by Audra North
And during the race, Mom had stayed back at the hotel. The new hotel. Apparently, Ranger had upgraded all of their lodging for the rest of the season. When she’d asked him about it, he’d mumbled something about the necessity of a good night’s sleep for peak racing performance, as though he had to justify every expense with some kind of bottom-line reason. And yet, she’d seen the way he’d specifically asked Mom how she had slept and whether the place was to her satisfaction.
He hadn’t changed the hotel for the benefit of the crew. He’d changed it for the only person in the group who didn’t work in racing.
From what she had seen, he was a much better person than she’d originally given him credit for, even if the things he seemed to believe were misguided. Though his Ruthless Ranger epithet might have conjured images of him committing acts of cruelty, she was beginning to suspect it had a lot more to do with how he rolled up his sleeves and got the job done. For folks who found that kind of work ethic intimidating, it was a lot easier to make him look bad than to own up to their own failures.
So maybe his priorities were still off, and she still didn’t agree that money was the most important thing, but in the end, he wasn’t forcing anyone to scrimp and save in an effort to pad the bottom line. The realization had made her step back a bit and try not to antagonize him too much, and yesterday had actually been much more relaxed. Almost peaceful, even.
Now it was Monday morning and Lee, Grady, Mom, Ranger, and Kerri were on the plane flying back to Charlotte for a couple of days to rest before heading on to Kansas City for Lee’s next race.
Bit had called Grady this morning to let him know that they were back at the garage in Charlotte already, breaking down the engine of Kerri’s Chevy and finishing up work on Lee’s truck for his upcoming race this weekend at the Kansas Speedway. It was a grueling enough schedule for a regular-sized crew. With a half-staff, everyone was running ragged.
Ranger was sitting next to Kerri, and the others were in the row behind them. He kept shifting in his seat, switching between looking out the window and staring down at his electronic reader. They’d been in the air about an hour, and Kerri had been scribbling in a notebook for most of that time, trying to ignore the restlessness in the man next to her, though it wasn’t easy. She was so aware of him now, so attuned to every move he made, that by the time he put down his e-reader and looked over at her, she was feeling as wound up as he was.
He cleared his throat. She rolled her eyes and set down her pen, but was smiling when she looked up at him.
“What are you doing, anyway?”
He looked so genuinely curious that she didn’t tease him, even though she wanted to. “I’m writing in my journal.”
“Your journal? Like a diary?”
“Thanks for making it sound like I’m seven years old, but sure. Like a diary.”
“Are you writing about me?”
A surprised laugh escaped her. “Your head is ridiculously huge, you know that?”
“Which head are you referring to, exactly?” He waggled his brows, leering at her.
Oh, wow. She wasn’t sure, but she suddenly, desperately she wanted to find out. But she tamped down the hot arousal that started rising in her body and picked up her pen again with a prim sniff. “Stop flirting with me in a creepy sexual-harassment kind of way.”
“I’m not harassing you. I’m your fiancé.”
Someone is in a playful mood.
She flicked the end of her pen at him, snapping it against the skin of his hand.
“Ow!”
“Serves you right. You’re as bad as Lee and Grady. Do guys really never grow up?”
He backed off, putting both his hands in the air as if in surrender. “Sorry. I’m sorry. That was pretty inappropriate. And you’re right, guys never grow up. That’s why we need a good woman to show us how to behave.”
She cocked her head to one side and looked up at him through her lashes. “I was just teasing you back. I didn’t mind. But you’re still insufferable.”
He grinned at her. “I like you, too.”
They were quiet for several minutes, and Kerri returned to writing in her notebook before Ranger leaned over again. “So, are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Writing about me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ranger!” She thrust the notebook at him. “If you want to know, here. Read for yourself.”
And please don’t laugh at me.
He scanned the page, his brows drawing together as he read. “Huh. So you are writing about me.”
She nodded.
“And it’s not very nice.” He set the notebook back down on the tray in front of her.
Not very nice? That’s what he cared about? “Now why would you say that? I’m just outlining what happened with our deal on Friday. I think I got it down nearly word for word, too. How can you say it’s not very nice when it’s almost exactly what happened?”
He looked away from her. “Because it makes me look like a jerk.”
You are a jerk, she wanted to say. But after the past couple of days, she was no longer so sure. The way he’d reacted to how she felt about putting in time at the Cran-Tasty booth was more than she would have given him credit for when she’d first met him. But he’d surprised her, time and again.
She was beginning to wonder if their first meeting had been all wrong, had thrown everything off course, and that maybe she was wrong about Ranger. Maybe he wasn’t going to sweep in, change everything, and then leave when she’d just begun depending on him.
Like Earl left, right after Dad had died and you were deep in grief. Like Grady, who falls apart regularly like a rusty old chassis on a dirt road. Like Dad, for dying in the first place …
No, wait. That brought her up short. That wasn’t fair. She didn’t really feel that way.
Did she?
She shook it off. Now wasn’t the time to wonder about something like that.
“Ranger…” She reached out a hand and put it on his arm, but he still wouldn’t look at her. “I’m the one who’s sorry now. I really didn’t think you’d be upset. I wouldn’t have let you read it if I knew it was going to hurt your feelings. I didn’t think you cared.” She kept her voice quiet and leaned close so that Grady and the others wouldn’t hear.
He finally turned back to her and whispered, “What are you writing this down for, anyway?”
She gave a secret kind of smile and slowly stroked her hand up his arm, curling her fingers into his bicep, enjoying the way the muscle jumped beneath her touch. Damn, he was solid. In the past couple of days, after that impromptu kiss when she’d placed third, he hadn’t kissed her like that again, all scorching and suggestive. He’d kept things to a few pecks on the cheek, or perfunctory lip touches. Just enough time for lurking photographers to get shots of them looking affectionate. But every time he’d come near, then moved away before it could get too intense, her body had mourned the loss. It was like he was a drug that she hadn’t even realized she’d been craving. Even after she’d promised herself to keep her distance, having him here next to her, teasing her, smiling …
It was impossible to resist.
She looked up at him through her lashes. “I’ve been writing things down for a few years now. I was thinking, maybe someday I’ll write a book, or get a ghost writer to help me write one about my life as a woman in racing. You know, to show other women and girls that this is a tough job, but we can do it just as well as any man.”
“You really do take this seriously, don’t you?”
“As seriously as you take your super-duper fancy-suit job.”
He didn’t reply to that, just stared at her, hard, and she got the feeling that he wanted to disagree with her but wasn’t sure why or how to say so.
“Ranger?” Kerri’s hand slid up, squeezing his shoulder before coming to rest just at his collar, the tips of her cool fingers sliding over the smooth skin of his neck, as though she were trying to pull his head closer for a
kiss.
She couldn’t stop herself.
And damn it he didn’t oblige.
He leaned down, lips moving softly over the bridge of her nose. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she exhaled a shaky breath. He kissed her closed eyes, her cheeks, then tipped her head up and kissed her chin, letting his lips linger there.
Until she moved and her lips ended up under his, and she was opening under him without hesitation, letting his tongue sweep inside. Her hand was curled around his neck now and she brought the other one to his thigh, rasping her palm over his jeans to feel the muscle underneath.
“Hell, y’all, get a room. Damn.” Grady’s voice interrupted their kiss, and they pulled apart slowly.
Ranger could hear Lee muttering, “I don’t see any reporters around.”
Lee was right. There was no reason they’d had to kiss just now. It had happened because she wanted to. For all that she’d resolved to keep her distance and preserve her sanity, it was as though he exerted a force that was far stronger than her conviction—a force that now seemed to bind her to him.
Quit mooning over him and thinking that he’s going to be in this for the long haul. He’s going to leave because you’re going to win Rookie of the Year. Y’all made a deal.
But the bond was already too strong to cut, and she couldn’t help but wonder what that would mean when the end of the season came around. Would he rip a little piece of her away when he left?
* * *
Ranger stood just inside the main entrance to the warehouse garage that housed all of Hart Racing’s cars and equipment. It had some wear and tear, but overall it was a well-maintained building, clean and bright and militantly organized. They’d driven over here straight from the airport, taking Kerri’s car, which she’d left at the terminal. He hadn’t been able to resist teasing her about it.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Tesla owner.” The cherry red electric car was beautiful, and it rode well, but it was a far cry from the jarring, screaming monster that she drove on the track.
She’d shrugged and run a hand over the dash, closing her eyes as though saying a prayer. “We bought it for my dad right after he got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He’d wanted one for a while but didn’t want to spend the money. So I used up a bunch of my Indy race winnings on it. Maybe it was a stupid purchase—hell, I know it was, in the purely financial sense—but it made him so happy. And now I just can’t bring myself to sell it.”
After she’d said that, Ranger had taken her hand, and the rest of the drive to the garage had been quiet.
Now he was staring at the massive machinery set in stations all over the floor on one end of the warehouse, and on the other end, a big stall with a large window cut into one side. He strode over and peered through the glass to see Bit and Danny standing in front of an engine block. Both were wearing ear protectors that looked like the enormous headphones they used at the track, watching the engine churn.
It looked like a heart beating outside of a chest.
“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” Kerri stepped up next to him, brushing against his side. He tamped down the urge to put an arm around her shoulders. He still wasn’t sure what to make of that kiss on the plane. After she’d told him that story about the girl who had led her family to Kerri in Vegas, she’d been acting differently toward him. But the kiss earlier today … it was the first time she’d actually initiated anything, and it hadn’t been for the press.
He hadn’t been able to resist. He’d tried so hard to keep things as platonic as possible, but it hadn’t been easy. Every time he’d come near her, he’d had to fight the urge to practically consume her.
He turned and half smiled at her, nodding. “Yeah. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“They’ve been working on this one for a while, building on it for a couple of months now.”
“Bit and Danny built this?”
She shrugged as though it was no big deal. “Yeah. Danny’s young, but he’s good. Bit has the other guys strip down the engine after every race to look at the wear, then they make any changes before reassembling the entire thing. But he takes a lot of that information and uses it to design new engines.” She gave a soft laugh. “I mean, Danny does the designing. He’s a whiz when it comes to all the software and stuff for it. Plus, between you and me, Danny had a tough home life and he needed a good guy to look up to. When he started here, Bit was really hard on him, but in a good way. Danny was willing to work that much harder just to get Bit’s approval. Now they’re so close, you’d think they were really father and son.”
Father and son. The thought shouldn’t have affected him. At least, it wouldn’t have, before he started working with Hart Racing. But now … Ranger watched as Bit gestured at something, and Danny cut the power to the engine. Both pulled their headphones off, but kept their protective eye goggles on. Their two heads bent together over the engine block, one gray and military short, the other a black so dark that it shone blue under the fluorescent lights.
It wasn’t jealousy that Ranger felt this time.
It was regret.
Regret that he’d never had that kind of relationship with someone. Regret that Al had poisoned—no—that Ranger had allowed his hatred of Al to poison his life. Regret that he had never confronted Al about why he had left.
Was that why Al had been calling so much lately? Had he been feeling differently, too?
The glint of light off metal, coming from Danny’s face, brought Ranger out of his thoughts, and he realized that Danny was wearing an eyebrow stud, which he hadn’t had been wearing this past weekend. That plus the all-black clothes today made him look like some goth kid.
It wasn’t what Ranger had expected to see in the world of stock car racing.
Bit and Danny looked up and saw him and Kerri watching them through the window. Danny grinned and waved, and a second later they’d left the stall and exited through a side door, coming out to greet Ranger and Kerri.
“Hey, slick.” Danny put out his hand to shake Ranger’s while Bit immediately launched into a discussion with Kerri about the new engine design.
“Slick?” Ranger raised an eyebrow at the younger man, who laughed.
“Yeah, well…” Danny gestured to Ranger’s usual outfit. Dark suit, dark shoes. Shiny. Pressed. Spic-and-span. “On account of you lookin’ like a city slicker.” His eyes danced, and Ranger grinned at the good-natured teasing.
“So if I look like a city slicker, what do eyebrow piercings mean around here?”
Danny laughed and slapped Ranger on the back. Lee and Grady, who had driven over in Grady’s dual-rear-wheel monster of a Ford truck after they’d dropped Nancy back at her house, walked in just then.
“You guys talking about the new engine? How’s it performing?” Lee didn’t bother with a greeting, but jumped right in. At least Grady waved to Ranger.
Bit squinted. “Somethin’s wrong with the camshaft. It’s bent. Barely. We almost missed it. Needs to be replaced.”
For a moment, Ranger wasn’t sure if the older man had more to say, but then Lee asked, “So what’s it gonna be, boss man?”
Lee was looking at him. They all were.
Of course they were. He held the power to make decisions like this. But still, it surprised him. Until now, he’d made decisions about things like which sponsors to start talking to, which hotels to stay in, without talking to Kerri or the crew, while the team had gone about their usual business without looping him in. This was the first time they’d included him.
It felt like a success, and it had nothing to do with money.
For a moment, he was frozen with unfamiliar emotion—confusion mixed with acceptance mixed with fear, maybe—but in the next moment, Grady cleared his throat and got Ranger’s attention.
“The cost to make a new one isn’t very high. It’s the time. We’re all already pulling a lot of hours because we’re short-staffed, and the crew should be focusing on the races and keeping everything maintained. We’d n
eed to hire another part-time mechanic or lose someone out of the travel team for a race or two.”
It was probably the first time Grady had talked about the racing world without a tinge of panic behind his words. Interesting.
‘Course, that didn’t change the fact that five pairs of eyes were on him, awaiting his decision.
He knew what his decision should be. Doing anything with the engine right now should be out of the question. They already had working engines. He couldn’t afford to take that much money out of the bottom line for what was essentially a luxury. And yet …
He couldn’t bring himself to say no and disappoint them. Bit and Danny, Lee and Grady … Kerri.
“Give me a day or two to go through the financials and see what we can do. I’ll get back to you.”
Shit. It was the first time he’d put off a decision when he already knew what the right choice was.
It’s just that, in this case, the choice that was financially better didn’t actually feel right.
There’s more than one way to define success.
Lee scowled and looked like he was about to mouth off to Ranger, but Grady spoke first. “Fair enough. There’s plenty of other work to do around here.”
Bit was the first to nod and walk away, Danny trailing behind. Lee lingered for a second longer, but Grady grabbed his younger brother’s arm and hauled the kid over to where the rest of the crew was working on Lee’s truck, leaving Ranger and Kerri alone once more.
She moved closer and pitched her voice low. “Thanks, Ranger.”
Ranger had tried to keep his distance after that last weird phone call from Al, to stay focused on just doing his job, but there was something about being included in this tight-knit group that kept unraveling him. He knew he wasn’t living up his Ruthless Ranger nickname.
But somehow, in this moment, standing next to this woman, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
* * *
It was close to midnight when Kerri and Ranger finally left the garage, gravel crunching under their feet as they walked across the drive to her car. Ranger had spent the rest of the day learning about all the machines they used, what critical equipment needed replacing, and a few other operational details.