Braving The Heat. Regan Black

      “Do you know what the color scheme will be?”

      At some point in the past, the paint had been a metallic champagne. “Silver with black rally stripes. He’s career army.”

      “Make sure you take pictures if I don’t get over here before your client picks it up.”

      “Sure thing, Mom.” She ignored the fact that he had a portfolio of before and after pictures online she could access anytime, insisting that he show her in person. He knew it was because she worried he spent too much time with the quiet thoughts in his head.

      If she had any idea how disquieting his thoughts were she’d have real reason to worry.

      Myra made a bit more small talk, and when she seemed convinced he wouldn’t do something stupid like take the rest of the day off and wallow in grief and alcohol, she left him in peace.

      Stephen closed the gate when she’d gone and set the emergency number to ring through to his cell phone. Too restless to work, he cleaned up his tools, gave Kenzie’s car another hard look and went to move more of his things out of the trailer and into the office.

      It felt rude to him to keep invading space he’d given her. Better to keep as much distance as possible between him and Kenzie. His gaze landed on the denim cutoffs and T she’d worn earlier, on a corner of the bed. A vision of her long, gorgeous legs filled his mind, followed closely by an echo of that bold laughter.

      Basic human nature explained why her legs got under his skin, but the effect of her laughter baffled him. Maybe the happiness of it, a sound foreign in the shop, was what bugged him. That sound shouldn’t fit in and yet something deep inside him wanted to make room for it. Damn, he needed more sleep.

      He closed his eyes and brought Annabeth’s serene face to his mind. A dark beauty with generous curves, his fiancée had had a steady, pleasant outlook underscored with integrity and grit that made her someone people trusted. The kids confided in her about things they were too scared to share with anyone else. On appearance alone, Kenzie was the polar opposite, not to mention the vast personality differences, and yet he had a random, discomfiting thought that they might have been friends.

      Twice he picked up his phone to text Kenzie about dinner with his family. Twice he stopped, deleting the messages before he could send them. If his mother caught wind of him taking the easy way out, he’d get a lecture and a heavy dose of that sad disappointment she wielded so effectively.

      He and his siblings agreed on one thing without fail: it was always better to make Myra Galway flat-out mad than to disappoint her.

      To do this right, and avoid a mom lecture, Stephen would either have to go to the club or wait up for her. Resigned, he took a shower and changed clothes to go back to the Escape Club. He considered taking the Camaro, to get a feel for the clutch and the suspension, but he was too restless to listen to the car.

      Instead, he grabbed a dealer plate, put the For Sale sign in the rear window of the Mustang they needed to move, and planned a route through the city that might spin up some interest. If that particular route took him by the community center where Annabeth had worked, that was just coincidence.

      Right. Not even he believed that.

      The community center was a central, positive influence working persistently to keep a toehold in a neighborhood framed with rough edges. The area was hard on the eyes and residents in broad daylight. Once night fell, those rough edges turned razor-sharp and mean.

      Since losing Annabeth, Stephen continued teaching the basic automotive class despite the vicious ache in his chest every time he came near the building. After her killer was acquitted, he’d picked up the habit of frequently driving through the neighborhood in various vehicles. Occasionally, he parked a block out and walked in, daring any of the local thugs to take a swipe at him.

      They often did.

      His walks and drive-bys were random. Sometimes they paid off and he caught a picture of a drug deal that he forwarded to the police, or he caught wind of a name while he wandered past on foot. For all the good it did. The police would pick up one dealer and another stepped up, keeping business rolling. Once in a while he timed his visits or ended his classes so he could walk other staffers to their cars, as he should’ve done every day for his fiancée. Sometimes he just circled the block, letting the deep purr of a big engine serve as a warning to the petty criminals skulking in the shadows.

      So far, the man he wanted to confront, the man who had killed his fiancée, had yet to make himself a target. Stephen didn’t have anything better to do with his life than wait him out.

      Tonight, he circled the block like a shark, generally being a nuisance and interfering with the fast deals that happened at the corner. The thugs tasked with backing up the dealer showed their guns on his third pass. The familiar dance put a kick in Stephen’s pulse. He was aware they knew who he was and where to find him when he wasn’t trying to interrupt their business. Just one reason he kept upgrading the security at the garage. He used to lie awake at night, praying someone with ties to Annabeth’s murder would come by and get caught on his cameras.

      Spoiling for a fight, he parked the Mustang under the floodlights and security cameras in the community center parking lot and went for a quick stroll. At this hour the facility, church and other buildings on this side of the street were deserted and locked up tight.

      He walked around to the front of the building and sat on the steps. Although the building owners tried to keep security cameras operational, anything aimed in the general direction of the dealer on the corner was repeatedly disabled. Stephen had decided he had to stand in whenever possible.

      Annabeth’s blood had long since been washed away from the area, but the fresh paint they’d used on the railings was peeling again after three years of weather. He knew where they stored the paint and he had a key to the center. He’d almost decided to take care of it now under the glare of the streetlights when a rusty station wagon from the nineties pulled up to the corner. It made Kenzie’s sedan look good by comparison.

      Stephen raised his phone and hit the record button, making sure the video light caught the driver’s attention. The car sputtered and rolled away, deal incomplete. From across the street, the thugs shouted a warning at him.

      Stephen lowered the phone and gave them a wave without leaving his post. He scared off another two cars before the enforcers stalked across the street with orders to make him leave.

      Finally.

      He waited for them, his weight balanced and his knees loose. They could just shoot him. Luckily for him, they knew as well as he did that two innocent people dead on these steps might inspire someone to actually come through this neighborhood and clean it up for good.

      “Get the hell outta here,” the first kid said. He couldn’t be more than twenty, probably younger. His T-shirt, emblazoned with a classic arcade game character wielding an AK-47, was partially tucked into dark jeans. Stephen noted the bulging biceps and the brands seared in faint patterns on the kid’s dark skin.

      At Gun-shirt’s nod a second man walked to the base of the stairs to face Stephen. Bald, his pale head lit by streetlights, he wore a white undershirt and faded jeans that rode low on his hips, revealing the band of his boxers. Stephen assumed the open jacket must be hot in this weather. An unfortunate circumstance for Baldy, since the jacket did nothing to conceal the gun shoved into his belt.

      “You need to leave,” Baldy said. He drew the gun and took aim at Stephen’s midsection. “Go willingly, or go permanently, your choice.”

      Stephen raised his hands. “Willingly,” he replied, starting down the steps.

      At the sidewalk, Gun-shirt grabbed Stephen’s arm and drove a fist into his gut. Although Stephen was braced for it, the blow took a toll, stealing his breath. He gasped, doubling over, hands on his knees. When Gun-shirt leaned close to make more threats, Stephen punched him in the throat. The thug staggered back into the street, bouncing off the hood of a slowly passing car before he caught his balance.

      The