Crash and Burn

Cover Copy

They're headed for disaster in a race against love.

Racecar driver Stone Adams likes fast women and faster cars, but his playboy lifestyle isn't making his sponsor happy. In an attempt to please the money man, Stone marries a woman in Vegas. But when he shows up at his new bride's house, he discovers she has a fiance she neglected to mention before their quickie wedding–and a younger sister who finds the whole situation hilarious.

Grace Cromwell has always been the one to bail her big sister out of scrapes and jams. This time she doesn't want to be the scapegoat. But a photo of Grace and Stone ends up splashed across the front page of the newspaper and she's mistaken for his wife, so she doesn't have much choice.
 

When Grace agrees to play the part of Stone's wife in public, they both have a hard time remembering it's all a charade.

A Lyrical Press Contemporary Romance

Highlight

“I’m your sister-in-law,” she said, parroting him. “Sister-in-law. I’ve never been a sister-in-law.” She was a bit breathless.

He picked up the bag like it weighed nothing and shut the trunk. “Shall we?” He swept an arm toward the house.

She stepped in front of him, brushing past, unintentionally touching his arm with hers. She jumped back as if she’d touched a hot stove. He grinned at her and started for the house.

“Wait, don’t you have a bag?” she asked.

“I don’t need it right now and I sleep naked, so I won’t need my jammies,” he said with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow.

He was baiting her on purpose and, damn it, it was working. In a house with four people, three of them having the potential to be intimately involved, he was pretty cocky sleeping naked…with…her…sister, she reminded herself.

As good looking as he was and as much as he made her stomach flip flop, he was still off-limits.

Crash and Burn

By Michelle Libby

Dedication

To my family who support my need to write and be creative. And to my husband, Chuck, who took me to his IALEFI training so I could explore Long Island, New York, thus securing a setting for this novel.

Acknowledgements

With thanks for Bernie Dinsmore and Meg Dinsmore for their help with racing terminology and protocol. Any mistakes are solely mine.
 

Chapter 1

“Seriously? Divina, when are you going to get it together?” Grace asked her older sister with a huff. “Hold on, I’m trying to figure out how you plan to keep your fiance and your husband from killing one another. I can’t even get one guy to ask me out and you have two who... Oh, I can’t even fathom this.” The phone beeped, but Grace ignored the other call.

“I don’t remember marrying him, but now there’s a truck here moving his stuff in. What am I going to do?” Divina asked in a whispered panic.

“Do? You married him. He’s your husband. I’d open the door and say ‘Welcome home, honey.’”

“I can’t.” Divina’s voice rose in her typical whine. “I don’t even know the man.”

“Not my problem,” Grace said. She wasn’t trying to be mean. She’d reached her limit of her older sister’s crazy antics. This one was a prizewinner.

After a weekend in Vegas, she didn’t have a suitcase of cash. She had a new husband to show for it. Grace rolled her eyes even though her sister couldn’t see it through the phone.

“I know you’re moving into Mom and Dad’s house in two days. Can’t you move here instead? I need someone to run interference until I can get a divorce.”

“Div, I can’t move in with you and your husband. That’s weird. No thanks.”

“It wouldn’t be just the two of us. Hank would be here, too. Before you say anything, it’s a big house and you’ll still have some privacy. I’ll make him sleep on the couch.”

Grace waited until her sister finished her argument.
 

“Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Please, Gracie. For me. I’ll get a quickie divorce from Stone.”

“Your new last name is Stone?” Grace started filing her nails. She felt the pressure of family obligations and once again being called on to save her sister from herself. Her reality started closing in around her. Her chest felt tight and a headache throbbed at her temples. “I need to know your new name so I know who to send the wedding gift to.”

“Not funny. My last name is Adams. Temporarily.” She clipped the last word.

Grace dropped the nail file. “You married Stone Adams, the racecar driver?”

“Yep. You know him?”

“He’s a top ten driver on the Eastern states local circuit. He’s on TV every weekend. He always has a boatload of women draped over his arms.” She barked a laugh. “I can’t believe he married
you
.”

“Hey! Be nice. I can be incredibly charming. I’m not sure either of us was thinking straight when we went to the hotel chapel. I can get a quickie divorce, right? I’m supposed to marry Hank in less than two months. He still wants to go through with our original plans and so do I, but Stone is warming up to the whole idea of a wife and family. You’ve got to come here,” she pleaded.

Grace didn’t have time for this. “I’ll call you back. Maybe I’ll stop by tonight around dinnertime to see the mess you’ve made.” Grace chuckled as she hung up the phone.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. Even though Divina was her older sister, Grace had spent most of her youth fixing the scrapes and mishaps Divina was always getting into. Grace had been helping her out of situations since they were in grade school where poor, fragile Divina never learned responsibility.

Grace slammed another pile of books into a cardboard box. She knew she’d go and she hated herself for it. She wanted to be strong and independent, but she didn’t want her parents to worry about Divina. They didn’t need the added stress. Imagining Divina, Hank and Stone Adams together in one house almost made the hour and a half ferry ride to Long Island worth it. She’d be the peacemaker, keeping everyone happy like she always did. She’d give Stone a day before he ran screaming from the house.

Classes had ended yesterday for her master’s degree in social work. She didn’t plan on attending the graduation ceremony because another graduation for Grace was… How had Divina put it? Oh, yeah, like a six-hour root canal.

Like all good rebound children who returned to the nest after college, her plan was to move back in with her parents to help them. They were getting older and she wanted to take the burden of the housework off them. They’d said her bedroom was waiting for her, the trophies from the local and state spelling bees were still on the dresser and her National Honor Society awards littered the walls. She was and had always been a nerd. Divina was the fun daughter. She was the one who lined up two dates for a Friday night and expected to go on both of them, not realizing there might be consequences for her actions.

Divina’s latest predicament would drag Grace into the drama once again. She’d have to listen to Hank whine about how unfair this was. Divina would throw hissy fits and Stone Adams… Well, she didn’t know how he’d act. She’d never met him, but she had followed his career and dreamed about him–or maybe fantasized about him was a better word. Now they were related.

Grace tsked and swept her hand across the shelf so the last few textbooks fell into the box she was holding. Then she taped it shut with clear packing tape and carried it out to her car. Looking back at the building she’d lived in for two years, she thought she might miss the carefreeness of living there. It had been a good apartment, small, but perfect for what she needed. All her stuff fit into six medium-sized boxes. Most of them filled with books.

The phone rang in her pocket and she flipped it open, fully expecting Divina’s whiny voice begging again.

“Gracie? Is that you?”

Grace’s heart swelled. She loved her parents and she’d been the good sister because she didn’t want to add any more chaos than Divina caused on a regular basis. “Hi, Mom. I’m almost done packing and I’ll be on my way home within a half-hour.”

She heard the sigh.

“There’s a problem, dear. Your sister called.”

No way
. That little cheater. She’d called Mom to get her to do her begging for her. “Really? And what did Divina tell you, exactly?”

“She said she’s having man problems and wondered if I would mind letting you move in with her for a few weeks. I don’t see the problem. We’ve been alone this long, what’s another few weeks, a month or two, if need be.”

“Mom. I was planning to come home to help you and Dad. I don’t want to live with Divina and her harem.”

“Grace. Such talk.”

“Mom. You should have gotten the whole story. Your daughter married a racecar driver two months before she’s supposed to marry her fiance. A wedding, I will remind you, that you are paying for.”

“Now, be serious, Grace. It’s not nice for you to make up stories about your sister.”

Obviously the early stages of dementia had set in. Grace refused to be bullied by her family yet again. “I’m coming home.”

Her father made scuffling sounds in the background as he took the phone. “Grace, this is your father.”

“Hi, Dad. Did Divina talk to you too?”

“Grace. You’ve always been our stable child. I need you to help your sister more than I need you to come here to babysit us. We’ll be fine, and since Divina only lives a ferry ride away you can come over whenever you need to. I don’t want to hear any more arguing from you, young lady. I need your help on this one. Your sister is impulsive and rash. You have a good head on your shoulders. Go to her.”

How could she argue with the one person she loved most in life? Sure, she loved her mom and her sister, but her dad was the one who got her. Understood her drive for perfection, her need for consistency and her love of learning. He’d fostered those traits in her during his tenure as a professor at Conn College.

“Okay, Dad. For you. But you call me if you need anything.” She snapped the phone shut and, after a long ferry ride and an hour drive, she pulled up in front of Divina’s house.

The house was Divina’s and Hank’s house because they’d bought it together after he proposed last fall. Now, with spring moving into summer, it was Divina’s, Hank’s and Stone’s house. What a great wedding present for the happy couple.

How had she let her parents talk her into coming here? She wanted to kick herself for being so easy. So damn easy. Rolling her shoulders, she sat in the car hoping this was all a dream, and working up the courage to drive off into the sunset. It didn’t matter it was only mid-afternoon.

“You’re here!” Divina screeched, running out to the car. She looked like a glamour doll, sheathed in a white dress covered with dime-sized polka dots, her blond hair piled on top of her head in a bombshell ’do. A moving truck stood in the driveway of the two-story, white Cape Cod-style house. Several men were moving furniture into the side door.