She mumbled a hasty good-bye and I hung up, anger at everything she’d had to suffer through coursing thick and heated through my blood. She deserved so much better and I was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that I really wanted to be the one to give it to her.

Thoughts firmly on Poppy and what other kinds of horrors she’d had to endure through the course of her marriage, I drove through downtown Denver and made my way to my garage.

Back when I was younger and Zeb and I had too much time and too much youthful curiosity on our hands, we’d spent many a night at illegal parties held in this very same building. The place had history, both personal and collective, so it meant the world to me that I’d been able to save it. The ancient brick had been slated for demolition so that some developer could come in and build more trendy condos and shops to cater to the LoDo sprawl. I’d scraped together enough money from the sale of my first full rebuild outside of school. It was a 1970 Barracuda that was still winning medals at car shows across the country, to lease the space for a year. I continued that pattern for five years—build, sell, pay for the lease on the building, barely getting by until I got hooked up with Nash Donovan and Rowdy St. James. It started out as a mutual admiration for muscle cars and ink and turned into something that allowed me to get my hands around a major part of my dream. Those two introduced me to Rome Archer, who came at me with a business offer I would have been a fool to turn down. Rome wanted to be a silent partner in the garage. He helped me buy the building outright and set me up so that instead of bleeding money back into the business, I could actually start earning a real living. Rome was the only reason I was able to finally afford a down payment on a house. I owed those Marked Men more than they would ever know.

I parked in the spot that was designated for my Caddy. There was a small office attached to the garage where customers could wait and where the gal that handled all the paperwork and scheduling of projects worked. I’d tried to set Kallie up in that position, thinking the garage could be ours, that we could make our dreams come true together, but she barely lasted a week before I’d had more than one of my guys threaten to quit if she wasn’t gone. She hated how dirty the garage was and she didn’t give two shits about the classics we worked our asses off to breathe new life into. The girl drove a freaking Audi, for God’s sake, even when I offered to find her and build her whatever she wanted. I should have known then it wasn’t meant to be. It was a beautiful car but it had no soul and no story.

Snorting at the thought, I stopped short when a baby-blue Hudson Hornet came pulling in through the open gates. It was a ’53 if my guess was right, and I was pretty sure that it was. It was an incredibly rare year, so rare that this was the only one I’d seen outside of a hot-rod magazine or a car show. I watched the car roll to a stop next to the Eldorado and took a minute to admire it. I was named after this car, at least that was what my mom told me in one of her few lucid moments when the drugs and demons I couldn’t see loosened their hold on her.

A man stepped out, tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, silver sideburns, and expensive mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes. He was dressed in jeans and a dark canvas coat much like the one Happy had ruined last night over the unofficial almost-winter uniform of all Coloradans, a button up flannel over a thermal. I thought he looked vaguely familiar but so many people came in and out of the garage, a lot of them just wanting to look, that I couldn’t be sure we’d ever met before.

I lifted my chin in greeting. “Nice ride.”

He repeated the gesture. “If that’s yours then I return the sentiment.” He indicated the Eldorado with the flick of his fingers.

I shrugged. “It’s mine. She was the first rebuild I ever did. My high school shop teacher felt sorry for me and let me buy her for a song right before graduation. He helped me finish her up and to this day he stops by once a month to see how we’re both holding up.”

The man made a face that I couldn’t read and shifted his weight on his feet. He seemed nervous but I didn’t have time to stand around chatting about my Caddy. I had a Wayfarer that I was trying to restore and finding parts for the old girl had proven to be a real bitch.

“If you need something specific, go in and talk to Molly, my receptionist. She can point you in the right direction. I can tell you now I don’t have any original parts for a Hudson on hand but I know a guy that is a wizard when it comes to tracking down the unfindable.”

The older guy took a step back and leaned on the side of his car like the wind had been knocked out of him. He had really cherry taste in cars and looked pretty cool for an old guy, but damn, the dude was weird. Everything about him seemed tense and a little bit off.

“The garage is yours?” The question seemed like it was ripped out of him.

I shrugged again. “Yep. All mine.” I motioned toward the door that had the “Open” sign on it and inclined my head, eager to get to work. “Like I said, Molly can give you a hand with whatever you need. I’d be happy to get my hands on that Hudson if you need someone to work on it.”

The guy cleared his throat and shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “Uh, yeah. I might be back. I just rolled into town for a quick visit and your garage came up when I started poking around asking about who might be able to handle a rare classic. I was looking for something specific. I didn’t think I’d find it so quickly.”

I nodded because I knew how hard it could be to come across the original parts you needed to do a whole rebuild. “You can find anything if you look hard enough. I guess I’ll see you around.”

The guy nodded again and this time he grinned. “Didn’t catch your name, kid.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him. This whole exchange was getting stranger and stranger by the minute. “Wheeler, Hudson Wheeler. I’m actually named after your car.”

The guy flinched and the grin on his face died. “It’s nice to meet you, Wheeler. I’ll be back.”

Without offering up his name in return, he disappeared back into his badass car and pulled out of the parking lot in front of the garage like the cops were after him. I waved a hand in front of my face as the hot rod kicked up dust, and wondered what in the hell had just happened.

Today was a day full of loaded conversations and I’d never considered myself much of a conversationalist.