Racing to Love: Eli's Honor (5 page)

Throwing the tape back on the bench,
Dallas grabbed the gas can and filled up his bike. Riding was the one thing that let him forget about school, about their lack of money, and about the kids in his class. His reputation at the tracks started to get back to his classmates, and the teasing was starting to slow down now that they heard he was being talked about at the national level.

However, he knew his mom was worried about how hard school was for him, and he couldn’t help it. Sometimes, things just didn’t make any sense. Plus old Mrs. Porter was a grouchy hag. No, she was worse—she was a
bitch
. Dallas knew better than to say that word out loud. His mother would have a bar of soap in her hand before he could apologize. That didn’t mean he couldn’t think it, and he did—every minute of every school day.

Dallas
yanked the 65cc bike off its stand and rolled it out of the garage. With his helmet strapped on, he pulled on both gloves, and pushed their Velcro straps down into place. Adjusting his goggles, he kicked the bike four times, and finally with the rev of the engine, he breathed deep. That sound was the most relaxing noise in the world to him, loud and obnoxious to some, but as tranquil as a lullaby to Dallas. Within seconds he was sailing through the air, and all his worries were gone—at least until he ran out of gas.

CHAPTER THREE

Scooting his chair in closer to the table, Eli narrowed his eyes, studying the television screen as the racers rounded the corner. Scrutinizing the way the pack thinned out, he waited for one bike in particular to jump out in front. The students had cleared out of the lunchroom located in the far corner of the shop, leaving the area fairly clean, considering they were mostly teenage boys.

Carter walked in and headed straight for the refrigerator. Grabbing his lunch and a bag of chips off the counter, he settled in next to Eli.

Eli pointed the remote at the television mounted in the corner and paused the race, still recorded on the DVR from the previous weekend. Never mind the fact that he’d already watched the same race twice, he always found something new to catch or zone in on.

“Did you see Ralston come off the gate this week?” He asked as he helped himself to the bag of chips Carter had just opened. “He nailed that start.”

“Yeah, I’m with you. Our boy Cody is looking great. He’s really stepped it up the last couple of years since he moved up to the big bikes. Hey, by the way, you saw that tumble Lance took—have you heard if he’s okay or not?”

“Jess talked to Reid this morning. He’s got a broken wrist. Out a good four to six weeks.”

Carter shook his head, “Ah damn, poor kid. We were hoping it was just tweaked a little. There goes Vegas. First year on the big bikes and he was really looking sharp. No one can go through the whoops like he can. Well, at least he’ll be healed for the outdoor series.”

Eli glanced at the door as it was opening and smiled as Molly came through. She appeared distracted as she trailed her hand across Carter’s shoulders, kissing him on the cheek, and then squeezed Eli’s neck to greet him also.

“What’s bothering you, Gorgeous?” Carter tried to reach out to her, but missed as she continued to the refrigerator.

Molly added dressing to her salad, put the lid back on, shook it up, grabbed a fork and turned toward them. She was so quiet today. Eli stuck his hand in the bag of chips without taking his gaze off her. He took in the slight smile she graced Carter with when he squeezed her arm in support as she sat beside him, Eli raised his eyebrow.

“Are you worried about the meeting?” Eli asked, after he swallowed his food.

Molly only shrugged to answer.

“Is it
Dallas? Are you really that worried he won’t get accepted? I think you know he will, Mol.”

“I know he will. It’s just…something the uncle said has me worried.”

Eli turned to Carter for information, but his face was scrunched and still focused on Molly, apparently waiting on an explanation also.

“Why’s that? You didn’t say anything the other day. I thought everything was cool.”

Molly continued to stab at various pieces of lettuce, the poor leaves taking the brunt of her frustration. “Well, it didn’t strike me at first, but now, I don’t know. It’s just—“

“What is it?” Eli interrupted.

“The uncle said he needed to talk to the mom. Looking back on the conversation and the way he said things, he made out like he might need to…I don’t know. Convince her?”

Eli’s hand was halfway to his mouth with another chip when it dropped back to the table. “What the hell? I don’t mean to sound egotistical, but excuse me? Who wouldn’t want their son to come to our school?”

“No, not like that, E. More like she’d be hard to convince because she’d have trouble accepting the help. Kind of like…a money thing.” Molly said, the softness of her voice making her sound terribly sad.

Eli nodded to himself, processing Molly’s statement as he gathered up his trash. If it turned out to be true, then it’d make his job harder, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t impressed. Eli had followed
Dallas’s stats the last couple of years. He, Molly, and Carter had looked into Dallas’s resume more thoroughly for the meeting this afternoon, so they could pitch for him. He knew what races Dallas had been to, what bike he rode, and things were starting to make more sense. He agreed all the more with Molly. He wanted to help the kiddo. The others were just a bunch of softies, too. It wasn’t as if he had any doubt that they wouldn’t immediately agree, but they had intentionally drafted a clause in the scholarship process. One member of the academy board would go to the child in question and meet them in person. The interview was a two-fold endeavor. One, it would tell them if the prospective student was serious. Two, it would tell them if the parents were crazy or not. They didn’t need any psycho freaks standing trackside yelling at their kid. If they wanted to do that, they could stay home and keep their delusional ambitions to themselves. That kind of attitude wasn’t accepted on the Noland property—period.

When they had originally talked about opening up scholarship spots, it was decided that if the child needed a scholarship, obviously the student didn’t have the means to fly across the country for an interview. Therefore, one of the guys would fly to them. As much as Molly and Emery argued that they were both more than qualified to go, James shut them both down. The father in him wasn’t allowing either woman to go alone, to a strange town, to a stranger’s home. They had eventually given up the fight. Eli’s shoulders fell as the air left his lungs. He couldn’t let Molly down. She felt the need to help
Dallas. She wanted him to go to Tennessee and come back with good news.

Eli winked at Molly. “It’ll all work out, D. I promise.” He waited until she nodded before continuing toward the door.

****

Eli pulled his black leather duffle out of the overhead bin of the plane. The combination of turning awkwardly and lowering the weight of the small bag in his hand sent a searing pain shooting down his lower back. He blew out a breath as he stood somewhat impatiently, ready to get off the plane.

Mentally, he tried to block the straight lines of fire ripping their familiar paths inside of him until he could at least get to some water and ibuprofen. Suddenly he felt hot inside the cabin, and tugged up the sleeves of his lightweight sweater while he waited. Silently, he cursed the people in front of him who wrestled with their luggage, which obviously should have been checked.

The meeting with the board of the school had gone just as he expected yesterday and ended with an excited group of people wanting to see
Dallas ride in person. Now all he had to do was convince Honor Graham to pull her kid out of school, let him come live with virtual strangers, and do nothing but ride—for a month. Well, there would be homework in there too. They weren’t about to let him fall behind. But instead of the rigid class day of conventional schooling, his courses would be fit in here and there.

The plan hadn’t sounded so tough when they were all discussing it as a group of excited trainers. When it was laid out like that, the speech he’d been rehearsing in his head for the better part of the plane ride did sound like an uphill battle. A month was a long time, both for
Dallas academically, but also the time they were looking to invest in him would cost any other paying parent a small fortune. Maybe Molly was right to be worried that his mother would say no.

Finally, the line moved, and he exited the plane, glancing around the airport at the overhead signs to get his bearings, and headed toward the rental car counters.

****

Rolling down the windows in the car, he pulled in a breath of fresh air, and then rolled his neck as well. The air was a bit warmer in
Nashville than what he’d left behind in Pennsylvania, and every bit as beautiful. He drank the last little bit of water in the bottle he’d purchased at the airport and recapped the empty bottle. Placing it back in the cup holder, he settled in for the drive while letting the fresh air and the pain meds do their best.

Now that the board was behind Dallas, and they all wanted him, it made this meeting he was headed to a little more stressful. If things weren’t so busy back in
Pennsylvania, he would have persuaded Carter or Jess to come with him. Maybe it would make it a little harder for his mother to turn down their offer if she was meeting with more than just one retired professional rider.

A month was a long time. He was sure Honor was nervous about a week-long session, let alone two weeks, but they were all in agreement, a month would be ideal. What they could do with him, teach him, show him in four weeks’ time would secure his spot at the top. They just hadn’t mentioned the extended offer to her—yet.

They had been able to find some footage of the previous year’s amateur nationals. Dallas had won his class by a wide margin. They had all watched in total awe. The boy was almost flawless, floating over the whoops, cornering like a pro, weaving around the track like he was the only one on it.

One thing was for sure, Dallas Graham was the next golden child. Even an untrained eye could spot that. The tears glistening in Molly’s eyes weren’t only from pride, and they were Eli’s undoing. Her need to help
Dallas was contagious, although no one in that room had spoken another word of the reasoning behind it. And not one word had been uttered since they got through the trial for the woman who attempted to murder Molly, but every once in a great while, there were moments when it was easy to see her childhood still haunted her. There was something about helping Dallas that was more than just offering money to a charity.

It was an interview they had found online that struck them all and sealed the deal.
Dallas had barely gotten down off the podium before the microphones were thrust in his face. With sweat pouring off him, his jersey stuck to him, and heavy gear still on, he grinned.

But it was more than just winning. When he was asked how he learned to ride like he had in the race, his reply was so honest, his face so completely sincere, that he grabbed everyone sitting around the table yesterday. With a heat-flushed face,
Dallas had glanced past the interviewer, to the track behind the man, and joy swept over him, his eyes sparkling.

His simple answer…“I just ride.”

So innocent, so perfect, a child’s love for his sport so completely obvious.

As Eli drove along the highway leaving
Nashville’s city limit, the four lanes narrowed, giving way to a two-lane road, heading into more rural Tennessee. The green surrounding him was very similar to the landscape he was used to at home. The fenced pastures zipping by as he wound his rental car around the curves, the road dotted with a house here and there. From the directions Honor had given him over the phone, they lived on the outskirts of their small town, and he had passed the railroad tracks she’d mentioned.

Three miles down the quiet road, as he came to the birdhouse mounted on the corner
fence post, Eli chuckled and turned right onto the gravel road as directed. She’d rattled off the street name purely as an afterthought, and the embarrassed hint of laughter at herself brought a smile to his face on the other end of the phone line.

Moments later, he found the small white ranch house with navy shutters, but it was the track he could see behind it that made it a safe bet he was in the right place.

Before Eli even parked, the front screen door flew open with a crack against the house. The young boy jumped from the top of deck of the front porch instead of taking the time to walk down the four stairs to the sidewalk. He radiated laughter and excitement. Eli grinned to himself as he got out of the car. It seemed all was right with the world, at least until he stepped down too hard, not used to the lower vehicle height.

The sharp pain shot down his spine and spiked like he’d been stabbed multiple times around his left hip. He let out a breath, blinking rapidly with the last daggers of pain before it subsided, and pasted on a smile so he didn’t scare the boy who was now anxiously awaiting him.

Eli shut the car door and held in a chuckle watching the brown-haired rider, still in full gear, shuffle from foot-to-foot, apparently unsure of himself. Even when Molly tried to tell him otherwise, Eli had never thought of himself as anything but
Eli Hunter
, a guy who happened to love riding and made a life for himself doing so. But he remembered what it was like as a kid, meeting older racers he admired or even idolized. He always rolled his eyes at Molly’s compliments, but it was still a bit thrilling to see the young boy so excited.

“I’m Eli, you must be
Dallas?”

He nodded, his mouth slightly opened, his eyes still wide.

“Dallas Graham, where are your manners, son?”

The feminine voice from the porch grabbed their attention. Eli clasped his hand on the boy’s shoulder in support before turning to the stairs. As he raised his own eyes, slowly taking in the slim woman, he was thankful he still had his aviators on so she couldn’t see him stare. The tight denim jeans she had on sat low on her hips and hugged her just right, and the short-sleeved cotton shirt she wore was fitted, showing off her figure. The top two buttons were undone, revealing only a hint of the creamy skin below it. Her hair was pulled into a loose bun, leaving her neck open and calling to him. Auburn tendrils curled around her porcelain face, and there was a gentle smile spread across her mouth that reached the corners of her eyes. She had a romantic beauty to her, reminiscent of the actresses of decades past and a gracefulness that was evident in even the smallest of her movements.

For the first time in years, he was speechless. Scratch that—for the first time
ever
.