car.”

“It will be okay, baby.”

“Hey, Hope?” Mr. Miller distracted her. “Do you know what the best part about having a broken car is?”

She shook her head.

“Auto shops always have fresh donuts. Do you like donuts?”

She bobbed her head and took his hand, before Mr. Miller led her down the hall and into the office.

“Is it that bad?” Melanie asked once Hope was gone.

“Nothing that a little C-4 and the back of Grayson’s farm won’t take care of.”

“C’mon . . .”

“How long was the oil light on, Mel?” Luke ran a hand over his slightly long hair and stared at her.

“It’s always on. I topped off the oil in Redding.”

“Topping off means some of it ran out . . . did it take the entire quart?”

“Yeah.”

“Did the oil light go off?”

“No. It went on in Modesto, flickered on more than off ever since.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “You can’t ignore the oil light, Mel.”

“I didn’t ignore it. I gave it oil.”

Luke stepped over to a workstation and waved a part in front of her. “Your oil pan had a hole in it. The slow leak gave you a nice trail to follow back to Bakersfield. Do you know what happens when your engine doesn’t get oil?”

“It’s like gas, right? The car stops running . . . but you put oil in and it’s all good.”

Luke squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Oh, Mel.”

“I’m not right?”

“Nowhere close. A car without oil can only run dry for so long, then after miles of sputtering and bitching at you, she flips you the bird and cracks. You cracked the block, Mel.”

“That’s bad?” She really didn’t know.

Luke lifted one brow in the air. “Do you have any idea how bad I want to tell a blonde joke right now?”

“How do you fix a cracked block?”

“You don’t,” Luke told her. “You put in a whole new engine. With the condition of this car, our advice is to cut your losses and start over.”

“I can’t afford a new car, Luke.”

He sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

“How much does a new engine cost?”

“These foreign cars usually run a good twenty-five hundred just for the engine.”

Melanie felt her eyes widen. “Dollars? Twenty-five hundred
dollars
?”

“See why I think you should find another used car?”

If she had twenty-five hundred bucks, she probably would. At least her decision was an easy one. She couldn’t afford the repair, so C-4 in a back field it was.

She reached into her purse and removed her wallet.

“What are you doing?” Luke asked.

“Paying for the tow and what you’ve done.”

Luke waved her off. “Your money isn’t any good here, Mel.”

“I can afford to pay for your time.”

“My time is cheap. Buy me a beer at R&B’s.”

She knew she wasn’t going to win, so she returned her wallet. “You’re on.”

CHAPTER THREE

It was well past noon when Melanie pulled Jo’s Jeep into the driveway of Miss Gina’s Bed-and-Breakfast. Like everything else in town, the footprint was the same. The shrubs had grown, a new tree planted here, a new rosebush there . . . the place could use a coat of paint and the gravel on the driveway was in need of a dusting of whatever it was they used to maintain it.

As Hope and Melanie walked up the stairs, she realized the place needed a bit more than paint. It wasn’t run down . . . not like the motels in Bakersfield, but it wasn’t exactly what Melanie remembered.

The bell on the door rang as she and Hope stepped inside. Like most B and Bs, the old Victorian was made up of small rooms, each of which served a purpose when the house was built at the turn of the twentieth century. To be fair, they served a purpose now . . . only one was a large dining area where a parlor once stood.

When she was a kid, Zoe would sometimes pick up a few hours of work with Miss Gina. Mainly in the kitchen on busy holidays and summer weekends. Jo would complain as she raked leaves in the fall, and Melanie would answer phones and occasionally make a bed or clean a floor. The three of them had enjoyed hanging with Miss Gina and her colorful mouth. The lady never treated any of them like they were kids. She treated them as equals. In a small town, that went a long way.

Before Melanie moved past the threshold, she knelt down to her daughter. “I’ve known Miss Gina for a very long time. She’s harmless, even though she uses bad words sometimes. Be polite.”

“Sometimes you use bad words.”

“Not like Miss Gina,” Melanie all but mumbled.

Hope sent her a look she’d seen in her own face more times than she’d care to admit. Disbelief manifested in a high brow and a cock of the head. Melanie would laugh if Hope’s subtle attitude wasn’t spot-on.

“C’mon.” She dragged her daughter toward the abandoned registration desk. “Miss Gina?” she called.

Silence.

Thud!

Melanie shrugged at her daughter and peered at the ceiling. “Miss Gina?” she called toward the stairs.

A larger thud and a distinctive crash had the two of them running.

They made it halfway up before Melanie heard the smoky voice of Miss Gina. “Son of a bitch!”

Before Melanie made it into one of the guest bathrooms, water sprayed toward the door, a puddle pooled at Miss Gina’s feet.

She held a broken pipe with both hands, unsuccessfully attempting to hold the water in. “Towel,” she yelled the second Melanie ducked her head into the room.

She grabbed one from the far rack and handed it over.

As Miss Gina scrambled to keep the spray from removing the wallpaper, Melanie dropped to her knees to find the shutoff valve for the vintage Elizabethan toilet.

“It’s at the top.” Miss Gina pointed with her chin.

Melanie switched direction, climbed on the commode, and found the crank.

By the time the water stopped trickling, Miss Gina dripped like a leaky faucet, Melanie felt as if she’d had a second shower for the day, and Hope stood in the doorway with wide eyes.

“Are the extra towels still in the hall closet?” Melanie asked.

“Damn pipe . . . I just knew this was going to happen.”

“Miss Gina, the floor? We gotta get this up or your reception area is going to need a new plaster job.”

Miss Gina was a tiny woman who smoked more than she ate, laughed often, and cussed like a sinner on Saturday.

“Yeah, yeah . . . hall closet.”

Depleted from the mess, Miss Gina slumped against the vintage tub while Melanie hustled from the room. She piled towels in Hope’s arms and filled her own.

Hope mimicked her to help mop up the mess.

On all fours, Melanie sloshed up one puddle before tossing the soaked towel into the tub.

Hope handed her towels as if she were the towel girl at the spa.

“This is awful,” Miss Gina started. “I finally have a fully booked week and now this.”

“I’m sure you can get someone out here to fix it.”

For the first time since Melanie walked into the fray, Miss Gina looked her in the eye.

With a pause and a cock of her head, she wiggled a finger in the air. “Melanie Bartlett? Is that you?”

Melanie paused in her effort to clean the floor and smiled. “Hi, Miss Gina.”

Miss Gina jumped from the edge of the tub and threw her tiny arms around Melanie’s shoulders. “Oh, little girl . . . look at you.” She backed away and held her face. “You look tired.”

Melanie felt a laugh deep in her stomach. Leave it to Miss Gina to point out the obvious.

“Mommy’s always tired,” Hope said.

Miss Gina took in Hope with narrow eyes. “My Lord, she looks just like you did at her age. How old are you, doll?”

“Seven.”

Melanie held out her hand for another dry towel and Hope delivered it without taking her eyes from Miss Gina.

“I’m going to be eight at the end of summer.”

“Oh, don’t rush aging, little girl. It happens without your encouragement.”

Hope simply stared in bewilderment.

Melanie sat back on her heels once the majority of the water was off the floor. “I think the lobby is safe now.”

Miss Gina blew out a breath. “Yeah, but now I’m down one room.”

“It’s only one bathroom.”

“People don’t want to share bathrooms in a B and B.”

Melanie sucked in her bottom lip. “True.” She took another look around the familiar space. The wallpaper had changed from a floral print to one with muted stripes, but the art still held the flower motif she remembered. “How about offering it at half price?”

“I don’t know if that will work. Probably have to cut that down more. Besides, that would mean sharing my bathroom until I could get this one fixed.”

Looked like Miss Gina’s bad plumbing was Melanie’s good fortune. “We’ll take it.”

“Oh, no, no, no.” Miss Gina stood and wiped her hands on her shirt as she walked out of the room. “I can’t give an old friend castoffs. That wouldn’t be right.”

Melanie scrambled in front of her. “Really. We don’t mind. I was actually hoping Hope and I could stay in town longer than just the class reunion weekend. I can’t afford a full price room for that many days.”

“I couldn’t charge the person in this room. I’ll have plumbers coming and going. It’s too much to ask of you.” Miss Gina attempted to move around her, and Melanie planted her feet in the doorway.

“I don’t mind. Really. You’d be doing me a favor charging half.”

Hope pulled on Miss Gina’s skirt. “Mommy’s car broke.”

“It did?”

“Ah-huh.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“I’m using Jo’s until I figure out what to do with mine.”

“Can you believe our Jo is the town sheriff? I still pinch myself when I see her all geared up and wearing a gun.”

“Everything changes,” Melanie said with a glance at her daughter. “I’ll take the room, Miss Gina. I could use the extra time in town.”

Miss Gina glanced at Hope and back. “Fine . . . fine . . . but I’m not charging you for a crappy room. You can lend me a hand around here like the old days.”

“Oh, I can’t—”

Miss Gina stopped her with a hand in the air. “Not another word. It’s this room for free, or another one full price.”

Melanie bit her lip. “I’ll take it.”

Miss Gina’s grin gave Melanie pause. “Perfect. Hope, grab some of those wet towels. Let me show you where the washer and dryer are.” Miss Gina snapped her fingers with a wave of her hand.

Hope didn’t hesitate.

He didn’t mean to turn in
 
.
 
.
 
.
had actually driven by twice before turning around and pulling into Miller’s Auto. Besides
 
.
 
.
 
.
if he kept driving around the block, someone in River Bend was bound to think he’d been drinking and call the sheriff.

Not that Jo would do anything but laugh.

The crappy car he’d seen on the side of the road the night before was shoved outside of the garage doors and being lifted on the back of Miller’s tow truck.

Wyatt stepped out of his truck, shut the door without even taking the keys with him. River Bend was this side of Mayberry in terms of crime. The chances of someone jumping in his truck and taking off were nil.

“Luke?”

Luke was currently positioned between the undercarriage of the wreck and the chains of his tow truck.

Wyatt placed a hand to the side of the car and ducked.

Luke noticed him and tossed the hook his way. “Hey, Wyatt. Hook that up, will ya?”

He clasped the chain, made sure it held, and backed away from the car.

Luke wiped his hands on his faded jeans before grasping the automated controls of the tow to lift the car off the ground. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

While the belts and hydraulics kicked in, Luke asked, “What brings you by?”

“Saw this car on the road last night . . . just wondering how it all turned out.”

“Mel is an idiot,” Luke said with a laugh. “Leave it to a woman to run a car without oil.”

The familiarity of Luke’s words about the owner gave him pause. “Mel?”

“From Modesto to River Bend with an oil light blinking at her . . . who does that?” The hydraulics lifted the car as far as it would go before Luke tossed the controls on the bed of the lift. He fiddled with a few more chains while he worked.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Wyatt asked.

Luke offered a grin. “Women!”

Wyatt had to agree. A man wouldn’t let the oil run dry. Not a self-respecting man who did more than shove a key in the ignition and fill a gas tank. Thankfully, small towns weren’t filled with lawyers, doctors, and white-collar workers who fell into that category.

Women, on the other hand, didn’t have to hold six-figure careers to be deemed clueless when it came to cars.

“Can it be fixed?” Wyatt wasn’t completely sure why he asked.

“Cracked block.”

He blew out a long breath. A long look at the late model sedan had him shaking his head. “More trouble than it’s worth.”

“Yeah.” Luke shook his head. “Hated breaking that news to an old friend.” He shrugged and leaned an arm over the car. “It’s not a complete loss. She’ll make a great target out back of Grayson’s farm.”

Wyatt huffed. The image of a drowned shadow of a woman with wide eyes and fear swam into his head. She’d accused him of being an escapee from Sing Sing . . . Jack the Ripper, even. She had the right lines, but not an ounce of trust in a stranger. To hear she was an old friend of Luke’s made Wyatt wonder. “I’m sure your friend enjoyed the thought of her car being used as target practice.”

“She’s smarter than her cracked block implies.” Luke nodded toward Wyatt’s truck. “Where you headed today?”

“Miss Gina’s. I’ve been telling her for two years her roof needed to be replaced. Buckets in her attic after last night’s storm proved me right.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “That woman is still living in the sixties. Let me know when you find her pot plants.”

Wyatt had his head in the same place.

Miss Gina had a way of waving away problems as if she were high on something most times.

“I’ll do that.”

Wyatt pushed Mel and her cracked block from his head as he turned his truck back onto the main road through town.

Every year the annual high school reunion brought in new faces and the occasional casual hookup. Small towns had a way of limiting a single man’s sex life. Yeah, he could drive up the coast, or worse, up the five and hit Eugene in a little over an hour, but those encounters didn’t repeat.

When he’d first moved to River Bend the last thing on his mind was women or what he might be missing from a big city. He’d grown up just outside of San Francisco and had his share of traffic, crime, and noise to last a lifetime. The best memories of his life were those from when he was young and his parents had taken him and his little sister on camping trips to Sequoia or the Redwood National Park. The quiet and calm grounded him and reminded him of happy times. He vowed that as soon as he acquired a trade that would set him up with a nice, comfortable living in a small town outside of the state of California, he’d find one and move. A simple place that didn’t require him to drive through a desert to reach an airport.

That was five years ago.

A general contractor license was complete overkill for a small town where no one cared if you were licensed and bonded so long as you showed up when you said you were going to . . . and did the job as promised.

The nuance of small town living became obvious the first time he’d done a simple plumbing job for a widow who lived just outside of River Bend. Mrs. Kate offered a pot roast and an apple pie as payment.

He’d really thought that only happened in movies and novels.

Apparently not.

Having a deep respect for an older woman, especially a widow in her late seventies, Wyatt enjoyed the pot roast, ate the pie, and took the rest home that night at Mrs. Kate’s insistence. To this day, he made a point of stopping by Mrs. Kate’s on the first Sunday of every month with a toolbox and an empty stomach.