She caught their new benefactor alone a few minutes before Harley was ready to climb behind the wheel.
“Valentina, can I talk to you a second?”
“Of course, Elle, dear. What can I do for you?”
She told her all the concerns she had about the car and the changes, ending with the dire prediction that colored all her thoughts. “Somebody is going to get hurt, and I don’t want it to be Harley.”
Valentina nodded sympathetically and put a motherly arm around Elle’s shoulders.
“Virgil told me you had concerns, and I’m glad there’s somebody to bring them up so the team can be sure and check everything out. But everyone out there, Johnnie included, agrees with this decision. Johnnie, in fact has a lot of experience with this kind of driving. He’s the one who has the car Virgil is basing this on.”
“What? Every car is unique.” Elle tried to catch her breath at the ignorance of the statement.
“Yes, but some things are proven winners, so why not use them? Look, Elle. This is not meant to be too personal, but I think you have to take something into consideration. It’s no secret you and Harley are a couple. You yourselves haven’t hidden it. Don’t you think that colors your opinions somewhat? You don’t want him hurt so you’re more comfortable with the status quo. It’s understandable, but it isn’t racing. Calculations, controlled experiments and innovation. That’s what makes a successful race team.”
Elle gave up. It was her against the entire crew.
Maybe Valentina was right. Between Jack’s dream and Elle’s blossoming love for Harley, perhaps this was nothing more than fear making her contrary. With effort she hauled in a calming breath and settled back to watch the runs.
The test circuits were nightmares only the experts could see. After three laps it was clear Harley was struggling with his “new” car. The turns were choppy, and the tire balance was off. He no longer knew instinctively how to steer out of the turns because the chassis was tight, the back end was its own master, and the entire alignment didn’t track true anymore. He’d need a hundred laps to get the timing down.
Instead of letting Harley continue, however, Virgil put Johnnie in the driver’s seat.
Angry, Elle watched him take off and arc immediately into a graceful start. From the first instant Johnnie showed that he knew the feel and handling of this set up. At first it was aggravating but impressive. Then Elle dialed back her personal feelings and watched the car with a professional eye.
It wasn’t right. Even when the turns were executed more or less properly, the back end rolled and pushed, causing the car to slow, or to stutter if Johnnie gave it gas. The right tire gripped too hard and the front end bucked like an unhappy colt.
She had to stop this.
“Look at him go!” Valentina nearly crowed with delight. “The boy is a natural. You know? Maybe Johnnie should drive tomorrow.” Then she laughed. “It’s Harley’s car and ride, of course, but it’s an interesting thought. Maybe Harley would even be relieved.”
Suddenly Elle understood everything—Valentina’s game from start to finish. This wasn’t about winning or even starting the new race team. This was about raising Johnnie Markham’s profile. Valentina wanted to raise up a prodigy, and he was her choice. If this race was successful, she’d give the credit to Johnnie and Virgil and her foresight as an owner. If the race went south, Harley would be the scapegoat. They’d say he didn’t have the broad experience he needed to race multiple venues.
Elle’s stomach ached in anger. This had to be stopped. She had to make Harley see reason. But first she needed something more powerful than her intuition. She needed to prove she knew her math and physics. She prayed the A’s she busted her butt for in high school and college would now pay off some dividends.
Chapter Sixteen
“Hey, beautiful. Sorry I’m late.”
Harley strode to her table at the Come Again, and wrapped his arms around her from behind, following it with a kiss on the corner of her mouth. The intimacy warmed Elle despite her agitation. Away from the shop, where lately the chauvinistic atmosphere nobody could quite stamp out had become barely tolerable on the best of days, she didn’t feel as if she had to check all her personal feelings. Here, for a few moments, she could let the tingles Harley left on her skin have their way.
“No problem. All’s well?”
“Perfect. We’ll finish the engine tonight and drive again tomorrow. I started figuring out the new balance pretty well. Another time or two, and I’ll be comfortable racing. I wish you’d stayed to watch the engine readjustment. It’s amazing. Virgil is like a wizard—so fast, so adept. The car roars like a panther now instead of purring like a cheetah.”
All her tingles vanished. All her fear and anger returned.
“I can’t work on that for you. I won’t.”
“Elle, I thought we’d gone over this. You have to let it go.”
“Nope.” She shoved a piece of paper in front of him filled with a night’s-worth of sketches and number comparisons. One sheet held an engine schematic, the rest presented a list, a catalogue, of every force working on every part of a speeding car. “Look at this. This is the engine I created last night. It’s virtual but otherwise identical to your real one. And if you look closely at all these figures, you’ll see what’s going to happen to it.”
Harley stared at her work, his mouth pursing in annoyance. Fine. He needed to get angry about this.
“Engines don’t blow up anymore Elle. Not in stock cars. The safety shut offs will—”
“I know that, Harley. This isn’t about your engine exploding. It is about engines overheating and blowing head gaskets, or radiators, or any number of vital parts—the list is there. You can see from the math that my engine can’t take the rpm’s. There can be no question. The same thing will happen to your engine if you leave these changes. To make this number of changes you need to rebuild the carburetor, and build the chassis from the ground up rather than add pieces of metal. What Virgil has is a kluge—it’s not safe.”
“Are you jealous of him for some reason?”
“Not in a million years.” Her voice heated slightly. “I’m sorry, but the man is a dinosaur and a rude chauvinistic one at that.”
“I’m sorry he insulted you yesterday.”
“That’s not the point. I’ve been insulted before; I’m a big girl. My problem is you. What you’ve done to your car could injure you. Maybe badly.”
“Honey, that car was already a lethal weapon. That’s what race cars are by nature.”
“And you used to know how to handle your particular weapon. Now you don’t.”
He bristled for the first time.
“Thanks so much for the vote of confidence.”
“Come on, Harley. You know what I mean. If you’d made the changes yourself, done something because it was what you wanted the car to do, that would be different. But they’ve made a carbon copy of Johnnie’s car, did you know that? That’s what this is all about. Valentina came right out and told me she’d like to see Johnnie drive on Friday. She’s not about you. She’s not about us. She wants to get her boy out front.”
“Believe me, I know that. I also know, she’ll put him in that car if I so much as twitch the wrong way. But it’s my car and nobody else is driving it in the event I dreamed up, so I’m not twitching.”
Elle tapped the paper again. “It’s not your car, Harley, that’s what I’m saying. And here’s my analysis. At ten laps, twenty tops, that head is going to go. And when it does, the front end and the back end are going to fight for control, the wider wheel base is too wide because you didn’t rebuild the chassis. Best case scenario, it careens into the infield because you’re talented enough to steer it away from the wall. But what’s more likely? The grip is going to hell and the car is going to flip. Side over side probably. If the engine seizes it could go end over end. You’ll probably survive if you don’t hit something solid. But you could die. It’s a remote possibility, but stil
l a possibility.”
Harley buried his face in his hands and scrubbed hard against his cheeks. Elle waited, her heart pounding with the adrenaline of anger and fear.
“Do you hear what you’re saying? The number of things that have to go wrong all at once is so unlikely to happen. This is a worst case scenario, Elle, but there’s always a worst case scenario. We plan for them. We practice. Which is why I’ll do it again tomorrow and Friday morning if I need to. I’m careful, Elle. I told you that.”
She stood, grabbed the paper and stared down at him. “Come with me.”
When they stood well away from the door, she turned on him. “I didn’t want to yell this at you inside where everyone could overhear, so you need to take it this way. I’ve fallen in love with you, Harley Holt. Before Ferris wheels, or haunted houses, or making love on the garage floor, it had already started. Sorry, but it’s true. I’ve considered the possibility that I’m being a worried lover or turning into someone like your mom. I almost called my brother today because God knows I can’t make a diagnosis or decision without a white knight to ride in and make sure I’ve done it right.
“But I didn’t call him. Know why? Because I am right. This time, you are all wrong. Now this is my call, and it’s my crow to eat if I’m being an arrogant bitch and turn out to be wrong. But I don’t want you to get hurt. I certainly don’t want you to die.”
“I’m not going to die, Elle. My god, I love you, too.”
“Then trust me.”
“Or, you can trust me.”
He reached to pull her close, but she resisted. “You are nearly perfect, you know? But you have one very big problem.”
“Is that right?”
“You once told me you understood that nobody is invincible. Well you don’t really believe that because you truly do think you are. Your protection against grieving for your brother is to wrap yourself in the belief you’re immortal. You say you’re careful? Well you have proof right in front of you, and you’re ignoring it. That’s not careful, it’s foolish.”
“These are two schools of thought, Elle. For crying out loud, I’m choosing to go with a different opinion than yours. Why does that make me foolish? Do you honestly think I haven’t gone over this stuff a hundred times?”
“I think you’re wrapped in proving you can do this no matter what. And I think you have stars in your eyes when it comes to Valentina’s money. I know beyond a doubt that you aren’t greedy, Harley. But this deal with her Nolan group is a means to an end for you. If you can make a racing career, then you can keep saying your mother has a grief problem and you have a passion. Speed didn’t kill Aston, carelessness did. You aren’t vulnerable. You don’t have to be scared. Damn, Harley, be a little bit scared. Fear is what makes you careful, not bullheadedness.”
He grabbed her then and held her so tightly she almost felt the world right itself. She waited for the magic moment, the minute her words reached him and all would be saved.
“You make sense, Elle. You always do. And I don’t think you’re wrong about a lot of what you said. But the bottom line is, I’m going to try this the expert’s way. That makes sense to me, too.”
“You have one more test run. Promise me you’ll listen to the car herself. She’ll tell you she’s unhappy. If you decide to race anyway, then you go for it. But I won’t be there.”
“Elle! Aw come on.”
She shook her head. “You’re chasing something different now than what I heard you talk about the day we met. I’ll follow a driver in a dangerous sport to the ends of the earth if he’s doing it for love. But I won’t watch somebody I love willfully ignore his safety because he wants an easy sponsorship. I certainly won’t take the chance that I’ll be watching you kill yourself.” She folded the paper and pushed it into his pocket. “See you in the morning. I won’t be coming to the practice run either.”
“Elle don’t do this. This isn’t fair.”
“What does every person in the world’s father always tell her? Life isn’t fair.” She trailed her fingers down his cheek. “I have fallen for you. I have. But maybe you were right. Maybe it’s been a little too easy.”
Chapter Seventeen
She didn’t even see Harley at work the next day. She heard about his test drive from Steve in the middle of the afternoon, but all he said was that it had gone okay. Evidently Johnnie had taken a turn as well. Nothing had given way, nobody had crashed. All systems were go for the race.
Anger consumed her like poison. It wasn’t entirely due to Harley’s stubbornness. It was the fact that everything between them was falling apart so quickly that hurt most of all. One night they’d made love and seemed to be headed for a run at long term happiness. Two days later they weren’t speaking.
Whose fault is that, Eleanor?
She wanted to blame Harley. He was the wrong one, the stubborn one—like a climate change denier thumbing his nose at science. She really wanted to blame Valentina and Virgil. They weren’t doing anything illegal and believed they were using sound, cutting edge ideas, although they weren’t. But they were using Harley as their stepping stone, and although she saw through them, Harley had bought in to their story.
She could find multiple people to blame, but the bottom line was she’d made a decision to leave, and she owned the consequences. She would give her two weeks’ notice after the weekend. If Nolan Racing was to remain part of Harley’s career, she couldn’t work for Valentina or Virgil. And being around Harley if he continued to walk their devious path, would be the definition of painful. It was better to go back to Kennison Falls, lick her wounds, and start over.
The idea made her heart hurt. She’d lose much more than a future with Harley. Sapphire Falls had definitely sucked her in and given her friends who already cared about her. But they were really Harley’s friends first. Once the dust settled, she wouldn’t be part of the group.
Going home was the best and safest option.
The last difficult decision she had to make was whether or not to tell Jack. It would be cruelly unfair to leave without explanation—especially if anything were to happen to Harley. But every stride Jack might have made toward peace and comfort would be reversed. She’d be faced once again with her debilitating fear of losing another child, and she’d know Elle had let her down.
Because she didn’t agree with Virgil, Elle was no longer invited to work on the Monte Carlo’s team. She couldn’t touch it, check on it, or make suggestions. She certainly couldn’t guarantee to Jack that she’d done her best where the car was concerned.
In the end, that difficult decision was taken from her by some guardian angel who’d taken pity on Elle. Friday morning, Jack showed up at the shop, quiet, slightly reserved and looking for Elle. When she found her, alone in her bay, she held out a pan filled with brownies and two cups of coffee.
“Harley told me.” She shook her head slowly, resignation like a veil over her face.
“Told you what?”
“Everything except why you’re leaving.”
“Everything?” Elle took the coffee with thanks and shrugged to tell her she still didn’t understand.
“The changes he’s made to the car. That you don’t agree and think the changes are dangerous. Why he thinks they aren’t. He said he was sorry for stirring up my fears again, but this was something he had to do.”
“That’s the party line.”
“Elle, I don’t know a carburetor from a rocker arm—they’re just words I hear fly out of my son’s mouth. That being the case, I don’t know which one of you is right, but this is no reason to leave.
“It’s a matter of trust.”
“It’s a point of disagreement. People have arguments all the time—it’s how you handle them that matters.”
“This isn’t an argument. This is putting willful blinders on when it comes to danger. He’s not thinking. He’s told me ten times that his decision is made, and I won’t watch him do this when I’ve proven why he shouldn’t. I’ll stay with yo
u if you like.”
“Honey, I’ll be in the stands. If you don’t want to see it, you don’t want to be with me.”
“But…” She was utterly shocked. Jack had given every indication that she preferred not to watch Harley race.
“Yes, I’m scared. In fact, we all know I’m more or less pathologically so and would rather not watch. But this is my problem not my son’s. I brought him into this world, I taught him to fly the best I could, but my responsibility isn’t over just because he doesn’t live in my house anymore. I’ll go to the race because I support him, and if I see him die, I’ll probably die, too.” She actually smiled. “But it’s what you do when you love someone.”
Whether the line was intended for her or not, the dart hit home. She’d said she loved Harley. What kind of love was it? If it meant leaving at the first sign of trouble, it was pretty selfish.
And yet…he’d ignored her wishes and fears right along with his mother’s. Where was his responsibility to her in all of this?
“You’re a lot like my mom,” Elle said. “Practical. Fatalistic. Kind. The sort of mother I’d want to be. I just don’t know if I can sit there tonight waiting for something to happen.”
“You’re so sure something will?”
“Pretty sure.”
“You’re more perceptive than most people, Elle. I saw that in you at the beginning. But you’re forgetting one possibility—that even if you’re right, today’s not the day something’s going to happen. That you’ll have more days to fight the good fight. I told Harley about my dreams. You never did, did you?”
“I didn’t want to put the thoughts in his head. I didn’t want it to be a distraction so close to race day.”
“You see? You have your own brand of wisdom. Don’t sell yourself short, Elle. You’re tougher than you believe you are.”
Jack left shortly after that. The untouched brownies remained on Darcy’s desk for sharing, and the hug Jack gave Elle lingered for a long time, right along with the ghosts of all her words.
Sapphire Falls: Going Zero to Sixty (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 13