He folded himself into the car, sliding between foam-covered bars that formed a cage inside. “Wish me luck,” he said with a flash of a smile.
While she’d wanted to do him bodily harm two minutes ago when he’d left her feeling like a fool, she quite suddenly realized that all that safety gear was in place for a reason. Even though he was annoying and infuriating and generally rubbed her the wrong way, she wanted the arrogant bastard to win safely. She was wearing his pit crew band, after all.
“Good luck.”
“When it’s a pretty woman doing the send-off, it’s customary to offer the driver a good-luck kiss.”
His gaze lingered on her mouth. That look in his eyes and the very thought of kissing him weakened her knees and sent a bolt of heat through her. “I’ll pass.”
“Too bad.” He winked at her and clicked his visor down into place.
Tim leaned in, fastened a heavy-gauged “net” over the window opening and slammed the driver door shut.
Darnell handed her what looked like an old-fashioned headset. “Put these on. They’re ear protection. It’s about to get loud.”
She put the headset on and she could still hear, but everything was muffled. The car roared to life and she was glad to have the protection, because even with it, the sound was loud enough to vibrate through her body.
Inside the car, Beau sat with his hands gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead.
“He’s going through the run in his head, visualizing it,” Darnell said, next to her.
She nodded to let him know she’d heard.
The rest happened fast. She and Darnell rode the four-wheeler up to an area closer to the starting line, on the other side of the low wall that separated the track from the stands. Spectators packed the stands. The crowd’s excitement was a nearly palpable thing. She knew how they felt. From the moment Tim had slammed the door and Beau had started the car, she’d been revved up inside.
Tim was out between the two cars with a video camera but Darnell stayed with her on the four-wheeler and explained what was happening as Beau “smoked” the tires in the burnout box, which was essentially standing on the brake and the gas at the same time. This created a cloud of choking tire dust but heated up the slick tires so they’d stick to the asphalt track. Scooter then stood in front of the car, giving hand signals, directing Beau left or right, lining the car up “in the groove,” where the tires would have the best chance of gripping.
A final tap on the hood by Scooter, a sharp nod of acknowledgment from Beau and he rolled the car forward until the yellow bulb on “the tree”—the staging sequence of red, yellow, green bulbs in the middle of the starting line between the two cars—lit up. Then the roar really became deafening as both drivers revved their engines. The lights changed and they were off. Fast. Furious. For a second it looked as if the driver racing in the other lane was going to swerve into Beau’s lane and Natalie thought her heart might very well stop.
And then it was over. Darnell pumped his hand in the air and yelled, pointing at the signs flanking the end of the track. The sign on Beau’s side had a lit bulb over the top, designating him the winner, and below it a display of 4.192, 184.92.
Even she could figure it out. 185 miles per hour in 4.40 seconds.
Damn right that was fast, stupid ass.
BEAU TOSSED the wet towel onto the bathroom floor. Tim would clean the toter home up when Scooter got it back to his place. Such was the lot of the gofer on a crew. Such had been Beau’s lot when he’d first started out in racing many moons ago, when he was the gofer and his dad was the one climbing behind the wheel of a race car.
He retreated to the bedroom and took his own sweet time dressing. He pushed aside a twinge of remorse. He’d been wasting Natalie’s time for a full hour and a half now. After the tow back to the pits, the Horsepower TV reporter had conducted a quick interview and then fellow racers and fans alike had swarmed them. The racers offered congratulations. Most of the fans wanted autographs and a picture with Beau and the car.
Natalie had stood by quietly, out of the way, but those big brown eyes of hers hadn’t missed a thing. The tube-top duo from Friday night, Sherree and Tara, had shown up again with a celebration offer. Ms. Bridges had merely quirked an amused eyebrow in his direction and a faint look of disdain, as if they were all somewhat distasteful.
And the whole time he’d been thinking about the way she’d smelled when he’d leaned into her neck before the race. The tickle of her hair against his cheek. The curve of her sexy, sexy mouth. And the crazy, out-of-control feeling she stirred in him.
He squashed any guilt at wasting her time. Given a choice between wasting her time or sitting by while his sister made a mistake marrying Cash Vickers…Well, there was really no question which was more important.
All told, he thought his plan was working okay. He just needed to watch himself, because in the staging lanes, for a second, when he was teasing her, deliberately letting her think he was about to kiss her, he damn near had. She had the most luscious, inviting mouth, with a full lower lip and a cute bow for the top one.
He sauntered back outside and found the enemy consorting with his troops in the small lounge in the front of the race trailer. She was laughing at something Scooter had said, some crazy bullshit no doubt, and his body tightened as the musical notes seemed to dance through the air. Her smile stiffened when she noticed him in the doorway. Good. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it?
“Ready?”
She nodded, her chestnut-brown hair moving over her shoulders in a gut-clenching sensual slide. “I just need a ride back to my car.”
“Leave your car and we’ll pick it up on the way back. We’ve got to come this way anyway.”
Tim spoke up. “You can ride up front with Scooter, if’n you want to,” he offered, a flush of red whooshing from his neck to the top of his crew cut before he even finished the sentence. Scooter always drove the rig and the passenger seat was a place of honor, sort of a gimme, for Tim, who mostly handled the grunt work. And now the grunt was willingly giving up that honor. Tim seemed to have developed a crush.
A small frown furrowed her brow as she glanced from Tim to Beau, obviously confused, and equally reluctant to hurt Tim’s feelings by turning down his offer. “Ride with Scooter? We’re all going to Belle Terre?”
“No, ma’am,” Darnell said. “We’re all going to Headlights.”
“Headlights? What is Headlights and what happened to Belle Terre?”
“Headlights is the ice house and local watering hole between here and Dahlia.” Darnell shot Beau a chastising look. “We usually stop off for dinner at the end of a race weekend.”
Another chastising look—this one from her. “You didn’t mention dinner.”
All part of his plan. Beau shrugged. “I forgot. We’ll head on out to Belle Terre after we eat.”
Scooter snorted. “C’mon and ride with me. And dinner’s on us.”
She deliberately turned her back to Beau, presenting him with a view of her well-rounded bottom, and beamed a smile at the other three. “Charming companions and a free meal. How can I turn down that offer?”
A quarter hour later, they were seated at the number nine picnic table, the number painted on each end in fluorescent orange, after much backslapping and high fives as they made their way across the peanut-hull-littered concrete floor in the noisy din that was Headlights after a race. No matter how crowded it was, however, Jeb Worth always held the number nine for the Stillwell crew. It was a long-standing tradition. Beau wound up sitting next to the Nightmare.
“What do you think of Headlights?”