The Heart's Victory (8 page)

“Nice guy!” Foxy repeated and rolled her eyes at the thought.

Still grinning, Lance took the sunglasses from her and perched them back on her nose before walking away.

***

Over the next three months, Foxy used all her skill to avoid Lance Matthews. From Monaco to Holland to France to England to Germany, she made certain to stay out of his way. Whenever possible, she coupled herself with Pam. She felt if she was not alone, Lance would not find the opportunity to approach her for a personal conversation. Her pleasure with her success was slightly marred by the fact that he did not appear to be fretting for lack of personal conversations. Their schedule since Monaco had been tight. For the racing team there had been little time for anything but work and travel, meals and sleep. It was a hard, demanding circuit, packed with qualifying heats and practice runs and races. Away from the track, the hotels all began to seem the same. But each grid had a separate identity. Each was different, with its own problems, its own dangers.

With the end of summer came Italy and the Monza circuit. The grueling months in Europe had taught Foxy an important lesson. When the season was over, she would never follow the circuit again. Her days of moving from town to town, from pit area to pit area, were over. With each race her nerves had become more highly strung, her composure more difficult to maintain. It became apparent to her that the two years she had spent away from racing had left their mark. She could never be a part of it again. She knew if she ever came back to Italy, it would be to visit Rome or Venice, not Monza.

With night came utter silence. All during the day, the track had vibrated with the practice runs. As Foxy sat alone in the deserted grandstands she thought she could hear ghost cars whiz past, feel their phantom breeze. Sixty years of speed. The sky was faultlessly clear with a white moon and gleaming blue stars. The musky scent of the forest drifted to her, almost crowding the air. Behind her came the quiet chirp of crickets and small insects. It was warm, without the burning heat of the long, sun-filled day. There were no harsh fumes, no screaming tires or thundering engines. It was a night for promises and secrets, a night for romance and soft words. With a sigh, Foxy closed her eyes on the thought of Lance.
More than anything else,
she realized wearily,
I need a little peace.

A hand on her shoulder brought her quickly back to the present. “Oh, Kirk!” She placed a hand to her drumming heart and smiled up at him. “I didn't hear you.”

“What are you doing out here all alone?”

“I wanted some quiet,” she told him as he dropped down beside her. “There's too much going on back at the hotel. What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “I like the track the night before a race.” Carelessly he leaned back, then propped his feet on the seat in front of him. She saw he wore his old, reliable sneakers. “This is a fast track. We'll set a record tomorrow.” He spoke with the absolute confidence of fact, not speculation.

“Did Charlie fix the exhaust problem?” Foxy studied his profile. Her mind was not on the car, not on the race, but on him. As in the past, she tried to draw on his confidence to soothe her own nerves.

“Yeah. Has Lance been bothering you?”

The question was so abrupt and so unexpected, Foxy took nearly a full minute to react. “What?” The one syllable was spoken with complete incredulity.

“You heard me.” She heard the annoyance in Kirk's tone as he shifted in his seat to face her. His features were set and serious. “Is he bothering you?”

“Bothering me,” Foxy repeated carefully. She ran the tip of her tongue between her teeth, then lifted her brows. “Maybe you should be more specific.”

“Damn it, you know what I mean.” Exasperated, Kirk rose and stared out at the track. His hands retreated into his pockets. Foxy could feel his discomfort and marveled at it. She understood Kirk well enough to know he rarely put himself into an uncomfortable position. “I've seen the way he's been looking at you,” he muttered, and she heard the scowl in his voice. “If he's been doing more than looking, I want to know about it.”

Though Foxy clasped both hands over her mouth, the giggle escaped. When Kirk whirled around, his face was a study in fury. Even in the dark, she could see his eyes glitter with temper. She pressed her lips together firmly, but her laughter burst out of its confines. She could only shake her head and struggle to compose herself as he glared at her.

“What the devil's so funny?” he demanded.

“Kirk, I . . . ” She was forced to stop and cough, then take several deep breaths before she could trust herself to speak. “I'm sorry, I just didn't expect you to—to ask me something like that.” She swallowed hard as another giggle threatened. “I'm twenty-three years old.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he tossed back, watching her eyes shine with good-humored affection. He felt like a total fool and scowled more deeply.

“Kirk, when I was sixteen, you never paid a bit of attention to any of the boys who hung around the track, and now you're—”

“Lance isn't a boy.” Kirk cut her off furiously, then ran a hand through his hair. The thick locks, sprang back in precisely the same manner Foxy's did. “And you're not sixteen anymore.”

“So I've been told,” she murmured.

Letting out a frustrated breath, Kirk jammed his hands farther into his pockets. “I should've paid more attention to you when you were.”

“Kirk.” The humor left her voice as she rose to stand beside him. “It's nice of you to be concerned, but it's unnecessary.” Touched both by his caring and his discomposure, Foxy laid her head on his shoulder.
What an odd man he is,
she thought,
with such unexpected scraps of sweetness.

“It is necessary,” he muttered, wishing he didn't feel obligated to pursue the matter. He was closer to Lance than to any other person in his life other than his sister. With Lance, there was the added bond of manhood and shared adventures. It was some of these adventures that prodded Kirk on when he wanted nothing more than to drop the entire subject. “You're still my sister,” he added, half to himself. “Even if you have grown up a bit.”

“A bit?” Foxy grinned again. A reckless mischief gleamed in her eyes, reminding Kirk uncomfortably of himself. “Kirk, I passed ‘a bit' at twenty.”

“Look, Foxy,” Kirk cut in impatiently. “I know Lance. I know how he . . . ” He hesitated and swore.

“Operates?” Foxy supplied and earned a fierce glare. Her laughter was unavoidable, but she tempered it by kissing his cheek. “Stop worrying about me. I learned a little more than photography in college.” When Kirk's expression failed to alter, she kissed his other cheek and continued. “If it makes you feel any better, Lance isn't bothering me. If he were, I could handle it quite nicely, I promise you, but he isn't. We hardly speak.” She tried to be pleased by the statement, but found herself annoyed.

“He looks,” Kirk mumbled. His sister's scent lifted on the faint breeze. Her hair had been soft and fragrant against his cheek. His frown deepened. “He looks a lot.”

“You're imagining things,” Foxy said firmly, then tried to draw Kirk away from the subject of Lance Matthews. She found speaking of him brought back disturbing memories. “Tell me, Mr. Fox,” she began, mimicking the tone of a sports reporter, “are you always so introspective the night before a race?”

He did not answer at once, but simply stared out over the track. Foxy wondered what he saw there that she didn't. “It occurred to me recently that a woman's better off not getting involved with a man like me. She'll only get hurt.” Restlessly he shifted, then turned to her. Foxy studied him curiously. There was something in his eyes she could not understand, and it puzzled her that he seemed tense. She sensed it was more than the race that was pulling at his nerves. “Lance is a lot like me,” he continued. “I don't want you hurt. He could do that, maybe not meaning to, but he could do it.”

“Kirk, I . . . ”

“I know him, Foxy.” He pushed away the beginnings of her objections and placed his hands on her shoulders. “No woman's ever been more important to him than cars. I don't think it's smart to get mixed up with men like us. There's always going to be another race, Foxy, another car, another track. It pushes everything and everyone else into the backseat. I don't want that for you. I know it's what you've always had. I've never done the things I should've done for you, and I . . . ”

“No, Kirk.” She stopped him by flinging her arms around his neck. “No, don't.” Foxy buried her face in his shoulder the same way she had years before in her hospital bed. He had been her rock when her world had crumbled away from its foundations. “You did everything you could.”

“Did I?” Kirk sighed and hugged her tighter. “If I had it to do again, I know I'd do exactly the same things. But that doesn't make them right.”

“It was right for us.” She lifted her face to look at him with glistening eyes. “It was right for me.”

Letting out a long breath, he tousled her hair. “Maybe.” After cupping her face in his hands, he kissed both her cheeks. His mustache whispered along her skin causing her to smile at the old familiarity. “I never expected you to grow up, I guess. And I never thought you'd be beautiful and that I'd have to worry about men. I should've paid more attention while it was happening. You never complained.”

“What about? I was happy.” When he dropped his hands from her face, she took them in hers. His palms were hard and she felt the faint line of a scar along the back. She remembered that he had gotten it in Belgium eight years before in a minor crash. “Kirk,” she spoke quickly, wanting to put his mind at ease, “we were both where we needed to be. I don't regret anything, and I don't want you to. Okay?”

She stood still as he studied her face. His eyes had long since adjusted to the night, enabling him to see her features clearly. He realized she had grown up right under his nose. Somehow the woman who looked back at him roused his protective instincts profoundly, while the girl had always seemed somehow indestructible. Perhaps he understood the pitfalls of womanhood, while those of childhood were a mystery to him. It was an uncharacteristic gesture when he lifted her fingers to his lips, yet it was a gesture that flooded Foxy's eyes with warm tears. “I love you,” he said simply. “Don't do that,” he warned as he brushed a tear from her lashes. “I don't have anything to mop them up with. Come on.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and began to walk with her from the grandstands. “I'll buy you a cup of coffee and a hamburger. I'm starved.”

“Pizza,” she countered. “This is Italy.”

“Whatever,” he said agreeably as they moved without haste through the moonlight.

“Kirk.” Foxy tilted her face, and now her eyes shone with mischief. “If Lance does bother me, will you beat him up?”

“Sure.” Kirk grinned and tugged on her hair. “As soon as the season's over.”

Foxy laughed. “That's what I figured.”

***

It was just after eleven when they walked down the hall of the hotel to their rooms. Pam heard Foxy's laugh and the low answering sound of her brother's. Nibbling on her lip, she waited for the sounds of their doors closing. She badly needed to talk to Foxy, to have someone laugh and joke and take her mind off Kirk Fox. For weeks Pam had been able to think of little but him. As they had moved from country to country, from race to race, he had grown remote. He spoke to her rarely, and when he did, he was unmistakably aloof. It became apparent that he had lost interest in the flirtation he had initiated. His coolness might have caused her some minor annoyance or even some amusement under normal circumstances. But Pam had discovered that the circumstances here were far from normal. As Kirk had gradually grown more taciturn she had grown gradually more tense. Sleeping had become a major feat and eating a monumental task. Her tension had come to an unexpected climax when Kirk stepped from his car during the final laps of the race in France. Their eyes met for only one brief instant, but abruptly the realization had come to her that she was in love with him. The very thought had terrified her; he was so different from any of the men she had been attracted to in the past. But this was not mere attraction, and the old rules were insignificant. Briefly Pam had considered chucking the assignment and returning to the States. Professional pride refused to allow her this convenient escape. Personal pride kept her aloof from him. She did not want to be another of his trophies, another victory for Kirk Fox.

Hearing no sound in the hall, Pam drew a thin robe over her nightgown, deciding to slip down to Foxy's room. The instant she opened the door, she froze. Kirk walked silently down the hall. His head was bent but it snapped up immediately as she made a small sound of surprise. Stopping, he surveyed her carefully with eyes that held no expression. Framed in the doorway, Pam felt her breath backing up in her lungs. She seemed to have lost the power to force it out, just as she had lost the power to command her feet to move back into the room. His eyes held hers as he began to walk again, and though her fingers tightened on the knob, she did not retreat. Calm settled over her suddenly. This, she knew, was what she wanted, what she needed. When he stopped in front of her, they stood unsmiling, studying each other. The light from her room bathed them in a pale yellow glow.

“I've walked by your door a hundred times the last few months.”

“I know.”

“I'm not walking by tonight.” There was a challenge in his voice, a hint of anger around his mouth. “I'm coming in.”

“I know,” Pam said again, then stepped back to allow him to enter. Her calm acceptance caused him to hesitate. She saw doubt flickering in his eyes.