Revolution: A Driven World Novel (The Driven World)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  “They think because she’s a little bit older or maybe because we didn’t catch it soon enough.” He cleared his throat. “Point is, she needs different, stronger chemo, and the insurance is fightin’ us on it. Not medically necessary.”

  My glass clanked on the wooden bar. “What?” I gaped. “How is that even possible?”

  He shook his head ruefully. “Don’t get me goin’ on the kind o’horrors dealin’ with insurance inflicts,” he replied, taking another sip to wash away the sting of the reality.

  My heart thudded. “What does she have?”

  Of course, it was a safe assumption Claire had some form of cancer—most of the adolescent patients at Hembry Children’s Hospital did; it was their specialty. But Gwen couldn’t reveal the specifics of her diagnosis, and Claire was only willing to admit that she was sick and not getting better.

  “Acute lymphocytic leukemia.” The disease sounded even more foreign and dangerous with his brogue.

  I held my breath. “And the prognosis?”

  His jaw ticked. “Generally pretty good, but she’s hit a few bumps in the road.” He sighed. “But even knowin’ fer sure she’ll be okay, doesn’t change the goin’ through it. Doesn’t change what she has ta endure… what I canno’ spare her from.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not yer fault, lass.” His gaze slid to mine and a rush of heat pooled between my thighs.

  When he called me lass, so desperate and warm, it made me forget every cold thing he’d ever said to me.

  “She’s incredible,” I murmured with a small smile, needing to cling to something happier.

  I caught a flash of pure white for a split second, and I knew Claire was right, Garret’s smile would be utterly devastating if inflicted on the world more often.

  “She is… just like her da’.” He nodded, his eyes staring at the wood of the bar but his thoughts a million miles away.

  “Danny.” The name escaped before I could stop it. Swallowing over the lump in my throat, I added, “You all have the same eyes.”

  His gaze splintered and found mine, but he wasn’t angry. “But hers are hopeful like his. Like an everlastin’ flame. No matter what happened, my brother was always lookin’ for the good, tryin’ ta make everyone else happy…”

  I chewed on my lower lip, pain gnawing through me. “He sounds like a good man.”

  “He woulda been a good father,” G rasped and shook his head. “Instead, poor wee Bear is stuck with me.”

  “You’re not that bad,” I assured him with a small grin, the words only hitting me after I’d already said them. Heat crept into my cheeks.

  No restraint.

  He spun to face me, his knees brushing against mine before our legs became entangled, locking me in his gaze.

  “No?” His expression was splintered with surprise and frustration. “Because I haven’t been all too kind to ye, lass, for ye ta say somethin’ like that.”

  “For her, you’re not that bad,” I clarified weakly, trying to swallow through the pressure in my throat. “For me, it’s a different story.” My voice was raspier, sexier than I knew possible. It was bilingual, speaking obvious truths and hidden desires in the same breath.

  I turned my head away, drinking down the last of the whisky he’d ordered me and hoped he’d do what he always did—distance himself from me in a way too painful for me to want to follow.

  “I’d do anythin’ for her,” he murmured. “I’ve done everythin’ for her.”

  “I would’ve come if you asked, you know,” I told him, drinking down the last of the warm whiskey he’d ordered me. “To see Claire.”

  He swallowed hard but didn’t respond.

  “Why didn’t you ask?” I pressed.

  Another pause, as he inched closer, his gaze ravaging over my face, his own in turmoil over what to say, but finally, his mouth cut an answer. “Because I dinna want ye there.”

  Pain ripped through my chest as swiftly as nausea rolled through my stomach.

  He thought so little of me he couldn’t even ask me to come see his niece who knew who I was—who was so happy and excited and eager to meet me. That was how little he thought of me.

  “I see.” I shoved myself to my feet, stumbling through our mess of legs until my unsteady feet found a semblance of footing and bolted for the door. And if I could drive a race car with a broken ankle, I could survive the quarter-mile walk up the road to the garage with a healing one.

  “Kacey!”

  The harsh slam of the door cut off my name behind me.

  The warm rain outside pelted me as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, the weather just as confounding as the insufferable Irishman I’d left at the bar.

  “Hey!” My eyes bolted open, my attention drawn to the unexpected call from the large Hemi that had pulled into the lot when I came out of the bar. Three burly men climbed down from the cabin. “Is that…” The bald one in the center looked to his buddies before his cold, silver gaze returned to me. “Are you Kacey Snyder?”

  All of them wore jeans and shirts that had different variations of the American flag on them, topped with black leather vests covered in patches; I had a feeling they’d be on motorcycles if it weren’t for the weather.

  Bracing myself, I replied calmly but coolly, “Yes. Can I help you?”

  “Yeah, you can take a hint and get your pussy wagon off the fuckin’ track,” the bald one shot at me so viciously the threat didn’t even register for a beat until I heard the door to the bar close behind me.

  An expectant tingle skated up my spine and I knew Garret had come outside even before I saw the slight shift in the men’s gazes.

  No.

  My chest tightened.

  I didn’t want to deal with these men—and I didn’t want to deal with them in front of Garret. Not after what just happened.

  “Yeah, no tits in the pits!” the shortest, roundest one chimed in with a sneer, shaking his meaty fist at me as though it were a battle cry. “Isn’t that right, boys?”

  The bald one laughed and they all joined in a little chant, “No tits in the pits! No tits in the pits!” before staggering as he clapped his belligerent buddy on the back.

  Fear and disgust spun like a growing tornado inside me. They were disgusting. They were wrong.

  But I was only human, and I couldn’t stop the way their words affected me—words that weren’t unfamiliar.

  No tits in the pits.

  There were some who chanted. Some who made signs.

  One man tried to spit on me at my first race, back when I never even thought of myself as a woman on the track. I was just a racer—a driver with a dream. Smiling. Waving.

  I still remembered the bald man with some tuning shop baseball cap. The animosity in his eyes was what stopped my steps along the fence between the track and the bleachers. I looked behind me—naively thinking it wasn’t—couldn’t be me he was looking at; I’d never seen him before.

  But it was.

  Every ounce of hatred was for me. Because I was a woman driving a race car.

  He told me racing was a man’s sport and I was a stupid bitch for trying to ruin it. And then he tried to spit on me.

  In that moment, as my dad pulled me away, I realized many of the obstacles I would face on this track would have nothing to do with my skill or my driving or my car.

  They would have to do with my gender—the one thing that made absolutely zero difference.

  “Nobody fuckin’ wants you there, you little bitch. Racing is a man’s sport. One of the few left. You don’t belong there.”

  The gravel crunched under Garret’s feet as though his steps were splitting the very world underneath him. He walked in front of me, making himself a wall between me and the three other men.

  “And you don’t belong here,” Garret said with a deadly low voice.

  The same words I’d heard him say to me many times, but this time was like none of those. This time, the man who spoke them lacked any semblance of
control and effused every kind of justifiable hatred.

  “And who the hell are you?” The ring leader scoffed as though dealing with G was no problem. He shuffled forward, making it clear they’d already had some drinks before driving to this tiny bar, his friends following behind him. “And if you think you can just fuck your way onto different teams, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “No tits in the pits, Ace,” the other one snarled just as the shock of Garret’s body going completely rigid set on me. “And no cunts—”

  I clapped a hand over my mouth, holding my cry against my face as Garret lunged forward. The sickening crack told me Garret had knocked the man out cold even before he fell like a sexist sack of shit to the ground.

  “Hey!” the other asshole shouted and lunged toward Garret. “What the hell—” He broke off as G grabbed him by the throat, squeezing until his eyes looked like they were going to pop from his head.

  “Garret!” I gasped, but it was too late. The third man with beady eyes and a small mouth, his features almost lost in the fat of his face, grabbed the back of Garret’s shirt, pulling him back and off his friend.

  My eyes whipped around, looking for something to help him, but there was nothing.

  And I needed nothing because he didn’t need help.

  Like a caged, feral animal set free, he spun and swung at the man who’d grabbed him. He was swift and strong and precise with his strikes. Like the timing of an engine, the coordination of his movements was both mechanical and musical to watch.

  The sound of flesh hitting flesh was overcome with the heavy hammer of my heart with each strike.

  Garret’s opponent wasn’t as easily subdued as his friend.

  He swung back, fists connecting with muscle that sounded as though it were made of steel. And Garret didn’t flinch, the strikes affecting him about as much as the raindrops falling on his shoulders.

  “How nice you’ve got a friend.”

  My head whipped to the side just in time to see the third man in the group, his throat bruising already from where Garret held him, as he stepped in front of me, caging me back against Garret’s truck with his tobacco-reeking body.

  “Too bad he’s busy at the moment.” His lip curled. “I guess you’ll have to entertain me.”

  “Get. Away. From. Me,” I bit out, planting my hands on his vest and shoving with all my strength.

  He chuckled, barely swaying from the attempt.

  He was too close for me to have enough leverage—enough force to keep him away.

  And then meaty fingers closed over my wrists, yanking my hands above my head and locking my wrists back against the side of the truck, the slight bow of the door forcing my body to press against his.

  “Now, that’s more like it, Ace.” I choked as he bent forward, shoving his face in my neck and taking a long breath. “This is where you belong.”

  “Garret!” I cried out, feeling the slick oily drag of the man’s tongue up my neck.

  I couldn’t breathe. My chest couldn’t move and even if it could, it didn’t want to. It didn’t want to let any part of this man near me or inside my lungs.

  “He’s busy, Ace,” he slurred, locking both my wrists in one hand, the other beginning to drag down my arm to where my body was pinned against the overweight brick of his. “You don’t belong with this pretty little ass in a race car.” My stomach sucked in with savage shock as his hand closed over my breast, squeezing harshly. “But with your nice little cunt wrapped around my—”

  I collapsed forward as the man was ripped off me, catching the fury in Garret’s gaze.

  Choking in air, my situation fled from my mind as Garret spun the man into the side of the building and began punching him, in the stomach, and then across the face. Again and again.

  It didn’t take long to realize he wasn’t hitting him to knock him out; he was hitting him to make him suffer—to make him pay. And possibly with his life.

  Punch after punch. Solid strike after solid strike.

  And if hits were measured in distance, this defense would be named the Garret 500 because it didn’t look like he was stopping anytime soon.

  “Garret,” I finally pleaded, stepping hesitantly toward the fight, knowing I needed to put a stop to it before death did. “Please.”

  The disgusting asshole began to bruise and bleed before my eyes, and it was hard to tell if the blood on G’s hands was his or the other man’s as it mixed with rain and sweat, turning his fists the metallic red of an angry god.

  “Hey!” The door to the building opened and the bar owner stepped outside, shotgun in hand. “What the hell is going on out here?”

  Garret didn’t acknowledge him, he just kept punching. And that was when the bartender, friend or not, raised the weapon and told Garret to get back.

  My heart lurching against the front of my chest shoved me forward and, without a second thought, I put myself between Garret and the barrel. Ignoring the weapon, I spun and reached for his arm, catching it as he pulled back for another blow.

  My touch stalled him just as quickly and effectively as a caution flag waved in the race.

  His anger slowed, his attention returned to the front of his relentless rage.

  “Kacey, lass,” he rasped, taking in each piece of the scene with every blink.

  The man sputtering blood, half-conscious where he was held against the wall. The bartender behind me glared in frustration and warning.

  And then there was me. Breathless and pleading, standing between him and the barrel of a shotgun.

  Garret’s hold on the man released, and he collapsed to the ground, prompting a low curse from the bartender as he lowered his weapon and moved to aid the man.

  “Jesus, Gallagher. What’d he do?” he rasped with a shake of his head, his disappointment unable to cloud his knowing that the beaten man had deserved at least some of what G had done.

  “He touched her,” he replied, almost in a trance, before his gaze locked with mine. “He touched you.”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him, folding my arms because my insides weren’t quite okay. My insides were in turmoil.

  Kind and then harsh and then my savior.

  Someone’s hero one moment and then an intruder—an imposter—a villain the next. Just like me.

  I began to back away. From the scene. From him. From everything.

  His eyes followed me, leashed to my pain until the bartender grabbed his shoulder and demanded his assistance.

  The rugged Irish god with his bloodied hands and glittering eyes glared at me with all his might, commanding me to stay.

  But I was disobedient by nature, and desperate to stop this moment out of necessity.

  Each step I took toward the garage was quickened painfully by the need to escape him. The angry Atlas who, instead of the world, held lust and loathing balanced on his shoulders.

  The abrasive god who was just as quick to insult me as he was to defend me.

  But something changed in his eyes—something after seeing that man touch me. I shuddered and wrapped my arms over my front, my clothes now clinging to my skin with the temporary glistening glue the rain provided.

  My hair plastered to my face, and if there were tears, which the tightness in my chest suggested, they were lost in the crowd of warm raindrops.

  He was abrasive but necessary.

  Like peroxide in a wound. Painful. Unwanted. Essential.

  He was confounding.

  Like rain from a sunny sky.

  And he was following me.

  “Kacey!” My name boomed like thunder from a storm housed inside a man.

  I ignored the hurt as I ran across the pavement in front of the garage, my hands trembling as I shoved the key into the door to unlock it.

  The sad part was, I wasn’t running from Garret.

  I was running from the way I felt about him—the way I wanted him. And the way it hurt.

  I stumbled through the door, water dripping onto the concrete as my sneakers
squeaked in my haste.

  I wasn’t here for this. I was here because I wanted to drive. Nothing else was important. Nothing else was supposed to matter.

  Especially not the madman attached to the molten metal grip around my arm.

  Kacey

  “LET ME GO!” I DEMANDED, yanking my arm from his grasp, my chest heaving with every breath that only wanted to draw him closer.

  His anger.

  His raw possessiveness.

  And his abrasive desire.

  I knew what it meant to move closer—to press closer to Garret Gallagher. It meant pain. It meant being hurt before I was pushed away.

  But for a split second, it also meant a feeling of incredible warmth—like there was a special fire inside me only he knew how to light. And I’d risk any hurt to feel that heat before being thrown back out into the cold.

  “Dammit, Kacey,” he growled, snaking dark, stained fingers through his hair before turning and slamming his already-bloodied fist into one of the steel support beams in the middle of the shop floor. “I told ye to stay put.” He pointed at me.

  I advanced on him, anger eliminating the limp from my gait. “How dare you,” I seethed.

  My accusation surprised him. His nostrils flared, anger balled up and knotted in each muscle, adrenaline from his fighting off three men still pumping viciously through his veins.

  “How dare I what? Save ye from those men?” Even his drawl sounded ripped up and bloodied. He looked around, his hands locking onto his hips. “Are ye jokin’?” he sputtered, letting his arms rise and fall in confusion. “They deserved far more than that far as I’m concerned.”

  “Did they?” I demanded, wiping the obnoxious tears from my cheeks. I should’ve turned away, but like a moth to a flame, I stepped closer to the fierce fire.

  Fear evaporated into anger. Anger at what those men had said and done, anger that they weren’t the only ones. Anger that my skill was irrelevant when compared to my sex.

  And angry that the man who’d come to my defense had said something similar only moments before.