on you if you won’t bet on yourself?”
“I do bet on myself,” she said staunchly, but he could hear the quaver in her voice. She broke their gaze and slowly, as if in a dream, turned and took in the space one more time. “I just . . . I don’t even know what to say. I’ve never . . . no one has ever . . .” Her voice drifted off, and he saw her throat work.
“What? Believed in you? Backed you up?”
“Other than my family . . . no. Not that I’ve let anyone in. It’s just . . . a lot to take in. A whole lot.”
“I’ve learned the only person who can get in the way of me getting what I want . . . is me. If you want it, go for it. Whether you believe I’m behind you or not doesn’t matter. Are you behind you? Can you back up your dream with commitment, no matter what? That’s what matters. That’s what it takes.”
She looked at him again. “Is that what it took for you? I mean . . . I don’t know the whole story of your family history and I’m not asking for it, but you’ve alluded to it, and Alva has, and, if we’re being open and honest, Barbara Hughes said a few things.”
He frowned. “Honey—”
She lifted her hand, palm out. “I really don’t mean to pry. That’s not my point, anyway. I was going to say that it sounds like you’ve practiced what you’re preaching. And that means something to me.”
“We all get where we want to be on different paths, but the one thing we have in common is we have to take the path, embark on it, to get there. You won’t get anywhere sitting and wondering. You already know that. So . . . keep going.”
“Why did you buy this space? Don’t you have plans for it?”
He shook his head. “The garage had been passed down to me. I owned it when it burned down. We’d been with the same insurance company since the day my grandfather opened. Never filed a single claim. The settlement was a good one. And, between the depressed economy and how long these properties have sat empty . . . well, to say they went for a song isn’t much of a stretch. Where my shop is now was already set up as a garage, so renovation was minimal. I had more money than I needed for the garage property. It made sense to put it somewhere instead of giving it away in taxes. I have a house, so”—he shrugged—“I figured, worst case, the investment would keep me from having neighbors I didn’t want. Best case, if the garage did start a trend and interest in developing the other channel road properties grew, then I could turn around and sell them at a profit. And, sugar, pretty much anything more than the plug nickel I paid would be a windfall.”
She gave him a perceptive look. “You try to pass as this sort of unassuming mechanic, just getting by, running the old family business. But something tells me you’re a lot shrewder than people might guess.”
“Well, darlin’, I’m not entirely a bad bet. Business-wise, anyway.”
She grinned at that. “Yeah, I’m not buying the unassuming part anymore, either, just so you know. On any count. You forget who was almost taking my blouse off not that long ago.” She gestured around her. “Not exactly the most romantic spot, so . . . you’re not without skill.”
“I’m not sure if my ego just got a bump, or took a hit.”
She simply smiled at him. “You have your skills, I have mine. So, tell me honestly, did you have dreams of expanding the garage one day?”
He shook his head. “Expanding means growing the business, which means taking on other types of work, not to mention more employees. I’ve got no interest in that. I like what I’ve got, it suits me just right, and provides enough to meet my needs.”
He let the smile come out again. “And once I have a paying tenant next door, I’ll be making more money without any of the overhead or the headaches. That’s more than I could have hoped for.”
“It might take a long time,” she warned, “a very long time, in fact, before I’m operating in the black, given the much bigger starting size of the shop. And the farm might never sell. What if—”
“Darlin’, we’ll deal with the