Page 41 of Rory Rides Her Fake Fiancé
Finally, he drops his hand. “Keys are in the glove box.”
Uh-oh. Maybe this really is a piece-of-shit. Have I just traded part of the debt my brother owes me for nothing?
Rory opens the door and slides in. It starts on the second try, sputtering and coughing for a good thirty seconds.
“I don’t know, Rory . . .”
“They don’t make them like this anymore, you know. Your girl has a good eye.”
Jesus. My brother can really blow smoke when he wants to. He doesn’t know shit about cars.
Rory gets out, leaving the door open and one boot on the floorboard. “Please, babe. It would make my niece so happy.”
“I thought it was your nephew?” My brother’s eyes narrow.
“One of each,” Rory says smoothly.
“Whatever. Do we have a deal?”
I genuinely have no idea what’s happening here. But Rory looks at me, her eyes begging me, and maybe it’s not an act.
“Fine.” I cross my arms and scowl like I am not happy about it.
My brother disappears to get a bill of sale and Rory digs the title out of the glove box too. Signatures are collected and the next thing I know, I’m driving this clunker home, Rory’s motorcycle roaring behind me.
Rory
* * *
Morgan’s driveway is crowded with his truck, the Bronco, and my bike. As soon as I pull my helmet off, he runs his hand through his hair and stares at the Bronco. “Care to explain to me why I just drove this clunker home?”
I run my hand over hood and pat it. “Ignore him. He knows not what he speaks of.”
“Are you talking to it?” He’s amused now. Inside the house, Princess barks at us, and her head pops up in the den window, tail wagging behind her and a dopey doggy grin on her face.
I turn and rest my hip on the hood. Riding with Morgan behind me was distracting. But he was warm and hard and I liked the way his arms felt around my waist. When we drove away from his brother’s place, him in the Bronco, me on the bike, I had to shake off the disappointment and the cold on my back. “Do you know what kind of car this is?”
He walks over to the back. “A Ford.”
“Right, but what model?”
He squints. “I don’t know. It looks like maybe there used to be something here but it popped off.” He points at a spot on the paint front of the passenger door.
“Yeah. It’s suspicious as hell, but also, your brother’s a fucking idiot.”
Morgan glances at me. “No argument there, but I’m feeling like a bit of an idiot here too.”
“Well, here’s a lesson that I’m pretty sure I don’t have to teach you because you aren’t that dumb: know what you have before you sell it. And in the spirit of that, I’ll tell you what exactly you have here before you sell it to me.”
His eyebrows rise.
I look down at the shitty paint job in an ugly color that someone’s going to hell for inflicting upon this beautiful machine. “This is a first-generation Ford Bronco. They built about two hundred thousand of them in the sixties and seventies, but this one is a Roadster body style. There were only about five thousand of them made from ’66 to ’68. This is the one collectors look for.” I look up at Morgan, who’s standing stock still with wide eyes. “I’ll buy half of it from you for eleven grand plus twenty-five percent of whatever profit I make from it.” I take a deep breath. “I haven’t looked closely at the interior and I have no idea if I’ll be able to get the parts I need to fix it up properly. Yes, it’s barely worth anything now. But we could get sixty grand or so when I’m done with it.”
He stares at me. “Holy shit.” He spins around, stalking off and tugging at his hair. “Holy shit,” he says again. “Do you think my brother knew what he had? He had to have, right?”
“There’s no way anyone who’s even remotely into cars would sell this thing.”
“Yeah, but it needs work. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to fix it up. Maybe it wouldn’t sell for that much in this condition.”
