Start Me Up. Victoria Dahl

a pop to fix a flat, so the decline of manly civilization was just fine with Lori. Joe inclined his head toward the phone.

      “Another run?”

      “No, just a personal call.” She eyed him as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped sweat from the nape of his neck. He looked old, suddenly. He’d been older than her father by a few years, but they’d been as close as brothers. And Joe had been like a second father to her.

      He’d worked in the garage since before Lori was born. But he’d been more than an employee.

      Joe had picked her up from school countless times, applauded her achievements, lectured her about boys and drinking. She wouldn’t have been able to care for her father if Joe hadn’t been there to pick up the slack in the garage. She hadn’t been able to pay him enough for essentially running the garage for those first few years, but Joe had never complained. Not once.

      And he’d known her dad better than anyone.

      “Joe, can I ask you something?”

      He shrugged and dropped into a chair. “You know you can ask me anything. Shoot.”

      “I’ve been thinking about my dad lately. I wasn’t here those last few months before his accident. What was his life like after I left?”

      Joe shrugged. “Same as always, really. Work. Fish. Grab a beer.”

      “Was he dating anyone?”

      She must have surprised him. Joe tucked his chin in. “Dating? Nothing serious that he ever mentioned. There was a waitress over in Grand Valley he stepped out with sometimes, even when you were still here. A woman over in Eagle he saw once or twice. But he was a loner. After your mom left…” He squinted up at her. “He wasn’t much on relationships after that.”

      Lori cringed. Her mother had run off when Lori was five. She’d left both of them behind and never looked back. She’d died about eight years ago from liver failure. Hepatitis C. So Lori was officially an orphan.

      “She wrote me once,” Joe said, shocking Lori so much that she gasped.

      “What?”

      “Your mom. She wrote to me. You were probably fifteen by then. She wanted to know how you were doing.”

      “But…why did she write to you? ”

      Leaning forward, he rested his forearms on his knees and stared at the floor. “She was too ashamed to write to your dad, maybe. I wrote back to tell her how amazing you were. Smart and hardworking. I never heard nothing after that.”

      Lori cleared her throat. “You don’t think she ever got in touch with my dad?”

      His eyes rose quickly to meet hers. He held her gaze for a long moment. “He never said anything about it.”

      “Yeah.” Nodding, she kicked the cement with her boot. “I guess she never did. Thanks for telling me, Joe.”

      “You bet, darlin’. Anything else you want to know?”

      “No. I’m gonna head up to Quinn Jennings’s place. If there aren’t any calls in the next thirty minutes, you can go. Just forward the phone to my cell.” She grabbed her book to head for the door, but Joe cleared his throat and stopped her.

      “Say, before you go…Have you thought anymore about selling your dad’s lot?”

      Lori managed not to groan. What was it with that piece of land? Sure, it bordered a good stretch of the river, but it didn’t hide access to an old silver mine. Or maybe it did. “Joe, I’m sorry. I’m just not ready. I know it’s been a year now, but my dad was so happy when he bought it. You know what I mean.”

      Joe held up his hands and offered a sad smile, the sympathy in his eyes a familiar comfort. He’d made an offer on the land soon after the accident when he’d realized she was having financial problems, and if she was going to sell to anyone, it would be to Joe. He loved that place and fished there all the time, even though his fishing buddy was gone.

      She joined him sometimes, and it was as if her father was there with them, too. Just like the old days. Her two favorite people in the world.

      Joe’s scarred fingers closed over her elbow. “No pressure, Lori. You just say the word when you’re ready to discuss it. Say, whatcha reading there?” He stood, starting to reach for the book, but Lori danced out of his way.

      “I’ll see you Monday!” she called, grabbing her keys to head for Quinn’s cabin.

      After rolling down the window and speeding out of the lot, Lori shoved a CD into the player and turned it up way too loud. The wind wreaked havoc on her hair, but for once, Lori didn’t care. The loud music and the beautiful day chased away her ghosts, mostly because she wanted them to.

      Whatever had happened in her life, whoever she was, she needed to be free of it, just for a moment. Her hair, the one thing she loved about her looks, bounced and writhed in the wind. The music thrummed a sexy beat through her body. And the cool air made her cheeks glow pink.

      She was twenty-nine years old. An orphan, sure. A single woman with no prospects. But she was hardly dried up and done. What she needed was a distraction.

      Ben had stirred up dusty memories, and if she didn’t distract herself, she’d find herself living with ghosts. It wouldn’t be a long trip for her. She was living in her dad’s house, driving her dad’s trucks, doing her dad’s work. If she wasn’t careful, she’d turn into a fifty-nine-year-old man with a salt-and-pepper beard and hairy arms.

      She needed a distraction. She needed to be a girl. No, not a girl. A woman. A fling would offer that much at least, and give her something pleasant to think about while Ben screwed with her life.

      Or would it? She’d had casual sex before, and fireworks hadn’t exactly exploded behind her eyes. Firecrackers, maybe, down a little lower. Pop! And that was it. Night of adventure over. What the hell kind of distraction would that be? She needed… more.

      In all honesty, Lori had never been as aroused in a man’s arms as she was reading the erotica that Molly had her hooked on. And despite the rumors around town, she wasn’t the least bit interested in women. So what did that mean? Did she need more…kink? Did she want a stranger to treat her with rough force like that last story she’d read?

      “God, I don’t think so,” she muttered to her steering wheel.

      Did she want to be tied up, spanked, or passed around a werewolf pack? Because she’d liked all those stories, too. Laughter bubbled up and made her snort. That werewolf fantasy would be a hard one to pull off. She’d have to troll through the forest in high heels, just praying one of the scruffy campers was actually a raving beast.

      Her truck roared as it strained up the steep climb to the summit, but Lori barely noticed the impressive view. She was too busy analyzing her sexual needs.

      No werewolves then, but what about all the other stuff?

      She hadn’t been at college long enough to go out with more than one boy, no time for experimentation, and since then she was just…dating. Barely. Her frustrated groan broke in two when she hit a rut in the road. Dating. She’d only met a few men she’d even wanted to sleep with and couldn’t imagine asking any one of those guys to spank her.

      Though Jean-Paul probably knew how to spank a girl. He’d probably done it dozens of times. Maybe she should call him. Maybe—

      “Oh, for God’s sake,” Lori growled. She didn’t even want to be spanked. She just wanted to have a spectacular orgasm or two. She wanted spark and sizzle and a whole damn conflagration.

      Her life was about to speed past thirty, but a real relationship was out of the question. She might not have a plan to escape her life, but she wasn’t ready to surrender to it completely. Someday she would leave Tumble Creek, find a way to move on. But for right now she wanted…more. Any excuse not to think about her problems.

      Instead