On the Edge

Read On the Edge Online

Authors: Pamela Britton

Tags: #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Man-Woman Relationships, #Love Stories, #Contemporary Romance, #Fathers and Daughters, #Sports & Recreation, #Businesswomen, #Single Fathers, #North Carolina, #Automobile Racing Drivers, #Automobile Racing, #Motor Sports, #NASCAR (Association), #Automobiles; Racing

BOOK: On the Edge
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PAMELA BRITTON
on the edge
Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
PART FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
COMING NEXT MONTH
AUTHOR’S NOTE/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I started writing my NASCAR books convinced that I could tackle such a project because I thought I knew all there was to know about racing.
Hah!
Since I try so hard to make my books feel “real,” the tiniest little detail will ofttimes hang me up, such as: Exactly what gear would you be in when rounding turn four at Lowe’s Motor Speedway? And how many gears does a race car have, anyway? What does a “spring rubber” look like?
For answering these questions and more, I wish to thank my darling Doombah Farkleface, who never minded my numerous e-mails. And also to her husband for never getting mad when I bugged him while he was working beneath race cars (I swear I thought I called the shop:)). You two are the best and I truly couldn’t do this without you!
The number 16 Roush Racing team for putting up with me while in the garage, especially Jack Roush, who’s never failed to greet me with anything but kindness, and Nicole Lunders, whose e-mails always make me laugh.
My friends at NASCAR, who’ve been so wonderful throughout the writing of my NASCAR books. Thanks for all the great catches, guys.
To my wonderful editor, Abby Zidle, for agreeing to work with me even though she knew nothing about NASCAR. Abby, I hope I’ve converted you into a fan. If not, at least you now know that “wedge” can be something other than underwear riding up your…well,
you know.
Thanks also to Cherry Adair, Kelsey Roberts and Leanne Banks for sparking the idea for this book, and for all the help with its prequel,
In the Groove.
You guys are miracle workers.
Lastly, to my readers. I can now say with absolute certainty that NASCAR fans are the best in the world. Your letters and e-mails keep me going whenever I feel like black-flagging my NASCAR projects. THANK YOU!
Pamela Britton
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
By: Rick Stevenson, Sports Editor
Not many race teams can claim a fan base the size of Newman Motorsports, founded by five-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup champion Randy Newman, and carried on by his widow after Randy’s tragic death four years ago. There isn’t a NASCAR lover out there who doesn’t wish the plucky Rebecca Newman well. So I’ll have to admit it’s been painful to watch her various teams struggle in the years since Randy’s death. Her best finish was twelfth in last year’s NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, and that was only because a major wreck took out half the field. Her NASCAR Busch Series team hasn’t performed up to par, although they managed to post a top-ten finish a few months back. And her NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series team? Well, suffice it to say none of her drivers is making headlines this year.
And now she’s hooked up with Sanders’ Racing to hold what insiders have now dubbed
The Variety Show
—a spinoff of Roush Racing’s
The Gong Show
.
I just want to tell the Variety Show folks one thing: don’t forget the good old days.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand that racing being what it is today, team owners are looking for more than just a good driver. And, heck, no one can dispute that Roush’s Gong Show has produced some outstanding talent. I don’t blame Sanders and Newman Motorsports for holding their own version of the talent search. And I’m all for it as long as the reality show can find the real thing—a wheel man, someone who can drive the wheels off a stock car. Who can pilot a vehicle nearly two hundred miles per hour and make it look easy. Who will draft, bump or nudge in order to win a race. Because the best part of any racing TV show—heck, the best part of racing—is drivers being…drivers.
But, hey. What do I know? I was never any good at anything but hockey.
PART ONE
The Child is father of the Man.
—William Wordsworth
PROLOGUE
TEN-YEAR-OLD Lindsey Drake stood before the glass entrance of Newman Motorsports and tried not to pee her pants.

Okay, so maybe this wasn’t one of her better ideas. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t just stay home in Kentucky and watch her father waste his life driving around some little dirt track. He was better than that.
Someone
had to point that out to him.

She just wished she wasn’t so darn scared right now.
One of the glass doors swung open and Lindsey jumped back a foot. Cool air ruffled the hair beneath her baseball cap, her ponytail touching her back as she peered up at the man who exited.
Newman Motorsports
and the name
Sam
were embroidered on his denim-blue shirt instead of a name badge.
Uh-oh. Had he come to chase her away?
“You comin’ in?” he asked.
Lindsey gulped. “Y-yes, sir.”
“Well, then come on in here. We’re letting all the cool air out and on a hot day like today that’s not good.”
It was hot, North Carolina’s partly cloudy skies doing nothing to keep the heat at bay. “Uh. Okay,” she said, ducking beneath the man’s arm, the backpack she wore catching the edge of the metal door. “Sam” gave her a curious glance, then let the door swing closed behind him and headed toward one of the many cars parked in front of the two-story glass building, fluffy gray clouds reflected in their front windshields.
She was in. The whole way down from Kentucky she’d wondered how she’d do that. She’d have thought there’d be security. But nope. The big old chrome-and-marble lobby was all but deserted. Course, now it was on to the next step: Rebecca Newman.
“Can I help you?” a woman asked when Lindsey stopped before a reception desk. Rebecca Newman? Lindsey wondered, glancing up. Nope. Just a lady sitting behind a burgundy counter, sort of like the one at her doctor’s office, only without the sliding glass windows, and with big block letters that said
Newman Motorsports
written beneath the countertop.
Lindsey let her backpack slide off her left shoulder, the straps dangling from the ends of her fingers. She looked for a place to set it down only to straighten suddenly, the pack slipping from her hand to thunk on the floor.
“Holy crawdad,” she murmured, her mouth dropping open, a habit her daddy said would freeze her face into a permanent cow grimace if she didn’t watch it. But at the moment Lindsey didn’t care about cows because what she’d just glimpsed took her breath away.
A showroom full of cars sat behind a wall of glass to her left, T-shirts and other souvenirs hanging on the walls around them. The scent of newly printed shirts mixed with the nose-twitching smell of rubber tires, a smell both familiar and comforting thanks to the repair shop where her daddy worked. Some of the cars were the same ones she’d seen on TV. And they were right there—only a few feet away. There was the blue Dino Cereal car. She loved that car, and the cereal. A couple of years ago they’d given away Hot Wheels inside the box—
“Can I help you?”
the woman repeated, her tone snapping Lindsey back to the present. It was the same tone Principal Evans used when he caught her running in the halls.
“Are you lost?” the woman prompted.
“Ah, no,” Lindsey answered. She straightened her shoulders, speaking the words she’d practiced the whole way down. “I’m here to see Rebecca Newman.”
And Lindsey was proud that she’d sounded firm, thanks to all her practicing. Frances Pritchert, one of the school’s most popular girls and her archenemy, had called her a coward recently when they’d been playing volleyball and Lindsey had ducked out of the way of the ball. But she
wasn’t
a coward, and this would prove it. Nothing was going to stop her from convincing Rebecca Newman, owner of Newman Motorsports, that her daddy was the best driver in the whole wide world—and that they should hire him.
“YOU’RE NOT going to believe this.”
Becca Newman glanced up from the papers she’d been studying to see her assistant, Connie, standing in the doorway with the wide-eyed look of a person who’d just found Russell Crowe stashed beneath her desk.
“What won’t I believe?” Rebecca asked, rubbing her temple with her left hand. She had a headache. Probably the financials she’d been studying for the past hour. Not good.
“There’s someone out in the lobby who wants to see you.”
Maybe it really
was
Russell Crowe out there. “Who is he?”
“It’s a she.”
Damn. Not Russell. “Does
she
have a name?” Rebecca asked. It wasn’t like Connie to be so secretive.
Her assistant leaned forward, her short-cropped black hair swinging over one shoulder and swaying back and forth. “It’s a little girl,” she said, blue eyes still wide. “She’s insisting on speaking to you.”
“Insisting?”
“I’m not kidding,” Connie said. “Sylvia downstairs said she trotted up to the reception desk like she owned the place, and then told Sylvia that she needed to see you.”

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