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  Thank you for selecting Revved To The Maxx for review. There are many choices available, and I am honored you choose mine to read today.

  Revved To The Maxx was something I had drifted back and forth, not settling on writing the story. Once Eric posted with Nelson’s photo - GAME ON! Nelson has the look for a growly, slightly older hero who is not looking for a relationship. Hurricane Charly hits and his world is blown to smithereens

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  Also by Melanie Moreland

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  Aiden (Vested Interest #2)

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  Van (Vested Interest #5)

  Halton (Vested Interest #6)

  Sandy (Vested Interest #7)

  Insta-Spark Collection

  It Started with a Kiss

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  An Unexpected Gift

  The Contract Series

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  The Baby Clause (The Contract #2)

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  The Summer of Us Book 1

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  Over the Fence

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  Happily Ever After Collection

  Revved to the Maxx

  Heart Strings

  The Boss

  Revved to the Maxx by Melanie Moreland

  ADVANCED REVIEW COPY

  Copyright © 2020 Moreland Books Inc.

  Copyright #1170687

  ISBN Ebook 978-1-988610-37-5

  Paperback 978-1-988610-38-2

  All rights reserved

  Edited by Lisa Hollett of Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  Cover design by Melissa Ringuette, Monark Design Services

  Cover Photography by Eric D Battershell

  Cover Model Nelson Lopes

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

  means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information

  storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are

  products of the author's imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any

  similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Dedication

  Love comes in all forms, shapes, and packages.

  But it is still love.

  The greatest gift we can share is our hearts.

  This one is for you.

  To love in all its glory.

  And to my Matthew who epitomizes it.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Melanie Moreland

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  MAXX

  The night was pitch black, and outside, the wind blew hot and strong. The only other sound was the low beat of the rock music playing in the background. I took a long draw on the bottle of beer I had grabbed from the small fridge in the garage and finished the sandwich I had thrown together. I stared at the computer, then opened a new document. I scrubbed my face in vexation. I had no idea how to do this, nor did I particularly want to, but at this point, it was something I had to try, like it or not.

  Wanted:

  Helper

  Errand boy

  Errand girl

  Assistant

  Personal Assistant

  Housekeeper

  Bookkeeper

  Sidekick

  I sat and mulled over the list. None of the descriptions seemed right. A memory floated through my head of my dad and mom in the office. He always called her his Girl Friday, saying there wasn’t a task she couldn’t do. He always insisted she was better at everything in the office than he was and he’d be lost without her. That was the sort of person I needed. I typed it into the ad.

  Girl Friday

  Duties:

  Running mechanic shop plus

  Housekeeping, Grocery shopping, Laundry, Cooking meals

  Must also be proficient at bookkeeping, invoicing, other various duties

  I looked over the list with a frown. Mary, my neighbor, had told me to place an ad on this site and be very specific about what I was looking for. I reread the list and started typing again. When it was done, I checked it, deciding it was specific enough.

  Wanted: Girl Friday

  Duties:

  Housekeeping, Grocery shopping, Laundry, Cooking meals

  Must also be proficient at bookkeeping, invoicing, banking, inventory control,

  and website upkeep for business.

  Must be able to drive, be highly organized, and able to work without supervision.

  Must like living in the country, with limited access to major towns.

  Must like dogs.

  Ability to make pies an asset.

  Work – Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

  Saturday afternoons and Sundays are free

  Room with private bath. Board plus salary.

  Only serious applicants need apply.

  I looked around the shop. I needed help. Since Shannon had taken off, things had gotten worse. They’d been slipping for a long time, but somehow, I had never noticed. I snorted and drained my beer.

  I hadn’t noticed a lot of things.

  I paused. Was the pie thing a bit over the top? I knew pie making was a lost art and probably not done by people under the age of fifty. I decided to leave it. Maybe it would weed out the non-serious applicants.

  I loaded up the document on Solutions for You and double-checked it for errors. I liked the fact that with this website, you could “chat” with interested parties and get a feel for them before hiring. I had tried a couple of other job sites but didn’t like them. This one had simpler guidelines and was not only for jobs. You could buy and sell things. Trade. Post for lost articles. In the past, I had only used it to find parts, but Mary had found her last two helpers there and encouraged me to try. It seemed like a good idea. I had nothing to lose at this point. I wasn’t really holding out much hope on this idea, although I had to try something.

  You could choose the reach of your ad, and I purposely set this one for outside my region, but within the province. I had to hire from outside the small town where I lived. I didn’t
want to see the pitying looks or give the gossips anything new to yak about by having them here in my shop and, especially, my home. I needed a stranger with no connections to this place or me.

  Someone I didn’t know or care about and who felt the same way about me.

  It was simple. I needed a job done, and I was sure there was someone out there looking for a job to do.

  Satisfied, I hit submit.

  Now, all I had to do was wait for the applicants to fly in.

  Who could resist such a great job offer?

  CHARLYNN

  I stared at the piece of paper in my hand, horrified. I was certain I had to be reading this wrong.

  “Eviction notice,” I whispered. I looked up at my landlord. “Eviction notice?” I repeated, my voice louder. “But I’m only behind by a month!”

  Terry leaned on the doorjamb, not at all concerned. He looked me over with one of his long leers that I hated. I backed up a step, not liking his close proximity.

  “Nope. Including this one, you owe me three months.”

  “Three?” I squeaked. “But I gave Trish my share of the rent—I don’t understand. She told me the rent was paid—I have the receipts!”

  “Let me see them.”

  I hurried into the small kitchen and yanked open the drawer. I pulled out the envelope and grabbed the slips of paper. I turned, startled when I realized Terry had followed me into the kitchen. I didn’t like him very much—he gave me the creeps. I tamped down my nervousness and thrust out the papers. “Here.”

  He looked at them and shook his head, pushing them back at me. “Fakes.”

  I looked down at the slips. When Trish had told me the rent was paid, I never looked at the slips. She put them in the drawer with the others. Now, as I studied them, I could see Terry wasn’t lying. These were copies.

  “Where did the money go?” I mumbled.

  He shrugged. “She gave it to someone else.”

  I fought down my sense of panic. “There has to be something I can do.” I swallowed my revulsion at asking Terry for anything, but I had no choice. “Trish screwed me over, Terry. She took off with everything I owned and cleaned me out. Plus, I lost my job. Surely, you can give me a little time to figure things out.”

  A predatory light sparked in his eyes and he came closer, his eyes traveling up and down my body, this time not bothering to disguise his interest. “I could let you pay off what you owe the same way your roomie did.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “She paid your rent the last couple of months on her back.” He winked lewdly. “And her knees.”

  I took a step back, shaking my head wildly. “No.”

  He smiled. It was cold and cruel. “I bet you’re a hellcat in bed, aren’t you?” He reached out and grabbed a piece of my hair, pulling on it sharply. “Redheads are known for their tempers. I’d like to see you all riled up and fighting me.” He paused, licking his lips. “I like it when they fight.”

  My stomach turned at his words. I slapped away his hand, disgusted. “Unless you want your balls in your throat, I suggest you step back. I said no. Get out.”

  His expression never faded—if anything, it got colder. “Give me what I want, and you get to keep your apartment for another month.” He sneered at me. “If you’re good, maybe longer.”

  I wanted to gag. But instead, I tilted my head and studied him as if considering his generous “offer.” I stepped forward and laid my hand on top of his, casting my eyes downward. His grunt of satisfaction became a howl of pain as I roughly bent back his fingers. I took advantage of his discomfort and gripped his arm upward, bending it at an awkward angle I knew would be painful. I frog-marched him over to my door, pushing him out.

  “I’d rather be homeless.”

  I slammed the door shut and locked it, fuming. I slid the chain in place with a loud snap. I could hear him cursing and muttering on the other side of the closed door.

  I walked away, only to swing around when the door unlocked and Terry’s ugly face appeared through the opening allowed by the chain.

  “You forget, bitch. I have a key that gets me in anytime I want.”

  He slammed the door before I could move.

  For a moment, I stood, anxiety sinking into my chest. He was right. He could get in anytime. There had been times after my first roommate, Rhonda, moved out, I thought someone had been in the apartment while I wasn’t home, but I could never prove it. My next roommate, Trish, worked from home, and she denied he’d ever bothered her.

  Terry lifted the mail slot of the old-fashioned door. “You have until the end of the month. Either pay up what you owe plus an extra month, or you’re out of here.”

  The mail slot slammed with a loud metallic noise, and his heavy footsteps echoed in the hall.

  The end of the month was in a week. I owed three-months’ worth of back rent now. I slid down the wall, pulling on my hair in worry.

  I looked around the small apartment. I had lived here for two years. When Rhonda had gotten married, I had advertised and found a new person to split the bills. Trish seemed great at first. She liked to cook, she was fun to be around, and I felt as if I had found a new friend. When I confessed to finding the landlord a little unnerving, and that Rhonda had always dealt with him, Trish insisted she be the one to pay the rent every month, saying she “didn’t want me uncomfortable,” and she “could handle him.” She’d made a point of showing me she put the receipt in the drawer the first month, and I never gave it a second thought after that.

  Until I came home one day two weeks ago to find she’d hacked in to my accounts, stolen all my money, racked up some charges on my credit card, taken anything of value I owned, and disappeared.

  Literally.

  It was as if she had never existed. Which, it turned out, she hadn’t. When I went to the police to file a report, I discovered I had been scammed. There was no such person as Trish Gordon. She was good. The numbers I had called to check out her references no longer existed. The names on her application were all fake. She was a pro, and I had fallen for her friendly, helpful act—hook, line, and sinker.

  The same week, I lost my job. The industrial company I worked for simply closed their doors with no warning. I hadn’t been able to find another full-time job, and the part-time ones I could find barely covered basic necessities, never mind rent. I had been further horrified when I found out the money I had put aside for this month’s rent, Trish took along with everything else.

  And now I found she had taken the other rent money and traded it off for blow jobs and sex.

  I was screwed. Completely screwed.

  Kelly looked at me over her glass. “What can I do, Char?”

  I sipped my wine. Kelly was almost as broke as I was, so there was no point in asking her for a loan. “Nothing. I have to move and find a job in a week. Easy peasy, right?”

  “You can sleep on my couch,” she offered halfheartedly.

  I patted her hand. “You sleep on your couch already.” Kelly’s apartment was tiny—one room in a boarding house. She loved it, but the one time we had tried to live together, it almost destroyed our friendship. We were two very different people.

  “We could figure it out.”

  “Thanks.” I hated to think it might come down to that, but the truth was, it might.

  “Where have you applied?”

  “Everywhere. Coffee shops, temp services, businesses. I’ve put my resume online on a bunch of those job sites. Nothing.”

  “Let me see.”

  I handed her my laptop and filled up my wine. It was one of the few things Trish had left behind—the box too awkward to carry, I supposed. That and ramen made a great dinner. The first time. By the tenth, it was barely palatable. Now, the wine was almost gone, and so was the ramen.

  “You’ve covered a lot.”

  “I know.”

  “What is Solutions for You?” she asked with a frown.

  “Oh, it’s like Craigslist—a little less formal than so
me other job sites,” I explained. “You can find a job or a new dresser if you want. It’s sort of a catchall of ads. I heard about it and figured nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  “I suppose.” She scanned the screen. “Oh look, here’s a new listing.” She snickered. “It looks…interesting.”

  I peered over her shoulder, squinting a little to see the screen. Between the wine, and not knowing where my glasses were, it was hard to concentrate.

  Wanted: Girl Friday

  Duties:

  Housekeeping, Grocery shopping, Laundry, Cooking meals

  Must also be proficient at bookkeeping, invoicing, banking, inventory control,

  and website upkeep for business.

  Must be able to drive, be highly organized, and able to work without supervision.

  Must like living in the country, with limited access to major towns.

  Must like dogs.

  Ability to make pies an asset.

  Work – Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

  Saturday afternoons and Sundays are free

  Room with private bath. Board plus salary.

  Only serious applicants need apply.

  I started to laugh. “Seriously? Girl Friday? Who uses that expression these days? Old farts?”

  Kelly snickered. “That’s quite a list.”

  “Wow, it certainly is,” I muttered, reading.

  “You are a great baker. You make an awesome lemon pie. Your blueberry is pretty stellar too,” she joked.