Hard to Handle

Chapter 5

Sadie pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth to keep from responding.

She wasn’t about to argue in front of Axle. Aiden had used her own trick against her, roping her into lunch. Sadie was torn between being upset and impressed. She probably deserved it after the way she’d forced Aiden into signing the contract.

Axle either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. Sadie didn’t know how. The small bathroom where he’d discovered his manager and parts supplier standing way too close to each other, one of them missing their shirt, snapped with sexual energy.

Sadie paced through the warehouse to the overturned box and scattered parts. Axle lowered to his haunches to help her clean up, but Sadie waved him off. “I got it, really.”

With a scowl that said he’d rather help her than not, he stood. “Sure?”

“I’m sure.” She smiled. Axle may not look the gentlemanly type, but he was. “I need to arrange them in a certain order,” she lied. What she needed was a moment alone. Some time to calm the jittery shake radiating through her limbs.

With one last glare at the mess at her feet, Axle stalked off.

Sadie turned the box over and started piling parts into it. When she’d instructed Aiden to take his shirt off, she knew what to expect. Golden flesh, fair hair covering his pecs and leading down to firm abs, a scar bisecting his otherwise perfect back.

The scar was less angry now. The red had faded to pink, the edges white. Until she traced it with her fingers, Sadie had been sure that like the scar on his back, she was healing, too. That she’d grown numb where Aiden was concerned.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

From the moment he embraced her to keep a fifty-pound box from emptying onto her head, to the way he looked into her eyes and demanded she kiss him, Sadie had been nowhere near numb.

And spotting that point of black-blue ink peeking out from his side, realizing what it represented…the pain of losing Aiden washed over her as fresh as if it’d happened a minute ago instead of a year ago.

The tattoo. Thorns and vines crisscrossed down his side, from the top of his ribs, and disappeared into the waistline of his pants. Thorns signifying pain. Struggle. Loss. Then the bright spot of color, the red of his mother’s roses, a symbol of her beautiful if not brief life. And Aiden’s gorgeous body a worthy canvas for the artwork.

She couldn’t keep from touching him. As if she could ease the pain the thorny expanse represented with her palm. Her hand on his skin invited the heat of his gaze on her lips and the look in his eyes brought reality crashing down around her.

He still cared about her.

She didn’t know how that made her feel. Hopeful, maybe? And fearful. Definitely some of both.

Being in his arms again, feeling his thumb brush her lip, reminded Sadie that once upon a time, she’d had it good. For a few isolated days last summer, she’d had more understanding, undeniable attraction, and connection than she would have dared pray for.

Enough.

Sadie dropped the last oil filter into the box and stood, dusting her hands on the back of her pants. Last year didn’t matter. Now mattered. And right now, Aiden was her coworker—albeit her very attractive, tattooed coworker—who had goaded her into lunch.

If Sadie was smart, and she was, she’d redirect her thoughts before sitting with him for an hour. The last thing she needed was for Aiden to see the ripples of attraction she felt when she was near him.

Part of her wanted to psychoanalyze the way she’d clutched on to Aiden, had shut her eyes, had so willingly waited for his lips on hers. Or maybe she just wanted to imagine they hadn’t been interrupted. That he had kissed her. That she’d kissed him back, right there in a cramped warehouse bathroom, her hands on his bare skin, the feel of his hot mouth turning her inside out…

But that wouldn’t be smart.

Giving her hectic thoughts one final shove out of her head, she walked down the hall in search of Aiden to remind him he was buying.

And he’d better not cheap out.

* * *

Sadie pushed her partially eaten salad aside, and Aiden plucked a piece of chicken off the top and ate it. As he chewed, he considered that he hadn’t asked and Sadie hadn’t argued. She’d been pretty agreeable all around, considering he’d conned her into going to lunch in the first place.

“Think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?” she’d asked him as they found an unoccupied table in the gourmet deli. She’d tried to sound scathed, but he’d seen the flicker of appreciation in her eye. He’d played her own game against her and Sadie, on some level, liked it.

“You’ve kept me in suspense long enough.” Sadie took a long swallow of her iced tea. “When are you going to tell me this big secret involving Axle Zoller?” she asked, wiggling her fingers for effect.

Aiden hadn’t brought it up over the last few days because, until today, his thoughts had ebbed and flowed like the tide. One minute, he was ready to go all in, the next he couldn’t imagine Axle’s shops working out any better than his previous endeavor into real estate development. He and failure were on a first-name basis.

He had the fleeting idea to keep his head down and work for someone else for the rest of his life. It was a lot less risky than taking on the largest motorcycle shops in the Midwest. Then he’d think back to the six agonizing months he’d worked side by side with Dad at the factory after Mom passed, and changed his tune. That place ate souls for dinner, and the drudgery had nearly killed him. Dad didn’t mind it. Hell if Aiden understood how.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone,” Aiden said, hoping sharing with Sadie wouldn’t return to bite him in the ass. This was a delicate balance he was trying to strike, here. “I mean it.”

“Yes! Yes, already, spill it.” Sadie frowned and a frustrated, adorable wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows.

He nearly smiled.

“When I stayed with my mom in Oregon last year, I wasn’t exactly honest with my dad about how much her treatment cost.”

Empathy colored Sadie’s eyes at the mention of his mother, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I made an arrangement with a guy at the center to send the bills, and direct all billing questions, to me. When Dad’s money ran out earlier than we anticipated, I made up the difference.”

He took a drink of his soda. Contributing his money had been a no-brainer. Mom had been at the facility two months by then, was looking better than ever, and, Aiden thought, had a good shot at a full recovery.

Didn’t work out that way.

“I put my house on the market,” he continued. “But that was more a long-term plan than anything, so I arranged to sell my vintage motorcycle collection to Axle.” Aiden inhaled and blew out a breath. Axle had kept his secret. Aiden had Fed-Exed his garage key to Axle and told him to take all of them but Sheila. The money from the bikes went to his mother’s stay, and when she took a turn for the worse, the remainder went to making her as comfortable as possible when he brought her home to die.

“At least Mom got to spend her final days at home…with us.” He paused to clear his throat, clenching the napkin in his fist to keep his emotions at bay. Losing her had nearly killed him.

Sadie’s hand covered his, reminding him she was here. Another show of support. He swore he felt the echoing heat on his ribs where she’d touched him earlier. He started again, only to trail off. “After she…”

Sadie nodded, giving him permission not to say the words, giving him an out. He took it. Even though he felt a little like his father doing it. “After…I went to work with Dad. I didn’t know what to do with myself and I couldn’t leave him alone. He was so…okay with everything. Never saw him cry or mourn.

“In the god-awful monotony of factory work”—he slid her a dry glance—“I had a lot of time to think about what I really wanted, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. And one day, it hit me. What made me happiest? The answer was easy: my motorcycles.”

And you, he thought but didn’t say.

Sadie moved her hand back to her lap.

“Axle had mentioned his retirement plan when I arranged the sale of the bikes. So a few months back, I called him up and asked if he’d like to train me in-house and sell Axle’s to me. He liked the idea.”

“You’re going to be the new Axle?” Sadie asked.

“Well, I’d be the new owner. To be the new Axle, I’d have to gain a hundred pounds of muscle and grow my hair long again, wouldn’t I?”

At the mention of his lost locks, Sadie’s eyes flared with desire. Or maybe he was projecting. Aiden had fond memories of her hands threaded in his hair while he kissed her into submission. Of the sound of her soft mewls, the feel of her pliant lips…He shifted in his seat and searched his addled brain for where he’d left off.

“Are you buying all five stores?” Sadie asked, thankfully steering him back onto topic.

“That was the plan. Until his three-year retirement was bumped forward to three months.”

“Three months!”

Aiden dropped the napkin on his empty plate. “Yeah. I’m a little shy on the down payment, and loans aren’t looking good, since I have no house.” He sent her a sideways smile. “And you thought I couldn’t get any sexier than the divorced, jobless thirty-year-old you met last year. Now I live with my dad.” He nodded, teasing to lighten the mood. “I’m a chick magnet.”

A small smile played on Sadie’s face, but she didn’t laugh. Aiden didn’t feel like laughing, either. At one point, he’d had more money than he knew what to do with. Enough to buy Harmony a booth at The Brink so she could spend all summer pretending to make a living weaving hemp into bracelets. Enough to build a bike collection he could be proud of. Enough to dump a huge portion of that money into the hotel and casino right before Daniel and Harmony had the affair.

Aiden had walked away from all of it. Had given Harmony everything she wanted in the divorce with barely a fight. Had walked away from the business he’d cofounded, the business that eventually buckled under the soon-to-be frigid economical climate.

The urge to get everything back didn’t just revolve around his motorcycles. Sure, he wanted them, but he wanted more what they represented.

Passion.

At some point, before Aiden went into business for the money and married Harmony for…God knew what reason, Aiden was passionate about his life. Losing his wife, his business, his mother, and Sadie…had sucked the passion, the life, right out of him. Until the day he was stamping holes into flat metal pieces at a rate of a zillion a minute at the factory. His mother’s final words to him, before she’d grown too weak to speak, hit him like a sledgehammer to the temple.

You’re like me, Aiden. You have this unwavering optimism. Never lose that.

Unwavering optimism. He had to sift through a mountain of refuse to remember what he’d been like before. What better way to honor his mom, to keep that part of her alive, than to find what he loved and make a living doing it?

“I have a plan,” Aiden said, his purpose renewed. “I just need to pitch it to Axle. If he turns me down, he’ll sell to the highest bidder…and I can assure you, it won’t be me.”

Sadie’s face went visibly pale. “But the Midwest contract…” She blinked, winced. “That was selfish.”

Aiden couldn’t help chuckling. “We signed you for a year, Sadie. You’ll be okay for a while.”

She didn’t smile. “Yes, but I have a five-year plan for Axle’s. Whoever takes over might not like Midwest, might not like me,” she added, her eyebrows bowing in worry.

“Impossible,” he muttered, meaning it. He couldn’t figure for the life of him why her weenie of an ex-fiancé had chosen her sister over Sadie. He’d choose her Lava-soap abrasiveness any damn day of the week.

She ignored his compliment, eyes widening. “What if you’re not there…What if Axle’s gets bought out by some corporate giant who already has a national contract with another supplier? Probably ‘Something’ Unlimited. Motorcycles Unlimited.” Her lip curled.

Aiden put a hand on Sadie’s wrist to halt her tirade on the woes of corporate restructuring. “All the more reason for you to help me convince him I’m the right buyer.”

She looked at his hand covering hers, then back at him, her expression hardening. “Okay.” She folded her hands together on the table and the sharp glint returned to her brown eyes. “Tell me your plan and I’ll tell you if it’s crap or not.”

* * *

“Going to see your boyfriend today?” Perry chimed in as Sadie knelt to retrieve a granola bar from the break room vending machine.

Clenching her teeth into a forced a smile, Sadie stood and faced him. “Which one?”

“Touché. I’m talking about Axle. You have to be doing something to have landed that five-store deal. He turned you down for three years straight,” Perry said, suffering no shyness when it came to reminding her how she’d struggled.

Sadie clenched her fist around her breakfast, the foil wrapper crinkling. “My persistence paid off, I guess,” she said as she headed for the door.

“Or maybe it’s because you used to date the new guy.”

Sadie halted midstep. She shouldn’t turn around. Shouldn’t give merit to Perry’s jabbering. But neither could she let him spread rumors and tarnish her reputation. She forced a placid expression and faced him. “What are you talking about?”

“Word gets around,” Perry said, not bothering to answer her. He didn’t say like you, but his smarmy smile implied it.

“Well…he had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Perry said with an exaggerated shrug. “He dumped you, right? Probably doesn’t take you into consideration at all.”

When Sadie pulled in and parked in Axle’s lot, she was still seething from her run-in with Perry. Normally Perry was flirtatious just this side of annoying, but ever since she’d landed Axle’s stores, he’d been downright mean. He’d hit her below the belt this morning, and without a twinkle of levity in his eye. He’d meant to throw her off, make her stumble. She recalled the smirk on his face.

Bastard.

She stomped to the front door. It was unlocked, but the store didn’t open for another fifteen minutes. Good. She could use a few minutes to pull herself together. Her anger was burning off and if she wasn’t careful, would turn into tears. She may as well have eaten an estrogen sandwich this morning for how emotionally off-kilter she felt.

This, she could not allow.

She took a few deep breaths, sealing her emotions behind a brick wall of confidence. She could do this, could ignore the shake working its way down her arms to her fingers and causing her pen to rattle. Or so she thought. It was hard to write legibly when her body shook like she’d mainlined a triple espresso.

Giving up her note-taking, she propped her elbows on a shelf. She was grateful the store lights were off, and sucked in a clarifying breath. She visualized her anger ebbing, but it didn’t recede. It persisted, simmering just under the surface. How had Perry found out about Aiden? They didn’t know each other. She hadn’t shared her heartbreak with anyone at work. Unless…

She had several phone conversations with Crickitt last year, especially after Aiden left for Oregon. Many of them were made from the faux privacy of her open-air cubicle. Anyone could have heard. Perry could have easily eavesdropped and mentally logged the conversations for later…to throw her off when she was getting ahead.

“Bastard,” Sadie growled as the overhead lights winked on.

“Hope you’re not talking about me,” Aiden said, strolling down the aisle in her direction.

Sadie faced him. He looked as warm and welcome and familiar as Perry did standoffish, undesirable, and douchey. She shook her head. “Not you.”

Aiden assessed her before offering her the mug in his hand. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

“Only if there’s whiskey in it.”

“Like I said.”

She couldn’t help it, she smiled. And at Aiden’s insistence, she accepted the mug and took a sip. No whiskey, but it did have some sort of flavored creamer in it. “Thank you for this,” she said.

“You’re welcome.” He put his hands in his pocket. Boy, could the man fill out a pair of jeans. “Who’s giving you trouble?” She dragged her eyes from his muscular thighs to his face. “I’ll beat him up for you. Unless it’s Axle, then you’re on your own.”

“Just some jerk I work with.” Her smile remained. She couldn’t call up her anger at Perry. Whatever fury saturating her bloodstream earlier had evaporated, fleeing with Aiden’s arrival. He watched her with those sparkling green eyes of his, half his mouth quirked into a sideways smile. There had always been something about him that calmed her, eased her from the ledge of emotions she sometimes teetered on.

The night she met him at the club, she’d attempted to be mean. He didn’t let her. Simply took her hand and dragged her onto the floor, matching her step for step to “The Electric Slide.” She didn’t know what was more ridiculous: the stupid line dance or that the worst song ever recorded was linked to one of her most cherished memories. The thought made her pause, caused her smile to drop.

Aiden didn’t notice. He’d already started toward the back of the store. “Gonna get more coffee,” he called over his shoulder, reaching up to tap the doorway over his head as he walked under it. “Since somebody is drinking mine.”

* * *

Giving Sadie his coffee hadn’t completely erased the devastation she’d hauled into the shop with her this morning. Not that he’d expected miracles, but he made really, really good coffee. She’d snapped out of her bad mood for an hour or so, but after, there’d been a constant frown marring her features.

Watching her dash back and forth to the warehouse, take things off of the display tables only to put them back on, and switch out the mannequins clothing in the front window three times (that he’d seen) was wearing him out. Normally she’d have left by now, to run more sales calls or go back to her office and finish out the day.

Not today, though. Today, she was avoiding something. If he had to guess, the office, and her insulting coworker.

Just some jerk I work with.

Aiden could meander on over to Midwest Motorcycle Supplies and find said jerk she worked with. He could have a talk with him. Or hit him. Whichever came first.

An hour before Axle’s closed, Aiden spotted Sadie at the window, fretting over what geometric shape to stack the Midwest boxes on the table. She darted past him and went outside, scowling through the window at her display. Unhappy, she came back in and started dismantling the pile. Again.

With a shake of his head, Aiden returned to the chore he’d been avoiding all week. Stocking key chains wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of stimulation, but it was a necessary part of running the store. He knelt and opened the box and pulled out several bags filled with assorted plastic key fobs. Each had a funny saying on it, but he’d since stopped reading them with comprehension, losing track of time in the task of filling the pegs on the shelf he’d assembled.

“‘You look like I need a drink.’”

Aiden looked up to find Sadie standing at the counter, a key chain dangling from her finger. “Is this supposed to be funny?” she asked, waving the square of plastic.

Aiden stood and unhooked the keychain from her finger. “Well, not when you read it like that.” He returned it to the display and handed her another. “I do like this one, though.”

“‘I pray God’s not too picky,’” Sadie read. Her glossed lips tilted, but more in a show of indecision than amusement. She spun the rack before pulling another off the peg and holding it up for him to see.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, make him rich and make him tall.

“Well, I’m tall.” He took it from her and returned it to its peg. “But Shane’s the rich one.” Aiden leaned in a little closer, watching Sadie’s eyes darken despite her attempt not to react to his nearness. “Sorry, he’s married.”

A smile tickled the corner of her mouth but rather than comment, she pulled another keychain and handed it to him.

Aiden raised an eyebrow at her. “‘Never miss a good chance to shut up’?” It was a small laugh, one she recovered from quickly, but he was making progress. He turned the stile, choosing his comeback carefully. “Ah,” he said when he landed on it. He slid it across the counter in front of her.

She leaned over it and read, “‘Remember this face; you’ll see it in your dreams.’”

He mirrored her posture. “So true,” he murmured softly.

Her smile faded and her cheeks went pink.

He held her gaze. “What’s his name?”

Her eyelashes fluttered as she regrouped. “Who?”

“The jerk at Midwest I need to have a chat with.”

“Perry,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “He thinks I sleep with my clients.”

Aiden narrowed his eyes. “And by chat I mean force feed a knuckle sandwich.”

“Easy, tiger.” She put her hand on his arm and Aiden felt a tiny bead of sweat prickle his upper lip. If she did sleep with her clients, he’d be first in line…and pummel anyone else who dared get in line behind him.

Sadie bit her lip. “Can I ask you something?”

His eyebrows shot to his hairline, his mind still on Sadie sleeping with him. He licked his lips. “Sure,” he croaked, inappropriate ideas popping in his head like a string of firecrackers.

“Do you think I muscled you into signing the Midwest contract?”

“Yes,” Aiden answered.

Sadie winced.

Aiden caught her hand when she started to walk away from him. “I’m glad you did. It’s fair. And the work you’re doing is beyond what anyone else would have offered.”

“Perry wouldn’t have had to swindle you. He would have bought you an expensive gift and taken you out for drinks,” she grumbled.

“You can take me out for a drink,” Aiden said, suddenly wanting that more than anything.

Sadie didn’t bite, pulling her hand free. “Ha-ha. You know what I mean. He would have wined and dined you. Wooed you. I offered to clean out your warehouse.”

Aiden’s thoughts were stuck on the wining and dining part. Or, more accurately, the one dinner date he’d taken Sadie on last year. The date had continued through morning. After breakfast, he’d sneaked her to the back of his parents’ property and led her up to his childhood tree house. Since his parents had no idea he was divorced, he had to settle for introducing Sadie to his mother from afar. Sadie had leaned against him, golden sunlight filtering in her hair, and watched his mother prune her prized rosebushes. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them had to.

It was a memory he’d never, ever forget. Sadie may not have met his mother, but she’d seen her. He considered how special that was, how anyone he dated in the future wouldn’t have the same opportunity. Sharing those precious minutes with Sadie made her uniquely qualified to understand what he’d been through. Some of the tension knotting his chest loosened.

The way it always did when she was around.

He opened his mouth to ask her out to dinner. Out for a drink. Out, hell, anywhere for a few stolen minutes, but Sadie backed away from him before he could.

“I should get out of here,” she announced. “Lots to do.” She muttered something about finishing the display window later.

Her loud farewell was such a departure from his thoughts, Aiden simply watched as she gathered her things and walked out the door.