Fast, Furious and Forbidden

The vibrant colors, the beehive activity, the smells of exhaust and fuel as mechanics test-fired engines, the din of the fans whooping and hollering along with the jetlike roar—he would never tire of witnessing a dragstrip coming to life and was, in fact, going to miss it like hell while away.

When Corley Motors pulled out early Monday morning following this weekend’s Farron Fuel Spring Nationals, Sunshine would be taking over Trey’s crew chief duties—working with Butch on developing racing strategies and supervising the crew of mechanics who precision-tuned the engine for optimum performance.

It was a temporary arrangement only; Trey had made sure his crew and his driver understood he would be back. For now, however, he was staying in Dahlia—the town where he’d lived the first twenty years of his life. It was long past time to go through the paperwork and personal belongings he hadn’t touched in the six months since his father’s death from heart failure.

And since he rarely visited, he’d decided there was no reason to keep the house or the property he owned here. It held memories, sure, but he wasn’t the sentimental type that attached them to a place. He could think back to his childhood anytime he wanted to remember the past.

Unfortunately, getting the place fit for a buyer was going to require a hell of a lot of manual labor, and most of it would have to be his. He was the only one who would know what to keep, what to toss, what to store until he could make arrangements to sell or give away.

All that weight pressing down had everything to do with his mind being on the fritz. But clearing away those obligations was only one part of it. Solving the puzzle of why the hell, shortly before his death, his father had taken a swing at a pillar of the Dahlia community and nearly killed the older man’s son when he’d come to his defense was another.

Both had to be done if he intended to remain in the top fuel game. He did—leaving him no choice but to take this sabbatical.

It was either do so, or find himself canned as Butch Corley’s tuning boss, and he’d worked too hard to let that come to pass. No mechanic with a lick of sense wanted to work for a screw-up. No driver worth his salt would let one near his car.

Knowing Sunshine couldn’t resist a conversation anymore than he could a corndog, Trey stepped up into the hauler’s workshop, figuring he had a free thirty minutes while the other man schmoozed the vendors setting up around the track.

The rest of the crew would be rolling in throughout the day to prepare for Friday’s first round of qualifying. There would be no downtime over the weekend; work would continue from dawn to dusk to dawn again, the team tweaking their formula to guarantee a “Bad Dog” performance the Corley fans wouldn’t forget.

This breather was the last one Trey figured he’d have until at least Sunday night. By the time Sunshine got back, all hands would be required on deck and—

“You know, the last time I saw you standing still, you had your pants around your ankles.”

What the hell?

“And it’s nice to see my memory hasn’t failed me. You do have a fantastic ass.”

Glowering, Trey turned. The woman in the doorway had the sun at her back, which put her face in shadow. It didn’t matter. He knew without question who it was standing there giving him the eye. Had known who was speaking the moment he’d first heard her voice.

That didn’t mean he was able to answer without taking a deep breath first. Seven years had done nothing to dull his body’s response to having her within reach. “Cardin Worth. It’s been a while.”

She wore black Converse sneakers, low-riding jeans, and a black Dahlia Speedway logo T-shirt. His pulse began to hum, but not because of the way she looked in her clothes.

Humming was what it had always done when she was around. What it had done even before the pants-around-his-ankles incident all those years ago. What it had done anytime he’d thought of her since.

He’d thought of her a lot. A whole hell of a lot. “How are you?”

Pulling off her sunglasses, she came further into the trailer, her long black ponytail swinging, her cheekbones more defined than he recalled. “I’m good, Trey. You?”

“The same.” He looked on as she laid down the glasses, as she picked up and fondled the wrench he’d come for. He’d always thought she had the most graceful hands, had always wanted her to touch him more than she had the night she’d caught him bare-assed. “What brings you out here so early on race weekend?”

“I’m actually looking for my grandfather.” Her gaze came up, intense, searching. “Have you seen him?”

“Jeb? No.” Trey shook his head. He hadn’t remembered her eyes being so blue. Her body being so…fine. But he finally did remember his manners. It didn’t matter that her grandfather was someone he really didn’t care to see. “Is he doing okay?”

A comma of a dimple teased one side of her mouth. “Flying as right as ever, thanks.”

“And you? You’re doing okay?” Because he sure as hell wasn’t.

Her smile took pity, her gaze softened. “We already did that part.”

“Right. Sorry. My mind’s—”

“On the race?”

Actually, it had gone back seven years to the night of the kegger celebrating her class’s high school graduation. The night of the pants-around-his-ankles incident. The night he’d backed her into the wall and listened to her breathe.

He still wondered how long she’d been standing there, why she’d stayed and watched instead of skittering away. If she’d been as turned on as he’d thought. If she dreamed about that night the way he did, for no reason that made any sense.

He cleared his throat, went back to what she’d asked him. “Yeah. Farron Fuels is always a big one for Butch.”

“For all of Dahlia,” she reminded him sagely, her hometown pride strong.

He nodded in response, knowing her family, along with the others whose businesses thrived on the income generated by visitors who’d come to the spring drag racing series to see “Bad Dog” Butch, would get the bad news soon enough.

Thanks to one Artie Buell, son of the local sheriff, who’d messed with Butch’s wife at a local watering hole where she’d stopped for a drink with Sunshine’s wife last night, this weekend’s Farron Fuels was the last one for Butch—who would’ve landed behind bars and had to forfeit the race if Trey and the others hadn’t kept him from kicking Artie’s ass.

Butch had no use for a town where a supposed upstanding citizen, one related to what passed for the law, didn’t know that a married woman’s no meant no. So this year’s race was it. Corley Motors, one of the biggest outfits in top fuel dragster racing, wouldn’t be coming back to the Dahlia Speedway.

And once he’d finished his business here and cut his personal ties with the town, that meant neither would Trey.

Cardin turned the torque wrench over in her hands, a thoughtful crease appearing between her arched brows. “It has to be strange to have grown up here, yet never visit. Except during the Farron Fuels.”

He wanted to tell her it wasn’t strange at all. That these days he didn’t think of Dahlia as anything more than another quarter mile strip of asphalt he needed to get his driver down as fast as he could. But he didn’t say anything, just waited for her to dig deeper for whatever it was she wanted.

She did, switching from a gentle trowel to a more painful pick. “Surely you miss seeing old friends? Spending time at home? Hanging out with Tater, as inseparable as you two were?”

He missed Tater, sure. They’d been best friends before either of them could spell his name. But the only thing that would’ve kept Trey here had never been his to come home to—even though she’d sought him out and was standing in front of him now.

And so he shook his head.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Hmm.” Her tone said she didn’t believe him. “There’s not anything about Dahlia you miss?”

“Nope,” he said, and knew he lied.

“Or anyone?”

“Nope.” Another lie.

“Not even Kim Halton?”

Kim Halton had been the girl on her knees when his pants had been around his ankles. The girl who’d finished what she’d started, then left Trey alone to pull up, zip up and deal with the girl who had watched.

“There is one thing.”