Race For Revenge (Lynsey Stevens Romance)

by Stevens, Lynsey

  Danni shrugged her shoulders again. ‘Could be anyone,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Brands Hatch is a racing circuit in England.’

  ‘Oh, Danni, what a mystery! Could he be a racing driver? It might be someone who’s worshipped you from afar. I can hardly wait till Thursday, can you?’ Lisa beamed.

  ‘Oh, yes! I can hardly wait,’ replied Danni expressively.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling about this, Danni. I think he’s really taken with you.’ Lisa’s eyes shone with the romance of it all.

  ‘So have I got a feeling,’ said Danni, standing up. ‘A feeling we’d better get going or we’ll be late.’

  On Thursday morning Danni was suffering from a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. For reasons she refused to analyse, part of her, a part she was finding hard to quell, was excitedly looking forward to seeing Shiloh O’Rourke again, while she had to keep reminding herself that he had been arrogant and high-handed. He had also made it very obvious that he didn’t like women on the track.

  And that was Danni’s bugbear. She’d had to fight to gain every inch of the respect she now had in the motor racing fraternity and her one aim was to take out the Driver to Europe series, to be the first woman to do so.

  This turmoil inside her found an outlet in causing her to drop just about everything she had picked up, including a carton of milk that morning and a large stack of non-fiction books she had sorted ready for re-shelving just five minutes ago.

  All this was a source of great amusement for Lisa, who admitted that she was almost as excited as Danni refused to admit she was. Danni hoped fervently that if Shiloh did arrive at the library he would do so while Lisa was on her lunch break. To have the beaming Lisa as an audience would really top the occasion off nicely.

  Shiloh’s reason for calling to see her had Danni baffled. Mulling over that reason for the past two days, she had decided it could only have something to do with motor racing. Surely it couldn’t be that he was attracted to her? She hoped ardently that he wasn’t, although she felt a little disquieted when she recalled the admiring glances he had given her that afternoon at the practice track. Somehow she had a feeling deep down that her rather ordered world might never be quite the same again if she allowed him to come too close. If Lisa was right… She pulled herself up short. She was becoming as fanciful as the other girl. Why would Shiloh O’Rourke be interested in her, after the way she had treated him, too? But she had been provoked.

  Not that she had any desire to get to know him anyway, she told herself. It was laughable. She could barely stand him. He just wasn’t her type. Of course, she could refuse to see him, but she would like to talk to him about Rick if she could. That was all.

  So why, she asked herself, was she fluttering about like a bemused shrinking violet waiting for the man of her dreams to suggest an assignation? She smiled to herself at her flowery expressions. That was what came of reading too many historical romances!

  Danni glanced at the clock. It was just past midday, so she collected her salad roll and apple and the novel she was currently reading and informed the other girls that she would be out for her lunch hour.

  ‘Oh, Danni, you can’t leave the library. What if your mystery man calls while you’re away?’ asked Lisa, most upset, and thinking that Danni was throwing away her biggest chance. ‘I told you I had a feeling about him, and it’s growing stronger. It really is.’

  Danni wrinkled her nose. ‘I’ll only be across the road under my favourite tree,’ she replied. ‘Should he turn up, which he probably won’t, you can have the honour of sending him right on over, Lisa. If, as you say, it’s all meant to be, he’ll be ready to climb mountains, swim raging torrents, etc, etc, to get to me, so crossing one minor road will be child’s play for him.’ She laughed as she headed out the staff entrance.

  Still smiling, she settled herself on a low bench in the shade of a spreading Moreton Bay fig tree. It was a wonderful day. The sky was Australian blue and the surf off to the left was pure turquoise and inviting. A cool fresh breeze moved the pine tree branches and brought the tang of the crystal sand and salty ocean across to her as she sat eating her lunch, engrossed in her novel.

  At least, to all outward appearances she was engrossed in her book. Only Danni knew that her eyes flittered over the page without taking in a word of the story. She could imagine Lisa glancing out of the library and remarking to the librarian that Danni was a cool one, sitting placidly reading a book while she, Lisa, in the same position, would have been simply paralytic with nervousness and the waiting.

  By the time Danni had finished her lunch she was exasperated with herself. She had wasted half of her lunch hour lifting her eyes to follow every motorcycle that passed within hearing distance and studying everyone who looked remotely as if they were about to enter the library opposite. Last night she had been absorbed in this very book and when her drooping eyelids had forced her to set it aside she could hardly wait to get back to it. Now she was hard pressed to recall the plot.

  Firmly she put Shiloh O’Rourke from her mind and concentrated on her story, the heroine of which was an independent miss who was under the impression that she wanted nothing more than to elope with a poverty-stricken and totally unsuitable young gentleman. Danni became caught up in a lengthy description of a visit to Vauxhall Gardens from where the heroine planned to make her escape, and she was oblivious of the fact that a tall thin figure was making his way across the road towards her until she became aware of a pair of familiar dusty well-worn motorcyclist’s boots entering the line of her vision.

  Her eyes moved up the jean-clad legs, the dark blue denim hugging his muscular thighs like a second skin. His belt buckle featured a chequered flag emblem and he wore a plain white shirt with a short denim jacket which matched his jeans. Apart from his dusty boots he looked reasonably respectable, although he hadn’t bothered to fasten the press studs on the cuffs of his jacket.

  He was bare-headed now, but Danni could see by the dampened, flattened fair hair that he had been wearing a crash helmet. And as the wind was beginning to lift his hair, drying its dampness, as each moment passed it started to wave into the abandoned disorder she remembered. He was smiling that particularly attractive smile which she seemed to have etched in her mind’s eye and when he ran his hand through his tousled hair, enjoying the cooling effect of the breeze, her pulses began to race with heady abandon.

  ‘Hi, Danni!’ His deep voice caused her throat to constrict and she swallowed nervously. ‘I noticed you sitting here when I pulled up. Nice place to spend your lunch hour. May I join you?’ He sat down without waiting for her reply and unwrapped two cold cans of soft drink from a newspaper-wrapped parcel he was Carrying. ‘Whew, it’s hot! I’m nearly parched with thirst. Which would you prefer, club lemon or Coke?’ He crushed the wrapping into a ball and lobbed it neatly into an open garbage can some six feet away.

  Danni tried to decide whether or not she would refuse his offer on principle, but as he said, it was hot. And she was thirsty. ‘Lemon, please.’

  He ripped off the pull top and reaching into an inner pocket took out a straw which he stuck into her can before passing it to her. It crossed her mind that he hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to use a straw and her lips tightened. He was being very solicitous, but the independent part of her personality jibed at his thoughtfulness. Perhaps the reason for this independence was the attitude of her father and her brother. To them she had always been equal. Equal opportunity and equal effort.

  ‘I guess your young friend in the library told you I called in to see you on Monday,’ Shiloh said easily, smiling at her as he folded the cuffs of his jacket neatly back from his wrists.

  ‘Yes, I thought it must have been you,’ Danni replied, catching sight of Lisa hanging out of the library window waving gaily. Lisa rarely missed anything and obviously she had recognised Danni’s companion.

  ‘So you knew it was me?’
He grinned. ‘Mental telepathy or a cultivated guess?’

  Danni involuntarily looked pointedly at his hair and his grin widened. He ran a smoothing hand over his hair, not making much impression on its waving disorder.

  ‘Something tells me you disapprove of my hairstyle, Danni Mathieson. You know, I can’t do a thing with it. It’s a real cross for me to bear.’ There was amusement in his tone. ‘I must get it cut properly. I spent some time,’ he paused almost imperceptibly, ‘out of the swing of things and my last hairdresser was hardly a professional. If it’s any consolation you aren’t alone in your opinion. My mother says it offends her sensitivities and my father visibly blanches every time he turns my way. Guess you’ll just have to love me for my sparkling personality.’

  He held up his hand as Danni’s back stiffened and her lips pursed. ‘Sorry, just joking.’ He took another drink from his can, his eyes dancing at her over the top. ‘How long have you been working at the library?’ He stepped over on to safer conversational grounds.

  ‘Eight months here at Burleigh Heads. Nearly two years in all,’ she replied coolly. ‘I was working in the Coolangatta branch before I went to England for a few months to visit an aunt, my mother’s sister. I went on a backpacking holiday there with my English cousins. Then—’ she paused. ‘Then I came home and was lucky enough to get my old position back.’

  Shiloh nodded, his face bearing that same cultivated and controlled expressionlessness. Although Rick’s death, the reason for Danni’s return to Australia, hung in the air between them like something tangible, neither made any mention of it, as though they felt that it would drive a wedge between them. They lapsed into silence, both studying their cans of drink as though the words printed on them were unfamiliar to them.

  ‘I’ll have to be getting back to work.’ Danni glanced at her watch. ‘It’s five to one.’ She stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from her rust-coloured skirt.

  Shiloh moved slowly to his feet, and as he made to follow her across the road she noticed for the first time that he favoured his right leg slightly, giving a faint limp to his long stride.

  Danni stepped sideways off the pavement, only to have her arm grabbed in a vice-like grip and she was jerked forcibly back against his rock hard chest. Her hand went out to save herself and her fingers encountered the soft material of his body shirt.

  ‘What are you—?’ she began, her eyes flashing angrily to his face as a high-powered car streaked by, the driver giving a warning blast on his horn. ‘Oh!’ Danni expelled a breath and found it difficult to draw another. Anger gave way to fright and relief and her eyes grew large in her face. All at once she noticed the nerve throbbing in Shiloh’s tightly set jaw and almost clinically she saw that his own face had paled slightly. Beneath her hand she could feel the steady thump of his heart as its beat accelerated to match the race of her own. Danni’s voice completely deserted her.

  Shiloh shook his head in exasperation, breaking the spark of awareness that flowed between them. ‘Danni Mathieson, would you mind not throwing yourself under a car before I get to take you out to dinner?’ He kept hold of her arm until they had safely negotiated the road and were standing in the parking area alongside his motorcycle.

  ‘I— It’s almost one. I’ll have to go in. Thanks for the drink and,’ she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him, her heightened awareness of him still flowing through her body, ‘for, um, for preventing me from walking in front of that car.’ She took a slow step towards the library, but his hand on her arm detained her. She looked down at that strong hand, wondering why the mere touch of those firm capable fingers could cause her senses to tense with responsiveness.

  ‘Just a minute, Danni. You finish at five o’clock, don’t you? Have dinner with me this evening?’ For once his face was quite serious, or as serious as his smiling mouth could allow him to be.

  Danni hesitated, searching her mind for an excuse. She could say she had to wash her hair.

  As if he read her mind his eyes went to her hair and he grinned. ‘No, your hair doesn’t need washing, it looks very attractive as it is. You can check your emails or do your ironing tomorrow night or next week. I’ll give you until seven-thirty to get ready. How about it?’ He smiled into her startled eyes and that smile had a devastating effect on her decision to firmly refuse his offer. ‘Be a devil, Danni. Do something on impulse. I know a little restaurant that a friend of mine has recently taken over. The food’s divine and I promise I’ll try to be scintillating company.’

  Danni wanted to say yes, while part of her demanded she refuse him outright. Did she want to get involved with him? Should she follow her head or her heart?

  ‘I’ll even try to restrain my hair,’ he said winningly.

  A faint dimple appeared in Danni’s cheek and she found herself smiling back at him, taking even herself by surprise. ‘Well, all right.’

  He grinned happily and touched her cheek with one finger. ‘Great! I’ll see you at seven-thirty, then. Where in Broadbeach?’

  She gave him her address and he turned back to his bike and put on his skid-lid.

  ‘Shiloh!’ Danni called him, and he stopped as he was about to swing his leg over the bike. ‘What do I wear? Is it a dress-up place?’

  ‘No. Informal. Just wear something sexy.’ Although only his eyes were visible behind the safety helmet his outrageous wink made her smile again. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. At least he had a sense of humour. Besides, she could ask him about Rick tonight while they were having dinner.

  He had kicked the starter and the engine fired. Lifting one hand in farewell, he turned out of the parking area and disappeared along the highway, leaving Danni to return to work to face the beaming Lisa.

  By seven o’clock Danni had showered and changed ready for her evening out. All afternoon at work she had been plagued with questions by the excited Lisa. Who was the mystery man? What had he wanted? Did Danni know him? He was so handsome, didn’t Danni think so? Was she going out with him?

  Eventually Danni could stand the inquisition no longer and had put Lisa, and herself, out of their respective miseries. Thus Lisa’s curiosity had been fed and Danni had been able to get on with her work without interruptions. Not that she had told Lisa all that much. After all, what was there to tell? Shiloh O’Rourke was an acquaintance with whom she was sharing a friendly dinner. There was no big deal, was there? Then why were her thoughts drifting continually back to the man?

  She wore a cool pale blue sleeveless dress which was one of her favourites. The soft crepe material hugged her figure while its thin straps left her nicely tanned shoulders bare. Her dark hair, shining with vitality and good health, swung about her face and she had used the minimum of make-up. She had only shaded her naturally pink lips with pearly lipstick and added a little mascara to her long curling lashes.

  As she was touching her wrist with perfume a thought struck her without warning. How on earth was she going to ride pillion on Shiloh’s motorcycle in this outfit? Apart from it being unsafe to ride a motorcycle with arms and legs bare, by the time they reached the restaurant she would be looking as though she had been dragged through a bush backwards.

  Why hadn’t she thought to ask him if he owned a car? And what was more to the point, why had she agreed to go out with him in the first place? She hadn’t been able to stand the man when she first met him, she exaggerated. And her first impressions were usually quite sound.

  She glanced at her wristwatch. He would be here in ten minutes. She might have time to change into more suitable slacks before he arrived. In a moment she had a pair of lightweight yellow pants and a sleeveless top out of her wardrobe and her hand was on the zipper of her dress when the doorbell chimed.

  It could only be Shiloh. Drat the man! Danni moved out of her room to open the door, thinking he would just have to wait while she changed.

  The light from the foyer fell on th
e figure standing on the landing, half turned to one side as he waited for her to answer his ring. As Danni opened the door he turned towards her and, for a split second, she didn’t recognise him. Then he smiled and she felt his eyes travel appreciatively over her, over the pale blue dress that flared from the waist, a full lace-edged frill around the bottom of the skirt which swirled about her legs as she walked.

  If his eyes moved over her, so she was staring at him in disbelief. He had had his hair cut and it was combed tidily in place, the back styled neatly above his collar. His pale blue, almost white shirt was open at the neck, exposing the smooth, strong muscles of his throat. He must lift weights, she thought irrelevantly. The shadowy light reflected on his skin and at the bottom of the open V of his shirt peeped a few curls of fine fair hair. His shirt front hugged the contours of his chest and flat midriff while the sleeves were a little fuller than normal and gathered into wide cuffs.

  He wore rich blue-black slacks, the legs fitting close to his thighs, making him look even taller than ever. His shoes were obviously expensive and were polished to perfection and his whole outfit completely robbed Danni of speech. If he had added a black eye patch, a golden earring and a flashing cutlass he would have graced the deck of any pirate ship. He was a hero stepping from the pages of any of the historical romances she loved to read.

  Taking his hand from behind his back, he presented her with a small corsage of Cooktown orchids, and the smiling flash of his white teeth only added to his piratical good looks.

  ‘They’re beautiful. Thank you very much,’ Danni stammered, taking the flowers from him, her face flushing hotly.

  ‘They’ll match your dress, too. Need some help to pin them on?’ He stepped through the doorway.