Winning It All

by Wendy Etherington

  He toasted her with the glass of iced tea. “Same to you.”

  She nodded. “Determination is a requirement for my job. Like you, I expect.”

  “But I don’t get to do my job anymore.”

  She looked confused. “But you’re the president of the company, aren’t you? The leader? You certainly need determination to keep a successful business running.”

  “I meant my job as a driver.”

  “I’m sure that couldn’t have been easy to give up. But we all move on, don’t we? Life changes, so we must, as well. New challenges, new goals, new—”

  “I didn’t ask for my life to change,” he said, glaring at her.

  She shrugged, and the brief ripple of hurt that crossed her face echoed in his gut. “Who does?”

  This woman had issues. Issues she might even have convinced herself were over. But since he was an expert on pretending the past didn’t matter, that he could absorb life’s twists and turns without flinching, he didn’t think so.

  She was bad for him.

  Though she had a spine and lovely golden eyes. Though she could cook—if only he could convince her to devote some time to perfecting steak, roasts or meat loaf.

  He had to focus on the race season, and she’d be a distraction. Plus, it was long past time for him to take control of this interview, to make her realize she wasn’t the top candidate on his list.

  Was she a candidate at all? Determination aside, could this cute, delicate blonde really handle herself with him and the life he led?

  He rose from the table. “This job is tough,” he said, his tone short, knowing he needed to make it so. “The hours are long. The pace is fast and brutal.”

  She simply nodded.

  “It’s a traveling circus. And if you’re not winning, the rewards are few.”

  Her gaze flicked up to his and held. “Whether you win or lose, Mr. Garrison, you still have pain.”

  Not if you run hard and fast enough, he thought, though he recognized she was talking about physical, not emotional, pain. “You’re willing to be on the road every weekend? Won’t your boyfriend be annoyed about that?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “If I had a boyfriend, he certainly wouldn’t dictate my schedule, or what my job entailed.”

  He almost smiled. She certainly didn’t lack fierceness.

  “My uncle has been a NASCAR official for nearly two decades,” she continued. “I’m not here for the rush or the fantasy of glamour. I understand it’s not about private jets and cocktail parties with sponsors. I realize there’s blood, sweat and tears in every roll cage, engine, tire and spark plug.” She lifted her chin. “I get it.”

  “I’m not easy to deal with,” he said, knowing he needed to warn her.

  “Yeah, well, neither am I at times.”

  “We’re not compatible.”

  “We don’t need to be. We’ll be working together. Nothing personal.”

  She was saying the things he wanted to hear—no drama, no fuss, no connection. Why didn’t he believe her?

  Admittedly, it wasn’t so much her he didn’t believe, it was himself.

  Except for his sister, he was around men all the time. After his divorce, he needed his life to be that way. But there were moments when the sound of a soft voice or a passing whiff of perfume reminded him of the man he used to be.

  Which only pissed him off more.

  “I was planning to hire a guy who used to be a sergeant,” he said.

  She cleared the dishes from the table. “You certainly could use some discipline.”

  Though he ground his teeth, he took the dishes from her hands. “I’ll do this. You cooked.” Surprise flickered through her eyes. “I may lack discipline, but I’m fair.”

  She moved aside so he could rinse the dishes. “I’m sorry if I was abrupt. I was just telling you how I see things. There’s no point in pretending now, then confusing you later when you realize I’m a hard-ass.”

  “You don’t look much like a hard-ass.”

  “My size throws a lot of people off.”

  His gaze slid from her face down her tiny frame. “I’ll bet.”

  “I have four older brothers who are easily your size. I can hold my own with them. I can certainly handle you.”

  The word handle set off a sensual spark in his brain, but he tamped it down. An attraction to his therapist wasn’t a complication he needed. He closed the dishwasher and leaned back against it, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn’t in the same shape he’d been as a driver, but he was fairly certain he could lift her over his head without breaking a sweat. “Can you?”

  “Ay—” She flushed. “Yes.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I like the Irish. It’s cute.”

  “Cute?” Clearly, he’d said the wrong thing. Flames leapt into her eyes. “I’m cute, am I? After a few of my weight training and cardio sessions, I bet you won’t think so.”

  He nearly laughed. “I can handle your sessions. No problem.”

  “Oh, can ya now? How about a push-up competition? I’ll bet you can’t do twenty-five.” She smirked. “I can.”

  Could he do a push-up?

  He hadn’t worked out in over four years. “What difference does it make whether you can do push-ups or not?” he asked, making sure he sounded as annoyed as he felt. “I’m the one in therapy.”

  “My job requires a certain physical competence. You don’t believe I have it.” She pointed at the floor. “Let’s go. Twenty-five, military style.”

  Knowing he was trapped by his pride, he reluctantly dropped to his knees, then crawled into position. She watched him with a faint smile on her face, as if she knew he was already in pain, though he’d barely moved.

  She mirrored his position, and they began.

  After four, his biceps were burning. After six, his arms shook. After nine, he collapsed, panting. He stopped her at fifty.

  “I’ll let you know about the job,” he said when he could talk, still lying on his back on the floor.

  Barely winded, she jumped to her feet and held out a hand to help him up. “Could you please do that as soon as possible? I have an interview with Chance Baker this afternoon.”

  Bryan stiffened. Just what he needed in this mess—a reminder of his family’s fiercest rival and the man his ex-wife had shacked up with. “What’s wrong with Chance Baker?” he asked, not at all ashamed when his heart beat a little faster over the idea that something might be.

  “Nothing,” she said. “He’s interviewing for a chef and personal trainer.” She smiled, and she couldn’t know how the vision of a hearty and healthy Chance struck him so harshly. “I wonder how many push-ups he can do?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  HE WOULD PROBABLY HIRE HER simply to spite the Baker family.

  Or possibly so he could force her to sign a confidentiality clause, so that the story of the push-up competition didn’t get spread around the garage.

  As Darcy walked through the driver/owner motor home lot toward her next interview, she had a spring in her step and she was thankful for Parker’s tips and information about both Bryan and racing in general. Pretty soon she’d be on the road every week. She could escape her little house of memories and pain in Mooresville.

  She had to get away. She had to put some distance between herself and her well-meaning family—her kind, but ultimately suffocating, former in-laws.

  They all wanted to coddle the grieving widow. They all understood. They all wanted to help.

  What they didn’t understand was that the way to help her was not to coddle her.

  And she definitely didn’t want people reminding her that it had been two years and she needed to “start getting out again.” That she needed to move on with her life. That she needed to open her heart and find someone to love again.

  She didn’t want to think about Tom at all.

  If that was running from her problems, well then it just was. She wanted to work. Her work fulfilled her, kept her moving through her
day whether she really wanted to or not. Ultimately, she didn’t care who hired her or why, as long as “Steel” or the Bakers did so.

  Though she didn’t follow racing with the rabid enthusiasm of most fans, living around her uncle and in racing country her whole life, she knew her NASCAR history. The Bakers and the Garrisons had been mortal enemies since 1973, when Joe Baker had bumped Mitch Garrison out of the way in order to win the famed February race at Daytona. Garrison had retired without that coveted trophy, and the rivalry had intensified now that Chance and the youngest Garrison, Cade, were racing against one another.

  And Bryan’s ex-wife was living with Chance.

  From the tales she’d heard about drivers, she figured Bryan was more ticked off that Chance had sideswiped Cade more than once last season than he was about his divorce.

  But then it was also possible his wife’s abandonment and betrayal had destroyed him, and that her leaving, more than any other event, had turned him into the distant, bitter man Darcy had encountered.

  Terrific. Bonding over desertion sounded fun.

  As she rounded the corner to the next row, she saw Parker exiting one of the motor homes. “How did everything go?” he asked as he approached, brushing his lips across her cheek. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Sure. My interview with Chance isn’t for another thirty minutes.”

  Parker’s charismatic smile fell away. “Chance Baker?” When she nodded, he shook his head. “Oh, no. You can’t work for The Dark Side.”

  She laughed. The Dark Side. Really. These rivalries were crazy. “Sure I can. My uncle told me Chance was looking for a trainer, so I decided to work in a meeting with him today.”

  Parker braced his hands on her shoulders. “You need to get away that bad?”

  “I need a change.”

  Nodding, he led her to a bench beside the infield playground. His striking green eyes were focused on her face. “What will it take for you to come to work for us?”

  “Are you attempting to bribe me in some way, Parker Huntington?”

  He grinned shamelessly. “Yes.”

  She wasn’t exactly sure how she and the CEO of an international hotel chain had bonded, but they had.

  He’d flirted shamelessly with her in a bar last spring, and over drinks, they’d become friends instead of potential lovers. She’d also worked for Garrison Racing briefly the year before when one of their crew members had been hurt before a race, which ultimately had given Parker the idea to request her help with Bryan.

  Convincing him to start the interview process had apparently taken some time, and, as Parker had been dealing with his own personal life, it was only now that the search for a PT had begun.

  “I thought the hiring was your charming brother-in-law’s decision,” she said.

  “Charming? I know sarcasm when I hear it.” He shook his head. “I never should have let Bryan handle the interviews on his own.”

  “He was okay.” Gorgeous, angry, compelling, brooding, really broad shoulders—

  “You have such a way with words,” Parker said, breaking into her runaway thoughts. “Okay perfectly encompasses Bryan Garrison.”

  This was not a path she wanted to explore. She wanted to keep Bryan in her carefully constructed box marked client. She was still trying to keep the stitches around her heart intact. She didn’t have the strength to take on somebody else’s emotional pain.

  “So…” She smiled at Parker. “About those bribes. What are you prepared to offer to keep me on your side?”

  “I’ll think of something. Anything.” He leaned back against the bench. “How about Team Nutritional Consultant? We could offer you…”

  He named a figure that had her jaw dropping.

  “You realize you people take these rivalries too seriously, don’t you?” she managed to ask.

  “Naturally.”

  “How about I see the interview through anyway? Just for the sake of professionalism.”

  “If you really want to.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m worried about. Nicole will never let him hire you.”

  “Nicole, Bryan’s ex?”

  Parker studied her. “Yes. You’re too attractive for her to let you hang around.”

  Though she knew there were family issues and old wounds involved, she couldn’t help but lift her eyebrows. “She’s that insecure, and she’s dating one of NASCAR’s hottest bachelor drivers?”

  “Not the brightest girl.”

  “She won’t hire me because of my face. Bryan won’t hire me because of my body.” Seeing the slow, speculative smile bloom on Parker’s face, she added, “He doesn’t think I’m tough enough. He wants to hire some army sergeant. Doesn’t anybody care about my actual abilities?”

  “I do, of course,” he said smoothly.

  “Uh-huh. Let’s talk about something else. How’s married life?”

  In August, Parker had eloped with Bryan’s sister, Rachel. And while some whispered skeptically about how nice it must be to have a multimillionaire sponsor in the family, Darcy knew they were deeply in love.

  “Wonderful,” he said. “Racing interferes with the romance, but we manage. How are you doing?”

  “Fine. Gets easier every day, doesn’t it?” Smart man that he was, he obviously didn’t believe her, but he said nothing. “I guess your hopes are high for Cade this season.”

  “He wants that championship so bad he’s turning crazy.”

  “Right. And you’re just sitting behind your desk, casually signing checks, not thinking at all about that shiny trophy somebody’s going to get in December?”

  “So maybe I want it nearly as bad.” He clenched his fist. “GRI won it last year, of course, but I want it for Cade. We need it.”

  She turned away from the bordering-on-maniacal passion she’d seen on the faces of so many people around racing over the years and instead watched a pair of boys scramble up the playground’s ladder. “People don’t always get what they need.”

  He laid his hand over hers, where it lay on the wooden bench. “They do if they want it badly enough.”

  Unexpectedly, tears clogged the back of her throat. Grief was like that. It swamped her at inconvenient moments, squeezing her heart when she wanted nothing more than to harden it, to just…move on already.

  She rose and paced away from him for a moment until she got herself back under control. By the time she turned around, her eyes were dry and her voice steady. “I haven’t even gone over to The Dark Side and already I’m morose.”

  He smiled. “See, the best place for you is with us.”

  “Hmm, well, maybe you could convince Chance to hire the Sarge, then Bryan could hire me, and everybody would be happy.”

  STANDING IN THE LIVING AREA of his motor home, Bryan glared at his brother-in-law. “I’m not happy about this.”

  Parker sighed, leaning back into the sofa cushions. “You’re just tense because it’s race day.”

  “Not about that. About the physical therapist.”

  “Six months ago,” Parker began, “you wouldn’t even talk about working with somebody. Two months ago, you said to find somebody. A month ago, you changed your mind. Two weeks ago, you told me to set up interviews and hire whoever I thought was most qualified. Then a few days ago, you decide you want to do the interviews yourself. Pardon me if I’m getting a little dizzy.”

  “I don’t want my personal business getting around the garage.”

  I don’t want anybody’s pity, Bryan added to himself.

  “Darcy will sign a confidentiality clause,” Parker said. “She’s very professional and certainly not indiscreet.”

  His brother-in-law’s formal speech usually made him smile, but today—for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint—Bryan was uneasy. “I don’t like it.”

  “So you’ve said. Is it her particularly?”

  Bryan recalled Darcy’s elfin face and mulish personality. She was…competent. And he wasn’t letting himself
think of her beyond that. “It’s the whole idea. It’s not like I’m ever getting in another race car. Why bother with all the hocus-pocus?”

  “Darcy doesn’t work magic. She works your body. Hard.” Parker leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs. “You’ve let yourself go, Bryan,” he said, almost hesitantly, as if he’d been wanting to say something for a long time and had resisted. “You don’t look like the president of a successful racing team. You look worn down, tired, much older than you are.”

  Bryan slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He worked up a glare, but he knew Parker was simply being honest.

  “After what you’ve been through—the pain and disaster, I can understand,” Parker continued. “But it’s time to pull yourself up. To reclaim your life.”

  How could Parker sit there, whole and healthy, and preach? “My life will never be the same,” Bryan said, staring down at Parker.

  “No, I suppose it won’t,” he said calmly. “But you have to try to find a new one. I hate seeing you give up without a fight.”

  “I’m not—” Bryan looked away. Part of him had given up. And the rest of him didn’t care.

  “I recommend Darcy,” Parker said, his tone brisk now. “But if you won’t work with her, I can find you someone else. Though it’ll take time.”

  Did Bryan really want to go through the whole interview process again? It wasn’t like this was a big decision. Anybody qualified could work him through a few exercises several days a week. In fact, after he got the routine down, he probably wouldn’t need a therapist at all.

  Darcy was as good a choice as any, he supposed, as long as she didn’t push too much of that rabbit food on him. And as long as she didn’t stand so close he could smell her citrusy vanilla perfume.

  “Additionally,” Parker said, “I’d like to point out that after scaring off all the current potential candidates, you’re left with only one option, so I think you should offer her the job before you run her off, too.”

  Bryan nearly smiled. Winning a negotiation with Parker never got any easier. “The army guy wasn’t scared.”

  “No, he simply chose to take another position.”