Page 21 of The SEAL's Duchess
“Hoped you might have changed your mind about coming.” Mitch didn’t look up from under the raised hood of a snow-streaked Toyota. “You gonna limp that truck through another winter instead of letting it die with dignity?”
Same old mix—burned rubber, welding smoke, and the scorched-dust stink of the space heater that refused to die.
“Dignity’s a luxury,” Ryder muttered, flipping up his collar against the draft that always found a way in. “That truck’s still got miles in it.”
"So do I, but you don't see me hauling ass through sleet at dawn without complaining." Mitch’s grizzled face emerged grinning to show his teeth through his beard. He wiped hishands on his green coveralls and headed toward the cluttered office nook at the back. “C’mon.”
Ryder followed. Inside Mitch rummaged through a battered cardboard box. “Hah!” He held a small box aloft. “Tensioner. Install it today, or she’ll seize before the weekend.”
Ryder took the box. “Thanks, Mitch. Put it on the tab?”
“You bet. You still owe me for that fan belt from ‘23.” He squinted at Ryder. “How’s that brother of yours? Heard he and his wife had a baby?”
“Caleb and Grace are fostering little Josie.”
Mitch whistled. “Ain’t that just sweet.” He waggled a wrench in Ryder’s direction as he stepped around a teetering stack of dented boxes. “And you?”
Ryder grinned. “You know me. There's only room for one girl in my life.”
“When they’re as cute as that, I can’t blame you. Your dad brought Ellie in last week—cute as a button and whip-smart, that one.”
Ryder’s smile pinched at the edges. He was happy for his brother, but the memory of Caleb, Grace, and Josie curled together on the couch last Sunday cinched through his chest like wire.
He adjusted the box under his arm, suddenly needing fresh air on his face. “Thanks, Mitch.”
“No problem. Get that part in quick, or you’ll be thumbing a lift with me.”
Ryder waved his thanks and headed back through the garage bay toward the lot. The wind caught the edge of his jacket as he stepped onto the cracked concrete, boots crunching past Mitch’s tow truck gleaming by the curb. He tossed the tensioner onto the passenger seat of his truck and climbed into the chilly cab.
He reached for his seatbelt and stopped, his hand frozen mid-air. Across the street, Ivy walked stiff against the sleeting wind.
He glanced at the tensioner beside him. It needed to be fitted. And he had to collect Ellie from his mom’s.
Ivy wasn’t his problem.
Ellie was his priority.
He gripped the steering wheel. Her arms hugged that damn useless coat around her like it could hold her together.
Should have made her keep the damn flight jacket.
He wasn’t her keeper. He didn’t have the space for this—not with Ellie, not with everything he kept locked tight just to stay upright. But his chest wouldn’t loosen. And that ache behind his ribs—the one he hadn’t felt since after Ellie was born?—
Hell. It’s just coffee. Not a damn wedding proposal.
He slammed the door open and vaulted out, boots crunching. “Ivy!”
She slowed, nose pink above the lie of her scarf.
“Ryder.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Long afternoon?” He stepped closer. Tiny lines of strain bracketed her mouth. The woman who’d laughed with him and Ellie this morning building a Legoairyport, had vanished.
“Just…” She waved a hand in the air. “Work stuff.”
She gave him a look, lashes stuck with sleet. “England may be damp, but at least the rain doesn’t travel sideways at fifty miles an hour.”
He grinned. “That’s the Alaskan upgrade—comes standard.”
