The Good Race: Book One of the Grayson Falls series

by A. M. Mahler

  “You’ve always been strong enough to handle anything thrown at you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “You may have processed it all internally, but that’s just you.”

  She rested her head on his chest and hugged him tightly in response.

  A voice suddenly rang out through the room. “Danny, do you copy?”

  He stepped back from Jackie and pulled his radio off his belt loop. “Yeah, go, Earl.”

  “We just wanted to let you know we’re going on a Code 10.”

  Danny closed his eyes and pinched his nose. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Um, yes?”

  “Why don’t you check that list I gave you again and make sure that you’re really going on a Code 10. If you are, you will not be going by yourselves. Wait for me.”

  Danny looked at Jackie in frustration. There was a large learning curve going on during his transition to chief of police. The officers were good and they were trained, but they weren’t ever really tested. Grayson Falls wasn’t exactly a hotbed of crime, but he still planned to beef up the training program. In low-crime areas, skills could get rusty—fast. Eventually, something big and random would go down in their small town, and he couldn’t afford to have officers that weren’t ready.

  “What are they trying to figure out?”

  “Whether or not there’s a bomb threat.”

  Jackie laughed out loud, a big belly laugh that sounded like it came right from her toes.

  Danny found himself ridiculously happy that Earl had decided to call and interrupt their tension-filled moment.

  The voice came back. “Okay, Danny?”

  “Yeah, go ahead, Earl.”

  “We’re going on a Code 7 instead.”

  “That’s more like it. A bit different from a Code 10, right, Earl?”

  “Uh, yeah, Chief. Over.”

  “Okay, I have to know,” Jackie laughed. “What’s a Code 7?”

  “Mealtime,” Danny smiled. “They’re trying to tell me they’re taking a lunch break.”

  She leaned back against her desk and continued to crack up. “Oh, that’s priceless.”

  “I’m glad Grayson Falls’ police force amuses you.”

  He tried to be stern, but he just couldn’t pull it off. It wasn’t Earl’s or the rest of the department’s fault that they hadn’t learned the standard police codes when communicating over the radio. And he had to admit, he liked molding the force into something just a little better than it was when he’d arrived.

  “They’re trying.”

  “They are,” he agreed, stepping toward her. He put one hand on her hip and pulled her closer. “This is what I’m doing for you. This is how you know it’s love, Jacks.”

  “I have every confidence that you’ll whip them into shape, Chief.” She brought her hands up to his chest and leaned in.

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  She framed his face with her hands and smiled. “I’m so proud of you, Danny.”

  “You’re the only one that’s ever said that to me, you know that?”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It’s okay,” he shrugged. “Nobody else’s opinion matters anyway.”

  “We’re building something here, you know. Something we can both be proud of.”

  “Yeah, I know. We’re building a lot of things here, Jacks.”

  Twenty

  JACKIE PULLED INTO the parking lot at the address Ryan had given her and got out of the car. Though his car was there, she didn’t see him anywhere when she stepped out of her Jeep, so she looked at the faded, painted sign nailed to a tall white picket fence.

  “Great North Woods Speedway,” she murmured, stepping back to take in more of the massive structure before her. From her vantage point, she could see a grandstand—not remotely as large as the professional circuit tracks—but adequate enough for an operation this size. She guessed it was probably a quarter-mile loop inside, but whether it was a dirt track or paved remained to be seen.

  Ryan called over to her from the ticket booth, and she started in his direction. There were three ticket windows in total: Credit, Cash Only, and Will Call. So far, the structures seemed to be in reasonably good shape, just a little dated.

  “Come on in,” Ryan waved. “You’ve got to see this.”

  She walked over and followed him through the main gate. Immediately to her right were the bathrooms. To her left, she saw three small buildings that she figured were various concession and merchandising stands. A glance up and she saw she was next to the grandstand. As they walked around the front of it, she saw the press box and announcer’s booth at the top of the stands. More bleachers stood around turns three and four but turns one and two were bare housing lots for the drivers’ transport trucks. There were also places to store their cars when their heat wasn’t up or they were done for the night.

  Some of the clapboard structures were in dire need of repair. The whole place needed a paint job, but it was charming overall. She could close her eyes and hear the roar of the engines—the super streets, U-cars, modifieds, late models, and wolf trucks. She could smell the fried food and feel the pulse of the crowd. To her, it was the soundtrack of summer.

  “Did you know this was here when you bought your place?” Ryan asked, shaking Jackie out of her reverie.

  “No. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I was just looking at the hospital, and the land and buildings I bought.”

  “Ironic—or maybe fate.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s for sale,” he explained. “The owner had a stroke two years ago, and no one was able to open it, so they’re trying to sell it. The drivers that like to race here wanted to buy it, but they couldn’t get the capital together.”

  “How much is it?”

  “Eight hundred thousand.”

  Jackie looked around again. The structures didn’t seem worth it, but it did sit on a lot of land.

  “I want it,” Ryan announced. “And I want you to be my partner in the business. Before you say no, just listen to me. Who better to run an operation like this and make it thrive than the kids of two of the most successful and beloved professional drivers of their time? With the contacts we have, we can get all sorts of professional drivers here for events, especially when they’re racing in New Hampshire. And it’s the perfect facility for me to run my cars on. I can test them in actual races and simulations on a track—albeit a short track. And beyond all that, it’ll just be damn fun. Please, Jacks? What do you say?”

  She rolled her eyes and looked around her again, this time studying everything as an asset or a liability. He didn’t need her money. Even if he did need another investor to make it happen, he could easily tap his father. She knew that this was something that he wanted to share with her specifically. Outside of their shared mother and background in racing, they were nearly opposites with virtually nothing in common with each other.

  “How big’s the oval?”

  “Quarter-mile,” Ryan answered. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he let it out. He really wanted to do this with her.

  “What level of involvement would you want from me? I’m a doctor, Ry. And at the moment, the only doctor at Grayson Falls Hospital. I don’t want a spotlight on me. You know how I am with that. I have the nice quiet little life I’ve always wanted.”

  “You can be involved exactly how much or how little you want to be, Jacks. There’s no pressure at all. You don’t even have to answer me now.”

  “Oh, yes, I do!” she laughed. “I know you, big brother. You’ll bug the crap out of me waiting for my answer.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes again, breathing in the sights, smells, and sounds she had experienced when she first saw the tiny little track. No matter how far she ran, or how hard she tried to forget, racing was in her blood, and it was useless to deny it.

  “All right,” she sighed.

  Ryan let out a whoop, picked her up, and spun her around.

  “You weren’t rea
lly worried I’d say no, were you?”

  “Believe it or not, I was a little,” he admitted when he put her down. Then he turned serious. “Listen, Jacks, you know I won’t needlessly put your name out there, right? You want to stay in the corner, I’ll protect you. You know that, right?”

  “I do,” she smiled up at him. “No matter what’s going on, I know you’ve always got my back.”

  “Always, baby sister,” he said, hugging her again.

  She laughed, and they turned to look at the little track that was about to become theirs. Ryan swung his arm around her shoulders and took a deep breath. “This is a good thing.”

  “I know,” she said, stepping away from him and crossing her arms. “And maybe all our new siblings can help you run it.”

  He simply dropped his head and shook it. “McKenzie told you.”

  “He did.”

  “I had nothing to do with that little investigation,” Ryan said, raising his head. “I was just as floored as you were.”

  “No, but there are other investigations you neglected to mention.” She glared at him. If he thought she was going to make this easy on him, he was wrong. “You think my father didn’t die from a heart attack? How come you never told me that?”

  “Hold up,” he said, holding out his hands for emphasis. “In the beginning, so much had changed for you that I didn’t want to add on another thing. I thought about it a lot, but I also figured I was seventeen with an overactive imagination. You were grieving your father, who you had spent your entire life with. You had also just found out that you had a brother. Then you got sent to a boarding school where you didn’t know anybody. I wanted to give you time to adjust to all that first. Then I guess I never really found the right time. Years would go by and the timing just never seemed right. Either you were sad, and I didn’t want to pile anything negative on, or you were happy again, and I didn’t want to bring you down.

  “I love you, Jacks, so much. We’ve been a team for so long, and I was afraid to hurt you. After McKenzie left Trent, you were a shell of yourself. You went through life like a robot, throwing yourself into studying. Finally, it looked like you were coming out of it and I was so happy to have you back that I couldn’t tell you. I should have, I know that, but I just couldn’t do it. My intentions may have been skewed, but I swear to God, Jackie, I didn’t tell you out of love.”

  Jackie’s anger deflated. He was telling the truth. Sure, he often went too far to protect her and he would probably never understand she didn’t need protecting, but she accepted him and loved him for who he was, flaws and all.

  “You really make me crazy sometimes,” she sighed.

  “It won’t be the last time I piss you off,” he said sheepishly.

  “I’m aware of that.” She linked her arms with his and they headed back to the parking lot. “What are we going to do about all these siblings?”

  “There’s nothing we can do about our mystery sister. She’s around here someplace. We just have to be satisfied with the fact that she’s safe.”

  “You will never be happy with that, Ryan.”

  “No, I won’t. Somehow or other, I’m going to find out who she is. Even if she never knows that I know who she is, I need to know. I need to see for myself that she’s safe and all right.”

  “You have such a big heart,” Jackie smiled. “How is it you’ve never let a woman snap you up?”

  “Don’t even start with me. When Danny was gone, you only dated men you knew it would never work out with.”

  “Guess I wasn’t fooling you.”

  “You’ve never fooled me, and you never will. I know you too well.”

  “Even if I did only gravitate toward a small handful of men I knew weren’t compatible, it was only because I’d already had my true love and I knew that he and I weren’t over. Fate brought him back to me, you see.”

  “Sophie brought him back to you.”

  “Fate brought him to Sophie.”

  “Okay. Maybe I’ll concede that one.”

  “Speaking of Sophie and knowing people well,” she began. “You live in the same town as her now. You’re both single, and you’re no longer sowing your wild oats with skanks like her cousin.”

  “I never slept with Brooke!”

  “You did a lot of things with a lot of girls,” Jackie countered. “But never Sophie. I could always see how you looked at her. It was the same way I must have looked at Danny, and the way I know he looked at me. Whatever your reasons were for not dating her then, they can’t possibly still apply.”

  “They don’t,” he said, kicking at some gravel on the ground. “I think I’ve been in love with her my entire life, but what if she doesn’t feel the same? What then? What if I make a move and she shoots me down, and then she doesn’t want to be around me anymore?”

  “That’s fear talking, and my brother isn’t afraid of anything.”

  “You forget, Jacks. I saw you when McKenzie left. It was my arms you cried in. You lost your love and it nearly destroyed you. I’m afraid of that happening to me. You’re stronger than me. I can’t survive that.”

  “I got my love back, Ryan,” she said quietly. “And it’s the most amazing thing in the world. I can’t stand the thought of you not having the same thing. You and Danny have more in common than you know—or care to admit. You both have the biggest hearts. You have such a huge capacity for love. You were meant to love someone and have them love you. I know it. And you were right. I was a shell of myself when Danny left. I can see it now because I have him back. My heart is whole again, and I never want to go back to what I was before. Please, don’t give up on love.”

  He sighed deeply and hugged his sister close. “How the hell can I when I’m related to a romantic nag like you?”

  Twenty-One

  ETHAN DONAHUE SLAMMED the door of his pickup truck and looked around him at the log home and barns. His brother and sister sure did have a lot of land. Being raised on a farm, his trained eye saw where the fields used to be. One barn was definitely in better shape than the other one, that was for sure. Still, there was potential here for a nice little operation, and he wondered what his new brother and sister intended to do with it.

  He started around the truck with the limp that always accompanied him now. Having lost the bottom half of his leg in a roadside bomb, he’d had to learn to get around on a new prosthetic. It was often slow going, but he had adjusted easily enough. He tried to keep a positive attitude about it. Some of his battalion had died that day, and some were more severely injured than he’d been. Losing the bottom part of your leg certainly sucked, and there were things he wouldn’t be able to do again, like sliding into home plate playing baseball back home, but he still didn’t consider himself disabled.

  The injury had ended his run as a working dog handler. You just couldn’t do that job if you couldn’t move fast. He could have retrained for a different position in the Corps, but he figured after giving six years of his life, he’d take his honorable discharge and head home.

  When he did come home to his family’s farm, he’d discovered that things weren’t as rosy as his parents had said they were. While he was gone, the bank had foreclosed on the farm. After a few years of a low crop yield, they couldn’t hold the mortgage. It frustrated Ethan that they hadn’t asked him for help. While a working dog handler didn’t yield a high salary, he was getting combat pay and being stationed overseas in a war zone, so there wasn’t much to do with his money. It was directly deposited into his bank account, and there it sat. He’d have gladly turned it over to his parents to help. But they didn’t want to bother him, and the money wouldn’t have been enough anyway.

  His father, Jamie Donohue, was a third-generation farmer. He and his wife, Linda, couldn’t have children, and they had adopted Ethan only days after he was born. He loved his parents with everything he had, and he’d never felt like he wasn’t really theirs. They’d showered him with love, and while they didn’t have a lot of money and he couldn’t a
lways have the hottest gaming system or trendiest shoes, he’d had their full attention—which to Ethan—made him richer than a lot of kids he knew.

  Less than a week after he’d returned home, when he was busy helping his parents pack up their house to leave the farm, he’d had a visitor in the form of Eric Davis. Davis was investigating Daisy Dolan, who turned out to be Ethan’s birth mother. He’d never heard her name before, and neither had his parents. It had been a closed adoption, but Eric somehow had known a lot of information, the most shocking of which was that he had five other siblings: two sisters and three brothers. It seemed Daisy Dolan had a habit of having children and then leaving them behind.

  Davis had told him all about his brothers and sisters—where they were, what they did. His parents had encouraged him to go meet them. They told him that he was at a crossroads in his life and that this might help him find a new direction to go in. They weren’t even sure they were going to stay in Nebraska at this point. His mother’s cousin had been trying to convince them to retire for years and join her down in Florida, and they thought they might go check it out. Ethan had also been encouraging them to retire for years. It had been his plan to take over the farm when he got out of the military, but as his mother pointed out, he needed a new direction now.

  One of Ethan’s brothers was a surgeon. Another was a professional baseball player. He wasn’t really sure he would fit into either of those lifestyles. One of his sisters was in witness protection—though supposedly living in this town—so hanging with her was out of the question. His other sister and brother had recently relocated to Grayson Falls, New Hampshire. Jackie was a doctor, and Ryan designed stock cars. Again, two careers that didn’t really interest him. But what did catch his eye was that they lived in a small, quiet New England town. He noted as he drove through it that people stopped to talk to each other on the street. Nobody went over the speed limit, nobody was in a hurry. That appealed to Ethan. After six years with the military police, he just wanted quiet.