“Good.” His voice carried something different this morning, something that made her look up despite herself. “Sophie’s right. Whether you’re ready or not, you’re part of this community.”
Before she could parse what that meant—if it meant anything at all—Danny rushed through the door, baby spit-up on his shoulder and exhaustion written in every line of his face.
“Sorry I’m late,” he called out. “The baby was up all night, and then she decided to redecorate my shirt right as I was leaving.”
“The joys of parenthood,” Ralph said, already launching into a story about his youngest grandkid’s soccer game.
Aidan lingered for a moment longer, and Dylan felt the weight of his attention like sunshine—warm, dangerous, impossible to ignore.
“Great job on the Barracuda,” he said.
She watched him go, watched him stop to joke with Ralph, to admire Danny’s latest baby pictures, to check the schedule in his office. He moved through the garage like he moved through life—confident, comfortable, completely unaware that he was slowly breaking her heart just by existing in the same space.
The envelope in her pocket felt heavier than a transmission.
Less than five hours until lunch, until Marcus would sit across from her at The Lampstand and offer her everything she’d thought she wanted—escape, financial security, a fresh start where nobody knew she was the mechanic who’d been stupid enough to fall for her boss.
Five hours to decide if she was brave enough to stay in a place where she’d always be watching from the sidelines, or smart enough to leave before October became November became another year of loving someone who would never love her back.
Dylan picked up her tools and got back to work, because that’s what she did. She fixed things. She made them beautiful. She brought them back to life.
Everything except herself.
Chapter Two
Sunday dinner at the O’Hara farmhouse unfolded like a weekly sacrament, complete with its own liturgy of laughter, the passing of dishes like offerings, and Anne O’Hara’s pot roast serving as communion—tender enough to convert even the most devoted vegetarian. The farmhouse itself seemed to breathe with contentment, its bones settling into familiar rhythms as five brothers, their wives, and various offspring created the kind of chaos that sounded like home.
Aidan pushed his mashed potatoes around his plate, building and destroying mountain ranges with the distraction of a man whose mind was elsewhere entirely. Two days. Two days since he’d watched Dylan leave for lunch on Friday with that overdressed stranger from Seattle. Two days of the town gossips working overtime, speculation running wild about Dylan Flanagan’s mysterious lunch companion.
“You planning to eat those potatoes or just torture them?” Duncan asked from across the table, his artist’s eye noting every tell in his brother’s posture.
“Leave him alone,” Sophie said, though her eyes sparkled with mischief. “He’s been in a mood since Friday. Ever since Dylan had lunch with that well-dressed man from Seattle.”
The table went quiet for a heartbeat—the kind of quiet that happened when someone had inadvertently struck gold in the conversational mine.
“Well-dressed?” Aidan’s voice came out more growl than question.
“Very,” Raven confirmed with the satisfaction of someone who’d been waiting for this opening. “Expensive suit, Tesla in the parking lot, looked like he stepped out of a magazine. Rose said they were discussing business, but Dylan was leaning in, really engaged. You know how she usually is with strangers—all walls and distance. But she actually seemed interested in what he had to say.”
“Rose says a lot of things,” Aidan muttered, stabbing a piece of pot roast with unnecessary force.
“Shannon saw them too,” Sophie added, clearly enjoying herself. “Said he was very persistent. Kept pulling out documents, showing her things on his phone. Like he was trying to sell her something. Or recruit her.”
Aidan had spent Friday afternoon waiting for Dylan to return from lunch, but when she came back, she’d gone straight to work preparing the Barracuda for delivery. He’d been stuck on a conference call with a parts supplier, and by the time he’d gotten free, Ralph mentioned that Dylan had borrowed his truck to deliver the car to the Morrisons—something about Mrs. Morrison wanting it in their driveway when her husband got home from his golf game. By the time she’d returned and tossed Ralph his keys, Aidan had been pulled into another crisis with the father of a frat boy who didn’t know how to drive his new Porsche without grinding the gears, and Dylan had already walked home.
“Maybe it’s good for her,” Colt said reasonably, his doctor’s instincts reading the tension in Aidan’s shoulders. “She’s been here five years and never really connects with anyone. A woman like that shouldn’t be so isolated.”
“She’s not isolated,” Aidan said before he could stop himself. “She has the garage. The town. She has—” Me, he almost said, but caught himself.
“A job and an apartment above an antique shop?” Wyatt finished. “That’s not a life, that’s just existing.”
Anne O’Hara watched her middle son with the attention of a mother who recognized a crisis when she saw one. She rose from her chair with the grace of someone who’d been managing male emotions for forty years and disappeared into the butler’s pantry.
When she returned, she carried something that made every O’Hara at the table go still—a wooden box the color of aged whiskey, its surface carved with Celtic knots that had been worn smooth by generations of fingers tracing their endless paths.
“Now?” Duncan asked, straightening in his chair. “You’re doing this now?”
“Your grandfather left specific instructions,” Mick said from his throne at the table’s head, his blue eyes carrying that special gleam that meant tradition was about to assert itself. “This was to be given to Aidan on his thirty-fifth birthday.”
