A NASCAR Holiday 2: Miracle SeasonSeason of DreamsTaking ControlThe Natural

by Pamela Britton

  Yet the bay she stepped into could have been a car showroom. The spotless floor was painted a shiny, light gray, and the fluorescent fixtures suspended from the steel rafters overhead flooded the high-ceilinged room with daylight brightness. After a few moments she realized the people she saw in clean white jumpsuits were actually working under the hoods. Nearby were tall, shiny red square containers on casters. Giant toolboxes with a myriad of doors and drawers.

  Aidan introduced her to a man of about forty-five with a square face and ruddy complexion. Unlike the others, he was dressed in chinos and a long-sleeved collared cotton shirt of orange and green, which she now recognized as the team colors.

  “Ellie, this is Mace Wagner, my crew chief. He’s the guy who does all the work and gives me most of the glory.”

  Mace extended a warm, meaty hand. “Please to meet you, Ms. Satterfield. My condolences on the loss of your uncle. We thought the world of that man around here.”

  Over the following two hours Aidan and Mace walked her through a series of shops where they built stock cars, which, she soon learned, were not stock at all but meticulously crafted custom creations that only resembled the cars they were named after. Even then, she soon learned, appearances could be deceiving. They had no doors, no head or taillights, and to her amazement, no speedometers or gas gauges.

  As she observed men, and a few women, going about their work, she found herself drawn in, intrigued and fascinated by what they were doing, and it occurred to her that for none of these people was it a job. More like a proud calling.

  She measured, too, their responses to Aidan O’Keefe. They liked the man, welcomed his company. She understood why. He was laid-back, a man without affectations or pretenses.

  “SHARP WOMAN,” Mace remarked when, a few minutes after noon, Ellie excused herself to use the ladies’ room.

  She may have come across as a spoiled brat the night before, but this morning, Aidan had to admit, she was a businesswoman who asked intelligent questions and listened attentively to the answers.

  “Have you gotten down to the nitty-gritty yet?”

  Aidan shook his head. “I gave her our financial reports and audit to review last night. She hasn’t said if she has. It was pretty late and she’d had a long day, so maybe she hasn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t waste any time,” Mace said. “You can be sure Fulton won’t. And if she’s as eager to sell as we suspect, she’ll probably take the first offer that comes along.”

  Aidan disagreed. “She may be a spoiled rich girl, but she’s not stupid. She’ll play us off against each other.”

  “Which is a good reason for getting on her good side and staying there. Can I make a suggestion?”

  “Fire away. At this point I’ll consider anything. Well, almost anything. If you want me to kiss Fulton…”

  “Please,” Mace responded with a gagging sound. “It’s lunchtime and I need my sustenance.” He patted his belly, which was considerably wider than Aidan’s. “No, what I’m going to suggest is a lot more palatable.”

  Aidan regarded him expectantly.

  “Kiss Ellie.”

  “What?” Aidan stammered. “What the deuce are you talking about?”

  “Well, kiss up to her. She’s hot for you, Aidan. You probably haven’t seen the way she looks at you, but I can tell you everybody else around here has.”

  “You’re crazy.” Kiss Ellie. The notion had crossed his mind the evening before. A silly impulse which he had nobly resisted.

  Mace laughed. “More like she’s crazy for being turned on by a goober like you, but she is. Take advantage of it. Woo her.”

  “Woo her? Have you started reading nineteenth-century romance novels or something?”

  “I’m telling you she’s got the hots for you, my friend. Okay, so maybe you don’t have to bed her, though why you wouldn’t—” he caught Aidan’s chastising expression and retreated “—but you can certainly share some time with her.”

  “I’ve got a race to run and a daughter to raise,” Aidan objected, “or have you forgotten those little details?”

  “Why do they have to be mutually exclusive?”

  “I’m not using my daughter—”

  “I’m not suggesting you do. You know I’d never do that. What I am saying is spend as much time with Ellie as you can. Get to know her. Overwhelm her with your considerable charm, such as it is. Let her get to know you…and Annie. The better she likes you the less inclined she’ll be to sell us out from under you.”

  Aidan wasn’t pleased with the notion, but he had to admit it had merit. Not the part about wooing her but about being friendly, letting her see more of the human side of the business.

  As for kissing her…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AT THE END of the morning’s tour, Aidan took Ellie up to the fancy office that had been her uncle’s. He didn’t tell her Walter hardly ever spent time there; he’d always been more interested in hanging around in the garage area or the pits. She met Shirley, who had been Walter’s secretary for nearly twenty years, and who’d made Ellie’s hotel reservation.

  “This afternoon we’ll go out to the track,” Aidan told her. “You can watch practice laps.”

  “Good.” She nodded. “I’d like that.”

  “And if you’re interested, I can arrange for a demo ride.”

  The eyes of the cool socialite and businesswoman lit up like a kid seeing her first Christmas tree. “Really?”

  He liked the gleam he saw, wondered what else might provoke that excitement. Funny how good the notion of eliciting it again made him feel.

  Shirley had already called out for half a dozen sandwiches and now offered Ellie and Aidan first choice, saying she and the girls from accounting would split what was left.

  Ellie selected the provolone and Black Forest ham, while Aidan went for the turkey-and-bacon club with Swiss on sourdough. They ate off the paper wrappers in the maple-paneled office. Not the style to which his new partner was probably accustomed, he quickly surmised. Welcome to the world of racing.

  “How long did you know my uncle?” she asked after wiping her mouth with a coarse brown paper napkin.

  “Almost fourteen years. I was fifteen when he came to give a speech at the juvenile center where I was residing at the time. We talked afterward, and the following weekend he received permission to take me to a race he was sponsoring.”

  She eyed him, not sure if he was pulling her leg. “Why were you in a juvenile center?”

  “My old man beat me one time too many and I ran away. Refused to go back to live with him and the lush he’d married after my mom died.”

  She took another bite of her sandwich. Crunched into the dill pickle, sipped her sweet tea, all the time avoiding eye contact with him.

  “He was real proud of you,” Aidan told her. “Harvard Business School. Top of the class.”

  “Third, actually.”

  “Close enough. I got my GED. Never went to college. But then, neither did he. Called himself the black sheep of the family.”

  “I’m sorry I never met him.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Maybe when I was very young, but I don’t remember.”

  “I figured since he and your mother were such close friends—”

  “Friends? What are you talking about?”

  “The cruises they took together every year.”

  She stared across the desk at him. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. My mother didn’t take any cruises with him.”

  He seemed to consider her reply. “She didn’t take a Caribbean cruise every January?”

  That caught her unawares and instantly put her on the defensive. “I don’t think what my mother does is any of your business, Mr. O’Keefe.”

  He chuckled with amusement. “Ah, so it’s back to Mr. O’Keefe, is it?” He bit into his sandwich to hide his smile. Apparently Estelle Satterfield had been keeping a secret.

  Ellie’s tawny eyes narrowed as she s
tared at him. “What you said about them taking cruises together…that’s not true.”

  “Maybe you ought to ask your mother why your uncle left his racing team to her and you, since neither of you have ever come to a race.”

  She didn’t respond.

  They continued eating their sandwiches in frosty silence.

  “Did you get a chance to review the papers I gave you last night?” he asked a few minutes later.

  She nodded. “The team seems to be in very sound financial condition,” she commented and almost added, if the reports are accurate, but decided questioning his veracity again would probably not be a good idea. “How long have you been a partner?”

  “Three years.”

  “So the documents you furnished me are only since you’ve been involved.”

  He nodded. “Shirley can dig the earlier reports out of the archives if you want to examine them. I just grabbed what was most current and readily available.”

  “Is it standard practice for a driver to also be an owner?” she asked.

  “It’s not unheard of, but I wouldn’t call it standard.”

  “So how did you come to be my uncle’s partner?”

  “Walter was a great guy, but he wasn’t always a diligent businessman.” At her wide-eyed expression, he held up his hand. “Nothing illegal or underhanded. I don’t mean to imply that. Though the Internal Revenue Service did consider his failure to cross their palms with silver at the appropriate intervals to be a federal offense. But he wasn’t trying to break any law or evade taxes. He just forgot to keep his accountant informed in a timely matter of some of his transactions, so when the tax bills arrived he didn’t always have the cash on hand to appease them.”

  “Why would you enter into a partnership with someone who was so careless?”

  “Because he was a good friend who needed help, and because I wanted to drive a stock car in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, and he happened to have one available. I did get him to agree to let someone else manage his money.”

  “You?”

  Aidan laughed. “I have enough to do driving cars and raising my daughter, thank you very much.”

  He had a daughter? How about a wife? He wasn’t wearing a ring.

  “I wasn’t about to play daddy to a man who was old enough to be my father,” Aidan continued. “The last thing I wanted was to let money get in the way of our friendship. One of the accountants at the firm managed his checkbook for him.”

  “I presume an examination of the books will tell me how much you paid for your third interest.”

  He grinned at her. “Or you could just ask me.”

  She queried him with her eyes.

  “One million dollars.”

  From reading the statements she knew Aidan hadn’t been paid nearly that much cumulatively by the team in the past three years, but her personal research before coming out here disclosed that drivers earned substantially larger amounts from sponsors for promotions and guest appearances. Aidan could easily have made two or three times that sum in any one year.

  She’d also calculated the team was worth considerably more than three million dollars, even assuming it had been debt-ridden at the time Aidan bought in. She estimated its current net worth to be anywhere from twenty-five to thirty million dollars.

  “You bought cheap,” she finally said.

  “No question about it,” Aidan replied, then smiled. “But Walter made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “How much did he owe in back taxes?”

  “About half that. He also had a couple of loans he was in danger of falling delinquent on that he wanted to clear up.”

  “You don’t feel any remorse for taking advantage of him?”

  Aidan stopped eating and raised his eyebrows. His beautiful blue eyes drilled into her. “Feel remorse?”

  She kept chewing, though she wasn’t sure she would be able to swallow.

  “No, Ms. Satterfield,” he said stiffly, “I don’t feel remorse. He came to me and offered me a third of Satterfield Racing for a million dollars, if I could come up with the cash within thirty days. You don’t have to believe me, but I asked him if it was enough, if he wanted or needed more. He said no, that he would eventually have given me a piece of the action anyway.”

  He crunched into a pickle. “Whether I took advantage of your uncle in a weak moment isn’t the issue. It’s history. Besides, I have enough witnesses who will testify that the deal was made freely and willingly. The relevant matter now is that you’re here to sell Satterfield Racing.” To the highest bidder.

  “Is there something wrong with that?” she challenged.

  Not wrong, he reflected, just sad that Walter Satterfield’s niece doesn’t give a damn about something that played such a central role in his life.

  “There’s nothing wrong with selling,” he conceded, “if it’s to the right buyer.”

  “And that would be you, I suppose.”

  Whatever he said would sound defensive, so he didn’t say anything.

  She continued to eat, while he studied her intently.

  “I’m willing to offer you or your mother eight million dollars for one of your shares.”

  She shook her head. “We’re not interested in splitting our ownership or giving up control. Both shares must be sold together.”

  In principle that suited him. There was only the little matter of cash on hand.

  “How much?” he asked.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if there were no hurry. “I’ve studied the financial statements you gave me, Aidan, as well as the market. Twenty million.”

  It was too much, of course, and being the crafty businesswoman she at least thought she was, she didn’t really expect to get that amount. But she wasn’t being outrageous, only high, in her demand. They would eventually come to an agreement closer to what he expected to pay, and that gave him hope.

  He shrugged sympathetically. “You won’t get it, Ellie. I can sweeten my offer a little, but not that much. I’m willing to go to seventeen.”

  She was trying not to show overt interest, so she took another bite of her sandwich, chewed and swallowed before answering.

  “I’ll present the offer to my mother. If she’s willing to accept, how soon could we conclude the deal?”

  Here was the tricky part. “As you might expect I haven’t got that kind of cash available right now, but by the end of the upcoming season—”

  “Next season? That’s a year off. I—We don’t want to wait that long.”

  “We can sign a contract right now for seventeen million. I’ll give each of you one million dollars down, the balance payable at the end of next season.”

  “And if you haven’t raised the money by then?”

  “You keep the million. Or we can negotiate a new contract.”

  He could see the wheels turning in her head.

  “No,” she said firmly. “Nineteen now, not next year.”

  She was backing off on the price. That was a start, but the time was the real issue. “Do you have other offers?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Which meant she didn’t. But she would soon. Mitch Fulton hadn’t gotten to her yet, but he would. Aidan didn’t know if Fulton could come up with that kind of money immediately, but he might, and if he did, Aidan would be a goner.

  “It is my business, Ellie. I have a vested interest in this team. I can’t prevent you from selling to a higher bidder, but I have a right to know what I’m up against.”

  “Not legally,” she pointed out.

  She was right on that score. There was also the question of what constituted a higher bid. How did one calculate the value of a year, for example, especially if the market changed significantly during that period?

  “I do morally, Ellie,” he countered, “and that’s more important.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “When you get another offer,” he said, “let me know what it is and I’ll do my b
est to meet or beat it. You can’t get any fairer than that.”

  He gathered up the soiled wrappers and napkins, stuffed them into the paper bag they’d come in and deposited it in the wastepaper basket.

  “Ready to go to the track?” he asked.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HER FIRST INSTINCT was to curl into a fetal position and cover her ears.

  Aidan handed her a headset and said something, but she couldn’t make out the words above the unbearable roar of shrill engines screaming by, rattling every bone and joint in her body.

  Gently he adjusted them on her head, closeting her ears. The din receded, not completely, but it was muted now, at a bearable distance.

  “Better?” It took a moment for her to realize the voice was coming through the earpieces.

  She nodded and the weight of the headset almost made it fall off.

  Aidan, watching her, smiled. “You’ll get used to them in no time.”

  She doubted it, but rather than disagree, she nodded again, more cautiously this time, and caught herself smiling back.

  He proceeded to explain to her what she was seeing.

  “These are test laps to evaluate a car’s performance. We’ll make adjustments based on the driver’s analysis. Then, when we get to the track in Miami, I’ll do my practice laps, and we’ll make more.”

  “Haven’t you raced there before?”

  “Many times, but conditions are always changing. Track surfaces develop grooves, ruts. Or they may have been repaved since the last time I drove there. Sometimes they change the banking on curves and straightaways. Weather conditions also affect an engine’s performance and a car’s handling. Plus, this is a different car from the one I drove there last year.”

  He proceeded to explain about all the different adjustments they could make to the car based on conditions, loosening and tightening the suspension, changing tire pressures. She’d never considered herself mechanically inclined or interested, but listening to Aidan so enthusiastically describe the nuances of shock absorbers and springs, track bars and sway bars, she found it all suddenly fascinating.

  Several men rolled out the shiny demo car, which resembled every other race car on the track in that it sported team colors. This one was emblazoned with the Satterfield logo, but it had no car number. Closer inspection disclosed an even bigger difference. This car had a passenger seat.