Make Mine a Bad Boy (12 page)

“I’d like that. You’re coming to the game on Friday, aren’t you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Colt said. “The open road calls.”

“That’s too bad.” Faith sounded truly upset as she glanced at Buster, who trotted back to her. “Buster, what
do you have?” She reached down and tugged something from his mouth, and Hope stared in horror as her sister lifted her tattered blue panties up. “What in the world?”

Colt’s shout of laughter had Hope whirling and stomping off, and he was still laughing when he caught up to her.

“Real funny, Lomax,” she fumed as she waited for him to pull the keys from his pocket.

“Come on, Hope. Lighten up.” He chuckled as he fought with the wet denim. “You’re not mad your sister caught us as much as you’re mad about her moving into a house you wanted—with the man you wanted. You need to work on hiding your jealousy, honey.”

“At least I’m not a kiss-ass.” She kicked at a rusted tin can as she mimicked him. “Good mornin’, Mrs. Calhoun. What a pretty dress you’ve got on, Mrs. Calhoun.”

“I wasn’t kissing ass. It is a pretty dress.” He pressed the button on the key ring, but the locks clicking up could not drown out her grumble. She reached for the door handle, but the locks clicked back down before she could open the door.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of the compliments I gave your sister,” he stated with the grin still in his voice.

“Not hardly.” She jiggled the handle, refusing to turn around and face him.

“Are you sure?” He moved up closer, caging her in by resting his hands on the roof of the Navigator. “Because I’m sure I could come up with something to compliment you on. Although with all that mud, it’s not going to be easy… or the wet doggy smell wafting off you.” He grunted when she elbowed him in the stomach. “Now don’t go gettin’ all bent out of shape, honey. That wet, matted Rastafarian-looking hair isn’t so ugly.” This time
he sidestepped the elbow, although he didn’t remove his arms. “No, seriously. There are times when you don’t look so bad… times when you look—”

He cut off suddenly. And when he spoke again, his voice held awe and deep-felt emotion.

“Beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful.”

Something inside her went very still at the words. Still and wobbly, all at the same time. Probably because Colt had never complimented her in his life, and she didn’t realize how much those simple words would mean. Especially coming from his mouth. Slowly, she turned and lifted her eyes to him.

But, obviously embarrassed, he refused to look at her, his gaze pinned to a spot over the top of the Navigator.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he continued as she blushed. “I mean I’ve seen parts before, but nothing like…”

Parts? He had to be talking about what she’d shown him in the car. And while it wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, it was nice to know he’d been so impressed. Although she refused to think about how many other parts he’d seen.

“But seeing that beautiful V-twin housed in its original package…”

Okay, V-twin was a little weird, but coming from a mechanic, probably not so much.

“And those rocker boxes.”

Boxes. Last time she checked, she only had one.

Confused, she finally spoke up. “Rocker boxes?”

His gaze flickered down for only a second before flickering back up. “Just look at it.” His arms dropped as he pointed a finger over the top of the Navigator.

Hope had to climb up on the running board to see what
he was pointing at. An old rusty motorcycle leaned up against a dinged-up washing machine, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which one Colt was talking about.

“A motorcycle,” she fumed as she turned to him. “You’ve been talking about a motorcycle?”

He looked back at her in shock. “That’s not just a motorcycle, honey. That’s a 1941 Harley Knucklehead.”

Anger bubbled up inside her, and when his gaze snapped back to the rusty piece of crap, she jumped down and jerked the keys out of his hand. But it took her starting the SUV for Colt to finally snap out of his daze.

“Hey, what are you doing?” He reached for the door handle, and she quickly locked the doors. But she did crack the window.

“What am I doing?” She smiled sweetly. “I’m leaving you with the most breathtakingly beautiful piece of machinery you’ve ever seen.” She popped the truck into reverse. “You knucklehead.”

T
HE MOTORCYCLE WAS A CLASSIC
. A perfect example of American ingenuity.

Named for the V-twin engine’s rocker boxes that looked like lined-up knuckles on a fist, the Knucklehead was one of the fastest bikes of its time. With its wraparound oil tank, teardrop gas tank, and rocker covers, it became the model for all Harleys that followed.

Colt didn’t know how it had ended up in a pile of junk. All he knew was that it hadn’t been there when he lived in the trailer. He wouldn’t have missed a gem like this. Which meant someone had dumped it there. Someone who didn’t understand the value of such a bike. And if that was the case… finders keepers, losers weepers. Especially since Shirlene’s husband, Lyle, still owned the property that the bike sat on.

“So you gonna chop it?” Tyler asked.

“I’m not sure.” Colt ran a hand over the cracked leather of the sprung saddle seat. “It’s a beauty just like it is.”

“A beautiful pile of shit.” Tyler shot a stream of tobacco juice out the open door of the garage.

“That coming from a man who drools over old Ford pickups.”

“I guess everyone has their weaknesses. And yours has always been motorcycles. But good luck getting this one to run.”

Colt glanced up. “Are you doubting my skills, T-bone?”

“Nope.” Tyler adjusted the wad of tobacco in his lip. “I’m just remembering that other Harley you brought in.”

Colt shook his head. “No comparison. That was a screwed up piece of crap, and I was all of fifteen.”

Tyler placed his hands in his back pockets and smirked. “Still, it never reached the corner.”

“This one will reach the corner and then some,” Colt said, just as the rusted bolt he’d been trying to get off the engine case broke off in his socket wrench. He removed the bolt, to Tyler’s chuckle.

“Now that’s a pretty motorcycle.” Tyler nodded at the custom chopper he had wheeled into the garage just that morning. Like Colt had figured, his bike had been hidden in the back shed. Parked next to the old Harley, it gleamed like a jewel of shiny chrome and metallic blue paint.

“So I thought you were leaving today,” Tyler commented, as he leaned against a stack of tires.

“I am. Just as soon as I get this thing running.” Colt sprayed more Liquid Wrench on the next bolt before he applied the socket wrench, but after a few fruitless minutes, he figured he would need to pull out Tyler’s acetylene torch to get it loose.

“So you’re staying a few months, are you?”

He sent Tyler an annoyed look. “A day, at the most.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so.”

The words came out sounding pretty childish, and Tyler grinned as he walked back inside to answer the ringing phone.

Once he was gone, Colt tossed down the wrench and ran a hand through his hair. Tyler was right; it was going to take more than a day to get the bike running. With the rust and corrosion, it might take most of a year. So instead of sitting on the greasy garage floor, dirtying up the only pair of jeans he’d brought, he should be making arrangements to have the Knucklehead hauled back to his shop in L.A. where he had all the proper equipment to fix it.

Except something didn’t feel right about using modern tools on a classic piece of history. The Knucklehead shouldn’t be thrust into the twenty-first century so brutally, but rather babied in the small garage where Colt had taken apart his first carburetor with nothing more than a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, welded his first frame with a hand-held gas torch, and sanded his first gas tank, using nothing but a strip of 220-grit sandpaper and a little elbow grease.

Not that he planned on staying there until the bike was completely restored. But he had a few more days before he had to be in Austin. A few more days to spend with Shirlene, and a few more days to try to get inside a pair of satin panties that were as blue as the Texas bluebonnets that lined the highway to San Antonio.

Just the thought of what that strip of blue covered left him hotter than a tailpipe after an all-day ride. Which wasn’t good. He had no business playing such naughty games with Hope. Hope was trouble with a capital T. Or more like tempting with a capital T. A temptation he needed to ignore if he wanted to keep his life as carefree
as it was. Hope carried way too much baggage. Not only was she the town sweetheart, but she still had her heart set on catching someone like Calhoun—a hometown hero deeply rooted in Texas soil. And Colt was about as far from that as a man could get.

Of course, she might have her heart set on a respectable Texas boy, but her body seemed to like wild motorcycle bums just fine. And since that was the case, what was wrong with him offering her a little comfort after losing her lifelong beau? They were both consenting adults.

“Hey, mister. That’s my motorcycle you’re messin’ with.”

Colt looked up at the shadowy figure slouched in the open doorway of one garage stall. Taking the sunglasses out of the collar of his shirt, Colt slipped them on and studied the young boy in the beat-up cowboy boots, holey jeans, and stretched-out Spider-Man T-shirt. His hair was a bright strawberry blond that shot out in all directions like he hadn’t combed it in a week, and his face still held the remnants of breakfast. Or possibly supper. Colt placed him at around ten or eleven, although he didn’t know enough about kids to be sure.

“Did you hear me, mister?” The kid took two steps closer. “That’s my motorcycle.”

“Really?” Colt got to his feet and stretched out the kinks in his knees. “And I assume you have the papers to prove that.”

His sunburned brow knotted as his dirty chin tipped up. “I don’t need no papers. It’s mine.”

“Then what was it doing on Lyle Dalton’s property?”

“I don’t know nothin’ about no Lyle Dalton. I was ridin’ it down the road, and it ran out of gas, so I rolled it up into a yard.”

Colt’s eyebrows shot up. “Riding it down the road?” His gaze returned to the motorcycle that looked as if it hadn’t been started since Kennedy was in office. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. And I was about to come and get it. Except you stole it before I could. And now I see that you busted it up.” He pointed one grubby finger at the broken off bolt. “That’s gonna cost ya.”

Colt couldn’t help but grin, which made the boy’s big brown eyes turn even angrier.

“Are you makin’ fun of me?”

“No, sir.” Colt shook his head. “Although that has to be the worst lie I’ve ever heard. This motorcycle hasn’t run for a good forty years and was probably on my brother-in-law’s property for the last five.”

“That’s a lie!” The boy doubled up his fists. “I found it at the dump, and I rolled it home a week ago!”

Colt’s eyes widened. The bike weighed five times more than the kid did, but for some reason, he didn’t doubt for a minute that the scrappy kid had achieved such a feat. Especially if he lived out on Grover Road. Tough times made for tough kids. And if that was the case, then the whole finders keepers thing worked against Colt.

Unless the kid liked money more than he liked machines.

“Calm down.” Colt held up a hand. “I didn’t realize the Knucklehead belonged to you. How about if I give you a thousand for it?”

The kid seemed to stare right through him with eyes way too observant for such a small fry. Then, before Colt could even sweeten the deal, the boy whipped out a cell phone from his back jeans pocket.

“How do you spell that? N-U—”

“K-N,” Colt supplied, stunned by the agility of the thumbs that flew over the keypad. When the kid finished punching buttons, he held up the phone with a wide grin, showing off a chipped front tooth.

“More like thirty thousand.”

Colt’s eyebrows hiked up at the number flashed at him. “For a running bike with all the original parts, not a rusted piece of scrap metal I’m not even sure I can get to run.”

The kid gave him another steely-eyed look before his gaze wandered over to the gleaming chopper. “You make that bike?”

“Yes, but I had a little help.”

“How much they pay you for something like that?”

“Enough.”

“You know Jesse James?”

Colt hesitated, wondering how much he should tell the kid. Figuring it didn’t make any difference, he answered truthfully. “I do.”

With boots that appeared to be too big for his feet slapping against the concrete floor, the kid moved around the custom bike, examining it from all angles. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll trade you, even steven.”

Colt bit back a smile. “ ’Fraid not, buddy. That one’s already sold.”

“I’m not your buddy,” he stated as he flipped a leg over the bike.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Within two steps, Colt had the kid off the bike and back on the floor.

“Don’t touch me!” The boy jerked back, almost dropping his phone.