Will turned his gaze from Jeremy to her. “What happened?”
Harper swallowed, feeling herself choke up. It had all been a long time ago, yet the kindness in Will’s eyes touched her. “A car accident when he was seven. A speeding teenager in his daddy’s sports car.” A teenager from a family that had nowhere near as much money as Will. “Jeremy was on his bike.”
“I’m sorry, Harper.” He looked upset on their behalf. And more than a little angry, too. “I can’t imagine how difficult that was.”
“He was in a coma for several weeks and suffered brain damage. In many ways, it’s like he never grew older than seven.” Jeremy would perpetually be a child. But he was alive. And she was more than grateful for that. “He’s a happy guy, though. And he’s doing well. I love him just the way he is.”
“He’s a good kid. Your parents obviously did a great job helping him through.”
“They did,” she agreed, still watching Jeremy skip around the Aston Martin, examining every detail. She’d already told Will this much of their story, so she might as well finish it for him, even though sometimes it felt like there was nothing else to her but this tale of one crash after another. “Our parents died a few years ago in a plane crash. So he’s all mine now.”
Will had come closer to her while she spoke. She was average height, but he was so tall, so strong, that he made her feel petite. “That must have been really hard on you.”
He was right, it had been horrible. But she’d concentrated on Jeremy, on doing everything she could for him and, eventually, the ache had become a little less each day. “I miss my parents a lot. My mother was always so good at giving advice, and my father was always so calm about things.” She would have given anything for them to be here.
Will reached for her hand and squeezed it as he said, “They would both be very proud of how you’ve done, Harper.”
His touch seared her. She was suddenly aware of every breath she took, the slight bump in her heart rate, and the heat of his body. He was so completely there as he used their connection to steer her toward Jeremy, keeping their pace a leisurely stroll down the line of cars.
“Your garage is amazing.” It seemed the polite thing to say and had the dual purpose of taking her mind off the loss of her parents and the focus off Will’s hand over hers. Almost.
The facility was spotless, with not a single oil stain in sight. Vinyl pathways had been laid down between the cars and along the rear wall. The tool chests were shiny red, with every tool put away or hanging on pegboard above the workbenches. Electrical cords in roller bins hung down from the ceiling. There was order rather than the chaos of a normal garage. Particularly her garage.
She moved ahead of him so that his hand fell away from hers. Without his touch, she felt close to normal again, just a slight tingle of awareness remaining. But at the same time, she couldn’t deny that a part of her missed it.
“You have so much space here,” she noted. “Couldn’t you also house the cars you have down at the airport?”
“Leland owns the hangar, and he’d been trying to rent out those spaces for a while. I’m glad to be able to use them.”
She recalled that Leland was his mechanic. “So you have a mechanic and you fix the cars yourself?” She waved a hand along the row of tool chests. “Not to mention building them.”
“Leland does the routine maintenance, while I get to do most of the fun stuff. But he helps out on a project if something requires more than two hands. Besides,” Will added, the dark intensity back in his eyes as he looked at her, “I’m a hands-on kind of guy.”
Harper remembered the way he’d fit the harness over her, nearly caressing her as he’d done so, and she flushed again. She didn’t like this awareness of a man she could never be with in a million, billion years. Her cravings for a rush, for thrills, were shoved way down into a secret place—whereas his were out in the open. She’d seen dozens of photos of him on the Internet, a different woman on his arm each time. They all had hourglass figures and wore sexy designer dresses that had probably cost as much as her car. Clearly, he was a player.
Yet, he was kind to Jeremy and obviously took great pride in building things with his own hands rather than simply hiring minions to do it for him.
Harper couldn’t put the pieces of the puzzle that was Will Franconi together in a way that made sense. Maybe if she knew more of his story the way he already knew hers, things might become clearer. But since she doubted she or Jeremy would ever see him again, Will Franconi would have to remain a mystery.
Needing another distraction from the heat still rising inside her, she pointed to grease-stained overalls hanging on the wall. “Looks like you’ve been doing a whole lot of work on your cars recently.”
“Like I said, cars are my thing. They always have been, since I was a kid. Even now, I can always count on them when I’m looking for a rush.”
“Can I sit in the car, Will?” Jeremy called from across the garage.
“Sure, go ahead.” Will leaned against a workbench, his arms crossed, drawing her attention to his broad chest. “So Jeremy lives with you?”
She forced herself to concentrate on his words, not his impressive muscles. “Yes. We live in our parents’ home in Palo Alto. He’s better with familiar things around him.”
“And what do you do for a living?”