LITMIR.BIZ

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took a long sip of her coffee, knowing she needed caffeine in her system before she could come anywhere close to inspired.

      She thought about the black custom bike that sat in her paint room as she appreciated a second sip. “Lou, you and the other guys start in on the appointments, okay? I’m going to head back to my office for an hour or so. I have some invoices to get out.”

      The only good thing about paperwork was that she hated it so much her mind frequently wandered and got creative to avoid doing it.

      “Is your dad coming in today?” Lou asked.

      “I’m sure he’ll show up eventually.” She offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile to Lou, but she couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t good at faking it—never had been. She needed to tell the guys the truth soon.

      Soon, but not today.

      “’Kay, Tuck,” the older man said.

      “Way to go, Tuck,” she muttered to herself as she stomped to her office. She had to tell the guys sometime, but not until her dad was ready. And to date, George Tucker wasn’t ready and she wasn’t going to rush him. Lou knew the score without explanation and had pretty much taken over running the floor of the garage without being asked. And she’d taken over most of the hated paperwork. If her dad really did retire, she’d be doing it forever.

      That was not the thought she wanted to start her day with, much less a week with.

      She needed to speak to her dad about giving Lou a raise. Just one more thing on her to-do list. A list that no matter how hard she worked never seemed to get any shorter.

      She slammed open her office door, her Monday mood really shot now, between Gary Johnson and Lou’s innocent question about her father.

      “Well, it’s a hell of a thing when a man can’t rely on his daughter’s totally deluded happy Monday mood.” Her father was sitting in a chair, his own cup of coffee in hand.

      “What are you doing here, Pops?”

      Her father looked so much better than he had a few months ago. Thanks to her very vigilant eye on his diet, he’d lost a few pounds, which the doctors said would help with his heart problems.

      “Enjoying the view.” He pointed at the bird feeder she’d mounted in the overgrown mulberry tree outside the window. “I never noticed the feeder before.”

      “I put it up years ago.”

      “I figured. It’s got a weathered sort of look to it. Guess there are a lot of things I haven’t noticed before. Sorry for that, kiddo.”

      “You noticed plenty, Pops.”

      “No. I missed some very big things, and even things I did notice—well, some I plain old ignored. Like the fact you were a girl. It was you, me and the guys at the shop. I treated you like one of them. I never pushed you to do girly things. If you’d had a mom, she’d have made sure you didn’t spend all your time around men and car repairs.”

      Since her father had been sick, he’d had days of uncharacteristic nostalgia and occasionally, bouts of regret. Tucker wasn’t sure what to do when he expressed such emotion, other than try to reassure him. “Pops, if I really wanted to do girly things, don’t you think I would have done them? I mean, honestly, in my whole life, has anyone ever forced me to do something I didn’t want to do, or managed to talk me out of something I did?”

      “No. But the point is, I never gave you a chance to explore what you wanted. I kept you close and here you are in your thirties and still working at the garage. Still living in the same house.”

      Her father had bought a nice double-wide trailer and set it up next to the garage, leaving the house across the street, where she’d grown up, for her and her son, Bart. “You could have stayed there and I could have gotten my own place.”

      “Not my point and you know it,” he scolded. “I didn’t want to stay there—but maybe you shouldn’t have wanted to stay there either.”

      “Are you saying you want me to move?”

      “Are you being deliberately obtuse, Angelina?” her normally affable father lashed out. “I don’t want you to move and you know that I always wanted you to work at the shop with me. But I’m wondering now if I was selfish. Maybe all men reach an age where all they can do is look back and second guess their past decisions.”

      “Pops, is something wrong? Are you feeling short of breath, or having chest pains?” It was so hard to think of her once unstoppable father as ill and she hated it. She wanted him well again and back to his old self.

      “No. I’m fine now, but I guess being sick leaves a man with a lot of time to think. I’m pushing seventy, and I won’t be here forever. I’m worried about you.”

      Last Christmas the doctors had found blockage in her father’s arteries and put a stent in. He’d come back to work, but not full-time. He’d wanted to, but she’d put her foot down. The doctor had told her that her father needed a lighter schedule, less stress and a better diet. She’d made it a point on trying to see he had all three, but she obviously hadn’t done a good enough job if he was worried about her. “I’m fine, Pops. You have to know that I love my life.”

      “Yeah, but your life has always centered around the job, me and Bart. I’m here to tell you that I’m stepping back from the day-to-day operations of Tucker’s Garage. Actually, that’s a cop-out. I’m not only stepping back, I’ve decided that I’m retiring. Officially. I’m going to leave the business, along with the worries, in your capable hands. And Bart is going away to college in the fall. I guess, I’m concerned about where that’s going to leave you.”

      Tucker looked at her father. Finding out her father was mortal shouldn’t have come as a shock, but he’d always been so healthy, so much larger than life. His illness had scared her. He looked better now, but she couldn’t help but worry. Having him retire from the business and take it easy would ease those worries a bit.

      “I think it’s a great idea, Pops. Me and the boys can handle things at the shop.”

      “We both know that you’ve been handling things for the last five months with no problem, other than there’s been too much work for four people.”

      “And we’re not complaining,” she pointed out. “Given the economy, it’s great that our business hasn’t ebbed, but instead has exploded. The guys don’t mind overtime, and I help in the garage as much as my schedule allows.”

      “A lot of that increased business has come from your end of things. You need to concentrate on the painting, not the repairs. And now that I’m officially retiring, you’ll really have the business side of things to focus on, too.”

      “I can do it all.” To be honest, she had a lot of time to work. Even though Bart was still here, he was wrapped up in his own life and enjoying the end of his senior year of high school, and she encouraged that. She’d been in her teens when she had him, and she wanted to give him all the moments she’d missed out on.

      “Now that I’ve decided to retire, rather than just cut back, I think, more than ever, we should find someone to buy into the business,” her father said.

      “No.” Since he’d been ill, he’d mentioned selling his half of the business to someone who could help them out. Someone who would have a vested interest in things. Tucker just shook her head. They’d had this conversation—well, fight actually—before. She didn’t want some stranger having a say in the business she’d invested her blood, sweat and paint in, but she didn’t want to upset her father by fighting about it again.

      “We could let someone else buy in and do all those things you hate. The things I used to do,” he tossed out, obviously hoping it would make the idea more appealing to her.

      “No,” she repeated, hoping her monosyllabic response would get her point across without another out-and-out argument that would send his blood pressure skyrocketing.

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