Page 26 of Atonement Trail
“We’re closed,” Dylan said, wiping her hands on a shop rag that seemed to be redistributing grease rather than removing it.
“I’m looking for Aidan O’Hara.” The woman’s voice carried the polish of expensive education and breeding, but underneath lurked something else—determination wearing nervousness like camouflage.
“He left about an hour ago. I can take a message.”
The woman studied Dylan with eyes the color of winter sky, cataloguing the coveralls, the grease, the defensive posture of someone protecting their territory. “You must be the new mechanic. Diana?”
“Dylan.”
“Right. Dylan.” She extended a manicured hand that had never met a callus. “I’m Victoria Pemberton. Aidan and I are…old friends.”
The name landed like snow on bare skin—shocking, cold, immediately seeping into uncomfortable recognition. Dylan had heard it whispered in the corners of town gossip, passed between coffee cups and over shop counters. Victoria Pemberton, the one who got away—or threw him away, depending on the narrator’s romantic philosophy. The woman everyone had expected Aidan to marry before she’d chosen Manhattan over mountains.
“He’s probably at home by now,” Dylan managed, proud that her voice remained level as a balanced engine.
“I tried there first. His neighbor said he was probably here or at The Lampstand.” Victoria smiled, and it was the kind of smile that had probably opened doors, hearts, and bank vaults with equal ease. “I was hoping to surprise him.”
“Mission accomplished, I’m sure.”
Victoria tilted her head, studying Dylan with renewed interest, like a cat discovering an unexpected mouse. “Have we met? There’s something familiar about you.”
“I don’t travel in circles that require that much dry-cleaning.”
“No, I suppose not.” But the assessment in her eyes suggested she was recalculating something, adjusting her equations. “How long have you worked for Aidan?”
“Five years. And I work with him, not for him.”
“Of course. My mistake.” She pulled out her phone with the efficiency of someone who’d never been without immediate communication. “Well, I’ll just text him myself. We have some business to discuss.”
Before Dylan could respond, headlights swept across the garage entrance like searchlights seeking truth. Aidan’s truck pulled in, and Dylan watched him emerge carrying a takeout bag from The Lampstand. He’d brought her dinner, just as promised. The simple thoughtfulness of it, the casual care, made something in her chest constrict.
He stopped when he saw Victoria, his whole body going still in a way Dylan had never witnessed—like a deer caught not in headlights but in the scope of something more dangerous.
“Tori?”
“Hello, Aidan.” Victoria moved toward him with the confidence of someone who’d never been turned away from anything she wanted. “Surprise.”
Dylan watched them embrace—brief, formal, with the awkwardness of people trying to navigate the ghost of former intimacy. She turned back to the Ferrari, giving them privacy while her hands worked on autopilot.
“What are you doing here?” Aidan’s voice carried shock layered over something harder to identify—not pleasure, not quite displeasure, but the wariness of someone finding a door they’d locked standing open.
“Daddy’s not well. Heart problems. I’ve taken a leave from the firm to help him manage things.” Victoria’s voice softened strategically. “It’s been seven years, Aidan. I thought enough time had passed that we could be civil.”
“We can be civil from a distance. We’ve been doing it successfully for seven years.”
The coldness in his tone made Dylan glance over, surprised. This wasn’t the easy-going Aidan she knew. This was someone who’d been hurt and had decided not to offer a second chance for the experience.
“People change,” Victoria said, though something in her perfect composure cracked slightly.
“Do they? You left because Laurel Valley was too small, too limiting, too…” He paused. “How did you put it? Suffocatingly quaint?”
“I was twenty-eight. I thought ambition was everything.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m thirty-five and realized ambition is lonely without someone to share the success.”
Dylan’s hands stilled on the engine. She shouldn’t be listening to this, but the garage’s acoustics made privacy impossible.
