“I hope you like this little office. I thought we’d put you closer to me, on the other side of the building, but Beau wanted you to have a window. And I think he wanted you to be able to see the shop all day. Where he is.” She smiled and tapped a two-inch blood red nail against her cheek. “That was sweet. You look familiar, you know that?”
Should she have opted to wear colored contacts after she’d seen the color of Travis’s eyes? “I have a common face,” she responded.
Another hoot as Kaylene shook her head in vigorous disagreement. “Not hardly. You’re pretty as a picture. I can see why Beau…” She stopped and sighed, big, dramatic, and meaningful. “I never thought Beau would get hitched in my lifetime.”
Oh God. Kaylene had been briefed by The Liars’ Club.
Kaylene grinned and crossed her arms over abundant breasts, the sunlight from the window revealing laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. “That boy has fallen ass over tincups for you. You shoulda seen him in here at seven o’clock this morning, makin’ sure you had a good chair and worryin’ about your computer bein’ hooked up to a printer and all. Shoot, he never leaves the daggum shop long enough to know we even had computers over here.”
Celeste had a hard time imagining the bad boy race car driver selecting the most ergonomic chair for her. “He’s been very kind about my feeling comfortable in my new job—”
Kaylene waved a single finger to cut Celeste off. “No, no, no. I didn’t think there was a woman on earth who could snare him. Even that last one with the pretty accent.” At Celeste’s look, Kaylene reached over the desk and squeezed one of Celeste’s hands. “Sorry, but I’m sure you know he ain’t been no choir boy.”
Heat rushed to her face. “Certainly not.”
A slow grin broke across Kaylene’s face. “Honey, look at you blush. I don’t mean to imply he’s got loose morals or anything, ’cause he’s mighty particular and, frankly, I think he’s one of the few real gentlemen in racing. Him and Travis.”
Con men, more like. “Yes, they’re quite the gentlemen.”
“I’m just so blasted happy to have me a girlfriend. Now, tell me. You made any progress with that big party? I started to get some of it taken care of. Have you talked to Margaret at Dash? She’s very helpful. And Olivia, have you been warned about Olivia?”
Something Kaylene had said earlier still nagged her. “Why aren’t you getting me a hotel room in Pennsylvania?”
“Honey, soon as I heard ’bout you and Beau, I just put you in his motor coach with him.”
A blood rush made her light-headed. “In his…motor coach?”
“Now don’t worry, sweetie. We got five of ’em goin’ and Beau always gets his own coach. You’ll love stayin’ on the infield. All the other drivers’ wives and families are there and it’s like a little city. In the Poconos, no less!” She chuckled and lifted her heavily penciled eyebrows. “You’ll thank me because you don’t want to let that hunka man outta your sight for one minute. You have no idea the things those fans’ll do to get his attention. I get at least one pair of underwear in his mail every week. And Olivia Ambrose is on him like a bee to honey at every race.”
Kaylene flipped open a steno pad she carried. “I had to book you on a commercial flight because she just called and insisted on bein’ in the Dash jet, which I guess is fair, since she’s Harlan’s wife. But I didn’t tell her Beau was flyin’ commercial from an appearance out of town.” Another hoot at getting one over on Olivia. “But you and your fiancé—don’t you just love that word?—will be in the motor coach all by yourselves by Thursday night. And you know what they say.”
Celeste couldn’t imagine.
“Don’t come a knockin’ if it’s a rockin’!” Then Kaylene added in a stage whisper, “Honestly, honey, it’s a bedroom on wheels.”
Chapter
Eight
The dashboard clock in the truck read ten-twenty the third time that Beau’s headlights illuminated the living room of the town house. The shades were drawn, but he could see a television flicker through the cracks. It wasn’t his intention to circle the parking lot like a wolf looking for prey, but he didn’t want to just knock on the door and scare the blazes out of her either.
He finally flipped the console lid open and punched the phone number into the cellular keypad. While he parked, she answered with that clipped, classy, northern “hello” of hers. Something twisted in his belly at the sound.
“You still awake?”
“Yes. I’ve been watching somebody drive in front of my window for the past five minutes.”
He turned the headlights off. “Guilty,” he said, opening the truck door and tucking the phone into his neck. “I wanted to be sure you were awake.” He took the three steps up to her front door in one stride and tapped gently. “Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Can you come out?”
“I’m not dressed.”
An image of her in slinky black lingerie flashed in his brain, like his old favorite fantasy from ninth grade algebra class taught by the sultry Miss Struttman. “Put a robe on. We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do. Tomorrow. In my office. Fully dressed at nine AM.”
He leaned his head against the door and shifted the phone to his other ear. “I’m leaving at five in the morning for three days of appearances. I won’t see you again until we get to the track.”
“Where you will apparently see plenty of me. Since we are staying in the same motor coach.”
“Yeah. I heard.” He closed his eyes, still visualizing Celeste in a negligee. “But it won’t be that bad.”
Suddenly the front door was yanked open, whipping the metal chain into a five-inch battle line between them. Her eyes blazed at him, the cordless phone still at her ear. All he caught was a flash of white cotton and creamy skin before her body disappeared behind the protection of the door.
She jammed a button on her cell phone and disconnected him. “I didn’t agree to anything,” she said, only her face visible. “I just got bulldozed.”
“He’s good at that.” Good Lord, she was pretty. Damp curls fell around her cheeks, fresh from a shower or bath. He took a deep breath to erase the image of her dripping wet from his mind and fought the urge to touch her cheek. “When Travis gets an idea, sometimes you just don’t know what hit you.”
“Travis? He had your full support.”
They stared at each other through the opening and he placed a single finger on the gold chain that separated them, rocking it back and forth, the motion making the door close and open an inch.
“Let me in,” he urged. “Just for a minute.”
She closed her eyes, blowing one of her damp curls away from her eyes. Wordlessly, she closed the door and he heard the chain slide out. When she opened it, he gulped in a breath. Sucker punched again.
Miss Struttman’s imaginary nightie was officially retired from fantasyland. His gaze dropped against any will he had to a cropped V-neck undershirt that came to a crashing halt at her tight, flat tummy. And she wore those little white boxer briefs that no self-respecting male outside of California would be caught dead in. They hugged her narrow hips and clung to the most enticing thighs he’d ever seen. He’d been dead wrong about her being too skinny; she just hid her svelte curves in loose clothes.
She crossed her arms, forming an enticing little cleavage at the V-neck. Oh, shit. She didn’t have a bra on. Oh, shit.
“About the motor coach,” he said, fighting the natural reaction in his lower half. “There are a couple of different, uh, sleeping places. You’ll be…fine.” But would he? He was stuttering, for Christ’s sake.
She did an abrupt about-face and walked toward the living room, her regal queen of England walk. He couldn’t resist a glance at the queen’s rear view. Jesus.
“I’m not worried about the sleeping arrangements,” she said, reaching under a lampshade and bathing the room in just enough light for him to get an even better look at her. “I don’t want anyone who knows me to
know where I am, so I refuse to be part of some media circus to save your career. It’s not why I’m here.”
She curled into a corner of the sofa and wrapped herself in a throw that lay next to her, covering her legs and arms.
Dropping onto a chair across from her, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “If you make Travis happy—and this little scheme of his does make him happy—then he’ll be more willing to spend time with you. You can get to know him. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want notoriety, Beau. I need to be completely invisible.”
That was completely impossible. “You’re making too big a deal out of this. You’d still get to do this job you want so bad. Nothing changes, except we’d act like…like we’re together. When Ambrose is around.” He smiled at her skeptical expression. “It’s not like you have an aversion to playing pretend, Cece.”
“That’s different,” she protested. “I don’t want my face splashed all over the sports pages as the next Beau Babe. What if my mother saw it? What if people found out?”
He laughed softly. “Think they’d kick you off the board at the Guggenheim for fraternizing with rednecks?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe it hasn’t occurred to you, but my mother has spent thirty years carefully guarding a secret about a youthful indiscretion. My father is running for the Senate in November. Why should I ruin the lives of people I care about just because of my selfish curiosity?”
He sighed and leaned back, wondering how his simple plan to find her had snowballed into this. “You know, you could just donate the kidney quietly, in Florida, and go home. Travis would know, but then you could disappear and sleep better ’cause you saved a man’s life.”
She pulled a corner of the blanket over her chest. “I can’t do that. I have too much…I have to forgive him first.”
“Forgive him? For what?” It was that money thing again—he knew it. “So what if he took a few bucks from your grandfather? He was a kid too. Your mother could have just been out for a roll in the hay with a mechanic from a trailer park for laughs. And why is it a ‘youthful indiscretion’ for her, and one of the seven deadly sins for him?”
She plucked at a piece of fringe on the blanket. “All I know is that she wanted me and he didn’t.”
“But you got a good deal.” Her frown deepened, and he searched his mind for the right words to make his point. “I mean, you had a nice childhood. Lots of money and love.”
She lifted her gaze and raised her eyebrows just enough to contradict him.
“Didn’t you? Didn’t your parents love you?”
When she didn’t answer, he realized he’d stepped into a hornet’s nest of dysfunctionality. Before he could think of anything to say, she asked, “Why do you think Travis hates me so much?”
“He doesn’t hate you. After your surprising performance today, I think he’s fine. How do you know so much about racing anyway?”
She picked up the newspaper on the table next to her. Under it, he saw a dog-eared book with dozens of little orange stickies marking pages. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Stock Car Racing. “I can read, Beau.” She tucked herself farther into the corner of the sofa and sighed. “Why is he so mean to me?”
He shrugged. “It’s not just you. It’s all women. He’s only had one serious relationship since I’ve known him. But she put the squeeze on him to get his last name, and well, he dumped her.”
“I think I see a pattern here,” she said, dryly echoing his words from their brunch.
“No pattern. He was being considerate. Racing is a lousy life. It’s thirty-six weeks on the road, it’s dangerous, and face it, it’s probably the most chauvinistic sport in the world.”
She looked beyond him at the muted TV without responding.
“Maybe he thinks…” Beau paused, knowing he couldn’t tell her why Travis didn’t take to her. Celeste was exactly the kind of woman Travis despised, and he suspected that might lead right back to her mother. But he had to come up with some acceptable explanation for Travis’s behavior. “He thinks you and I really do have something going on and I bet he doesn’t think that would be good for the team.”
She smirked. “Nice try.”
It wasn’t bad. “How long you planning on keeping up the Cece Benson charade, anyway?” he asked.
“Until I know what I want to know.”
“Look, this is the best way for you to spend a lot of time around Travis. Otherwise, he’ll just freeze you out,” he said. “You do your thing with the sponsors and I’ll do only the most necessary interviews. The rumor mill won’t go beyond the racing world. I’m not generally tabloid fodder, and I doubt that your friends and family follow NASCAR too closely. You’ll be safe.”
She stood, pulling the blanket around her but leaving the better part of her thigh in his direct line of vision. The long, enticing, bare part. “Are you certain this is the best way to spend time with him?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you promise to keep me out of the media?”
He stood in front of her, just inches from her Fruit Of The Loom and her damnable endearing expression. His body warmed again. “I promise to try my best.”
“Do you swear to do everything to make sure I spend a lot of time with Travis?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“And about that motor coach…”
Oh, man. There, he couldn’t promise a thing. He reached out and touched the caramel-colored wave that framed her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Well, if you can keep your hands off me, you should be fine.”
She looked back with a challenge in her eyes. “I can manage that.” But he could see a little pulse jump in her neck and could practically feel the heat rise and color her cheeks. The thought that their attraction was mutual was as arousing as the look in her eyes.
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” he assured her. “You can have the bedroom in the back. I’ll take the pullout in the front. You’ll be perfectly comfortable.”
He was the one who wouldn’t get a minute of much-needed sleep.
“All right,” she said with an accepting nod. “Then I guess we’re engaged.”
He slid his hand under her chin and lifted her face toward his with one finger. Her lips parted slightly and he took it as an invitation. Leaning closer, he touched her mouth with his. It wasn’t really a kiss. More like an exchange of breath. “Thanks, babe,” he whispered against her lips.
She didn’t move away, so he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss, opening his mouth to taste her, sliding his tongue along her lower lip to entice her to do the same.
She clamped down on his lip. He nearly howled as the pressure of her teeth shot an electrical arc through his body. She flattened her hands on his chest and pushed, the blanket tumbling to the floor.
“Don’t call me babe.”
He held up both hands in surrender. “Got it.”
She bent over to retrieve the blanket and unwittingly offered him a direct view into the V-neck. Nope, no bra. Round, delicate, small, but absolutely perfect breasts. His cock, already primed from the kiss, jumped to attention.
She looked up and narrowed her eyes in warning. “Good night, Beau.”
Two more steps backward and he reached the door. He tapped his fingers to his forehead in a dismal salute. “Good night.” Babe.
When the door slammed behind him, he heard the chain scrape into place.
Shit. Now he’d have to race five hundred miles with no sleep and a block of granite between his legs.
By the middle of the week, Elise still hadn’t erased the image of Celeste at the race from her mind. As she worked the soil around the bed of French Lace Roses, she tried to focus on how extraordinary the blooms were this year, how complete the garden looked. But it was a waste of time.
All she could see was her daughter’s face. There. With Travis.
After thirty years, her most dreaded fear had been realized.
Balancing on one knee, she seized her shears and clipped at a wayward stem with unsteady hands.
The worst part wasn’t Celeste knowing the truth, or the nasty comments she’d endured from her husband. It was the fact that she no longer had anything to hide; she no longer had a comfortable excuse for emotional paralysis. It hurt that Celeste had gone to him without telling her. But perhaps she only had herself to blame.
Had he found her first? Had he broken his pledge and sought her out? A thousand times, she’d wondered about the moment they met. How did Celeste feel? And Travis, when he finally met her? Was it tearful? Hateful? Did he regret what they’d lost too?
God, how she despised the regret. That unresolved emotion hung around her neck like a weight, imprisoning her.
Would that sweet, lazy accent and those teasing green eyes charm Celeste? Would she find a home, a heart…a father…like she’d never had? Oh, Chas could beguile anyone into anything. He had certainly made Elise feel like a goddess.
She’d never felt that way before. And she’d never felt that way since.
The gentle squeak of the back door startled her into reality. She stood and turned toward the house, where an imposing silhouette blocked the late afternoon sun. Tall and powerful, he moved with a purpose and grace that caused anyone in his way to step aside. She blew a breath of relief. It was Craig Lang, not Gavin. Not for the first time, Elise noticed how much her daughter’s ex-fiancé resembled her own husband.
“The door was open,” he said in his booming voice as he passed the gazebo and approached her. “But I couldn’t find Maureen.”
“Mo’s taken the day off.” Elise dropped the shears and adjusted her visor to see him in the sun. They hadn’t spoken since the night he and Celeste had become engaged. When Celeste called and informed Elise of her decision, she’d only said that she’d had a brief conversation with Craig and had returned his ring. It wasn’t until the night Elise saw Celeste on her television screen that she understood why her daughter had been so vague and distant. She reached up to air kiss Craig.
“It’s nice to see you, dear.” His light brown eyes looked clear, and as always, his handsome face was clean shaven, his suit impeccable. His wavy auburn hair barely touched his ears and never, ever reached his collar. Craig Lang was a perfect man.
Killer Curves Page 8
