Control the Burn (Hearts & Horsepower Book 1) Read online

  “What do you mean?”

  I swallowed hard, torn between sadness and embarrassment. Finding the courage to share it, I explained, “He never called.”

  Jolie’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me?”

  Shaking my head, I answered, “I wish I were.”

  Silence stretched between us as my sister did her best to come to grips with the fact that she’d been wrong, too.

  “Have you tried reaching out to him?” she wondered.

  “No. No way. I don’t have a number for him. Besides, I couldn’t possibly do it now. I’m so humiliated,” I rasped.

  Her shoulders fell. The disappointment I saw written all over her face was precisely how I felt inside.

  I’d made the biggest fool of myself. All because I thought there was something special there, something different.

  Stupid.

  I was so stupid.

  “You have a right to call him,” she insisted. “And he has an automotive shop. I’m sure he’s got a website where we can find his phone number. If all else fails, I can reach out to Nikki for it.”

  Considering Nikki was married to his brother, the last thing I wanted my sister to do was reach out to her. I didn’t even want to go to his website to find the number to his shop.

  “I just want to forget this ever happened,” I told her.

  “No, you don’t.”

  At her words, I realized she was partially correct. The truth was, I loved what I had with Logan that night. I loved the way I felt being with him. It was the only reason I went as far as I did. But now that I knew it was nothing more than a one-night stand for him, I was consumed with regret.

  I didn’t quite understand how or why I felt such a strong connection to a man who clearly didn’t even feel a fraction of that back. It worried me to think that it was my desperation for something special that pushed me to do something I normally never would have. Was my judgment that bad?

  “I feel like such a fool,” I murmured.

  “Kendall—” my sister started before I cut her off.

  “No, Jojo. It’s true. That night in his house, I wondered if I was making a mistake. My mind kept telling me to stop, but I didn’t. I was so caught up in what I felt, both physically and emotionally, to do the right thing.”

  Shaking her head, Jolie insisted, “Nothing about what you did was wrong. Don’t punish yourself for doing what felt natural to you. Look, I’m not telling you what to do, but I think it’s a mistake for you to not try reaching out to him. You never know what his reason for not calling you is unless you ask. In the beginning, I made assumptions about why Lorenzo didn’t want to be with me, and when I finally said something to him about it, I realized I’d gotten it all wrong. Giving in to what you needed that night wasn’t wrong, Kendall. Your mistake is in thinking that you don’t deserve an explanation.”

  “Okay. And when he says that this wasn’t supposed to be something more than just a one-night stand for him, do you think I’m just going to feel better? Jojo, why would I do something that’s going to humiliate me even more?”

  Shooting me a look of sympathy, she shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just don’t want to believe that it’s a worst-case scenario. I’d like to think that Logan realized just how special you are and wouldn’t let you pass him by. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he’s got a good reason for not calling.”

  “That sounds naïve,” I muttered.

  “Maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s not how I really feel,” my sister began. “I heard you on the phone the next morning, Kendall. I’ve never heard you with such hope and happiness in your voice ever. I want that for you every day.”

  That made it worse. Knowing Jolie could hear just how much my night with Logan meant to me simply from a phone conversation was like taking a knife to the heart.

  A moment later, the door opened and there was the familiar sound of metal clanging together. Within seconds, my sister’s French bulldog, Ollie, came sprinting into the room. That meant Lorenzo was home.

  “I should get going,” I noted.

  Worry littered my sister’s face as Ollie jumped up into her lap.

  “What’s wrong?”

  That question came from behind me. I turned around to see Lorenzo walking into the room. His eyes shifted from Jolie to me and back again.

  “Hey, Lorenzo,” I greeted him in what was not my usual chipper voice.

  He dipped his chin and replied, “Kendall.”

  Rounding the couch, he came over to Jolie, gave her a kiss, and asked, “What’s the matter?”

  Nervously, she looked back and forth between the two of us. Not wanting to put her in the position between having to remain loyal to me and honest with her man, I answered, “It’s me. Girl troubles.”

  Lorenzo visibly relaxed and sat down next to his woman. Ollie immediately left my sister’s lap and hopped into his.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked gently. The tone of his voice indicated he was genuinely concerned.

  “Yeah, it’s just…” I trailed off. “Well, I don’t know if Jojo told you, but I kind of did a stupid thing a few weeks ago at girls’ night. And now the guy hasn’t called.”

  Lorenzo jerked his head back in surprise. “Are we talking about Logan Townsend?” he questioned me.

  Nodding, I confirmed, “That would be him.”

  Confusion washed over him. “Really? He didn’t call you?”

  Without waiting for me to respond, Jolie interrupted and asked, “Why are you surprised by that, boss?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t really know him that well,” he admitted. “But from what I do know, he’s a good dude.”

  The last thing I wanted was to have rumors swirling about the kind of man Logan was, especially if his intentions with me were purely what I’d led him to believe that night with my own actions.

  “I’m sure he is,” I insisted. “It’s my own fault. I thought there was more to it than just a one-night thing.”

  “Did he lead you to believe that there would be?”

  Other than make me feel something I could never manage to explain? I thought.

  “No, not really,” I answered.

  “Yes, he did,” Jolie declared. “He took her number the next morning and promised to call.”

  Lorenzo narrowed his eyes as though he was deep in thought. A moment later, he offered, “It’s not really the kind of thing I’d normally stick my nose in, but I can look into it if you’d like me to, Kendall.”

  Instantly shaking my head, I pleaded with him. “No, please don’t do that,” I said desperately. “I’m already mortified.”

  Relief swept through him as he gave me a nod. I appreciated that. Lorenzo was willing to do something that probably would have been uncomfortable for him because he wanted to help me out. More than that, I knew he was doing it for my sister. He knew she was upset about this and would do anything to make her happy.

  That was what I wanted. A man who’d do anything to make me happy. Something as simple as picking up the phone and calling me.

  “I’m going to go,” I told them.

  “No!” Jolie cried. “Stay. Have dinner with us.”

  Standing from the couch, I shook my head. “I appreciate it, but I think I want some time alone. Thanks for listening. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I replied with a nod.

  With that, I turned to leave. Lorenzo walked me out and waited until I was safely in my car and pulling away before he closed the door.

  On my way home, I tried to come up with a million different explanations as to why I was in this situation now. Maybe I should have stopped trying to analyze it all, hoping for a different outcome, and just accepted the truth. I knew exactly why Logan never called. There was no reason to. He got what he wanted. I just hated the fact that the very first time I felt something so strong for a man, I lost all sense of myself and the woman I’d always b
een.

  I was a smart woman. How could I have gone against my instincts and gotten this so wrong?

  As I pulled into my driveway, I was convinced I knew the reason why. Logan felt vastly different to me than any other man. There was something about him that made it impossible to control the burn.

  Sadly, I didn’t know what was worse. The fact that I’d felt that and given in to it immediately. Or perhaps it was the fact that he never felt the same.

  It was just after eleven-thirty on Wednesday night when the plane touched down in Wyoming.

  Home.

  I was finally back home.

  And it felt good.

  After a nearly sixteen-hour flight, I couldn’t wait to get off the plane, get in my car, and walk through my front door again. I hadn’t been home in just over four weeks. It seemed almost impossible that I’d found myself on a last-minute trip out of the country which ended up lasting a whole month.

  The day after my thirty-fourth birthday I hadn’t planned on doing much more than visiting with my family. My parents wanted to take me out to dinner with my brother, Luke, his wife, Nikki, my sister, Lexi, and her boyfriend, Cruz. Beyond that, I was going to do my normal thing, which was to work.

  Though it was the end of January and the middle of winter, I still kept busy. Of course, things slowed down quite a bit in the shop so my guys got a bit of a break. They welcomed the reprieve every winter and enjoyed having just enough work to carry us through until our busy season returned. For me, though, the work never really ended.

  I was the owner of LT Motorsports, a performance automotive shop in Rising Sun, Wyoming. Being the owner didn’t mean that I got to sit back while my employees did all the work.

  Nope.

  It was actually quite the opposite.

  In fact, more often than not, it was likely that I spent substantially more hours every week working than my employees did. And this was saying something considering my guys worked extremely hard.

  While I could do anything needed to build a race car, I doled out the responsibilities to each member of my team who excelled in a particular area. Then, once it was ready to go, I put the finishing touches on it. My primary job in the shop, aside from just being the owner and boss, was being the tuner.

  The best way to explain my job to someone who didn’t understand it was to tell them that I programmed the vehicle’s onboard computer. I was essentially a computer programmer for a car’s computer.

  And that was precisely the reason I’d just gotten back from a month-long trip to the Middle East. As it turned out, when I woke up on Sunday morning after my night out, I’d pulled out my laptop and checked through my emails. While I probably should have given myself the weekend off, I was one of those guys who just had to work. And considering I enjoyed the work that I did, I really didn’t mind putting in the extra hours.

  Over the years, my business had grown tremendously. Every season, we seemed to get busier and busier. I had hundreds of clients whose cars I’d worked on since I opened my shop, and I continued to have new ones reach out to me all the time. While I had some clients who were local to me, most of my clientele lived a few hours away. I’d had people drive from all over the region just to bring their project cars to my shop.

  LT Motorsports was a global brand, which was the reason I wasn’t surprised to find an email on Sunday morning from a client of mine who lived in Dubai. My client, who had a lot of money and an affinity for race cars, wanted to arrange for me to visit his country and prepare his cars for the racing season.

  Initially, I replied and let him know that it was unlikely I’d be able to help him because my busy season at my own shop started around mid-March. My client would not let that dissuade him. After doing all but offering me his firstborn child, he sent me a large deposit, purchased an open-ended flight for me to leave Wyoming on Monday evening, and put me up in one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever seen.

  So, I couldn’t complain. I’d done a lot of work over the last month preparing nearly a dozen race cars for him and a few of his buddies. We took several trips to the racetrack while I was there, and by the time I left, he couldn’t have been happier with how everything had turned out.

  While I’d done my best to remain in contact with the guys at my shop, I didn’t stress myself out about it. They knew what they were doing, and I had every confidence in their ability to keep things running smoothly until I returned.

  But now that I was back, I knew there was going to be enough work to keep me busy for the next few days. Each guy in my shop had his own role to fill, focusing his effort and attention on one specific area. Despite that, most of the guys in the shop could do the jobs their co-workers did, too. That said, I was the only one who could do it all. None of them were tuners.

  So, there was a likelihood that there’d be a pile of cars waiting to be tuned once I returned to work tomorrow morning.

  After the plane arrived at the gate and I gathered my laptop up in my carry on, I made my way to the baggage claim. I didn’t know if it was because we didn’t have a full flight, the flight arrived late at night, or the workers were on the ball, but I hadn’t needed to stand around the baggage claim for more than two minutes before my suitcase arrived. Gathering it up, I walked outside toward the long-term parking area.

  Forty-five minutes later, I walked through my front door and took a deep breath. It felt so good to be home again.

  Though it was approaching one in the morning, I wasn’t exactly tired since it was technically late morning in Dubai.

  Not wanting to deal with it as the week went on, I decided to unpack my suitcase and throw my clothes in the washing machine. Then, I walked upstairs and got in the shower. It wasn’t as though I’d been living in a cramped hotel room for the last month. In fact, I’d been living in the lap of luxury. But there was just something nice about finally being back in my own home and my own shower.

  After I showered and shaved, I moved my clothes from the washer to the dryer. Once I’d done that, I went to the kitchen and grabbed a protein shake. Looking through my refrigerator and pantry, I realized I was going to have to make some time for a grocery store run after work tomorrow.

  With nothing else to occupy my time and no desire to open my laptop to answer emails, despite the fact that I wasn’t tired, I decided it’d be best to try and get some rest.

  Minutes later, I’d crawled into bed. No sooner had I done that when it hit me.

  Kendall.

  I closed my eyes and remembered the last time I saw her. She’d been here with me in my bed.

  Unfortunately, with the impromptu trip to Dubai, I hadn’t really had a chance to properly plan. Because of that, I completely forgot to program her number into my phone. It wasn’t until the plane was already in the air when I realized it. At that point, it was too late.

  The thought of my night with her filled my mind when I climbed into bed after a long day while I was overseas. There was something about her that I just couldn’t seem to shake. My birthday had been the best night of my life. Hands down. Nobody compared to her.

  And that blew my mind.

  The mere thought of her now made me want to pick up the phone to call her. If it hadn’t been an unreasonable hour, I would have. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to wait. I only hoped she’d be understanding of what happened and would give me a chance to make it up to her.

  After tossing and turning for a few hours, thinking of nothing and no one but Kendall, I decided to get up and get moving. I made a quick stop at the local bagel shop, grabbed breakfast, and made my way into the shop.

  Not quite two hours after I’d arrived, my employees started showing up.

  “You’re back!” my fabricator, Knox Lee, declared as he walked in. Of all the guys, Knox was my most opinionated. He spoke his mind, regardless of the situation, and it had gotten him into some tight spots on occasion. For the most part, it worked to his advantage. Truthfully, I didn’t mind either way. Knox was one of the most talen
ted fabricators I’d ever come across. We could have a difference of opinion about anything, and I wouldn’t care as long as he continued to produce the type of work that he always did.

  “Yeah,” I returned, looking up from the sales room computer. “My flight landed around eleven-thirty. I got home just before one and have been going stir crazy ever since.”

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “Almost two hours,” I answered. “I figured I’d get a head start on bookkeeping stuff until you guys showed up.”

  As though on cue, the front door opened again, and two more guys walked in. Ryker Holt, my mechanic, offered me a greeting I’d come to expect from him. “Thank fuck you’re back,” he muttered. “I’ve got a laundry list of things I need you to check out.”

  I rolled my eyes. Ryker was a bit rough around the edges, but he was the best mechanic I knew. As close as we were, I didn’t know what pushed Ryker to be in a perpetual state of anger. Working on cars, especially race cars, came with a set of headaches. Though he was superb at what he did, I always assumed he was simply dreading another day of work and found it easier to remain constantly pissed off.

  Alongside Ryker was Kieran Decker, my engine builder. Kieran had been with me the longest. Technically, he and Knox were hired within a week of each other, with Kieran being the first one hired. Vastly different from Ryker, Kieran was the most reserved of the group. He sat back, paid attention, and focused on details. That was probably the reason why he was such a highly-respected engine builder. We had motors shipped to us from all over the world because Kieran was that meticulous. There was nobody better around.

  “Hey, Logan,” he greeted me. “How was your flight?”

  I lifted my chin at him and replied, “Long. But not bad.”

  A moment later, the door opened again and in walked Nash Stevens, my chassis tuner and the most laid-back guy out of all of us. Nash was the last of the crew to be hired, but he had still been with me for about six years. He was a nice addition to the team because he balanced us out. While he was as meticulous as the rest of the guys when it came to his work, Nash never took anything too seriously to get upset about it.