The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men #7)(86)

“Aww....is my baby brother growing up?”

I scowled at Pick, not sure what he meant by that. “Huh?”

“It’s a sign of a maturing male when he’s ready to stop sowing his wild oats and settle down with a good woman.”

Maturity? Huh. Was that what this was? Because I still felt like a clueless, bumbling kid most of the time. But maturing did sound better than becoming a chick.

“Got you all restless and edgy, doesn’t it? Feeling lonely and kind of pathetic because you keep turning down sure things that you really have no reason to turn down at all?”

Holy shit. How did he know that?

The stunned expression must’ve revealed my feelings because he sent me a knowing smile. “Been there. Suffered through that. And damn glad I found my Tinker Bell when I did.”

“Lucky bastard,” I mumbled, scowling.

Which only made him laugh. “I know, right?”

When he pulled into the entrance of an auto repair shop, I sat up straighter, forgetting about my own issues.

We’d just come from my uncle’s place. He was the only family member I had any contact with, even though it’d been three or four years since I’d last visited him...or called. After my mom had died and my dad was arrested, the authorities had gotten hold of my mom’s family to see if they would take me in. None of them were interested in raising Polly’s little crack baby, except her older brother Stan.

He hadn’t been the loving, nurturing type. In fact, he’d rarely been around. Since he had worked for a trucking company, he would be gone for days on end. The most interest he’d ever shown in my life was a “how’s it going?” whenever he’d see me. But he never hit me or even yelled at me. He was just kind of there...sometimes. If it wasn’t for him, though, I would’ve been put into foster care and who knew where I would’ve ended up.

Anyway, since Stan had been Polly’s brother, that made him just as much Pick’s uncle as mine. So when I’d asked Pick if he wanted to meet Stan, he’d been all for that idea. And that was why we were hanging out today.

The visit with Stan had gone about how I’d expected with one small surprise.

I hadn’t called before visiting. He wasn’t a fan of answering his phone, so I hadn’t even bothered. So he’d been mildly startled to see me when he’d opened the door of his trailer house.

“Asher? Is that you? Shit. How long’s it been? You’ve finally filled out some. Thought you were going to be a stick for the rest of your life. Well, come on in. Who’s this?” He eyed Pick warily before glancing at me. “You turn to men, or something?”

Jesus. Not Uncle Stan too.

“No. This is Pick. Patrick Ryan. He, uh...well, he’s your nephew too.”

Stan’s perusal of Pick’s tattoos and piercings turned into a scowl before he glanced at me and hitched up an eyebrow. “Come again?”

After I explained how Pick was the baby Polly had left at the hospital and how we’d stumbled across our discovery of being related, Stan scratched his fraying beard stubble. “Well, hell. I didn’t even realize that kid had survived. I just assumed Polly’d had a miscarriage.”

“Well...” I shrugged. “She didn’t.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Pick held out a hand, and Stan stared at it as if he didn’t know what to do with it, before he finally took hold of Pick’s palm and returned the shake.

“You do have the Ruddick chin, I guess,” Stan murmured thoughtfully.

“We came not only so he could meet you, but to see if you had any information about his dad, so he could maybe research his paternal side too.”

“Your dad’s dead,” Stan announced abruptly, making me cringe. Thank God I’d already told Pick this so it wasn’t too startling, but f*ck. Our uncle had never bothered with subtlety, and he sure didn’t now, either.

“Didn’t know his real name, just what Polly called him. Chaz.”

“Yeah,” Pick murmured, disappointment at the dead end glimmering in his eye. “That’s what Asher told me.”

“There wasn’t much worth knowing, anyway; he was a no-account drunk,” Stan went on. “He was never going to go anywhere past that repair shop where he worked on Bullview Road.”

Pick suddenly perked to attention. “You mean Murphy’s Repair Shop?”

“Yeah.” Stan snapped his fingers. “That place.”

The oddest expression entered Pick’s face. “Holy f*ck,” he murmured, sounding stunned.

“What?” I had to ask. “Have you heard of it?”

He turned to me, more looking through me than at me. Shock made his pupils dilate and lips part. “I used to work there,” he said.

So that’s why we’d driven to Murphy’s Repair Shop. Pick told me the owner had run the place for nearly forty years; he’d probably remember an employee named Chaz.

As we exited the Mustang, I followed Pick to an opened bay door where Luke Bryan’s voice wailed from a radio about stripping it down and returning to the simpler life. Pick nudged a pair of ragged boots that were sticking out from under an old Chevy truck.

“Hey. Murph around?”

The boots moved and rolled out until we could see the grease-stained face of the worker. “Well, hey. The prodigal son returns. You coming back to work for us again, Pick?”