Born to Be Wild
I’m not here, Beaudine’ll know how to reach me.”
    Dara found herself holding her breath and forced itout slowly, then swallowed to moisten her suddenly dry throat. She quietly zipped the case shut. “Fine.”
    She walked to the door, knowing she should simply keep on moving until she was in her car and driving away. But some little voice in her head had to break the silence, had to ease the tension that had again sprung up between them. A tension completely foreign to any sort she’d experienced with him as a child. For that matter, except for yesterday in her office, she’d never felt it as an adult, either. Not even with Daniel.
    And it was a tension she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t like. But she
was
sure she shouldn’t.
    Which was why she turned in the doorway and said, “Getting the children up the mountain is only part of it, Brogan. You still have to plan three entire days. And ATV’s aren’t the solution to everything.”
    “Don’t worry, Dara.” His grin made a shambles of her attempt to keep it all business between them. “I know this is only the beginning.”
    Dara pulled into Frank’s parking lot two days later, noticing right off the unusually neat and orderly appearance of the garage. There were several other cars parked along the edge of the lot next to the larger of the two buildings. And a black pickup she recognized from her trip to Zach’s house. The cherry-red slogan on the side removed any doubt as to its owner.
    Born To Be Wild. She shook her head in disgust even as she smiled. That said it in a nutshell.
    Next to the garage was a small white building thatappeared to be the office. She parked next to Zach’s truck and headed in that direction.
    Zach startled her when he stepped from the shadows of the open bay door. He motioned her inside. “This way.”
    Hello to you, too, she almost said, but stopped herself in time. Business, she reminded herself, as she had several times over the last two days and another dozen times in the car on the way there. Strictly business.
    Just because he filled out faded jeans better than a cigarette-ad cowboy and a T-shirt better than the latest martial arts hero was no reason she couldn’t conduct herself like an adult.
    Unfortunately, just watching him walk in front of her was making her feel exceedingly … adult.
    “Where’s Frank?” she asked abruptly, so annoyed at her preoccupation with Zach that she barely shifted in time to avoid brushing against a rolling tool cart, the row of drawers half open and filled with grimy equipment.
    “Right here,” called a gravelly voice. A moment later a man in a wheelchair rolled into view from behind a car jacked a few feet off the ground. His wiry frame was garbed in traditional grease-covered overalls, his thinning gray hair putting him at his mid-sixties in her estimation.
    Suddenly it clicked in her mind what it was about the garage that had seemed out of place. It wasn’t the orderliness—it was the arrangement. Her gaze darted quickly to the walls. The tools and various belts and such were all hanging no higher than four feet from the ground.
    She didn’t dare look at Zach as she shook the handFrank had just wiped clean and stretched out to her. “I’m pleased to meet you,” she said sincerely.
    “Mutual,” he grunted. “The go-carts are back here.” Frank spun the wheelchair around and headed for an open door leading to a small lot behind the garage.
    “Go-carts?” she whispered to Zach, alarm creeping into her voice.
    “That’s what Frank calls them. Don’t worry, you’ll see.” He stepped aside and let her pass through the door first.
    There on the back lot were two small, four-wheeled vehicles, neither even close to being new if the dents and patches of missing paint were any indication.
    Frank rolled over to the nearest one. “I know they aren’t pretty, but they’ll do the job right enough.” He shifted back a few feet and motioned with his hand. “Go ahead, hop

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