"I broke down," Riley said. "On the highway. I pushed it here. I'm sorry to just I didn't have any other options. " He looked past her at the Triumph, half buried in snow. "You pushed that bike 200 yards in this weather? " "240 yards," she said.
Something in his expression shifted. Not quite a smile, but an adjacent thing. He stepped back and held the door open. "Bring it in," he said. His name was Daniel Carter.
She learned this from the invoice pad on the workbench, which had Daniel Carter, Proprietor, printed at the top in faded blue ink. He didn't offer his name right away. He just rolled the Triumph into the warmth and crouched beside the engine with a flashlight, moving through his inspection with the quiet efficiency of a man who has done this 10,000 times and is still interested in doing it. Riley stood near the space heater in the corner and tried to restore circulation to her hands. The garage smelled of oil and rubber and faintly of something sweet, maybe wood shavings, or maybe just the pine sap in the logs stacked against the back wall.
"Your fuel line has a crack in it," he said without looking up. "Small one. Cold probably opened it up the rest of the way. You were running on whatever was left in the carb. " He tilted the flashlight. "Triumph Bonneville, '78.
Nice bike. " He stood. "I've got the part. It'll take me about an hour. " "An hour? " Riley repeated. She looked at the window. The snow was coming down harder now.
"Is there somewhere nearby I can" "No," he said simply. He was already moving toward his parts shelving. "Not in this. You can wait here. " He said it the way people stated facts about weather or geography. Not unkind, not particularly warm, simply accurate.
Riley sat on a wooden stool near the heater and watched him work. She noticed his hands first, the way they moved with complete certainty, no hesitation, no second-guessing. He replaced the fuel line with the careful attention of someone for whom this was not a job, but a practice, like a musician running scales. He didn't talk to fill silence. He didn't seem to need her to respond or approve or engage.
He simply worked. It was, she realized, the most relaxed she'd felt in four months. "You're not from Aspen," he said at some point, his back to her, threading a new line. "No. " "Denver. " "Long ride for December. " "I wanted to get out of Denver. " He nodded once, like that was an entirely sufficient explanation. The door to the interior of the building opened, and a small girl appeared in the gap, seven years old, maybe, with dark hair in two uneven pigtails and her father's direct, unhurried eyes.
She was wearing pajamas with foxes on them and carrying a stuffed rabbit by one ear. She looked at Riley with the frank, uncomplicated assessment of a child. "Hi," the girl said. "Hi," Riley said. "I'm Sophie.