Start Me Up

“Dahl delivers a fun, feisty and relentlessly sexy adventure in her first contemporary…. Dahl smartly wraps up a winning tale full of endearing oddballs, light mystery and plenty of innuendo and passion.”

— Publishers Weekly on Talk Me Down

“Sassy and smokingly sexy, Talk Me Down is one delicious joyride of a book.”

—Connie Brockway, New York Times bestselling author

“Dahl brings a highly sensual, emotional and moving story to the pages with aplomb. Her clever plotting and engaging characters drive the story forward at a fast clip, and the depth of emotions will keep you enthralled.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on A Rake’s Guide to Pleasure

“All I can say is that by the end you’ll really love Emma. And Somerhart, too. And you’ll be rooting for them to make it, to bring together their complicated, somewhat demented love affair and turn it into marriage.”

— New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James on A Rake’s Guide to Pleasure

“Dahl debuts with a sizzling love story peopled with characters you come to adore…she creates a natural conflict between her three-dimensional lovers and keeps the pages flying with a strong pace and powerful sensuality.”

—Kathe Robin, Romantic Times BOOKreviews, on To Tempt a Scotsman

Start Me Up

Victoria Dahl

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This book is for Bill. I’m determined to make you laugh

out loud with this one, but I’ll love you even if you don’t.

Acknowledgments

I have to thank my family first. Thank you so much for putting up with a writer who’s been on multiple deadlines for over a year. I’m sorry about the messy house. It will get better next year. I’m almost sure of it. You make me proud.

Thank you to my wonderful editor, Tara Parsons. You have an appreciation for both Audis and backhoes, and that’s priceless. Thanks for getting me. And thanks to my agent, Amy. I couldn’t have done it without you.

And to all my wonderfully supportive writer friends—Jeri Smith-Ready, Farrah Rochon and Kristi Astor, to name a few—your support is invaluable. Jennifer Echols, you know how awesome you are, but I’ll tell you again. You rock.

Last, I want to thank my readers. Thank you for making all my work worthwhile. I’m honored.

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for works by VICTORIA DAHL

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“B ABY , THAT IS one fine ass.”

Lori Love ignored the purring voice and gave the mounting bolt on the transmission of the old Ford one last turn, laying all her weight against the wrench.

“Oh, yeah. Work it, darlin’.”

When the bolt felt tight enough, Lori wiggled the body part in question and tossed a grin over her shoulder toward the blonde behind her.

Her best friend, Molly, leered, eyebrows raised in suggestive appreciation. “Do fries go with that shake, girl?”

Lori stood and set the wrench on her tool chest. “I had no idea this look got you so hot.” She smiled up at Ben Lawson, standing behind Molly and very pointedly looking at the ceiling. “You should get some coveralls, Ben. Molly likes them.”

He rolled his eyes. “Are we done talking about Lori’s ass yet?”

“Oo, I don’t know,” Molly cooed. “It’s so cute and perky. Doesn’t it just make you think about—”

“You,” Ben interrupted, “are the strangest girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

Lori nodded in agreement. “She’s a strange girl, all right, but then you’ve been sheltered in this small town. Now, Moll, did you come here just to ogle my bottom, or is there something else I can do for you today? Lube job, maybe?”

They both descended into snorting laughter while Ben resumed staring at the ceiling in disgust. He was slightly more mature than the two of them put together. Good thing, considering he was the chief of police.

“I actually stopped by for a different reason,” Molly answered. “Quinn’s finally acknowledged that he can’t fix his backhoe. He needs help. I’m hoping you’ll stop by his place.”

Thinking of Molly’s older brother, Lori frowned. “Quinn’s an architect. Why in the world does he own a backhoe? And why would he think he can fix it himself?”

Molly waved a hand. “You know those geniuses. Think they can do anything. I told you he’s building a house up on the pass, right? His backhoe won’t start and he needs to finish the groundwork before winter. He’ll start the real building next spring.”

“Wait a minute. You mean he’s building it himself? I assumed you meant he was having a house built.”

“Nope. He says it helps him relax. Who the hell relaxes by building a whole house? Could he be more of an overachiever?” When Molly looked as though she was going to get riled up, Ben tugged a lock of her blond hair between his fingers.

“Some of us don’t have your artistic abilities, Moll.” He flashed her a private smile that relaxed her immediately.

Molly wrote erotic fiction for a living, which used to cause stress between the couple, but apparently Ben had come to terms with her job. Very pleasant terms. Lori managed to hide her envy by turning away to straighten up her tool chest. Not that she was interested in Ben. She just wanted some hot sex of her own. Looking down at her striped gray coveralls, she didn’t feel very hopeful about her prospects.

“I’ll run up to Quinn’s this week,” she offered. “Where is he, exactly?”

“His driveway’s right at the snow gate on the Aspen side. Turn left and the site’s about a quarter mile in.”

“Nice,” Lori breathed. Quinn must have been doing really well with his architectural firm. Only thirty-four and building his own mountain home with the gobs of money he’d made designing mansions for billionaires.

After arranging to meet Molly at The Bar on Friday, Lori got back to work on the Ford. She enjoyed fixing cars, she really did. Her father had put her to work on an engine when she was just six years old, and she’d been doing it ever since. But she’d never planned on working in her dad’s garage— her garage now—her whole life. No, that hadn’t even been a possibility when she’d left for college at eighteen.

But now it was all hers: the garage, the tow truck, the snowplows, the old dump out back. A bounty of unwanted mechanical glory.

Lori sighed and slammed down the hood of the car. Life wasn’t fair, but she was a big girl…. Well, actually she was way too short for her taste. Five-two and petite, which posed a problem when bossing around drivers and mechanics. But she was her father’s daughter, stubborn and realistic and not inclined to whine. So after his accident, she’d left college, painted all the trucks lavender, and taken control of the business.

When Lori turned the key in the ignition, the Ford roared to life, bringing a sad smile to her face. This was her job now, and she was good at it, and that was that.

She backed the car out and parked it in the gravel lot, then noticed that Ben was walking toward her. Alone.

“Hey,” she called as she jumped out. “Did you lose your girlfriend?”

“No, she’s over at the market. I actually need to speak with you about something, but I can come back tomorrow if you like.”

“No, this is fine. No problem. What’s up?” Once she’d locked up the car and met his eyes, he tilted his head toward her house.

“Why don’t we go inside and sit down?”

“Are you kidding?” she asked with a sharp laugh. Her dad was gone, her mom and grandparents long dead. A cousin lived somewhere in Wyoming, but if Lori was his emergency contact his life was even sadder than hers. She raised her hands in confusion. “Did you find out about that bank I knocked over? Because that was years ago. Childhood high jinks.”

Ben pressed his lips together and stared, so Lori just shrugged and walked toward the house. Maybe one of her mechanics had been caught stealing cars or something. When she let him through the front door, Ben gestured toward the couch.

“Oh, come on,” Lori scoffed.

“I think you should sit down.”

“Ben, this is ridiculous. Just spill it.”

He finally gave in. “All right. I’ve been looking into your dad’s case…”

Lori’s heart flipped over and made an awkward landing. “What case?”

He glanced determinedly toward the ratty couch again, then seemed to shrug into practical mode and plowed straight ahead. “The police station wasn’t run with particular efficiency ten years ago when your dad was assaulted. Though the incident report was closed out, no one sent it to records. I’ve been slowly going through all the old files, trying to get everything where it should be. I ran across your dad’s file last week.”

Wishing she were at least standing next to the couch so she could lean against it, Lori forced her mouth to work. “And?”

“And I’m not entirely sure about what happened that night.”

“It was a bar fight,” she said firmly. “Just a bar fight like the other dozen he’d started in his life. And bad luck he hit his head on that rock.”

Ben put his fists on his hips and looked down at the scuffed linoleum for a moment before he met her gaze again. “Lori, there’s a possibility it may have been deliberate. I’m going to reopen the case. Quietly.”

“What? That’s ridiculous. Why would you do that?”

“I’m suspicious. That parking lot wasn’t exactly littered with big chunks of granite. And if someone picked up a rock and hit your dad in the head, that’s assault with a deadly weapon. And now that he’s gone, maybe manslaughter or…”

Murder. He didn’t say it, but Lori heard it anyway. Shaking her head in slow denial, she moved into the kitchen and put her hands carefully on the counter. The cupcakes she’d made yesterday glowed bright pink in the afternoon light, mocking the slow, bad turn her day had taken.

Ben continued, and the hesitation cleared from his voice as he took on his chief of police mien. “If he had died at the time of the injury, there would’ve been an examination, an autopsy. Careful evidence collection. But the focus was on saving your dad’s life. Still, the scene photos don’t show any other rocks around. The only object that could’ve caused the skull fracture is that one piece of granite and we already know it had his blood on it. It seems a bit too pat to me to think he just happened to have fallen square onto that rock.

“There were no defensive wounds on his hands, no evidence of a fistfight. And he wasn’t found near his truck or even near the door of the bar. The back of the parking lot is an odd place to have a fistfight. Usually people just stumble out the front door and go at it.”

“I suppose,” she muttered, but she shook her head all the same.

“His autopsy reports are a bit of a mess with the healed fractures and surgical scar tissue, but I’m going to send the report off to Denver to get a second opinion. Just to see if there’s any confirmation of my thoughts.”

Lori tried to clear the sudden tears from her throat. “What is it you think happened?”

“I’m not sure.” Ben sighed. “But there’s a good possibility that someone attacked your dad from behind. Maybe when he was turning away from an argument, or maybe he didn’t even know someone was there. But that’s not much to go on. No one at the bar admitted to seeing anything after your dad left. He didn’t argue with anyone while he was there, at least not according to the notes. I’m going to have to conduct new interviews, but I’d like to keep it quiet as long as possible.”

“I…Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” Ben answered quickly. “You don’t need to do anything right now. Like I said, I want to keep this quiet. I’ll just be making some inquiries, trying to fit the pieces together. But I didn’t want you in the dark about my suspicions.”

“He’s dead now,” Lori murmured. “It doesn’t matter.”

But of course it did.

L ORI COULDN’T SLEEP that night. She tossed and turned for hours. By four-thirty she felt as if she might implode, as if all the thoughts swirling through her head would finally pull her in on herself and—poof!—she’d be gone. Her father, her life, the things she’d wanted for herself…

She couldn’t take it anymore, so she got up, showered and headed for the garage to change out the fuel pump on Mr. Larsen’s Chevy.

The air outside was perfect and crisp, but Lori only cracked open the garage door a few inches. She didn’t want to take any chances with curious bears. Especially if they were looking for breakfast.

As she worked at wrestling the old pump out, her thoughts became clearer and slightly more painful.

What if Ben Lawson was right? What if her father had been deliberately hurt? His skull fractured, his brain damaged, his life taken away long before he’d died…What if someone had done that on purpose?

She grabbed a rag and wiped sweat—or tears—off her face, then bent back to her task.

She hadn’t complained about the turn her life had taken. Accidents happened. She’d given up on college and travel and dating, but she’d done it for her father, willingly. He would have done as much or more for her. So, no, she hadn’t complained about what she’d given up.

But giving up something was very different than having it taken away.

Her teen years had been filled with books and hopes and a steely-eyed determination to get into the college of her dreams. And she’d done it. She’d gone off to Boston College, and her father had been so proud. Then he’d been hurt, and she’d left that behind, but she was beginning to realize she’d left behind a lot more than her education.

Her twenties had revolved around caring for her dad and keeping his business going to pay for it. Her life had been spent in coveralls and boots, T-shirts and jeans. Any love affairs had been brief and unexciting.

But lately, even before Ben’s news, she’d been restless. She couldn’t just leave Tumble Creek. Couldn’t hop on a plane and start college again. There were simply too many bills that had piled up over the years. Caring for a semivegetative relative wasn’t cheap.

So she couldn’t simply walk away and start over. But she could change her life in smaller ways, and something inside her was calling on her to take action. Perhaps this was just a natural consequence of nearing thirty. But that restless feeling had rapidly grown more intense since Ben had dropped by.

Noticing that the sunlight was now bright yellow instead of pale pink, Lori glanced up at the clock. Seven-thirty. When she raised the garage door the rest of the way, the spectacular clatter echoed through the high-ceilinged garage. She strolled out into the sun and bright birdsong, but the gravel of the lot crunched and popped beneath her boots, distracting her from the beauty of the morning. She thought mournfully of the red polish she’d painted onto her toenails the night before and sighed.

Maybe she should try another fling.

Or maybe she should just order another box of books from Molly’s publisher.

Either way, after she stopped by Quinn’s lot tonight, she’d come home to take a bath and read a dirty story. Then maybe she’d think about going shopping for a pair of open-toed heels that would click against the ground instead of thud. She jogged back in to call Molly.

As she grabbed the phone, her thoughts were interrupted by a startling chirp from the receiver in her hand. She nearly dropped it, which would have pissed her off immensely. As it was, she’d had to replace two phones already this year. One had fallen victim to the big, clumsy hands of her least-favorite plow driver. The other had somehow gotten itself mixed up with a big tub of lube, which wasn’t nearly as fun as it sounded. Not for a phone anyway.

“Love’s Garage,” she snapped into the phone.

“Ms. Love?”

“Yes.”

“Hello! This is Christopher Tipton!” Chris always announced his name as if she’d won a prize.

Lori slumped onto a stool. “Hey, Chris.” She’d known him since grade school, but she had a feeling he wasn’t calling to reminisce. “What’s going on?”

“I was just wondering if you’ve had time to think over selling that parcel of land we discussed in February.”

That parcel of land, he said, as if it hadn’t been everything her dad had ever dreamed of. “Look, Chris, I’m sorry. It’s only been a few mon—” Actually, that wasn’t true anymore. It had been a whole year since her dad had died. Jesus. When had that happened?

“I know it’s difficult to consider. And I know it hasn’t been that long for you, but I think you’ll find that Tipton & Tremaine has put together a very generous offer—”

“I just…I need more time.”

He sighed. “I understand. Just promise you won’t consider any other offers without contacting me first. I can assure you that we want to preserve the natural beauty of the place. We’re not talking a big two-hundred-house development here. Just a small group of sportsmen’s cottages along the river.”

“Yeah, I get it,” she muttered, thinking about the kind of “cottages” his firm usually built. Something more along the lines of a grand hunting lodge that could easily house seven families. Or one enormously rich one. It had always struck her as funny that rich families needed so much space for their one-point-eight children.

“I won’t consider anything without calling you. Promise.”

“Okay, I’ll—”

“Bye.” Lori hung up and kicked the steel beam in front of her, glad she wasn’t wearing heels now.

J EEZ L OUISE , Lori thought as she turned onto Quinn Jennings’s so-called driveway; it looked more like a dirt trail. He really was roughing it up here. She’d never have even slowed if not for the Jennings’s Lot sign tacked to a fence post. The correct placement of the apostrophe made her smile.

Her truck scraped beneath the low branches of lodgepole pines and stirred up the scent of the green aspen. Even in August the air was crisp and cool in the shade. Boy, it would be cold up here in winter. Did he plan to stay year-round?

When she finally emerged from the trees, Lori felt a little shock. She hadn’t known what to expect, but it hadn’t been this. A tiny log cabin stood at the edge of a meadow blooming with wildflowers. The music of running water floated on the air, audible even over the heavy sound of her motor. It seemed more likely she’d find a herd of elk here than a construction site.

But when she drew closer, the backhoe appeared behind the cabin, frozen like a strange giraffe lowering its head in defeat. Lori drove toward it, not even noticing Quinn until she’d parked and gotten out.

He stood at a drafting table set up on the tiny back porch of the cabin, facing the sun-drenched trees to the east. It was no surprise that he didn’t look up when Lori slammed the door of her truck. Quinn had a singular skill of tuning out the whole world when he was working on something important to him. This was clearly important.

“Hey, Quinn,” she called anyway.

“Hey,” he answered, without even a glance.

She smiled at his bent head, noticing the glint of sun against his light brown hair. “I’m just going to check out the backhoe for you.”

“Sure.” He frowned ferociously at something on the big drafting sheet and began to draw. Hunched over like that, he looked shorter than his nearly six feet, but his shoulders seemed wider than she remembered. His hands…Well, his hands moved with that elegant precision she’d noticed even when she was a nerdy teenager.

Lori grinned at the sight of those hands moving over the paper. The nice thing about Quinn was that she could probably stand there for an hour watching him, and he’d never notice. Lovely man. No idle conversation to disturb her daydreaming. Still, she was going to lose her light if she didn’t hurry.

After tucking a brown curl behind her ear, she climbed up into the machine. It was an old model—a strange lemon color, freckled with rust spots and complete with a small dozing shovel on the front. Quinn must have picked it up from one of his contractors for a steal. And what man wouldn’t want to own a big ol’ construction machine? Lori didn’t even need one, but she was tempted to ask if she could borrow it when Quinn was done. Surely she could find some stuff to move around the junkyard behind her house.

The key was already in the ignition, so Lori turned it. There was a faint electric hum, but nothing else. She let out a breath at the sound. Good, this was probably something she could fix. If it had been a problem with the hydraulics, Quinn would’ve had to call in someone more expensive.

She tried again, listening more closely. It was almost certainly the starter, and hopefully this model had an electric starter and not one of those air-start systems. If it was an air-start, she’d have to refer him to a diesel specialist after all. Lori jumped down to take a look.

Half an hour later, she wiped her hands on a rag and spent a few minutes writing down part numbers and brands. She could fix this, no problem.

“Quinn, I’m going to have to order two parts, but I should have them in a couple of days. I’ll be back then.”

“Great,” was his only response, though he followed it up with a hurried, “Thanks.” The sun was still slanting across the clearing, throwing Quinn even deeper in shadow.

Lori shook her head. Not one of her other customers would say “great” without even asking the price. Then again, she didn’t usually work on the Aspen side of the pass.

She allowed herself one last glance at him, watched him rub his thumb thoughtfully across his bottom lip for a few moments and then Lori headed home.

Q UINN J ENNINGS blinked from his thoughts about angles and sunlight and shadows. He glanced around in confusion, then looked down to the cell phone barely hanging on to the edge of the drafting table. Nope, no call coming in. He looked around one more time, wondering what had changed. Then he realized what had distracted him: the silence.

The backhoe stood alone, still frozen. Lori Love had been here, climbing over the machine and making a racket. She must’ve left at some point, and Quinn was pretty sure he hadn’t even said goodbye. Wincing in guilt, he backtracked his memory. She’d said something about ordering parts, so she’d be back in a few days and he’d be sure to offer her a coffee or something civilized like that.

Just then the setting sun broke through the pines, streaking past the quaking aspen leaves and casting mottled, moving shadows against the big boulder that marked the eastern edge of the clearing. That was exactly what he’d been looking for, just that tone and timing of light.