Chapter One
A loud pop startled Devlin from her impromptu rendition of “Walk the Line”.
“Come on, Betty. Don’t do this to me.”
A sputter and choke was her car’s response before it shut down. She managed to steer the raven black 1964 ½ Chevy Mustang onto the side of the deserted road before it gave a death rattle and all movement ceased.
“Shit!”
The plumes of dark smoke that billowed from beneath the hood indicated this wouldn’t be an easy fix. As the owner of an antique car, Devlin carried a make shift kit for minor car troubles. But duct tape and clamps wouldn’t fix radiator failure or a busted water pump, which were her best guesses at what had caused the spontaneous break down. She and her younger brother Jude had given Betty a once-over just last week. Still, there were always things even a mechanic couldn’t prevent or predict.
Devlin Kavanagh wasn’t a grease monkey, per se, but she knew a thing or two about cars. To hear her mom tell it, that knowledge was one of the few positive attributes she’d gained from her father. Lieutenant Kavanagh was a veteran Marine who still swore like it was going out of style and had a gift for being a real hard-ass. He also possessed an abundance of charm and a killer sense of humor, two major factors in the almost legendary undertaking of winning her mother over. Their marriage was based on the fact that he needed to be reformed and she was just the woman up to the task. It was endearing though it led to heated arguments from time to time.
She shifted the car into first gear and set the emergency break with a sigh. I should’ve known this weekend was too perfect. Devlin swung the car door open and stepped out onto four-inch, black and white peep-toe heels. The sand crunched underneath her with every step she took toward the trunk of the car.
“Way to be a bitch, Betty,” she said. On her way home from a weekend photo shoot, Devlin looked like she had stepped out of a magazine. A black sateen dress crisscrossed over her thirty-six D cups and cinched in at the waist before it flared out. All of this had been great for pictures. Too bad it rendered her useless now as she wilted beneath the hundred-degree heat of the Nevada sun.
Never one to roll in her own self-pity for too long, she opened the trunk to grab a blue rag and strode back around to the front of the car. Careful to avoid the heated metal, she popped the hood and felt her stomach plummet. It was the water pump. The hoses were cracked and the water that had pooled out beneath the car was self-explanatory.
“Great.”
She shut the hood once more before grabbing her black cell phone off the dashboard to place a call to AAA, and her brother Jude. Next to her father, he was the only one she trusted to handle her baby. She’ d gotten Betty when she turned sixteen, and just like Jude’s Chevy Nova , Nadine, it’d been a labor of love to get Betty just the way she wanted with help from her father.
You’ve got to be kidding me! The no service message in the top right-hand corner mocked her.
I’m in the middle of nowhere with no cell signal, in a cocktail gown. If it was night I’d swear this was a horror movie.
Grateful for her snack purchases at the last gas station, she added the protein bars and bottled water to her purse, locked the car up, and began to walk. She thought she vaguely remembered seeing a tiny white building a few miles back. Let's just hope it's not abandoned or infested by zombies who’ll eat my brains and leave my family and friends wondering what the hell had happened to me. Yes, it was highly unlikely. But when you watched as many horror flicks as she had, your mind ran away with you at the most inappropriate times. A laugh bubbled out of her lips as she pictured her best friend Claire’s frown of disapproval. She could hear her now. “Dev, I don’t know how you can watch those and sleep at night!”
Claire, a beautiful compilation of contradictions, was the only Roller Derby girl she knew who was terrified of spiders and horror movies. Devlin pulled out her ear buds, put her MP3 player on shuffle, and let the voices of the Austin band the Skeletons take her to another place.
****
Thirty minutes later she read the words “Alpha Auto.” The white building was weathered and faded. Dingy paint was cracked and peeled. The garage attached on the left looked as if it hadn’t been used in ages. It didn’t inspire visions of safety, or shelter, but she supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers. Her heels seemed too loud against the cement as she traveled up sidewalk, the stairs, and inside the building in the quiet twilight of the day turning to night.
The jingle of the bells announced her arrival and she gasped out loud as she took in the interior. I must have died and gone to heaven! Photos of vintage cars through the years lined the walls along with other miscellaneous dated items: old license plates, metal gas signs and posters from an era gone by.
“Can I help you?” someone with a charming British accent asked. Devlin glanced up towards the sound and her jaw dropped.
What she had expected to be an elderly man was one of the most stunning creatures she had seen in a long while. Clad in a navy blue T-shirt with a name patch that read Tristan, he was balanced on a set of silver arm braces. Not that they detracted from his appeal. She approximated him to be about six feet tall with dark hair that was shaved closed to his head, and piercing light brown eyes. His jaw was chiseled and his bone structure so fine it bordered on feminine.
His was the kind of beauty that she’d expect from a Fae who’d come from the fairy world to tempt a maiden. His rugged five-o’clock shadow was the icing on the cake. Combined with his accent, the melding of traits made her knees threaten to wobble. It was a crime to keep him hidden away like this in the middle of nowhere. The icy air of aloofness that surrounded him only added to the imagery she’d formed in her head of a fairy king.
“I-I’m sorry. You took me by surprise,” she said.
One of her hands was placed over her heart in an unconscious imitation of a Southern belle about to swoon.
“For a second there I thought my little walk in the desert made me hallucinate.”
“Your car broke down?” he asked.
The tone that had been chilly at best before turned warm with concern. He moved around the desk with a deftness that told her the arm braces were not a recent addition.
“Yes, about a mile or two up the road,” she said as she wiped away the sweat that had settled on her brow.
“We don’t have a tow truck here but we can call someone out to pick it up.”
“Her.”
“Pardon?”
“My car, her name’s Betty.”
The twitch of the
corners of his lip told her he thought she was a loon bag. She frowned at his quick dismissal and the words that flew from her made her cringe.
“She’s a 1964-and-a-half Mustang. I think she deserves a title.” She wanted his help, not his animosity. It would have been better to hold her tongue but being mistaken for the average airhead was a pet peeve of hers.
“That’s what you drive?” His eyes went wide with shock. “You’re in the right place then. All we do is classic car restoration.”
“Seriously?”
A bubble of laughter trapped in her throat. “Could this be any more tailor-made for her?” If she believed in that sort of thing, she would’ve taken her breakdown for a sign. Life had taught her early on that fairy tales and happily-ever-after were nothing but bullshit fed to little girls too young to know better. If there was such a thing as a soul mate, she’d met hers and found him unworthy of the title.
“Yeah, let me go grab my partner and we’ll see what we can work out. There’s a phone behind the desk you can use. Most cell phones don’t get service in this spot.”
With a nod she made her way over to the phone only to pause. Her brother would flip his shit if he knew she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with at least two men she didn’t know. She’d wait until she had a timetable for her car, and then she’d call Dahlia. Dahl was more than her best friend. She was her sister. She was also her brother’s off-and-on flame. If anyone could explain this to Jude without having him spontaneously combust, it was Dahl. Despite the fact that Devlin was three years her brother’s senior, his protective tendencies knew no boundaries.
****
“What are you talking about?” Jace asked. Impatient, he shut off the sander and turned to face his best friend and co-owner of Alpha Auto.
He’d meet Tristan when he’d been shipped off to a boarding school in England at seventeen. The two had bonded instantly over tales of their dysfunctional fathers and pranks that would have gotten them kicked out if they’d ever been caught. Thank God for Tristan’s logical brain. Jace was good at making mischief, not so- much at getting away with it. When Tristan’s professional soccer career had been ended by a horrific car accident he’d had flown over to help him get back on his feet and the idea of Alpha Auto was born. They hadn’t looked back since.
“I said I think our dream woman is out front. Her car broke down a few miles back, and you’ll never believe what she drives,” Tristan said.
“Well, we’re in Vegas. So, what? Is Barbie behind the wheel of a Corvette?”