Good With His Hands

Good With His Hands

Every woman wants a man who is good with his hands...

He's a sexy bad boy mechanic with a reputation. She's a guarded reporter with too much to lose to play with fire. She tries to resist him but one touch from him changes everything. 

Recent college graduate Gabby Richards has big plans for her life. At the top of those plans is landing a job for a major magazine in Chicago. While Gabby is busy mapping out her career as a journalist, her father gets seriously injured. Upon hearing of his accident, Gabby drops everything, including her career plans, and heads home to her small, rural town of Clear Lake, but vows to return to Chicago as soon as her father is well. 

On her first day back in her hometown she has a run-in with the town’s sexy new mechanic, Jake Harrison, and meeting him turns everything upside-down. Despite her wishes to remain single, she doesn’t see the harm in going on a few dates with him. Soon Jake is helping Gabby confront her past and bringing out a side of her that has remained hidden for years. Even though she wants to remain focused on her career and return to her city life, she begins to wonder if it’s possible to have it all—career, her dream life in Chicago, and Jake Harrison.

PROLOGUE

She hung up her cell phone in a daze and quickly dropped her head into her hands. A deluge of familiar feelings washed over her.

Worry. Fear. Guilt. Sadness. Anger.

Would seeing him hurt remind her of her mother? Tears began to fall as she replayed a single sentence over and over again in her mind.

I don’t know how to tell you this...there’s been an accident.

She released a long and frustrated sigh. There was no point in wallowing in what had happened, especially not when she had so much to do.

She would be leaving town soon.

CHAPTER ONE

The small green sign on the side of the road told her she was a mere twenty miles from her destination, but to Gabby it felt much further. As she took in the scenery along the roadside, she couldn’t help but feel as though she was traveling back in time. Things didn’t appear to have changed since her last visit. Her view was filled with nothing but cornfields, red barns and towns so small they were a speck on most maps. She knew she shouldn’t feel surprised, nothing ever changed in the area surrounding Clear Lake, Illinois.

As she passed by a gas station that boasted full-service for only pennies on the gallon more than self-service, she glanced at her tank and debated on stopping. As much as she wasn’t looking forward to her arrival in the little town, she wanted to get there as quickly as possible. Not that she was looking forward to any of it—starting the job on Monday, the inevitable run-ins with former friends, schoolmates, teachers and neighbors and, worst of all, seeing him so vulnerable—the dread of it all almost made her pull a U-turn and say to hell with it. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that.

She crinkled her nose in annoyance as she thought about the boring job waiting for her, but she needed the money. Plus, any experience she could gain would help when she was able to leave Clear Lake again—once and for all this time—at least she hoped.

As soon as the thought entered her mind, Gabby almost laughed to herself. Experience? Compared to most of the writers on staff, she would bet good money her resume was far more staggering and she was fresh out of college.

She’d attended an award-winning journalism school, graduated at the top of her class, and had managed to forge out an enviable internship with one of Chicago’s largest newspapers. Her future was all mapped out, down to the most minuscule detail.

Or at least, it had been.

Except her plans had been put on hold. Instead of following up on leads in Chicago, she was headed back to the hick town she’d tried like hell to erase from her mind and its one lousy newspaper. Damn it, how was someone with her experience supposed to write for the Lake Breeze? Gabby ruminated on her less than desirable situation over the course of the four hour drive to Clear Lake and to what, regrettably, would be her job and home for at least the next several months.

When she had left her small town years ago, she never dreamed she’d end up moving back. Albeit this was for a parental medical emergency and for a short stay, just thinking about all the heartache, drama and bullshit she’d have to face by coming back pissed her off.

Bitch, bitch, bitch. God, I hate feeling so selfish, she whispered.

Gabby gnawed at what remained of the fingernails on her left hand as she thought about her poor father’s condition: two broken legs and a crushed pelvis.

Her father had worked in the construction industry her entire life, and this was not his first on-the-job injury. Nor, Gabby feared, would it be his last. She had been pleading with him for years to retire or at least find a different line of work. She’d maintained that a man of his age shouldn’t be performing such intense manual labor. As Gabby thought of all the sacrifices her father had made over the years, she realized he’d worked hard to ensure his daughter received a college education at the school of her choosing.

Her father had worked long hours outdoors in nasty weather conditions, and she thought he’d already paid his dues, and then some. Despite how many times Gabby argued with him over whether or not it was time he either moved into the office of the construction company he worked for or pursued work elsewhere, it seemed she always lost. She hoped that while she was sharing his roof for the next six months or so, she could plead her case daily, if need be, and eventually wear him down. When the time came for Gabby to move out of his house once again, she hoped she would be leaving with her father’s promise that he would find work at a less dangerous and physically demanding job.

Gabby slowed her car to the posted speed limit when she saw Clear Lake’s population sign. The weathered wooden post depicted smiling faces and big white lettering that declared the entire population of five thousand people welcomed her. So cheesy. If her own experience had taught her anything, it was that most of the faces in her hometown weren’t smiling nor were the people all that welcoming.

More like hella nosy and judgmental, of course that didn’t sound as nice on a billboard.

She cringed to herself. This was going to be a tough few months. As she slowed to a stop at one of the town’s two traffic lights, she felt her car shimmy while letting out a simultaneous wheeze. She quickly gunned the engine and when the light turned green, Gabby pressed the accelerator hard. Her head lurched forward as her car bucked. Ignoring the squealing tires, she pressed harder on the gas pedal.

What the hell?

She did a quick scan of the instrument panel. The car’s speedometer was barely moving. Just like her car. She was almost to her father’s house, if she could just get the car to move.

Come on don’t crap out on me yet. Just go! Please, please, please. She pleaded with the old vehicle while beating her fist against the steering wheel.

Maybe she should’ve stopped at the gas station a few towns back. A quick glance at the instrument panel dispelled that doubt. She still had over a fourth of a tank. The sign for Harrison’s Auto Repair loomed ahead. The service station was about a half-mile away, if memory served her correctly. She only hoped her car could make it that far.

Gabby looked in her rearview mirror and saw she was starting to back up the town’s meager traffic. For once she was glad she wasn’t in the city. If her car had chosen to do whatever it was doing now in Chicago, she would’ve been on the receiving end of honks, dirty looks, middle fingers, inventive phrases containing the words ‘fuck’ and ‘you’ plus a plethora of other rude gestures.

She’d forgotten how laidback small towns could be. As far as she could tell, the people of Clear Lake were in no apparent hurry, and no one seemed to know that she was not moving at such a slow rate by choice.

Damn it, no. Fuck!

She was only a few blocks from the repair shop, but her hunk of junk was done. Her car gave a vicious buck, followed by a long, sputtering cough. She eased the car off of Main Street and coasted into a church parking lot. Gabby was pissed at her car and even more frustrated that she’d pulled into the Catholic Church parking lot. She couldn’t very well curse and scream here, least she be damned for eternity. When her car finally stopped, she grabbed her purse and slammed the door. Who was she kidding? Clearly, she was already in hell. She set off in the direction of old man Harrison’s shop.

When she arrived at the garage, she was sweaty and irritable. The June heat was a lot more oppressive than she had realized. She hoped the ancient vending machine that used to sit in the lobby was still in service, a cold drink sounded heavenly. Gabby walked into the air conditioned waiting area, and frowned. The old vending machine was gone. She rang the bell on the counter and waited for service. After several moments passed and still no one appeared, she debated on tapping the bell a second time.

Fuck waiting, she murmured to herself.

She stepped through the door that led from the office to the repair bay. Gabby could hear loud music and the drone of auto repair equipment. Which would explain why no one heard her ring the service bell, she reasoned. There were a few vehicles inside the garage, but it looked like only one was being repaired at the moment. She walked up to the truck with its hood raised.

Hello? Gabby called out to no one in particular.

Be with you in just a minute, replied a deep male voice.

Okay, no problem.

Gabby took in the sights around her, there were a range of tools hanging from the walls, several tires were propped up against one wall, and there were a hodgepodge of items that she could only guess served some type of auto maintenance or repair purpose.

How can I help you?

The man stepped from behind the truck, wiping his hands on a rag. Apparently in her absence from Clear Lake old man Harrison had hired some younger help. She’d expected to see the shop’s portly white-haired owner. Instead, Gabby was being greeted by sex on legs. He wore a colored shirt with the sleeves rolled back, exposing thick forearms decorated with a fair amount of ink. Realizing he was waiting on her reply, her cheeks heated.

Oh! I stalled, I mean, my car stalled out on me. It just broke down. A few blocks back there, she gestured toward the church parking lot where she had left her car.

He nodded and tucked the greasy rag into the back pocket of his jeans. I can have it towed here, if that’s what you’d like. My technician is actually out running errands and grabbing lunch for the two of us, but I can pick your car up once my tech gets back, he paused, and Gabby didn’t miss the way his eyes raked over her face. You look overheated. You can wait inside where it’s cooler if you want. There’s also a phone in my office you can use to call someone to pick you up.

She wanted to tell him that she had a cell phone, but thought better of it. Maybe cell phones weren’t the norm yet in Clear Lake? It was hard to say. She’d always viewed her hometown as behind the times, and even, a bit backward on some things.

Pushing thoughts of the hick town out of her mind,