On the Edge (13 page)

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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Better than him.

The kid had almost had him, pushing him to the point that he’d worn the rubber off of his damn tires causing him to get a flat.

“Okay,” John said less than a minute later. “Go on out. We’ve got track personnel out there cleaning up the debris so keep your eye on the flag man. We’ll give you boys a green flag when you’re good to go.”

“Ten-four,” Adam said, wanting to ask what the heck was the point. He wasn’t as good as Sam, and now he’d be even worse. Frankly, he was surprised they didn’t ask him to bring it behind the wall.

“HE’S SLOW,” Becca said.

“He’s in an inferior truck,” Cece said from her position standing next to Becca atop the hauler, the headset she’d been wearing resting around her neck. The headpiece held down her long blond ponytail that stuck out of her ball cap.

“But his lap times are dropping off,” Becca said after removing her own headset, hoping Cece didn’t see how badly her hands shook as she flicked her hair over the top of it. She’d heard him spin out, Becca turning toward the back stretch and reaching for the call button a split second before John had done the same thing.

“Becca,” Cece said, “given what he has to work with, I’m surprised he’s keeping up at all.”

Becca glanced down at Adam’s lap times. Sunlight made the writing hard to see against a backdrop of bright paper. She blinked a few times, but she didn’t really need to look.

“He’s good,” Cece said. “Better than good.”

Considering what they’d given him to work with, he really was. She glanced up, her eyes unseeing as she stared out over the racetrack.

“Sam’s good, too,” Becca said. “He was gaining on Adam there for a little while.”

Cece turned back to her. “Yeah, but he slowed down the moment he got out front.”

“Maybe it’s the truck. Maybe something’s wrong with it,” Becca said, glancing down at the guys out on pit road. They were following the drivers’ progress around the track, a few of them stepping beneath one of the Easy Ups they’d erected to glance at the data that streamed across their engineer’s computer screen.

“Doubtful,” Cece said. “I think it’s because he’s not taking the same line Adam was, so it’s slowing him down. And when he got into traffic with the other boys, he slowed down even more.”

“Maybe Sam’s truck doesn’t like clean air.”

“Becca, Sam and Adam’s trucks are virtually identical. Both of them were given the same, awful setup.”

“Something could be wrong.”

“Okay, then what about the other two guys? They’re no spring chickens. The fact is they’re not getting any better and Adam’s still keeping up. He’s the best of the bunch,” Cece said, looking over to where Carl Kennison stood on pit road, his face as red as the gas can he stood by. He was chewing on something, his mouth doing double time in an obvious attempt to work out his frustration.

“He doesn’t look happy,” Becca said, looking away as the two trucks came out of turn four. Adam’s front fender looked like a piñata that’d been burst and then resealed again, the light blue tape they’d used contrasting with the truck’s darker blue body. But even with a bent fender and an inferior race truck, he still managed to tail the pack.

“If you don’t hire him, we will,” Cece said, and there was no need to ask who “he” was. “I mean it, Becca. Blain’ll be all over him—”

“I know,” Becca interrupted. “I know,” she repeated more softly.

“Then why don’t you look happier? Your search for a driver is over. This is the guy you’ve been looking for. He’s got the goods and yet you look as glum as when you lost Bill Reynolds to RCS Racing.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do,” Cece said, turning her body as Adam entered turn three, the other trucks’ discordant motors seeming to vibrate the air. “What’s the matter?” her friend asked. “Afraid you’ll jump him the moment the two of you are alone?”

“Cece!” Becca said, glancing back at Lindsey who stood nearby, eyes never leaving her father. Adam and Sam roared by, the two vehicles seeming to rotate onto their sides because of the steep banking of the track. For a split second sunlight snaked atop their roofs in a neon glow.

“Admit it, you’re afraid to hire him,” Cece said, yelling to be heard over the sound of the trucks.

“I’m not afraid,” Becca yelled back.

“You are,” Cece said, her blond hair flicking across her shoulders as she shot Becca a glance. “You don’t want him to get too close to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Becca denied even as her stomach turned. “I’m delighted for Adam. And for his daughter.” She peeked another glance at Lindsey, the girl’s body once again rotating as she followed her dad’s progress around the track.

“Becca,” Cece said, her voice suddenly serious. “You need to move on.”

Becca stiffened. The two trucks were forgotten as her friend touched her arm, squeezing it softly as if she worried she didn’t have Becca’s attention.

“It’s been four years.”

“I know.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’m going to have to hire him, Cece. I can’t think of him as anything other than an employee.”

“Not if you keep your relationship under wraps.”

Becca snorted. “Yeah, right. Like that’s possible in this industry.”

“It might be worth a shot.”

“No. It’s better to keep my distance.”

Cece stared at her for a long moment and then to Becca’s surprise, nodded in understanding. “After all you’ve been through, I guess you’re probably right.” She patted Becca’s back. “But your luck’s about to change, Becca. I feel it.”

Becca just hoped her friend was right.

CHAPTER TEN

HE SUCKED.

Not only had he torn up one of their trucks, but he’d barely managed to keep up afterward. Granted, it was hard to keep up in a truck that wasn’t as aerodynamic as the others, but he still should have been able to pass at least
one
other truck.

“Boss wants to see you,” John said, taking his helmet and steering wheel from him.

Adam paused, having been in the midst of scanning pit road for her. “Where is she?”

“In the hauler,” John said, his face giving nothing away.

Was it as bad as it felt?

Damn it, the words were on the tip of Adam’s tongue, but he figured it must have been. Hell. Maybe they’d all been slow. Maybe the other guys going out after them were the good group.

Turning, he glanced over at Sam Kennison and his dad. Carl appeared to be giving his son a stern lecture—about what, though, Adam couldn’t hear. The other drivers all looked at him strangely. He felt like he’d just come in on the tail end of a joke.

“You going?” John asked, a weird smile on his face.

“I’m going.”

He looked for Lindsey on his way over. A glance toward the hauler revealed that she, along with everyone else, had left their perch. When he looked for her on pit road, all he saw was Blain and Cece Sanders glancing in his direction. He gave them a nod and a wave, thinking yet again that it seemed odd to be smiling at these people as if they were friends. They’d been faces on TV for so long that they sort of
seemed
like friends.

But where was Lindsey? Maybe in the hauler with Becca, he thought, pausing at the back of the big rig before going in. He was a sweaty mess. The helmet had given him hat hair. Sweat beaded his brow. He’d been so distracted he hadn’t even unzipped his firesuit in the sweltering heat. He did so now, his hands shaking as he pulled down the metal tongue. But the damn thing got caught. Oh, well, he thought, opening the sliding glass doors.

Cool air hit him in the face.

He’d seen haulers before. Hell, he’d had his own fancy rig back when he’d raced the Silver Crown series. But things had changed a lot since then. Now there was a wafer-thin computer monitor attached to the rubber-coated countertop, not the clunky old-fashioned kind. Everything looked more high-tech, from the shock tester near the middle of the big rig to the flat screen TV that hung at the end of the long aisle. Then again, this was a whole other ballgame.

And he’d blown his chance.

He didn’t know what upset him more: that he’d tried and failed—or how Lindsey would take the news. But she probably already knew. She was probably crying in the bathroom, Adam thought as he knocked on the office door near the front of the hauler where someone had told him he could find Becca.

“Come in,” Becca said.

Adam took a deep breath, his hand clutching the chrome door handle for a second while he pulled himself together. He didn’t want Becca to think he was upset. Or Lindsey, if she was inside.

But Lindsey wasn’t inside. When he glanced around the twelve-by-twelve room, it was to see Becca swiveling to face him in an office chair pushed up next to a desk. A matching desk sat in the opposite corner.

“Have you seen Lindsey?” he asked, worried.

“She needed to use the restroom.”

Just as he thought. Off crying. “Look,” he said, wanting to get this over with, “I appreciate you giving me a shot, and I’m sorry I wrecked your truck.”

She smiled a bit, her red hair curling around her shoulders attractively. She’d applied some lip gloss before he’d come in. Either that or she’d just licked her lips…and
that
wasn’t a good direction for his thoughts to take.

“Adam, sit down,” she said softly, the blue team polo shirt she wore turning her eyes turquoise. He eyed the empty chair opposite her, then reluctantly sat at the desk. The chair squeaked as he spun it around.

“Are you going to ask me to give the money back?”

“What money?” she asked.

“The money you paid me to come down and test.”

Her brow cleared. “Not hardly,” she said, something slipping into her green eyes. It was a look that could almost be called amusement. Or was it derision? “In hindsight we probably shouldn’t have made you go through this at all.”

The words stung even though he’d told himself he wouldn’t get upset. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Lindsey shouldn’t have blackmailed you like she did.”

“Are you kidding? Lindsey did me a favor.”

Suddenly he felt like he’d missed part of the conversation. “Lindsey wasting your time couldn’t be considered a favor,” he said.

She tipped her head sideways again and Adam was reminded of the first time they’d met. From nowhere came the image of that damn belly button ring. Did she have it on now?

“She didn’t waste my time, Adam.”

Adam had to replay the words in his head, his mind stuck on the memory of her belly button ring.

“She didn’t?”

Becca smiled then, her wide lips spreading into a grin that could only be called beaming. And yet…and yet, there was something missing from that smile, something that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“And the reason why you shouldn’t have had to test this way is because you’re good. So good, in fact, that if we’d had a look at you during a normal test session we’d have hired you on lap times alone.”

“What?”

“The test is over,” she said. “We’re not even going to look at the second group. Actually, we’d never really planned on doing that. They were just there as a backup in case one of the first round picks tanked.”

“But…I don’t understand.”

“No. You probably don’t. Let me start by telling you that John was told to give you changes that would make you go backward, not forward.”

“But…that’s not possible. At one point I even told them what adjustments to make.”

“And he didn’t do it. We wanted to see how you’d drive given a not so great setup.”

“You’re kidding.”

She smiled. “No, I’m not. We try our best to test drivers under every circumstance. Every one of you had a not so great truck. And yet you were still kicking everyone’s butt at the beginning of the session and so John made you go backward even more. That’s why you blew a tire trying to hold Sam off. Your truck was crap, and yet you still held him off. Hell, you held the whole field off.”

“Are you trying to tell me I did
good?
”

“Better than good, Adam. Given what you had to work with, you were extraordinary.”

He leaned back, his whole body feeling as if it might float off the ground. “Son of a bitch.”

“And so I’d like to offer you a job.”

No. This wasn’t really happening. She wasn’t really going to—

“I’d like you to come work for me.”

Tears threatened to fill his eyes.

“Ohmygosh!
You
want
him
to come
work
for you?”

They both looked up. Lindsey stood at the door, jaw hanging wide open.

His eyes burned even more.

“Yes, Lindsey, I want him to come work for me. Actually, I want to try him in a race or two,” Becca said. And finally, her smile reached her eyes.