Fast, Furious and Forbidden

“Oh, me either,” she hurried to assure him, thinking the frown and the “goddamn” were a little over the top.

He blinked, blinked again. Shook his head. “You just proposed.”

“You’re right. I did.” She held up one hand, then rolled her fingers into a fist of frustration, wondering if punching herself would help. She didn’t want to screw this up any more than she already had. “But it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“So you didn’t mean it?” Trey rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It just…slipped out?”

Oh, yeah. This was going just great. She blew air up into her bangs. “Let me try this again. Trey, how would you feel about posing as my fiancé while you’re here? No permanent strings. No hard feelings when you leave.”

He was looking at her as if she’d grown a second head. “I’m going to need a whole lot more than that before I can figure out what you’re asking here, much less give you an answer. Is there a beginning where you can start? I mean, with our families’ history, who would believe for a minute that you and I were engaged?”

Their families’ recent history was at the root of as many of his problems as her own. She was Juliet to his Romeo. A Hatfield to his McCoy. But right now, her family was at risk of imploding. “If I start at the beginning, I’ll have to go back to the days when our great-grandfathers ran moonshine, so why don’t I start with the fight between your father and mine?”

Trey’s scowl darkened. “The one where Eddie got all busted up?”

“Exactly,” Cardin said. “A broken hip, a broken leg. Pins holding him together.”

Trey went on the defensive. “Even Eddie said that was an accident.”

“Guess what? I don’t care. All I know is my family went nuts after the fight. No one talks about anything except work, and they only do that while at work.” She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes for a moment, hoping to stave off the stress headache bearing down.

It didn’t work. Surprise, surprise. Her temples pounding, she went on. “It’s like Headlights is one big eggshell now, and I can’t deal with it anymore. I just can’t. If things don’t get back to some semblance of normal, I’ll have to leave town before I lose what’s left of my mind. Seriously.”

“And since my father was involved, you want me to help you settle your family’s feud?”

“Give the man a cigar,” she said, and punched him in the shoulder.

Frowning, he rubbed at the injury that really wasn’t one. “How long is this engagement thing going to take you to explain? I’ve got to get back to the Speedway and pack up the hauler. The team’s hitting the road at first light.”

Wow. He hadn’t said no. Initial hurdle cleared. “It’ll take longer than either one of us has now, that’s for sure.”

“My place tonight, then?” he asked after studying her for several long seconds, the light returning to his eyes, the dimples to his cheeks. “Or was the offer to help me mock foreplay? You know, to get me on board with the mock engagement?”

“What time do you want me there?” was her only response. She didn’t think it would be a very good idea to talk about foreplay when they were only minutes separated from that kiss.

He grabbed his BlackBerry from his waist and glanced at the screen. “It’s already six. I might not get out there till ten.”

“Then I’ll be there at ten. With Jeb’s truck, if I can get it.” She waited for him to come back with something about sleeping arrangements, the lack of mattresses, his camping gear, her suggestion that they zip two bags into one.

But he didn’t. He just nodded, contemplating something she was certain had to do with her, but keeping his thoughts to himself.

She stared into his eyes, and realized she didn’t need to hear him say anything at all. She could see the way he wanted her in his expression. Could read the story of his desire in the language of his body.

He hovered close, his chest rising and falling more rapidly than just moments ago. She expected him to lean in and continue the kiss, to lift her short skirt and explore.

He did neither, smiling as he took a step back, as he raised one hand, a temporary farewell to hold them until later. It made her stomach flip, that smile, so lazy, so sure.

She leaned against the wall of the ice house and watched him go, wondering if she’d bitten off more than she could chew—and if she’d come out the other side of this adventure the same person she was now.

TREY DIDN’T THINK HE WOULD ever finish closing up shop and making his escape from the Speedway. Sales by the track vendors were winding down, and most were engaged in the same sort of packing up as the Corley team. That didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of action happening all around.

Smoke from charcoal fires lifted the aromas of bratwurst and burgers into the air, and the same wind carried the music of slide guitars, fiddles and accordions to appreciative ears. Monday morning was going to come a whole lot earlier than a lot of the beer-drinking, barbecue-eating, hard-partying folks in the pits would be ready for.

Trey couldn’t have cared less about Monday morning. He was waiting for ten o’clock tonight, the hour he’d finally get Cardin Worth alone. No pit crew to interrupt. No family hovering. No one but the two of them. Just him. Just her. Just like it had been seven years ago the night she’d left an imprint he’d never been able to shake.

But as ready as he was to have Cardin to himself, this trip was about more than getting laid. A big part of Trey’s temporary homecoming was to dig into the fight between his father and Jeb. The one that had sent Eddie Worth to the hospital after being slammed to the floor of the slicker hole—the oil changing pit in Morgan and Son’s garage.

The same fight Cardin had said made everything in her life go wrong.

He couldn’t say his life had been left unchanged, either.

A year ago this month, the fight had brought him back to Dahlia. When he’d left a week later, he’d owned his family’s home, buying the place from his father for the price of a beer, and paying off the huge gambling debt Aubrey had racked up in the years since Trey had hired on as a mechanic for Butch Corley and split.

Trey hadn’t even known about the gambling debt when the sheriff’s office had called to let him know about Aubrey’s arrest for assault. It had been after he’d settled things and was on his way out of town that he’d learned the full truth of the trouble his father was in. He’d stopped by the track to see Tater, who worked on site there with Trey’s father at Morgan and Son’s garage, and heard the story straight from his best friend’s mouth.

Trey hadn’t even hesitated, but turned and driven straight back to the house, striking a deal with his dad: Aubrey turned over the house, the barn, the five acres to Trey, and Trey paid off the damage Aubrey had done—as long as Aubrey left Dahlia and found a job in a town without the temptation of a track.

Sure, Trey’s father could’ve gone to Vegas, gambled online, found bookies anywhere to take a bet. But looking like a broken man, Aubrey had sworn he would do what Trey asked, thanking his son for having faith and staying true, for helping him in his time of need.

All of that had happened almost a year ago. Even so, Trey couldn’t help wonder if Aubrey losing everything he had left and being forced to move on hadn’t contributed to his decline, and six months later, his death. Or if the damage to his heart had been years in the making, and it simply his time to go.

Shaking off thoughts of his loss, Trey unlocked his pickup’s retracting bed cover and started sorting through his supplies. Knowing he could pick up what he needed in the way of tools, building materials, fuel and food in town, he’d packed only his laptop, his camping gear, his clothes and essentials.

No one had been living in the house for a year, and though he’d hired Beau Stillwell to keep the place from falling down, he had no idea what condition it was in. It didn’t matter. He wanted to stay on site. And if he had to camp out to do it, he was ready.

“Looks like you’re set for some kind of vacation.”

Trey looked up, and saw Jeb Worth standing a couple of feet away in the shadows cast by the truck that pulled the Corley hauler. “A change of scenery. A temporary change of vocation. But not much in the way of relaxation or time off.”

“You don’t have to stay out at your place.” Even at this late hour, Jeb’s crisp white shirt tucked into khaki pants worn with a cowboy hat and boots painted a picture of the lawman he should have been. “You’re welcome to stay at the house. We’ve got plenty of room.”

Trey wanted to sleep with this man’s granddaughter. There was no way he was going to stay at his house. He turned around, leaned against the open tailgate, the heels of his hands curled over the cool metal at his hips. “It’ll be easier if I stay out there. I’ll save gas and time not having to drive back and forth.”

Jeb nodded. “Any idea how long you’ll be in Dahlia?”

“As long as it takes to get the place ready to sell. Since I’m doing most of it on my own…” Trey stopped, wondering what Cardin’s grandfather would think were he to learn of her offer to help. Wondered, too, if the older man secretly harbored any hard feelings toward him because of the fight his father had started, a fight that had seriously injured Jeb’s son. “It’ll take as long as it takes, I guess. Depends on how fast I do the work.”

“So you’ll still be here in a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, I’m not that fast,” Trey said, hoping he hadn’t read Cardin wrong and that he’d be spending a lot of what he’d planned as work hours otherwise engaged.

Jeb glanced toward the racing rig where Sunshine was dismantling the pop-up under which the crew worked on the car between heats. “I’ve got a ’69 Chevy Nova SS with Crane lifters, an Eagle 4340 Nitrated Pro Crank, and more goodies than you can shake a stick at sitting in the garage behind my house.”

Interesting. Trey crossed his feet at the ankles. “That so.”

Jeb nodded, still looking away. “Eddie’s always driven it for me in the Moonshine Run. Doesn’t look like he’s going to be doing that anymore.”

Was Jeb here to blame Trey for what Aubrey had done? Putting Eddie out of commission and leaving Jeb without a driver for the annual event? He kept silent rather than broach a subject he wasn’t sure was on the other man’s mind.