Ace slowly removed his sunglasses.
For the first time since Emma had entered the garage, she could see his eyes clearly.
They were filled with an emotion she hadn’t expected.
And something that looked very much like unfinished grief.
Ace looked at her.
“Your grandfather built the first Harley I ever owned.”
Her expression brightened.
For most of the afternoon, she’d been concentrating on a stubborn electrical fault.
Now the biker whose Harley she’d just helped diagnose was telling her that her grandfather had once built a motorcycle for him.
It felt like an extraordinary coincidence.
An unexpected connection between two generations of people who understood the same machines.
“That’s amazing.”
Ace looked toward the custom Harley standing between them.
For him, the connection was almost overwhelming.
He had spent so many years around motorcycles that he’d stopped counting the machines he’d ridden, repaired, helped maintain, or admired.
But he’d never forgotten his first Harley.
That motorcycle had introduced him to a kind of freedom he couldn’t fully describe to someone who had never experienced it.
More importantly, it had taught him what a properly built machine should feel like.
Henry Brooks had been part of that experience.
And now Henry’s granddaughter had stood before seventeen mechanics and done something they couldn’t.
She had listened.
She had asked the right question.
She had found a fault that only appeared under a particular condition.
Ace glanced toward the cracked weather seal.
For a moment, he felt an almost painful sense of familiarity.
He could imagine Henry approaching the same problem with the same patient attention.
Not chasing the most expensive explanation.
Not replacing good parts because the real defect was hard to find.
Simply asking what had changed.