She looked toward the medical papers. "I can barely walk right now."
"That's why I said when you're ready. I can wait for the best mechanic in my shop to heal before I put her on the schedule."
For a moment she could not speak. A year earlier she had interviewed for a position that required her to hide most of what she knew in order to seem appropriately qualified. Now she was being invited to use that knowledge openly, and the invitation frightened her because it made the future large again.
"I want to think about it," she said.
"Good," Cole replied. "Thinking is how you got us out of trouble in the first place."
The night before the procedure, Emily asked to visit Thunder Ridge. She had been in the apartment for nearly three weeks, making calls and attending appointments, and she missed the smell of the shop more than she wanted to admit. Cody picked her up, helped her settle with the brace and mobility aid the doctors had recommended, and carried a small bag containing her notebook. When they reached the garage, the main bay had been cleared of the evening work and several folding chairs stood around a low table.
"What's this?" Emily asked.
"Nothing special," Cody said, which was an obvious lie. "Just dinner. Everybody's been working late."
Reese brought food from the diner, Marcus arrived carrying soft drinks, and Dutch appeared with a tray of cookies made by his wife. Sandra took a chair beside Emily and handed her a cup of coffee with exactly the amount of cream she liked. Nobody made a formal announcement, and nobody called the gathering a celebration. They simply sat together while the sun disappeared beyond the shop doors and the desert wind moved gently through the lot.
For a while they talked about work. Cody asked Emily why some engine problems were harder to find than others, and she explained how experience could help narrow a question but also tempt a mechanic to stop testing assumptions. Reese admitted he had mistaken familiarity with Cole's motorcycle for complete understanding. Emily told him familiarity was valuable, but it was not a substitute for curiosity, and he accepted the correction without defensiveness.
Later the conversation became quieter. Emily talked about Baines, the instructor who first taught her to listen before guessing, and about the pleasure of repairing equipment no one else believed could be repaired. She did not describe every deployment or every difficult memory. The men did not ask her to perform her pain for their benefit, and the absence of pressure allowed her to say more than she had expected.
Marcus sat with his cap turning slowly in his hands. He had been unusually quiet since arriving, speaking only when spoken to, and Emily noticed that he kept looking at the floor whenever the conversation turned toward the Harley. Near the end of dinner he cleared his throat and asked whether he could say something. The men quieted, and Emily turned toward him.