“Once. Just long enough to turn down the heat and put the water heater on vacation mode.” She didn’t mention that she’d left the van running with the girls in the back, making it in and out in five minutes. “I never thought to check the garage.”
“Your brother probably didn’t, either. Besides, I’ve had the chance to look around. I didn’t see anything of value. Except maybe tools.”
“You’re wrong. Engine 5’s in there.”
Rachel pushed the door open and stepped into the space that should have easily fit three cars with room to spare. Instead, overflowing shelves of boxes and containers lined the walls from floor to ceiling. She stepped past the first stall where Riley had managed to squeeze in his car.
“Dad was a bit of a hoarder. He never threw away anything.”
She moved past some of the chaos and gestured game show-host-style to the tarp-covered vehicle in the far corner.
“That’s what I was talking about. I give you Engine 5.”
“You mean that trash heap of a truck under there?”
“How can you say that about Dad’s pride and joy?” Then she shot a look back at him. “If you’ve already seen it, just how long have you been in here snooping?”
“An hour or so. I’ve peeked into several boxes but only found things like dishes and clothes. Not even books, let alone any sort of old newspapers or documents.”
“He kept all his books in the house. There are a lot of those, too.”
“I still don’t get the point of the truck.” He stepped closer to it and lifted the tarp to uncover the 1970s pickup with rust patterns decorating the front-quarter panel and widening the wheel wells. “Does this thing even run?”
“As a matter of fact, it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean it’s not—”
“Has it run anytime in the twenty-first century?” He glanced back, grinning.
She pursed her lips but couldn’t hold that hard expression. “Maybe the first few years.”
He continued to pull the tarp until the truck bed was fully uncovered.
“But it’s not garbage. To our family, Engine 5 symbolizes the hard work and dedication of firefighters. It was priceless to my…dad.”
Her voice broke as she said it, a wave of emotion washing over her, that familiar undertow of grief and regret tugging her downward. As startling as that rush had been, Mick’s reaction surprised her even more. He stepped forward and tucked his hands under her elbows before her shoulders had time to slump. She didn’t want his support. Shouldn’t need it. But just this once it was such a relief to allow someone to catch her before she fell.
“Whoa there. Guess there’s some slick spots in here, too.” He lied smoothly, still holding on to her arms.
After taking several long breaths, she stepped back from him. “Thank you.”
“Does that happen often? The slick spots?”
Rachel unzipped her coat as sweat gathered at the back of her neck. “Not as much as before. Sometimes it just shows up from nowhere and hits me when I thought I was over my grief.”
“I’m not sure that’s something you magically get over. Even if it were, this isn’tnowhere.” He gestured around the room, filled with her father’s things. “Had you spent any time in your dad’s house since his death? I mean before Riley was hospitalized?”
It was disconcerting how easily Mick read her. Though their experiences were different, he still seemed to understand.
“As little as possible,” she admitted.
“And isn’t this where your brother, uh, found…?”
She shivered as the image appeared, clear in her mind though she hadn’t been present at the scene. Riley had shielded her from that, too.
“It was out in the woods back there.” She gestured with a tilt of her head though they were inside, the walls saving her from having to see it. “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for Riley to come home at night with everything in the place reminding him of Dad.”
“He was dealing with a lot.”
Rachel brushed her hand along the pinstripe that started at the front fender and continued all the way to the bed with bubbles of rust under the paint interrupting the flow of her fingertips. “Then I asked him to do more by looking into Dad’s suicide. I should have known he was spiraling, just like he did after he and Jillian broke up.”
