The Heart's Victory

by Nora Roberts

  the improved safety features. A driver’s much more protected than he used to be. Fatalities are the exception, not the rule.”

  “Statistics are just numbers on paper. They don’t mean anything to me.” She smiled as his brows drew together, then shook her head. “You can’t understand because you’re one of them. You’re a unique breed. You all say you race for a variety of reasons, but there’s really only one. You race because you love it. It’s your mother and mistress and best friend. Drivers flirt with death, break their bones, singe their skins, and get back on the grid before the smoke’s cleared. In the hospital one day, in the cockpit the next; I’ve seen you do it. It’s like a religion, and I can’t condemn it any more than I can comprehend it. Some people call it a science, but that’s a lie. I’ve lived with it all my life, and it never makes any more sense. That’s because it’s emotional, and emotions rarely make sense.” Foxy leaned her head against the cool glass of the window and stared into the rain. “I keep hoping one day he’ll have had enough. Someday he’ll find something else to take its place.” When she looked back at Lance, her eyes were steady and studying. “I always wondered . . . Why did you quit?”

  “I didn’t love it anymore.” With a half smile, he reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “I’m glad,” she said simply, smiling back at him. Toying with her coffee, she lapsed into silence a moment. “Lance, you won’t say anything about this to Kirk?” Foxy lifted her eyes and used them shamelessly.

  “No, I won’t say anything.” He watched relief flutter over her face before she lifted her cup. “But, Fox.” The cup paused at her lips. “I’d like you to skip the last races in the circuit.”

  “I can’t do that.” She shook her head as she tasted the coffee. It was strong and cold, causing her to wrinkle her nose and set it back down. “Not only because of Kirk, but because I have a commitment to Pam.” Foxy leaned back and watched Lance frown at her through a haze of cheroot smoke. “It’s my job to photograph these races, and my work is very important to me.”

  “And when the season’s over?”

  It was her turn to frown. Her eyes reflected the gray light coming through the window. “I have my own life, my own work. I have to resolve to myself that I can’t be a part of Kirk’s life. I’m not equipped for it. My emotions are too near the surface. And I’m a coward,” she added briskly, then started to slide from the booth. “I have to get back.”

  Lance was out of the booth before her and blocking her way. Even as her eyes rose to his in question, his arms came around her. He drew her close, nestling her head against his chest. “Oh, don’t,” she murmured and shut her eyes. A treacherous warmth flooded through her. “I can’t handle you when you’re kind.” She could feel his lips trail over her hair while his hand moved gently up and down her spine. “Lance, please, if you’re not careful I’ll start flooding the place with tears, and you’ve already terrified the waiter.”

  “Tears?” He spoke quietly, as if considering. “You know, Foxy, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you cry, not once in all the years I’ve known you.”

  “I have an aversion to humiliating myself in public.” She felt cozy and pampered and entirely too right in his arms. “Lance, please don’t be nice to me. I could get used to it.” She lifted her face, but her smile never materialized. She could read his intent in his eyes. “Oh, help,” she murmured as his mouth touched hers.

  There was no need to brace herself for the explosion because his lips were gentle. There was no demand, no fire, just a lingering tenderness. Even as she felt her bones melt into submission, she felt oddly protected. The slow, soft embrace confused her, disarmed her, seduced her more successfully than his most ardent demand. His lips were warm, tasting hers without pressure, giving only comfort and pleasure. She had not known he was capable of such poignant tenderness. Because he was not asking, she gave more freely. The kiss lengthened, but remained a quiet gift. Reality slipped away leisurely, leaving Foxy with only Lance inside her world. When her mouth was free, she could not speak. Her eyes asked him questions.

  “I’m not quite sure what to do with you,” he murmured. Taking a handful of her hair, he let it run through his fingers. “It was simpler before I found out you had a fragile side. I doubt that I deal very well with frailty.”

  Nonplussed, Foxy bent to lift her camera gear. She had not felt fragile until he had touched her so gently. Knowing there was no safety in the feeling, she tried to shake it off. “I’m not frail at all,” she denied, then stood straight and faced him.

  A smile flickered over his face, lifting his mouth and lighting up his eyes. “You don’t like to be.”

  “I’m not,” she countered with a quick shake of her head. No one had ever made her feel that way before, and Foxy was afraid he would touch her, making her feel that way again. She knew from experience that only the strong survived intact.

  Lance studied her face before he took the camera case from her. “Humor me then,” he suggested, then closed his hand over hers to lead her outside.

  ***

  When the team returned to the States, Kirk led the competition for the world championship by five points. A win at Watkins Glen would give him the title. But through the high spirits and growing confusion, Foxy noticed subtle changes in the people closest to her. She herself had been preoccupied since the race in Italy. Something seemed to be nagging at the outside of her mind. The sensation did not make her uneasy as much as curious. She was accustomed to being in full control of her thoughts and feelings, but now it seemed part of her mind belonged to someone else. She found herself thinking more and more of Lance.

  Since their talk over coffee, he had treated her with a strange gentleness. Oddly the gentleness was mixed with an aloofness that only added to Foxy’s confusion. Since the kiss he had given her in the restaurant, Lance had not touched or indeed attempted to touch her again. Having never seen him be gentle or diffident before, Foxy began to wonder if she really knew him as well as she had assumed. Unwillingly she was drawn to him.

  She noted a change in her brother. He grew more quiet and more withdrawn. Because she had seen him go inside himself before, Foxy accepted it. She attributed his mood to pressure over the championship. In Pam, she saw a growing serenity. Often during the qualifying races and long practice sessions, Foxy wished for a portion of Pam’s absolute calm.

  The 2.3-mile course climbed and weaved through terrain that was alternately wooded and open. Trees were ablaze with autumn colors, which grew more vibrant with each passing day. Foxy had forgotten that New York possessed such rustic charm. October leaves stretched toward a hard blue sky and swirled and spun to the ground. There was the combination of biting air and heat from the sun so peculiar to fall. Of all the tracks she had seen in a decade of her life, Foxy favored Watkins Glen. There was something simple and basically American about it.

  She watched the race begin through the lens of her camera. The last one, she thought, and let out a long breath as she straightened. Beside her, Charlie Dunning stared after the cars while he rolled the stub of a fat cigar around in his mouth.

  “This’ll do it, Charlie.” Foxy smiled as he turned to her, squinting against the sun.

  “Don’t you get tired of taking pictures?” he demanded as he scowled at her camera.

  “Don’t you get tired of playing with cars and chasing women?” she countered sweetly.

  “Those are both worthwhile occupations.” He pinched her waist and snorted. “You’re getting skinnier.”

  “You’re getting cuter.” Foxy rubbed his grizzled beard with her palm and winked. “Wanna get married?”

  “You’re still a smart-aleck brat,” he grumbled as he turned a rosy pink under his whiskers.

  Grinning, Foxy dipped in his shirt pocket and pulled out a candy bar. “Let me know if you change your mind,” she told him as she unwrapped the chocolate and took a bite. “I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

  With grumbles and mutt
ers, Charlie moved away to lecture his mechanics.

  “That’s the first time Charlie’s blushed in his life,” Lance commented.

  Foxy twisted her head and watched him approach. An odd thrill sped up and down her spine before it spread out at the base of her neck. His dark gray turtleneck was snug, showing off his lean torso. His mouth was cocked in a half smile. Abruptly she felt the memory of its pressure on hers. The sensation was so genuine, so vital, she was certain he must feel it too. As she looked at him it was as though a thin veil lifted from her eyes, and she saw him clearly for the first time: the dark gray eyes that saw so much and told so little, the well-shaped mouth that could give such pleasure, the firm chin and rawboned features that were so much more interesting than clean good looks. This was why Scott Newman had seemed so dull, why no boy or man she had ever known had measured up in her eyes. There was only one, had always been only one man in her heart.

  I’ve never stopped loving him, she realized on a wave of alarm. I never will.

  “You all right?” He reached for her as the color drained from her face. The gesture, coupled with the concern in his voice, snapped her back to reality.

  “No...yes, yes, I’m fine.” Foxy brushed a hand over her eyes as if to clear the mists. “I—I was daydreaming, I suppose.”

  “About wedded bliss with Charlie?” The careless brush of his hand through her hair sent tremors speeding through her.

  “Charlie?” Blankly she glanced down at the chocolate bar in her hand. It was softening in the sunlight. “Oh, yes, Charlie. I was—I was teasing him.” She wished desperately for a moment alone to pull herself together. Her mind was whirling with new knowledge. All of her senses seemed to be competing with each other for dominance.

  Lance studied her with growing interest. “Are you sure you’re all right?” His brow lifted in that habitual gesture and disappeared under his hair. “You look rattled.”

  Rattled? she thought, nearly giggling at the understatement. I’m going under for the third time. “I’m fine,” she lied, then forced herself to smile. “How are you?”

  Cars wound around the “Ss” and zoomed past. Absently she wondered how many laps she had missed while she had been in her trance. “Just fine,” Lance murmured. There was a faint smile on his lips as he watched her. “Your chocolate’s melting.”

  Dutifully Foxy took a bite of the bar. “What will you do after the race is over?” she asked, hoping she sounded only mildly interested.

  “Relax.”

  “Yes.” A portion of the tension slid out of her shoulders as she glanced around. It would be over in a matter of hours. “I guess we all will. It’s been a long summer.”

  “Has it?” Lance retorted. Foxy wore a white Oxford shirt under a navy crew-neck sweater. Carelessly, Lance rubbed the collar between his thumb and forefinger while his eyes rested on hers. There was something proprietary in the casual gesture. “It doesn’t seem very long ago that you popped out from under the MG in Kirk’s garage.”

  “It seems like years to me,” Foxy murmured as she turned back to the track. Cars hurtled by, and the noise was one continuous demand—roar and whine. She could smell oil and gas and heated rubber. “It doesn’t seem to bother Pam at all,” Foxy commented as she spotted the small blond figure near the edge of the pits. “I suppose it’s easier if you’re not personally involved with one of the drivers.”

  With a quick laugh, Lance took her chin and examined her face. “Do you need glasses or have you been off in space for the past few weeks?”

  “What are you talking about?” Foxy was not ready to have him touch her and carefully backed away.

  “Foxy, my love, Pam is very personally involved with one of the drivers. Take off your blinders.”

  Eyes narrowed against the sun, Foxy turned to study Pam’s profile. She was watching the race steadily with her delicate hands tucked into the pockets of a spotless ivory blazer. Foxy turned back to Lance’s amused face with a sharp glance. “You don’t mean Kirk?” Of course he means Kirk, she realized even as she spoke. I’d have seen it myself if I hadn’t been so tangled up with Lance. “Oh dear,” she said on a sigh.

  “Don’t you approve, little sister?” Lance said dryly, then turned her back to face him. His hands remained light on her arms. “Kirk’s a big boy now.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” Foxy pushed her hair behind her back in a quick gesture of annoyance. “It’s not a matter of approving, and in any case, Pam’s wonderful.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Foxy turned and gestured to where Pam stood. Her hair was rolled neatly at the nape of her neck with only a few wisps dancing gently around her composed face. “Just look at her,” Foxy ordered impatiently. “That’s how Melanie Wilkes would look today. Lord, she even sounds like her, with that quiet, cultured voice. Pam’s tiny and fragile and should be serving tea in a drawing room. Kirk will swallow her whole.”

  “You’ve forgotten what a strong lady Melanie Wilkes was, Foxy.” His fingers trailed lightly over her cheek. “Think about it,” he advised before he turned and walked away.

  For some moments, Foxy stood still. Being in love with Lance was not a new sensation, but now she loved as a woman and not as a child. This was no fairy-tale crush but a real, encompassing need. She knew now the agonies and joys of being in his arms, knew the heat and pressure of his mouth. She could never, as she had at sixteen, be content with making him the hero of her dreams. And after tomorrow, she remembered and shut her eyes against the painful reality, I’ll very likely never see him again. Unable to deal with her situation, Foxy pushed it from her mind.

  And now, there’s Pam and Kirk, she reminded herself. Her loyalties at war, she walked over to the blond woman and stood beside her as the grid vibrated with passing cars.

  “He’s taken the lead a bit sooner than usual,” Pam commented as she followed the flash of Kirk’s car. “He wants badly to win this one.” With a light laugh, she turned to Foxy. “He wants badly to win every one.”

  “I know . . . he always has.” The calm blue eyes caused Foxy to take a long breath. “Pam, I know it’s none of my business, but I’d . . . ” With a sound of frustration, she turned back to the track and stuck her hands in her pockets. “Oh, I’m going to make a terrible fool of myself.”

  “You think I’m wrong for Kirk,” Pam supplied gently.

  “No!” Foxy’s eyes grew wide with distress. “I think Kirk’s wrong for you.”

  “How strangely alike the two of you are,” Pam murmured, studying Foxy’s earnest face. “He thinks so, too. But it doesn’t matter, I know he’s exactly right for me.”

  “Pam . . . ” Foxy shook her head as she searched for the right words. “Racing . . . ”

  “Will always come first,” Pam finished, then shrugged her slim shoulders. “Of course I know that. I accept that. The fact is, as much as it surprises even me, it’s partly that which attracted me to him—the racing, his absolute determination to come out on top, his almost negligent attitude about danger. It’s as exciting as it is frustrating, and I’m hooked. I think I’m going to be terrified, and then when the race starts, I’m not. I want him to win.” She turned to Foxy with a brilliant smile. “I think I’m almost as bad as he is. I love him, I love who he is and what he is. Being second in his life is enough for me.” Hearing her own words echo back to her, Foxy could do no more than stare out at the track. “I’m not trying to usurp your place with him,” Pam began, and Foxy turned back quickly.

  “Oh, no. No, it’s not that. It’s nothing like that. I’m glad for Kirk, he needs someone . . . someone who understands him the way you do.” She ran her fingers through her thick mane of hair. It glowed like the russet leaves on the surrounding trees. “But I care about you, too.” She made a frustrated gesture with her hands as if that would help her express herself. “He can be cruel by just forgetting.”

  “I don’t bruise easily.” Pam laid a hand on Foxy’s shoulder. “Not as easily, I think, as
you do.” At Foxy’s confused expression, she smiled. “It’s easy for one woman in love to recognize another. No, no, don’t start babbling a denial.” She laughed as Foxy’s mouth opened then closed. “If you need to talk, we will. I feel quite an expert on the subject.”

  “It’s academic,” Foxy told her with a restless movement of her shoulders. “Tomorrow we’ll go our separate ways.”

  “You still have today.” Pam gave Foxy’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Isn’t that really all there is?”

  It happened so suddenly. At first Foxy’s brain rejected it. Even as Pam spoke, Kirk rounded the turn in front of them. She saw him swerve to avoid the abrupt fishtailing of the racer to his right, then waited for him to regain control. She saw the skid begin, heard its squeal echo through her head as she watched it grow wider and more violent. Part of her brain screamed in panic while still another kept insisting he would pull out of it. He had to pull out of it. The sound of the blowout was like a gunshot and just as lethal. Then there were columns of smoke and shrieking metal as the car slammed into the wall and careened away. Wheels and pieces of fiberglass rained in the air as the racer continued to spin wildly.

  “No!” The cry was wrenched from Foxy as she darted toward the track. With one quick jerk, she freed herself from Pam’s restraining hand and ran.

  Jagged pieces of fiberglass flew with deadly abandon. A fear greater than any she had ever known filled her, blacking out all thoughts, all feelings. Her only reality was the twisting hulk of machine that held her brother in its bowels. Inches from the grid, her breath was cut off by a vise around her waist. The force lifted her off the ground, and she kicked uselessly in the air to free herself. She shook the hair from her eyes in time to see Kirk’s car topple into the infield.

  “For God’s sake, Foxy, you’ll kill yourself.” Lance’s voice was harsh in her ear as she writhed and struggled for freedom. In terror, she waited for the belching smoke to burst into flame.

  “Let me go!” she shouted as she realized the vise around her waist was his arm. “It’s Kirk, can’t you see? I’ve got to get to him.” Her breathing was ragged as she clawed at the imprisoning arm. “Oh God, I’ve got to get to him!” she shouted again, desperately fighting to free herself.

  “There’s nothing you can do.” Lance jerked her back against him, cutting off her wind for a moment. Over her head, he could see members of the emergency team spraying the wreck with extinguishers while others worked to free Kirk from the cockpit. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said again. Her struggles ceased abruptly. She went so completely limp, he thought she had fainted until he heard her speak.

  “Let me go.” Foxy spoke quietly now, so that he barely heard her. “I won’t do anything stupid,” she added when he did not lessen his grip. “I’m all right, Lance, let me go.”