Thunderstruck (6 page)

“No need to pick me up,” she said. “I’ll meet you somewhere.”

Rationalization. Her power tool of choice.

S
HELBY WALKED INTO
the Pillar House at exactly seven o’clock. Mick knew she wouldn’t be late. Although he half expected jeans and a T-shirt, he was certain that Shelby Jackson ran her life on time.

But she had taken the time to change and, he noticed when she spied him sitting at the bar nursing a Glenlivet on the rocks, she’d even put on some makeup. As he got up to meet her, his gaze slid over the jacket she wore and down a pair of elegant black trousers.

She pulled up her pants at the ankles and revealed a very sexy pair of high-heeled leather boots. “No rivets,” she said.

“I’m honored.” He helped her out of her jacket and practically moaned at a sweater the color of sweet cream butter cut low enough to reveal a delicious inch of cleavage and tight enough to conform to the curves of her breasts. “Brilliant,” he whispered, not hiding the note of admiration in his voice. “And to think I thought you might stand me up.”

“You don’t know me very well,” she said as he dropped a bill on the bar and left his drink behind. “My word is good.”

As the hostess led the way, he put a sure hand on her lower back, liking the way it dipped and fit in his palm.

As he had requested, they were seated at an intimate table in the back, a raging fireplace on one side, a frosted window looking out over hills and city lights on the other.

“So you avoided me all afternoon,” he said after the hostess gave them menus and a wine list.

“I was busy.” She opened the leather folder and smiled. “And you were not exactly lonely. The entire Mick Churchill Fan Club was waiting in line to show you their specialty. Good heavens, you even have Kenny Holt enamored of your fame.”

“You got a problem with that driver,” Mick said.

She put her menu on the table and furrowed her brow. “Is it that obvious?”

“I’m afraid so. He doesn’t really want to be driving for Thunder Racing, and the message is buried in the subtext of everything he says.”

“He jokes a lot,” she said vaguely.

But Mick shook his head. “Trust me on this. He’s not doing you any favors.”

She let out a long sigh. “I know that. I’ve known it for a while. But Country Peanut Butter loves him and they’re the sponsor.”

“You’re the team owner.”

“We’re small enough that we can’t really command the best drivers in NASCAR. But,” she added brightly, “I’m very excited about Clayton Slater. You’ll meet him tomorrow. You’ll like him.”

“I’m sure I will. I like all competitors.” At her quizzical look, he added, “I know you don’t believe me. I know you think your sport of racing is unique and unlike anything played in the world today. And in some sense it is. But once you understand the mind-set of an athlete in one sport, you can pretty much understand them all.”

She looked down, straightening her place setting and thinking. “I don’t know if I buy that.”

“Rocco the Reporter did and that’s all that matters.” When she looked up, he smiled. “I’ll convince you eventually.”

The waiter came, and Mick ordered a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape and listened to the specials. When they were alone again, he put both elbows on the table, balanced his chin on his knuckles and looked right into her eyes. “Can I ask you a very personal question?”

She looked wary but lifted one shoulder. “I might not answer, but go ahead.”

“Is that Winston Churchill quote really your motto?”

She blinked at him, obviously expecting something more difficult to answer. “Never, never, never quit? Yes, it is. And it was my father’s. He didn’t know the meaning of
give up
and would rather slit his wrists than get a DNF.”

“A DNF?”

She laughed softly. “See? You didn’t learn everything about racing yet. It stands for Did Not Finish.”

“I see.” He reached behind to his back pocket and pulled out his billfold. “I want to show you something.”

He slid a worn yellow paper from its permanent home behind his Manchester United ID card. “Look.”

She took the business card and held it to the light, sucking in a quick breath when she read it. “Winston Churchill?”

“My father won that in a poker game. It’s real. Turn it over.”

She did and read the words written in black script. The waiter came and opened the wine, and while he poured Shelby examined the card, reading the back. Mick knew the words by heart.

Never, never, never give in.

When they were alone, she handed him the card. “Who wrote that? Winston or your father?”

“I did. But as I mentioned when we met, Winston said it first.”

“Is it your personal motto?”

“It’s my personal philosophy.”

“And your father’s?”

He managed a wry smile. “Hardly.” At her intrigued look, he took the confession one step further. A step, he realized, he hadn’t taken with anyone in many, many years. But something in his gut told him that Shelby would understand and that it would give her some much-needed insight. “My father killed himself when I was a lad. He had one too many gambling debts.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

He slipped the card into his billfold. “I thought you’d appreciate the significance.”

“Of your card or your father’s suicide?”

He looked at her. “Both.”

“I remember seeing pictures of your mother in your biography online. Did she ever remarry?”

“No, she just raised all her kids the best she could.”

“All?” Shelby frowned at him and he instantly knew he’d slipped. “I thought there were just two. I read you have a younger sister.”

“Actually, I have a brother, too. Kip. Doesn’t get much press coverage.” At least not if Mick had anything to say about it.

“What does he do?”

“Bits and pieces of lots of things.” Mostly ruin his life and Mick’s.

“Funny, I never read about him in all those articles, never saw him in the pictures of your family.”

Not if his publicist was doing her job, she wouldn’t. “I didn’t tell you about my father to elicit sympathy or to let you know you don’t have the market cornered on miserable pasts,” he explained, wanting the subject off Kip. “But I thought it was ironic that we share a similar philosophy about quitting. Or not, as the case may be.”

“Kind of hard to win a power struggle when neither one will quit,” she said, her lips lifting into the beginning of a smile.

“This doesn’t have to be a power struggle, Shelby. Merely a business arrangement.”

She shook her head. “Cutting into my business is a power struggle. And I don’t like to lose.”

“Neither do I.” He raised his wineglass to hers. “So this should be quite interesting.”

She tapped his glass but didn’t drink. Instead she leaned forward and whispered, “But you’re wrong about one thing, Mick.”

He looked questioningly at her.

“There was nothing miserable about my childhood. It was wonderful. It was unusual, I’ll give you that, but it was never miserable. Not for very long anyway.”

“What was it like being raised in racing?”

She lifted one delicate shoulder. “What you’d expect it to be. Dirty. Fun. Crazy. I was surrounded by men and machines, speed and noise, rubber, paint, oil, grease and a healthy dose of danger.” Her coppery eyes sparkled in the candlelight, and that sweet flush rose up from the V-neck of her sweater.

“You know, Shelby, something’s been bothering me since I met you.”

Her hand froze as she lifted a glass of wine. “What’s that?”

“Why don’t you call Ernie ‘Grandpa’?”

She looked half-relieved at the question, setting the drink down without taking a sip. “I get asked that a lot. Because everyone calls him Ernie. Since I was little, I never heard him called anything else and I guess I just wanted to fit in. I even refer to my dad as Thunder sometimes because everyone else did.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m one of the guys.”

“Hardly.”

“I appreciate the compliment, but what I’m saying is that I’m part of this…family. This…” She closed her fingers together as if she palmed an imaginary ball. “This little community.” She tapered her gaze to a hard stare. “You’d never understand.”

But he did. He’d been on a team as long as he could remember. But making that point wasn’t important now. “I don’t want to take any of that away from you, Shelby. I want to make sure you get to keep it.”

She closed her fingers over the stem of the wineglass. “You’ll change it.”

“From what I understand, you’ll lose it if you don’t change.”

“That’s not necessarily true. I’m doing exactly what we need to do to keep pace with the sport. Beyond that, I don’t want to change. I don’t want to run a megashop. I don’t want to be driven by sponsors and business and corporate whims.”

“Why not? What would be wrong with getting to the top of your sport?”

“I can see that argument and I guess it’s stupid to try and fight it, but it has to do with being a racer. I’m a racer.”

He drew back an inch. “You drive, too?”

“Nope. But if you’re around us long enough, you’ll find out there’s a difference between a driver and a racer. In fact, there are all kinds of people from mechanics to the media hanging around the track, but only a handful get it. Only a few are racers. The rest are wannabes and pretenders, hangers-on and posers.”

“How can you tell the difference?”

“To a racer, this is a way of life. The cracks in the asphalt, the rhythm of the engine, the smell of the garage—it’s so deep in your blood you don’t know any other way to live.”

“Why couldn’t you still be a racer and have a big, corporate megateam, as you call it?”

“I guess you could. It just seems like every day, every season, there are less racers and more…other people.”

“Like me.”

“Like you.”

He swallowed, debating how much to tell her. Enough so that she knew his motivation wasn’t entirely selfish but not enough so that she could use the whole situation against him.

“You know, Shelby, I’m British, and by nature we’re not big gut-spillers.”

She frowned, leaning forward in interest. “And? You want to spill yours?”

“I want you to understand that I wouldn’t launch this undertaking if I didn’t have very compelling reasons.”

She just looked at him. “Other than trying your hand in a new sport and getting your picture on the cover of a racing magazine?”

“This is not about my ego.”

Her look was rich with doubt.

“Really. This is about…” Saving the one thing of worth his father ever accomplished. “Protecting my reputation and my word.”

“Your word? Who did you give your word to?”

“Someone…” Someone with power, pull and an arsenal of weapons they weren’t afraid to use. “Someone I respect.”

“A family member?”

“In a sense, yes.” After all, he was doing this to protect his brother and save something important to his mother. This was inextricably tied with family. “And you, of all people, understand the importance of family.”

She nodded slowly. “Of course I do.”

When the time was right, he would tell her what had happened. Until then, the truth would only scare her and he’d lose the little progress he’d made so far.

“All right then,” he said as though the personal-revelation course was good and over. “Tell me about racing. What’s the best day you ever had on the track?”

Her eyes sparkled just enough to let him know his question hit the net.

S
OMEWHERE BETWEEN THE
filet mignon and the raspberry-chocolate angel torte, Shelby did the stupidest thing she could remember since she’d pushed for an ill-timed pit stop that cost her team a top-ten finish at Charlotte.

She relaxed.

Maybe it was the wine, but she’d barely finished a glass. Maybe it was the atmosphere, a scene so romantic it all but offered a bed. Maybe it was the man.

Oh, yeah. Definitely the man.

How did he do it? How did he ease her away from her cautious, protective, defensive mind-set and get her to talk?

He took a single raspberry, dipped it in chocolate and slid it between his lips, a move as sensual as anything she’d ever seen. And then he capped that off with a simple question that just about folded her in half.

“What makes the shock absorber so important?”

Holy hell, who could stay sane in the face of that?

She shifted on her chair and tried to concentrate on the answer, not the body-melting heat emanating from the other side of the table.

“The shock controls the car by controlling how fast the wheels move.” He swallowed, and Shelby’s throat went dry watching his move. She wanted to…touch it.

“Can you explain that?”

No. There was no explanation. She just wanted to. “In essence, a shock controls time. You can add or take away little metal washers that increase or reduce the amount of force it takes to push that shock. Your spring controls the weight, but the shock controls the time.”

His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth. “I see.”

“You do not.”

He laughed. “I see that you have a crumb on your lip.” He reached across the table and burned her bottom lip with one touch of his fingertip. “Now let’s talk about tires.”

She eased out of his touch. Oh, Lord above. Was this heaven or hell? “This is exactly what you did this afternoon.”

“Wiped your mouth?”

“Wiped out defenses. You had that reporter eating out of the palm of your hand.”

He held his hand out, palm up. “Wanna try?”

Yes, she did. Instead she gave him a quick five. “You have a skill for eliminating defenses.”

“I wasn’t much of a defense guy in my day, but I do know the three Ds.”

She lifted an eyebrow in question.

“Deny, delay and destroy.”

She took the remaining raspberry. “Sounds deadly.”

“Can be, but the only thing you’re killing is your opponents’ chances of scoring. Do you want to talk about football now?”

“More than anything.” Well, not
anything
. But it would have to be less of a turn-on than sharing chocolate and tire strategy with the best-looking man she’d ever met.

“Okay. What do you want to know? The rules? The players? The terminology?” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Or the real secrets, like how to avoid getting nutmegged?”

She smiled at the term but didn’t let it deflect her. “When did you start playing? Very young?”

She took a sip of coffee and silently congratulated herself on not asking the real question that reverberated in her head: Do you have a girlfriend? At least, this week?

“I kicked my first football at five years old and never stopped playing for one minute. I never dreamed it would make me rich and famous. I just wanted to win.” He dipped his head and lowered his voice. “Just like you and racing.”

“There’s plenty of pressure for fame and fortune for some in racing,” she responded. “It’s not exactly the life for a person who wants anonymity.”

He acknowledged that with a shrug. “I don’t necessarily want complete anonymity. I like a little limelight, I just don’t want to be blinded by it.”

The waiter handed him the check, and Mick slid him a credit card in a move so fast she barely saw it.

“This was supposed to be my treat,” she said. “I’m thanking you for helping me out of a jam with the newspaper.”

He admonished her with a look. “The dinner is mine and I hope we have many more.”

“You only have a couple weeks, Mick, and more than half of that is in Daytona.”

“No one eats there?”

She laughed. “A turkey leg, leaning against a tool cart. No raspberry tortes for my team.”

“I’ve heard so much about this race, this track,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

She gave him a slow smile. “Trust me, it’s nothing like you’ve ever experienced before.”

“Really?” He brightened. “Tell me.”

“Impossible to describe it, really. I guarantee it will take your breath away and make you scream and turn you inside out and give you a thrill like you’ve never known before.”

He grinned. “Sounds an awful lot like sex.”

She’d walked right into that. “Better.”

“Then you haven’t had sex with the right person.”

Like the one sitting across the table.

Since every other response evaporated from her brain, she asked the first question that came to mind. “Where are you staying in Daytona?” As soon as the words were out, she could have kicked herself. “I mean, how did you get a hotel room so late?”

“I didn’t.”

So he wouldn’t be there? “You’re not going?”

“Oh, I’m going,” he replied as he signed the credit card receipt. “I just decided to opt for convenience and got a motor coach to park inside the track. A special lot near the garages.”

Her jaw unhinged. “You’re in the Drivers and Owners lot?”

“Yes, that’s it. The D and O lot, she called it.”

“How the heck did you manage that?”

“I did a favor for someone in the travel department.”

Janie. She would die for this. “Don’t tell me. He’s four foot three and his name is Sam and he’s a soccer fan.”

He grinned. “Cute kid. Do you have a problem with me being there?”

She almost snorted. “I think we’ve pretty much covered my problems with you.”

He handed the leather folder to the waiter, thanked him and regarded Shelby as she stood. He rose to help her into her jacket. “Nice of you to put all those problems with me aside to have dinner tonight.”

“Who said I put them aside?” She smiled and left the table.

In a moment he was next to her to open and hold the heavy restaurant door as an icy gust of wind blew in. “But I think we made great progress, don’t you?” he asked.

“Progress? I haven’t agreed to anything. Oh—” She lifted her face, closed her eyes and let a few lacy flakes hit her cheeks. “This might be the last snowfall of winter.”

His fingertip grazed her cheeks, and goose bumps that had nothing to do with the weather erupted under her leather jacket. He was so close to her ear she could feel his breath. She didn’t dare turn toward the scent and warmth of him. Because then she might do something even more stupid than relaxing.

She’d kiss him. Again. When no one was watching.

But when her truck pulled up, she stepped away and thanked him politely for dinner.

He slipped some money to the valet and held the door for her. “There’s just enough snow to make the roads dangerous. Why don’t I follow you home?”

“No.” She said it much too fast. “Thank you. I’m a great driver, and this thing—” she tapped the roof of the undersize truck “—is small but mighty. Thank you.”

Once again he had her trapped between the front seat and the open door. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’re afraid of me.”

She managed a narrow-eyed gaze. “I’m afraid, all right. Afraid of you sending my well-ordered life into a spinout,” she admitted. “But I won’t let that happen.”

His gaze moved slowly from eye to eye, down to her mouth, then back up to meet her warning look. “You can’t control everything.”

“I can try.”

All she would have to do was lift herself one inch on her toes and their mouths would touch. She’d feel the scratch of his beard growth against her chin, the softness of his full lips and certainly the taste of his tongue.

She kept her heels firm to the ground. “I can control me.”

His chest was so close that if she took a deep breath, their jackets would touch. His arms would automatically encircle her. She’d feel every muscle and she had a sneaking suspicion he’d want her to.

She didn’t breathe.

Seconds crawled and snowflakes fell and his car pulled up behind them. But neither one of them moved until he put his mouth against her ear and whispered, “Next time we’ll talk transmissions.”

Before she could breathe again, he was gone.

What a shame. Because, to be honest, there was nothing in the world Shelby wanted more than to talk transmissions. And to kiss Mick Churchill.

For all her heartfelt speeches about racers and reality and the joy of breathing car fumes, she still had to admit the truth every time she checked her rearview mirror all the way home.

She was disappointed that he hadn’t followed. Even if Ernie never knew.

“D
ID YOU GO OUT TO
dinner with Mick last night?”

Shelby kept her fingers on the keyboard and frowned, not turning to look at Ernie, but analyzed the edge in his voice. Was that anger? Hope? Surprise? She couldn’t tell.

“I was just being a good corporate citizen and getting to know the barbarians at the gate.”

“He’s no barbarian, but you don’t need to take him to dinner.”

“He took me.” She turned to see Ernie settle into the guest chair and tap back his Country Peanut Butter cap with his finger. She clicked her mouse to close the spreadsheet. Ernie would just be upset if he knew how bad their finances really were. “I was doing what you asked me to do—giving him a chance to convince me he’s the best thing since Velcro.” She paused a beat. “He’s not.”

He chuckled. “What’s Thunder say?”

“You there, Daddy?” She wiggled her butt and the chair made a pathetic grunt. “He says go away and let Shelby finish this budget.”

“Can’t go away, much as I want to. We got a problem, Shel.”

“We got a lot of them. What is it today?”

“Kenny Holt.”

The way he said the driver’s name yanked her attention from the spreadsheet, and the echo of Mick’s warning sounded in her head. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Maybe nothin’. Maybe treason. I know he isn’t happy about Clay Slater joinin’ the team.”

“Well, he has to stop acting like a jealous five-year-old on the playground and get to work.”

“He’s moanin’ that everything good is going over to the Kincaid car and all the cost-cutting is comin’ out of the Country car.”

She blew out a breath and cocked her head toward her computer. “He only needs to peruse my spreadsheets to see he’s wrong.”

“Maybe. Maybe he needs to have his butt kicked out of here.”

She shook her head at Ernie’s signature impulsiveness. “He’s the best driver we’re gonna get, Ernie. We can start thinking about next year, but this year we’re locked in. I’ll talk to him.”

Ernie clasped his hands behind his neck and stared at her. “I’d like Mick to talk to him.”

A pinch of resentment squeezed and she sat forward. “That’s not necessary.”

Ernie lifted one gray brow. “Maybe somebody else needs to stop acting like a jealous five-year-old on the playground.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it. “What could Mick possibly tell him?”

“It’s not what he says. It’s what he doesn’t say.”

Ernie could be so cryptic. “Sorry. Does not compute.”

“Just having Mick Churchill involved in team decisions sends a very loud message to our whole staff, especially the drivers.”

Shelby resisted the overwhelming urge to slam her fist onto the desk in disagreement. Instead she crossed her arms and leaned forward. “How’s that, Ernie?”

“If Mick’s looking for an opportunity in NASCAR and we’re it, then everyone knows his fame and draw is going to give us more money and more sponsorship. Then we can start talking to free-agent drivers who won’t piss and moan their way through our garage.”

She considered that for a moment. Her consent was still needed for the deal to go through, but since Mick was hanging around torturing her on a daily basis, maybe she should use him. For something other than fueling her midnight fantasies.

“You know,” Ernie added, “maybe a little guy-to-guy talk might get Kenny to be a little more responsive.”

“Ernie!” She lost the fight and slapped her hand hard on the Formica desk. “Since when are you a sexist pig?”

He just shook his head, ignoring her anger the way he always did. “I’m a realist, Shel. Looking for every advantage on and off the track.”

And so should she be. But the idea that a man could persuade Kenny to behave better than she could really irked. “Maybe we could have the conversation together.” See? She could compromise. “I’ll set up a meeting.”

Ernie rubbed his clean-shaven cheek and regarded her warily. “They’re already meetin’, Shel.”

She swore softly under her breath and shoved her chair away from the desk. It squealed. “Shut up, Dad. I’m going to join them.”

Ernie called out, “I think they were going to work out.”

Oh, sure. Pumping iron and sharing testosterone-laden sweat in the gym. No place for
her
there. Well, hell. She strode purposefully through the fab shop and into paint and body. Just beyond that, a weight room and a small basketball court the crew used for blowing off steam. She’d follow them right into the locker room if she had to.

She approached the weight room door at a light jog just the instant that it opened and went—“Oh!”—smack into a half-naked man. She drew back, but powerful hands caught her shoulders.

She’d seen half-naked men before—but not anything quite like this.

“Didn’t see you flying at me, Shelby.”

From her vantage point, all she could absorb was…skin. Muscle. Planes and angles and rips and a dusting of golden hair. An endless, cut,
sinful
torso with stomach muscles that gave a whole new meaning to a V-8, and it had nothing to do with engines or juice. And if that was what testosterone smelled like, bottle it.

She backed up and looked at Mick’s face, fighting the impulse to brush a sweat-dampened lock from his face. “Are you meeting with Kenny?”

“We’re done.” Mick still held her by the shoulders. “What are you doing here?”