Skylark-A Love Story

By D. C. Williams

Mal is an auto mechanic with a difficult past and a boring, but settled life living in his aging Aunt's basement in New Jersey. Michael is a college student who has learned to balance his faith with his sexuality. When Mal finds himself falling for Michael he needs to ask himself if he can take a chance on the kind of relationship he's long assumed isn't for him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D.C. Williams
• Release date: Jul 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301298037

D. C. Williams

D.C. Williams is a funny little middle-aged woman who lives in Pennsylvania with one spouse and one child and writes romance novels you wouldn't expect. She has an unfortunately common name, but a hopefully uncommon imagination.

Book preview

Skylark-A Love Story

D.C. Williams

Published by D.C. Williams at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by Deborah Anne Williams

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter One

Mal scowled at the undercarriage of the ’87 Buick Skylark. Damn thing was in surprisingly good shape, but even getting it up on the lift to look at it seemed like an unreasonable amount of effort for a beater that had 276,000 miles on it and should have been off the road at least a decade ago. He assumed its owner must have some sentimental attachment, since it probably had a blue book value of about fifty cents and was never going to be anyone’s idea of a classic. The old car had been well-maintained but it really was on its last legs unless its delusional owner wanted to buy it a new transmission.

And that was assuming they could find it one.

Before he did anything, he needed to talk to the Buick’s owner. His conscience would probably demand that he explain the simple fact that the cost of a new transmission for that antique would probably buy something reasonably reliable that wasn’t old enough to drink and vote. And maybe got slightly better gas mileage. And had airbags. And rear shoulder belts.

Mal stuck his head in the office. Jan, the office manager, was on the phone. She raised one finger in the universal gesture for wait one minute, please. One of the chairs was occupied by a small woman somewhere in what seemed to be a rather gentle middle age. Mal suspected that she was the Skylark’s owner.

Completely aside from the fact that he was pretty sure it was the only car that had come in that morning, she looked like she might be exactly the kind of person who kept a twenty-five-year-old mid-range American automobile on the road.

Mal didn’t pay much attention to women’s clothing, probably since he didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to women, period, but he was certain that the ankle-length flowered skirt, loose button down blouse, and pink cardigan were not the latest fashion and hadn’t been in this century. And this was on a woman who was trim, not ugly, and probably not quite old enough to be Mal’s mother.

Jan put one hand over the receiver of the phone and asked Mal, what do you need?

87 Skylark

Unsurprisingly, she pointed with two fingers at the woman, who stood up. A vague memory tickled at the back of Mal’s brain. Capital M modest, his sister Bethany had always called it, usually referring to certain extremely Christian girls they had known growing up. The ones he was sure thought he would burn in hell.

This woman did not mention hell. Instead she smiled at him. Her face was sweet and open. That smile easily reached her bright blue eyes, and Mal decided to take it at face value for the moment. Most people didn’t look nearly so happy to see him when he walked out of the garage.

He had lived in, or more accurately, been stuck in, New Jersey for the last fifteen years, but North Carolina had never entirely left him, and the measured ma’am was still automatic.

Oh goodness, she said, don’t tell me anything. I need to call my son. She fished a cell phone out of a pocket in the voluminous skirt, and punched a single button hard. She smiled again and said This is a matter for him, of course, and then greeted whoever picked up as Michael. Who was apparently just outside and would be right in, since that nice mechanic needs to talk to us.

That nice mechanic did have other things to do on this particular May morning, but there was a certain bizarre compulsion to see if the son was as unusual as the mother. And he really couldn’t take off until he’d told them about the Buick.

The door jingled as a tall someone pushed it open, and suddenly the office seemed very small. Mal wasn’t quite sure if that someone should be referred to as a boy or a man, and he wasn’t exactly pretty, but oh was he nice to look at. Despite his dainty mother, he had at least two or three inches on Mal’s five-eleven, and a pair of remarkably broad shoulders. It was the strong featured face, as open and guileless as the woman’s, and the incandescent blue eyes that really made Mal catch his breath. Until the kid smiled, and Mal just thought he was going to keel over right there in the office in front of Jan, who might or might not have some idea what his trouble was.

Hi, you need to talk to me about my mom’s car?

Yes. It’s your mom’s, not yours?

It’s in her name, but she doesn’t really drive, and she wouldn’t make any decisions about it without me.

Well, unfortunately someone is going to need to make a decision about it. It needs a new transmission. Mal added, That’s probably going to be close to four thousand dollars by the time we’re done, and it’s frankly not worth putting it into that car.

The boy sighed. Mal was still trying not to stare, but it was hard. His golf shirt was frustratingly loose, and the little white triangle of fabric visible under the hollow of his neck suggested that he actually had an undershirt on beneath it. Presumably for the express purpose of preventing the horny from scoping out the kid’s build. And that loose shirt was a shade of blue that ought to be criminal. You couldn’t call it purple, but there was a violet undertone that was wildly becoming, especially with those eyes, which were pretty on the woman and spell-binding on her son. Mal was a little surprised that a straight man would select a color that lush. Or even one who just thought he was straight, due to a heavy dose of religion of some kind.

The kid, Michael, met Mal’s eyes and asked Is this a decision that needs to be made today?

No. I can take it off the lift and let it sit here for a couple of days while you folks think. Or if you want to put a couple of hundred dollars into it, I can flush the tranny, change the fluids, tighten everything up, and dump some transmission treatment into it. That should make it drivable in the short term, but it’s not going to really fix it, and I’d be careful where I took the car.

I don’t think that makes any sense. Michael answered. It sounds to me like we should either really fix it or just decide to let it go

Pretty much. That would mostly be if you thought you needed a couple of weeks to find another car.

No, that’s not really an issue. We have another car, and since my mom really isn’t going to drive either of them, we don’t actually need two. He sighed again. My dad loved that car. He and my mom bought it when they were first married. First new car he ever owned. I know it’s a dinosaur, but I hate to let it go.

Mal nodded agreement. He understood about that first car. His first vehicle had been an ‘89 Chevy Baja and he had loved that thing. Bethany had skidded in the rain in it during his short-lived tenure in the army and that had been the end of that sweet little truck. He was just grateful that it hadn’t been the end of Bethany, who hadn’t quite walked away, but had suffered nothing worse than a broken wrist and a cracked tooth.

Do you want me to give you that couple of days to think about it?

Could you?

Sure. I’ll just take it off the lift and leave it in the lot while you folks talk about it. A sudden thought occurred to him. You didn’t come here in two cars, did you?

No. Michael laughed. "My mother has a driver’s license but