Racing Home (Dirt Track Dogs Book 3) (Paranormal Wolf-Shifter Romance)

Haunted by loss from the past, Blister, the most mysterious of the Dirt Track Dogs, is now running from his future. He’s found his mate, the sweet-as-sugar owner of a local bar, Annie Redmond. But the idea of shaming her with his disfigurement is unacceptable to him. He’s content to watch her from afar until a storm rips through Cedar Valley, leaving her home in need of major repairs. He could never abandon his mate in her time of need, but keeping his wolf from claiming her will be the greatest challenge of his life.

Perpetually alone and forever a virgin, Annie has watched her closest friends mate Dirt Track Dogs, and now it’s her turn. She’s pined after elusive Blister for months but he seems about as interested as a moth to a dark room. When she finds herself in a jam, he steps up to help, bringing in a crew of cats from the Ouachitas to rebuilt her broken home. For once, her patience pays off as their time together slowly reveals a pain she shares herself. Loss. But if he’ll give her a chance, they could have the one thing both of them crave more than anything: Love.

Racing Home

By P. Jameson

Racing Home

Copyright © 2015 by P. Jameson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, redistributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any database, without prior permission from the author.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Other books by P. Jameson

Dirt Track Dogs

Racing the Alpha (
Book 1
)

Racing the Beast (
Book 2
)

Racing Home (Book 3)

Ozark Mountain Shifters

A Mate’s Denial (
Book 1
)

A Mate’s Sacrifice (
Book 2
)

A Mate’s Revenge (
Book 3
)

A Mate’s Submission (
Book 4
)

Holiday Novella

A Mate’s Wish (
Amazon
)

Chapter One

One, two, three, four, five, si
—BANG.

Annie pulled the covers tighter around her shuddering body as the thunder outside rolled like a freight train. It sounded as though it was close enough to kiss, but it was actually about a mile away.

Lightning flashed so bright she could see the jagged mercurial line through the fabric of her curtains, and she began a new count.

One, two, three, four
—BOOM.

Less than a mile away now.

You could tell how far away a storm was by counting the seconds from the lightning strike to when the thunder occurs. Take the number of seconds and divide by five. That’s roughly how many miles are between you and certain disaster. Aaron taught her that, just before he’d left for Texas.

Just before he’d left her alone in this house. Alone to run Red Cap. Alone for the holidays. Alone for regular days. Alone, alone, alone.

She sighed, remembering her brother’s harsh words.

“Annie… almost thirty years old and you have no plan for your life. You don’t date. You don’t make friends. You’re content to live in this house with me and cook your life away. You’re satisfied with a pointless existence and I want better for you.”

“It isn’t pointless,” she’d huffed. “I take care of you, Aaron. Who would cook for you if I didn’t? We’re partners, you and I. We always have been. It’s kind of how twins work.”

He shook his head sadly. “No, Annie. It’s time for us to
live
. We have to let go of what happened with mom and dad, and find ourselves. We both need this. I leave tomorrow.”

Tears pricked her eyes. He was serious. “I don’t!” she insisted, her curls slapping her face for how hard she shook her head. “I don’t need this. I need things to stay the way they are. So don’t say ‘we’. Call this what it is.
You
want to leave me.
You
want this.”

Aaron bent low, his blue eyes meeting hers. “I don’t want it. I
need
this, sis. And so do you. You’ll see. In time you’ll see.”

It was the last time she’d spoken to her twin. For the past five years she’d received a card at Christmas, but he never talked about what he’d done during his time away. Or when he was coming back.

Electric cracked the sky again, fracturing it into so many pieces she couldn’t count them all. Thunder boomed immediately, echoing through the house that was entirely too big for one person.

She’d grown up here, and loved it. But by herself, it was lonely. Memories weren’t enough to make it a home.

In the years since Aaron left, Annie had grown a lot. She managed the bar and grill on her own. Kept up the house on her own. Made a couple friends that she trusted with her life. Made a name for herself in Cedar Valley as the woman to call when you needed good food. She’d grown the family business—which technically was now a one woman business—enough that she could live comfortably, even putting back a portion for Aaron in case he ever needed it.

And she’d done it all on her own.

Some days she felt as badass as Punk, but most days she felt like she was shriveling. She wasn’t meant to be alone. It was against her nature. She wanted—needed—someone to care for. To share life with. To swap secrets and dreams with. Someone to care for her in turn.

But dating wasn’t really something she was good at. She was busy. She was naïve, and maybe a bit picky, and a little chubbier than most men preferred, and more sensitive than was acceptable, and...

Oh, she’d gone over all the reasons why the good guys didn’t want her until she’d mostly given up on finding someone to love.

And the worst part was somehow she knew Aaron wasn’t coming back until she’d moved on. Until she’d made a life for herself. He didn’t want to be her family; he wanted her to get one of her own.

It hurt. It hurt so bad.

She swallowed back a sob, determined to not shed a tear over her brother. There’d been enough of that the first year.

The rain outside fell in such force that it battered her bedroom window until the pane rattled like a leaf in the wind.

So, it looked like the term ‘forty year old virgin’ would be in her future. She was half a decade off. Five years before they could make a lame movie about her. She hadn’t given up on love though. Not completely. It wasn’t like she didn’t have desires.
Needs
. She did. She just… couldn’t do anything about it.

Not yet anyway.

She had a plan. The plan wasn’t currently working out so well. But there was still hope.

Annie huddled tighter under her blanket and let her mind drift to
him
. They called him Blister but she wondered what his real name was.

She’d first seen him at the speedway months ago. He was standing with his scarred side toward the wall, and he was so handsome he took her breath away. She might’ve even drooled, but without a doubt, her hormones got up and did the Macarena. When he moved, showing the side of his face that was twisted with scars… her heart clenched.

What was his story? Was he different, outcast like her? Had life been unkind to him, taken from him, as it had her? Did he have love in his heart to give but no one to accept it? Like her.

She was determined to find out.

Even as a child, Saturdays were spent at the track. Back then, they’d gone as a family but after Aaron left, she’d kept up the tradition. Alone. Until she found Ella. And then they’d dragged Punk along, and it became their thing. They were the Three Musketina’s of the dirt track.

Helping Ella with her car was fun for Annie. It gave her something to do besides work. But even better, it allowed her plenty of time to see Blister. Always from afar, but eventually she came up with an idea. One that could benefit Ella
and
allow Annie to get to know the man who stuck to the shadows.

Only things hadn’t gone according to plan.

How was she to know that her friend had a connection to the Dirt Track Dogs. More specifically that Ella was Blister’s niece. She couldn’t have guessed a coincidence like that. Especially since Blister and Ella were practically the same age.

But Annie didn’t let that distract her. She’d just rearranged plans. Tweaked a few things.

Now Punk and Ella might as well be married to members of the club, and Blister had managed to avoid every attempt she’d made to get to know him. She was no closer to him, and more alone than ever.

In the past, when a storm like this came, she might call the girls and offer them a place in her storm shelter. They’d pop popcorn and watch movies on her laptop until it passed. But they didn’t need that now. The dogs had a shelter.

The wind whipped outside her window, and the crack of a tree branch made her jump.

Sitting up, she checked her phone. The electric had gone out an hour ago, but she still had cell service. Red flashed on the screen.
Tornado Warning for Cedar Valley and the immediate area
.

Annie frowned. She hadn’t heard the sirens.

A thunderous noise jolted her into action as something heavy hit the roof above her head. Grabbing her phone and the water bottle from her bedside table, she ran downstairs for her jacket and a flashlight. She jammed her feet in her rain boots, grabbed a throw from the back of the couch, tucking it under her coat, and ran out the back door.

It was only a quick sprint to the underground safe room. But with the wind and lightning crackling everywhere, it was a struggle to get across the yard without dropping things. She dodged tree branches that had swung loose from the Oak in the back yard. And, crap… was that a shingle?

Shoving the door open, she said a quick prayer that her house would still be standing when she came out, and stumbled down the stairs, throwing her blanket and phone on the padded bench her dad had put there years ago. She struggled with the door, pushing against the wind, but finally she managed to get it shut.

Annie stood in the middle of the cellar, letting the water drip from her coat. She fumbled with the flashlight until she could get the emergency shelter light going and the small heater pumping warmth into the place.

She was freezing. She’d been in such a hurry she hadn’t bothered putting on pants.

“Ughhh.” Her shoulders slumped as she shrugged off her soaked jacket and hung it on a utility hook to dry.

Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, she settled on the bench to wait out the storm.

Alone.

Chapter Two

Blister was having the kind of dream he’d die for to be real. He was fully aware none of it was true, but the thing was he didn’t give a shit. He’d never allow himself to do these things in real life, or even imagine them, so what happened in his sleep was all he’d ever have.

So when he was given a gift like this, he didn’t waste time worrying about whether it was real or not.

Fuck that.

He was making love to an angel. The sweetest blond-haired beauty he’d ever laid eyes on. With the kindest smile and the warmest hands and the sexiest curves in existence. And he wasn’t worried about hurting her or scaring her away. Because he was normal. And not just absent of his horrible scars, but truly normal. He could laugh and smile back at her. He could
feel
and what he felt was so fucking
good
.

He rolled onto his back, bringing his angel with him to straddle his waist. Her quiet laugh was sexy as hell and her smile made him hard as steel. She was breathtaking and she was his, and she would be forever.

As long as he never woke up.

Blister let out a groan, straining for control as she rose up to take him inside her wet heat. She shivered as he filled her, closing her eyes in ecstasy. He leaned up to kiss her lips—with lips that weren’t twisted at the corner with scar tissue. She moaned into his
normal
mouth before pushing him back to the bed.

Fuck, they were in a bed. And it felt normal. It didn’t give him the queasy feeling he expected it to.

The power of a dream.

With her hands planted on his chest, she began moving. Slow and luxurious at first. He reached up to palm one perfect creamy breast, teasing the hardened tip with his thumb. As amazing as her body was, he couldn’t look away from her face. The way her teeth tortured her bottom lip at his touch. The way her lids were at half mast. The way her blond ringlets bounced with her movement.

“Rogan,” she moaned, using his real name. Because in this dream he was normal. He wasn’t burned beyond fixing. And he didn’t mind that the person’s name she called didn’t exist anymore.

He gripped her hips as she rode him faster. She was so beautiful he wanted to cry. To thank the god of creation for forming such a magnificent creature as his angel. And for giving her to him in dreams.

Blister dragged his hand down the center of her chest, over the slight swell of her belly, until he reached the pearl at the top of her mound. With his thumb, he pressed in, relishing her gasp of pleasure and the way her tight sheath clamped around his cock.

He was close to busting, but he wanted her orgasm first. Only then would he lose himself in her.

“Yes, my love,” he whispered. “Let go for me.”

She quickened her pace, her skin slapping against his until he could barely keep control. And then he felt it. The quiver of her release as it held his erection in a vice grip. He followed her over the edge thrusting upward in time to her movements, and letting her wring him for everything he was worth.

His angel was taking him to heaven. He’d kissed the fires of hell long enough.

Blister!

Blister, goddamn it!

No
. He wasn’t ready to wake. Whoever was shaking him out of his sweet dream was asking to be murdered.

“Blister, fucking wake up, asshole.”

It was Drake. His alpha. And his niece’s mate. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t give him an ass-chewing for this.

Blister’s eyes came open on a glare. “Get off me, Drake.”

“Hell, you could sleep through a boulder falling on you. Get up. Get your ass to the house.”

Frowning, Blister sat up, unzipping his sleeping bag, and for the first time noticed the rain battering his tent. Shit. He’d slept through the thunder. He was damn lucky he didn’t get struck by lightning, tucked in the middle of all these trees. But that’s how badly he hadn’t wanted the dream to end. In the dream, he could be with the angel. In real life, he couldn’t.

The angel was real. The man in the dream was not.

He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to come back to reality. He felt his scars. Skin once melted, now webbed to form a mess on his right side. It served to remind him how different he was from the man who loved her so thoroughly when he was asleep.

Reality was this. A storm. One that was likely going to rip his makeshift home to shreds.

There wasn’t time to take his tent down. He’d have to leave it. But that was the great thing about not having many personal belongings. What he did care about, he kept in the big house.

He shrugged on his clothes and boots, and stepped out of the canvas to find Drake hurriedly collecting items and tossing them in the tent.

“Tornado warning,” he shouted. “It’s on the ground about fifteen miles west of us.”

Blister zipped the tent and followed his alpha out of the wooded area of DTD’s property. As he walked he tried not to let his mind go where it wanted to. He’d been fighting instinct for several weeks, but right now it was riding him like a fucking spider monkey. His bastard wolf wouldn’t shut up.

Fifteen miles west. He could track the storm by the direction of the wind, and that meant…

Shit.

“The women okay?” he asked nervously, trying to get information without being direct.

“Punk and Beast moved from the trailer to the house already. I dropped Ella there too, before coming to get you.”

Blister waited but the info he was looking for didn’t come.

He waited until they were in Drake’s truck before he pushed.

“What about the other one?”

His alpha frowned.

Damn it, there was only one other woman that had anything to do with the club. Why did they make him spell it out for them every fucking time?

“Annie?” Drake asked.

His stomach tensed at the sound of her name.
Annie
.

Blister nodded and stared out the window at the storm.

“She has a name, you know. You could stop calling her ‘the other one.’”

He’d call her whatever he needed to, to get by. Saying her name felt too personal. He couldn’t afford to be personal. Not with her.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Drake muttered. “Ella said she has a shelter.”

He pulled the truck right up to the porch of the big house, turned the ignition off, and got out.

Blister chewed his thumb nail, debating how to take that news.
I’m sure she’s fine
. It wasn’t good enough. His wolf paced inside, unsatisfied. Worried.

Opening the door, he stepped into the rain to follow Drake inside. But the thought of his angel alone underground, in a cold cellar, riding out this bitch of a storm, had him hesitating on the first step of the porch.

He’d tried not to learn about her, but he ended up knowing a few things. Like that she was a loner. She didn’t have any family around, and even though she ran the busiest watering hole in town, she only had Ella and Punk as friends.

But… what if she didn’t make it to the shelter? What if she slept as hard as he did and missed the warning? Had the town sirens even gone off?

He’d never forgive himself if something happened to her because nobody bothered to check on her.

Shit. Goddamn it.

Why hadn’t someone called her? They were her friends. Isn’t that what friends do?

Drake held the door open. “You coming?”

Blister started toward him. Stopped. Started again.

Damn it, he couldn’t leave her alone.

“Give me your keys,” he demanded.

Drake frowned. “Why?”

“Give me your fucking keys.” Blister held out his hand, not giving one damn about his alpha’s scowl.

Drake dropped them into his open palm and Blister darted through the downpour back to the truck.

“Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer. He just started the engine and backed out of the yard, spinning tires in the mud that had already accumulated.

It was a short drive to her house but it wasn’t quick by any means. Not with the wind howling and causing him to swerve through puddles. And the rain was so heavy Drake’s wipers hardly made a difference at all. Leaves and twigs littered the road and slapped the windows of the cab, but finally he made it to Annie’s house.

He’d been there once before. She didn’t know it. Neither did anyone else. It was his little secret. His wolf had wanted to see where the angel lived and wouldn’t let him settle until he complied. When he was satisfied that she lived in a well constructed home in a decent area of town, Blister was able to relax.

Rain fell in sheets as he stared at the house. There were no lights, but it could be that the electricity was out. A quick glance at the other houses in the area confirmed his suspicion.

Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure about the best way to approach her. Knocking on her door at eleven o’clock at night probably wasn’t the best idea, but staying in the truck wasn’t either. The wind rocked it precariously.

Fuck. His animal could sense the danger in the air. The air swirled with tension. It was time to take cover.

Hopefully Annie had gone to the shelter.

Blister got out of the truck, letting the rain pelt him as he ran around to the back of her lot. A branch smacked him in the head but he ignored it to peer through the darkness. He spotted the storm shelter several yards away, but as he started toward it, a small figure darted from the house, slipping and stumbling all the way to the cellar.

He called for her, but his voice was lost with the wind howling.

Blister was only halfway across the yard when she managed to get inside and shut the door.

He stopped, clenching his fists to dispel the adrenaline.

Well, okay. She was safe. He saw it with his own eyes. He should leave now.

But one look at the sky told him that wasn’t happening. It was ominous. A swirling mass that was only visible by the shot of electricity that lit everything, confusing night with day for a solitary second before turning it all black again.

Even if he made it back to the truck, he wouldn’t make it to the big house before this motherfucker hit.

He looked at Annie’s shelter. Damn it. It was a horrible option, but he had no other choice.

Blister ran, dodging fallen branches, until he reached the door of the shelter. She wouldn’t hear if he knocked, so he just yanked the thing open, hoping like hell he wouldn’t scare her too badly.

He hurried down the steps, securing the door as he went. Slowly, he turned around.

His angel sat huddled on a small bench, blanket wrapped tightly around her. Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t look scared. Just surprised.

“Hi,” he said, glancing away. She was like the sun. You couldn’t look for too long.

“Hi.”

Silence stretched between them, with only the wind whistling and the rain pattering on the vent.

“You’re one of the dogs right? Blister?”

His chest tightened when she spoke his name. She knew who he was.

But of course she did. She was friends with Ella and Punk. She knew who all the dogs were.

“Yeah,” he grumbled, keeping his right side turned away. “Came to check on you, but the storm is too bad for me to get back to the club.”

“I don’t think we’ve officially met.” She smiled with her hand outstretched. “I’m Annie.”

What was she doing?

She looked pointedly at her own hand which hung between them like offering waiting to be accepted.

Wait… she wanted him to shake it? She wanted to
touch
him?

He couldn’t. No, she was too good and he couldn’t chance ruining her with even a small cordial touch. And his wolf wanted so much more than that.

Don’t touch her, do not touch her
. He warned his animal, but the bastard wasn’t listening. The mere idea of learning what her skin felt like outside of the dream had him inching forward.

Blister turned toward the door, seriously considering chancing the drive back through town. “Storm should pass quickly. As soon as it’s clear, I’ll be on my way.”

Her small sigh echoed along the cement walls. It wasn’t a happy sound.

“Sorry about barging in like this,” he apologized. “I wasn’t planning on getting cornered here.”

“Did Ella send you? I tried to call her but couldn’t get through.” Her voice was deflated. Not how it was when he’d first arrived. “There’s no need for anyone to check up on me. I’m a big girl.”

He peeked over his shoulder. Big girl? She’d barely reach the middle of his chest if she was standing tall. She was tiny. Though deliciously curvy.

Blister squeezed his eyes to shut off the thought.

“Something like that,” he said under his breath.

Even underground, the roar of the storm was deafening and growing louder. Debris banged against the door, causing Blister to jump backward.