Thunderstruck

by Roxanne St Claire

  Shelby managed not to cough “bullshit.” They’d barely had more than a passing conversation in the entire time Bobbie Norton raced at Cup level. As if she didn’t know why Tamara was acting as if they were schoolgirl chums. “I’d love to, but I’m swamped in the garage, so if all you want is to—”

  “I heard you have another team! And a great new sponsor!” She tugged Shelby enthusiastically. “That is so cool. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” She had about fifteen seconds of patience left. “What do you need, Tamara?”

  Tamara didn’t say anything but dampened her glossy lip with the tip of her tongue. “Am I too late?”

  “For what?”

  “To bid on the race teams.”

  “No,” Shelby said slowly, spinning through options as she regarded the other woman. There was no use in denying the sale of Ernie’s share any longer. “I haven’t made any decisions. What exactly are you asking me?”

  “Come here.” Tamara led her toward an empty break table under a party tent currently not in use.

  They sat across from each other on benches, and Tamara folded her hands in front of her and peered through her pink shades.

  “The only good thing to come out of my six years of marriage to that man was that…well, let’s just say Bobbie invested his race earnings very wisely and I had an excellent attorney.” She pushed a lock of slick black hair over her shoulder. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Shelby shrugged. “You took Bobbie to the cleaners when you got divorced?”

  A smile tipped Tamara’s shiny lips. “You might put it that way.”

  “I can’t say I feel sorry for him, because I never really was too crazy about the way the guy raced,” Shelby said. “But let me just get this straight—are you bidding to buy Thunder Racing?”

  She nodded. “I am.”

  “Thunder Racing is not technically for sale,” Shelby said, choosing each word carefully.

  “I happen to know differently.” Tamara raised her cleft chin a bit and did the perfect imitation of someone looking down her nose. “I happen to know that your grandfather is selling his half of Thunder Racing and you have a very interested party. Whatever—and I mean whatever—he is offering, I’ll beat.”

  Shelby stared at her. “Why?” But why would this attractive, wealthy woman want to buy half a race team?

  “Because I love racing.”

  She did? Her only memory of Tamara at a race involved seeing the woman in hospitality suites wearing open-toed high heels that were not permitted in the garage area or pits. “Since when?”

  “Since I used to be at the track with Bobbie. In the old days.”

  The “old days” were about three years ago in Tamara Norton’s terms. Shelby let out a soft, surprised laugh. “I had no idea you were into the sport, Tamara. I thought you were a…a…”

  “Gold digger.”

  “Fan,” Shelby covered quickly. “A wife. You know, someone who married into the life and got quite a few perks for your thirty-some weekends a year. Why would you want to buy half a race team and take on the headaches that it entails?”

  Tamara tapped an acrylic nail that wouldn’t last five minutes in a race shop. “I don’t want the headaches, Shelby. You run the show, top to bottom. Think of me as an angel investor. Have you heard of those?”

  “No.”

  “Money from heaven, hon. All I want is a ringside seat in the thick of the races and a chance to be around the sport in the most legitimate way possible. Not as a trophy wife. As an owner.” Something in Tamara’s determined gaze underscored the truth of that. “I want to belong here again. I want access. And if I have to buy my way in, so be it. I can afford it.”

  On some level, Shelby got it. Women weren’t exactly embraced—yet—in the sport. They weren’t shunned, they weren’t excluded, they just weren’t prevalent other than as wives of drivers and owners and, of course, the ever-present pit lizards and groupies.

  Tamara leaned forward as if she could seize Shelby’s hesitation. “Let me guess. You’re looking for press coverage and more sponsors, better drivers and higher visibility.”

  “Of course I am,” Shelby acknowledged. “But I am not trying to grow Thunder Racing into another megateam. I want to keep it all in the family. I don’t want four hundred employees and six corporate jets.”

  Tamara arched a dubious eyebrow.

  “Okay, one jet would be nice,” Shelby admitted.

  Tamara pulled her glasses down and looked hard at Shelby. “If you partnered with me, that would certainly get press coverage, don’t you think?”

  A NASCAR team owned by two women? “Absolutely.”

  “Press coverage that could attract a cosmetic or fashion sponsor that is dying to tap into the millions of female fans and their purchasing power.”

  Who knew Tamara was such a marketing maven? “It might.”

  Tamara shrugged, smug and satisfied. “Everyone wins.”

  Everyone but Mick Churchill. “Let me ask you something, Tamara.”

  “Anything.”

  “You know what a restrictor plate is?”

  Tamara let out a ladylike snort. “Is that a joke?”

  “An intake manifold?”

  She looked bewildered. “I’ve seen one. I know generally where it resides in the engine and what its purpose is. Why? Is your co-owner expected to build engines?”

  “How about the rules? How do you feel about them?”

  Her fair skin paled slightly. “I expected you’d ask that.” She took a deep breath and sighed long and slow. “Listen, Shelby, I’m mortified that I married a man who felt rules were made to be broken. And I know how you feel about them, everyone in NASCAR does.” She paused and lowered her eyes, her long lashes sweeping like black-tipped brooms. “I didn’t know what decisions my ex-husband made in the garage, Shelby. I hope you don’t find me guilty by association.”

  Had she totally misjudged Tamara Norton? “To be honest, I don’t know how to find you,” Shelby said. “Right now I just have to think about things. This is getting complicated.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Tamara insisted. “Lawyers make it easy. I’ll have mine draw up a formal offer and send it to your office as soon as possible.”

  Shelby held up both hands. “Whoa. Hit the brakes a second. Can’t we wait until after Daytona? Or, better yet, after the season? I don’t see the rush on this.”

  “With Mick Churchill waiting in the wings?” Tamara shot back. “Please. He’s practically wearing a Thunder Racing uniform already.”

  “He’s been in Daytona for half a day.”

  “And at your shop for almost a week.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Oh, come on, Shelby,” Tamara said, a generous amount of condescension in her voice. “This is a very, very small den of thieves, full of guys who leave the garages and drink beer and talk. I know your grandfather and that soccer star are tight.”

  How did she know that?

  “But I’m offering an alternative. That’s all. A better alternative.” Her gaze drifted over Shelby’s shoulder. “Not that it would be easy to say no to that.”

  Shelby had no doubt what snagged Tamara’s attention as the woman’s coy expression suddenly turned predatory.

  “Hello, there,” Tamara said, baring zillion-dollar porcelain veneers.

  Shelby glanced down at her own clipped nails, her knit shirt, her scuffed work boots. A Thunder Racing-issued uniform was no match for Versace.

  “There you are.” Mick sat right beside Shelby on the bench, leaning one mighty shoulder into hers, then reached a hand across the table. “I’m Mick.”

  Shelby watched the color darken Tamara’s complexion as her eyes glittered behind her pink shades. “I’m Tamara.” They shook hands, no last names exchanged. “A pleasure to meet you, Mick.”

  “Am I interrupting girl talk?” he asked, dipping slightly into her side again in a move that was both friendly and intimate.

/>   Shelby rolled her eyes. “Oh, of course, we were just sitting here chatting about makeup and clothes.”

  “Brilliant,” he said lightly. “I’m a sucker for women in one and out of the other.”

  “I heard that about you.” Tamara leaned her elbows on the table, never taking her eyes from him. “I liked that ad you did for Ralph Lauren last year. Very sexy.”

  “Thanks.” He nudged Shelby again. “The story’s a go.”

  She shoved the image of him in chaps and designer duds out of her head. Forget the ads. He did a great job in interviews and deserved his props for it.

  “Nice work, Mick.” She held up her knuckles and he met them with his own. “Thanks.”

  “Nice work on what?” Tamara asked, inching closer to the table.

  “Mick finessed a feature story on Thunder Racing.” She glanced at him again. “You definitely passed the quiz.”

  He pumped his arm. “Yessss.”

  She couldn’t help laughing at his enthusiasm. And noticing that Tamara looked far less enthused. “I gotta get back to the garage. I’ll call you, Tamara.”

  “Use my cell number on the card I gave you,” she said. “Oh, here, Mick.” Tamara reached into a tiny bag and pulled out a business card. “For your files.”

  He nodded thanks without looking at it. “I’ll go back with you, Shel. I need to give you the details of the photo shoot.”

  “Glad we talked, Shelby,” Tamara said, an edge in her voice. “I’ll get things started on my end. Then we can go over the specifics in a day or two.”

  “I’ll call you,” Shelby said pointedly. Everything was happening too fast, and while that normally suited her just fine, today felt as though life was rapidly getting loose and spinning right out of her control. “But I really need to get back to the garage.” Where she could pick up a tool and control it.

  Before she’d taken four steps in that direction, Mick was beside her. “Who’s the viper?”

  “Tamara?” She couldn’t help smiling. “What makes you think she’s a viper?”

  “I barely escaped alive.”

  “She used to be married to a driver and I knew her a long time ago.”

  He kept stride with her, although she power walked across the asphalt. “She doesn’t strike me as your type.”

  “My type of what?”

  “Friend.”

  She did a double take at him. “How do you know what’s my type of friend?”

  “I’m a good judge of character,” he said easily. “Didn’t I prove that with Ross Johannsen?”

  “You did. And I really appreciate it.”

  But she had another option now, viper or not.

  WHEN THE LAST OF THE cars left the track after Shootout practice on Friday night, Shelby let herself into the cool, dark motor home and dropped her keys and clipboard on the first available surface. She kept the blinds closed tight and the AC on high just for moments like this.

  Both crews had watched practice, even though Thunder Racing didn’t have a car in the Budweiser Shootout scheduled for the next night. But watching Friday night’s Shootout practice was a tradition—a much-needed break from the work in the garage and a chance to see how the toughest drivers on the track were racing.

  Garrett Langley had been fastest, but all of the competition looked tough and ready. And they’d be even tougher by next Sunday when they ran the race.

  She would have called Ernie, but he’d gone to some dinner for the “old-timers,” as he called his racing cronies. If he hadn’t, she would have gone somewhere quiet with him and had a heart-to-heart about their options, now that they had more than one.

  But not tonight. Instead she dropped on the sofa, reached down to unlace her boots and considered the rest of the evening looming ahead. When she’d left the garage, most of the crew was there, talking about the practice they’d just watched, goofing around. Some might leave for the evening, but the diehards would be over there.

  Sometimes being the only woman around was a lonely thing. She toyed with her phone and thought about calling Janie for some girl talk but dialed Whit’s cell instead. Maybe they were still hanging around the garage.

  She could hear laughter when he answered. “Hey, Shel, we were just about to call you.”

  “You were? I can be right over.”

  “No, I’m at the hotel. A bunch of us are going out to eat. What’s the name of that place, Billy? Oh, Down Under. Want to meet us there?”

  Did she? She rubbed her temples and glanced toward the back of the motor coach. A hot bath, a good book and a long night’s sleep was what she needed. Or someone to talk to. And not about pit strategy.

  “I don’t know. I’d have to get a cab.”

  “Well, I’d tell you to ride over with Mick in the van, but he’s here at the hotel with Billy already.”

  Oh, great. Now he was going out to dinner with her crew. Male bonding at Down Under. She’d been to that joint. They could all hoot and holler and ring the cowbell every time a waitress got tipped.

  “You could get there easy, Shel. Tell a cabbie it’s right under the Dunlawton Bridge.”

  Thank God for Whit. He really did want her there. “Who all do you have, Whit?”

  “There’s about seven of us, with Mick.”

  Seven guys and Shelby. “No, thanks. I’m going to go back over to the garage for a while.”

  “No one’s there, Shel. Everyone’s left for the night.”

  “Then I’m going to crash,” she said, happy with that decision.

  Three hours later she was clean, comfy and still reading the same page of a novel she’d opened a long time ago. She almost folded the corner of the page but glanced around for something to use as a bookmark. Grabbing a business card from a dish where she kept her keys, she slid it into the page, and the words on the card jumped out at her.

  TNC Racing Enterprises.

  Options. Shelby had options. Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed Tamara Norton’s cell phone.

  “Oh, my God, Shelby!” Tamara cooed into the phone. “What are you doing? Where are you?”

  “In my coach.”

  “On Friday night in Daytona Beach? Are you nuts? I’m on my way over to DayGlo. Want to come?”

  She peeked out the blinds at the lights of the infield. Boom boxes were already at war and the place hummed and buzzed with a party. And beyond that, the city of Daytona Beach rocked with the influx of two hundred thousand NASCAR folks. What was she doing here?

  “What’s the name of the place again?”

  “DayGlo. It’s the hottest club in town, Shelby. Just give my name to the guy at the door. I’ll be at the bar in an hour or so.”

  Did she want to spend the evening with Tamara? Did she want to get dressed up and find a cab and go across the causeway just to sit and hear about the divorce from hell?

  Not particularly. But she didn’t want to sit alone in her motor home and feel sorry for herself. And if Tamara really was an option as an investor in the team option, she should know her better. She had to get out of this trailer or she’d go crazy.

  “DayGlo?” She glanced down at her bare feet. “I’ll change and meet you there.”

  “ROXY’S IS GOOD.”

  “Biggins is bigger.”

  “Bigger isn’t always better.”

  “On what planet?”

  The rumble of low laughter filled the van, where all seven seats were stuffed with men who’d shucked oysters and drunk drafts, dinged several waitresses with twenty-dollar tips and were just lubricated enough to discuss the merits of every strip club in Daytona Beach.

  Mick turned onto the causeway, the only one who’d chosen soda at dinner and gotten rewarded with the keys to the van.

  “You can just drop me and Pete at the hotel, Mick,” Whit said. “You clowns are welcome to go watch the ladies climb the pole at Biggins, but the only pole I’m interested in is the first row.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” one of the mechanics mumbled. “We won’t be out lat
e.”

  Whit tossed Mick a look from the passenger seat. “You up for a little more babysitting? ’Cause I really need these guys crashed by one, but I know they gotta blow off some steam.”

  Mick shrugged with less than no enthusiasm. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was go to a strip club. “Tell me there’s another option for steam-blowing. I prefer women to undress for an audience of one.”

  Billy punched his shoulder from the seat behind him. “I bet you get plenty of that, Mick. That waitress practically sat on your lap.”

  “They have lap dancing at Roxy’s,” someone offered from the back.

  “No, thanks,” Mick said.

  “Go hit a club,” Pete suggested. “There’re a couple of good ones down near the Seabreeze Bridge. Razzles, the Shores, DayGlo.”

  A pub. That’s what Mick wanted. Something with seven-foot ceilings and overflowing pints. “DayGlo?” he asked. “Isn’t that some kind of nylon?”

  “That’s some kind of impossible to get in,” Billy said. “You gotta know the frickin’Queen of England to get through that line.”

  Mick looked up into the rearview and grinned. “I know her.”

  They were still laughing about that when they stepped into a warehouse where neon was the wall paint of choice and the music was as deafening as the Shootout final practice Mick had witnessed earlier.

  The two crew chiefs and one of the pit crew—a jack man, Mick had learned—opted out of the continued fun. But Big Byrd, Ryan Magee and Robbie Parsons, the bloke who’d driven the hauler, were determined to use the Queen’s name to squeeze into what looked like every club Mick had ever been in from Miami Beach to Notting Hill.

  The three of them fanned out to check the scene, which Mick knew meant look for women, leaving him to slip into an empty seat that afforded perfect eye contact with anyone else sitting at the round bar. He ordered an O’Doul’s, chatted with the bartender and glanced around the circle more in search of his mates than to check out the female population.

  But his gaze locked on a very familiar face directly across from him.

  Tamara Norton.

  She lifted her index finger and gave him a one-fingered wave. He nodded in acknowledgment. She turned her hand and transformed the “hello” to “come here.”