His lip twitched, and I had to cross my arms in order to hold myself back from going to him.
“I wouldna do it, but Danny didn’t want to argue. He never wanted to fight… always wanted to please.” The air grew heavy with dread—knowing and not knowing at the same time what was going to happen. “So, Danny adjusted it like he wanted. And then Dyson went out there and blew the damn thing. Hours of time. Millions of dollars. ‘Course he had the money but still. Blew it ta prove a point—ta make his claim.” He went on, the words coming faster now, probably because they’d rarely been spoken. Instead, they’d bottled up and pressurized inside his thick chest just waiting to be released.
“Then he went and told everyone it was all Danny’s doin’. His choice. His miscalculation. He made a scene to anyone who would listen that he knew Danny was tryin’ to get out of our contract, but instead of just tellin’ him, Danny decided to sabotage his car and ruin his chances.”
I’d raced at all kinds of dangerous speeds. I’d avoided crashes by a hair and split seconds. But none of it—none of those experiences made my pulse careen so rapidly and so unsteadily as his story did now.
“And that was the prick, lass,” he finished roughly. “The one that caused the world begin ta tilt underneath my brother, and his dreams begin ta leak from him. And he couldna take the hate.”
“I’m so sorry.” The words didn’t even sound like they came from me. But they did. They came from the part of me I’d kept silent about Daytona—the part of me that, like Danny, had snapped at the hate.
“Two days. Two days of media frenzy was all it took for my brother to believe his dreams were gone. Two days of his protests ignored. Two days of watchin’ the truth stifled. And then he was gone.” Everything about him was hollow now. His voice. His eyes. His heart. “He’d always been the moodier of us. Able ta be happier. Also able ta be sadder. Never thought too much of it before. But nothin’ had ever come against us—him like this before.”
“Garret…”
His body jolted and his eyes snapped to mine, recognizing he was straying too far from facts into feelings. “‘Course I sent a letter to Dyson, sayin’ what didn’t need to be said—that I was done with him. With this sport. With the whole damn thing.”
“But Vegas…”
His lip curled. “The daft cocksucker had some of his shop hands put the spare engine in the car without checkin’ everythin’ over, assumin’ it was all ready to go—assumin’ it was only the engine he’d damaged in qualifying.” He grunted. “But it wasn’t, and when he gunned it for top speed in those first few laps, it blew and threw him off. Lifted the front end—lifted him… and caused the crash.”
It was a mind-numbing tale—the kind of unbelievable that could only be true.
“And they blamed you?”
He sighed. “They tried. His family didn’t know I quit. They didna even know Danny died,” he explained. “When I told them… when I showed them my resignation and told them the truth about what happened, they changed their mind real quick about pressin’ charges.”
“But the media…” I trailed off. Even though he’d never been charged or arrested, it hadn’t stopped the news from spreading the tale.
“I dinna care what they thought.”
I stared at him, the blunt words hanging tangibly in the air. And as I watched the strain on his face, the demons toiling in the depths of his eyes, something inside me shifted.
The scale that had been broken was now obliterated.
There never was a scale.
There was only ever a broken man whose painful past drove him to push people away—especially when it came to me. And me, a woman whose natural instinct was to prove myself no matter the cost. Who would risk anything—even more so if it was dangerous—to prove I was good enough—especially when it came to him.
I gulped. And something like this… something that my heart wanted to pursue… was the most dangerous challenge of them all.
“But one word from the family could’ve changed everything about what they wrote,” I protested.
I wondered if I’d ever met a person who cared so little about defending his good character in the face of a world trying to drag it through the mud.
“Two men were dead, lass. My brother… the man I’d grown up and shared my whole life with… was dead,” he charged. “I wanted to leave that world. I needed ta leave that world.” He paused here like he’d just managed to catch himself from revealing more and my heart lurched at the thought there was more to this heartbreaking tale. “One word woulda changed a story I dinna want changed.”
My protests died like a match dropped in the ocean. The fire to fight extinguished under the waves of reality—one that crashed eerily close to the shores of my own secrets.
“I understand,” I murmured, my sudden subdued tone drawing his curiosity.
But before I could turn away, his rasp held me prisoner. “And what about ye, lass? If I’m no’ supposed to believe what I read, then tell me the truth about Daytona.”
I shuddered, and replied, feeling like his confession was a truth serum to extract my own. “I punched him because he provoked me—because he deserved it.”
“Then why dinna ye say that? Why don’t ye?” The way his gaze roamed over me set my body on fire, feeling like he could see through every well-build defense I had. “They all know Puglisi is a feckin’ arse. They’d believe ye.”
I let out a wavering exhale. This conversation—this confession—crossed boundaries. Boundaries similar to the ones his lips taunted when they dragged across mine the other day in the shop.
Boundaries I hadn’t realized we’d even been close to.
But some lines were still respected. So, I ended my story with equal measure as he did his.
“Because maybe believing me would change a story I don’t want changed either,” I told him, watching his eyes flash as I repeated his own answer.
I drew a deep breath, letting those words hang suspended.
A taut truth. A taut truce.
One that stood as the last barrier to a path neither of us were able to take.
“Miss Snyder.” For the second time, Renner’s voice was an unwelcome interruption.
My chin ducked. I mumbled some semblance of apology and goodbye, and this time, Garret didn’t say anything to stop me when I turned and left.
It didn’t matter if I wanted him like he wanted me. Sometimes, wanting something wasn’t enough.
Because he was the mechanic and I was the driver. He needed to get out of this world and I needed to get to the top of it. And that was a story neither of us were willing to change.
The warm ache in my stomach warned that desire didn’t care about our stories nor our secrets; desire would set it all ablaze and write its own tale if we weren’t careful.
Garret
SO MUCH FOR SMILING MORE.
For making friends.
A low rumble escaped with my long exhale as I pulled my face up from where it had been buried in my hands.
From the moment I accepted Voigt’s proposition, it was as though I’d flung myself into a tailspin, whipping around and crashing into everything in sight.
Claire’s treatment not working. Crash.
The insurance denying the claim. Crash.
Having to implement new regulations on a race car I hadn’t worked on in almost a decade. Crash.
And dealing with the stubborn and far too sexy driver who kept ending up where she shouldn’t belong—anywhere close to me.
Crash.
The Aeroscreen was supposed to be delivered today—a new safety feature to be installed around the driver’s cockpit.
Thankfully, Renner agreed to wait at the garage for it, knowing I had to be at the hospital all day today with Claire for her next round of chemotherapy; Janet wasn’t having a good day.
When she’d called yesterday, I knew it was a bad flare-up—her disease triggered by the stress of dealing with the insurance for Claire’s treat
ment. The strain in her voice was palpable from the pain—pain which she refused to take medication for in front of Claire, preferring to suffer rather than be with her daughter in a drug-induced stupor. She thought it was too risky; I wouldn’t argue.
But if yesterday was a bad day, today was worse. And she knew it was coming when she asked if I could be at the hospital with Claire. The last thing she wanted was Claire to see her suffering—to need her strength when she had none to give.
So, I came.
I always would.
And currently, I was waiting in the hospital cafeteria for a specific mix of treats for my sleeping niece for when she woke up. The day after her chemo treatments were always the worst, the nausea hardly abating for even the most desired food. So, I ventured down here for the appetizing combination of tomato soup, chocolate chip cookies, and apple juice.
And because, as much as it pained me to admit it, I was having a hard time facing my inquisitive niece.
A hard time finding an answer to how ‘smiling more’ helped with my co-worker.
With a low groan, I sank back in the chair, my eyes floating up to the white tiled ceiling.
Kacey Snyder was a problem. An inextinguishable fire in my blood.
I was good at pushing people away—good at letting only the most abrasive emotions out.
So good, in fact, in my effort to push Kacey away, I’d pushed myself right off a cliff. A cliff of control I couldn’t come back from. And cruelty.
When that piece of shit reporter followed her and bombarded her with questions, my frustration over Claire’s insurance, my frustration over almost revealing the parts of my life I’d sacrificed everything to keep private… it all evaporated like alcohol in the face of oxygen. Suddenly and without a trace.
In that moment, there was only the need to protect her. To defend her. To defend what was mine.
And that single thought infuriated me.
She wasn’t mine.
She was the driver.
She was part of the team.
She was a temporary fixture in a life I refused to be a part of any longer than necessary.
And yet, I wanted her like I’d wanted nothing before.
“G!” My name being called for my order pulled me from my thoughts. At least today I’d have a break from the strawberry-haired stubborn dreamer.
Grabbing Claire’s food, I made my way back up to her room, half-expecting her to still be napping which would give me some more time to try and explain why I hadn’t been nice to Kacey.
No, I’d been worse than not nice.
I’d taken the desire she felt for me—the same pulsing, voracious monster that lived inside me—and rubbed it in her face with only my years of restraint being able to barely rein it in.
Taking a deep inhale and preparing for the interrogation to continue, I approached Claire’s room, my steps slowing as a conversation carried into the relatively quiet hallway.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” Definitely Claire’s voice.
My brow scrunched as I picked up my pace. Was Janet here? Was she feeling better?
“It’s like a dream—oh, no. Is it a dream? Is it the drugs? Am I dreaming you?” Claire babbled nervously as I rounded through the doorway and stopped on a dime, surprised my shoes didn’t leave rubber skid marks with the sudden stop.
Rich red hair. Bright, sunny-day blue eyes. And the fearless, unrestrained smile that made me angry because it made me weak all faced me from her seat on the edge of Claire’s bed.
“Miss Snyder,” I growled, my fist tightening on the apple juice almost to the point of popping the lid off.
The look of shock on Kacey’s face was nothing short of what slamming on the brakes when going two-hundred miles-per-hour would feel like. Eyes wide. Perfect pink lips parted in a way that made my tongue want to escape the cell of my mouth. And fresh color spreading to her cheeks, warming her pale skin, and making my cock thicken with the need to spread that color to other parts of her fierce small form.
“G?” It wouldn’t have been loud enough to hear except that the room had grown instantly and ominously silent for a split second.
She was the last person I expected to see.
I was the last person she wanted to see.
But now she was here, in the space I’d tried to keep safe and untainted—where I tried to keep Claire’s infatuation with the racing world behind rose-colored glasses. The whole racing scene was as hard and as fast and as deadly as the cars; my niece didn’t need anything else deadly in her life.
Our silence would’ve been deafening if not for that sprightly eight year old who was in delirious shock that her idol was standing not even five feet in front of her. And if there was one thing that could dull the toll cancer and its treatment took on a child, it was the almost-magical granting of her greatest wish.
“Oh my gosh,” Claire squealed, looking between Kacey and me. “Can you believe it? Can you believe she’s here?”
My jaw tightened and I forced a small smile. “No, I definitely can’t.”
I approached the bed slowly, my eyes never leaving Kacey’s as I did until Claire let out a loud gasp and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Did you do this, Uncle G? Did you bring her here to surprise me? Was it your idea?” She fired off the questions in quick succession, hugging her NASCAR teddy bear tighter as she heaved a giant breath. Her unencumbered elation was a punch to my gut.
In that moment, I wished I had.
I wished I’d been the one to bring her this joy—this absence from pain, and from her unfairly cruel reality. But I hadn’t because I was afraid. And because Kacey Snyder had less than no reason to do any favor I asked of her.
Setting her food down on the small bedside table, I folded my arms, my head dipping slightly in shame as I went to admit the truth.
“It was.” My eyes snapped to Kacey’s reassuring smile as she confirmed my niece’s hopes—and lied to her. “A little birdie told me there were some brave kids here who wanted to meet a certain race car driver, so of course, I couldn’t say no.”
Claire’s mismatched, toothy grin grew. “Did he smile when he asked?”
My long groan was audible. “Claire…”
“See, Uncle G, I told you if you smiled at people, they would be nicer to you,” she went on, blithely unaware of just how far under the bus she was throwing me.
I hazarded a quick glance at Kacey, her eyebrows peaked with interest and a small smile toying with her lips.
“You know, Miss Claire, I don’t recall him smiling when he asked.” She turned to further face me, her eyes devious and dancing.
Claire groaned, her head falling back into her pillow in exasperation. “Uncle G. You build race cars. Smiling can’t be that hard.”
Kacey quickly covered her mouth but it did nothing to hide the way her slim shoulders bounced with laughter at my niece’s scolding.
“Maybe I don’t have the right parts,” I grunted.
“A smile. Teeth. And a heart.” She counted each of the three with a raised finger.
“A heart?” I arched an eyebrow. Smiles were one thing. A heart was a whole different story.
“Of course,” she exclaimed, her hand falling to the bed. “You need a heart to be able to smile, right, Kacey?”
My body tensed as she brought the only other woman who affected the damn thing in my chest into the conversation.
Kacey’s tongue swept over her lower lip, leaving it glossy with temptation as she looked to me. She was too close. I could see the rapid flutter of her pulse against the soft skin of her neck and the eager rise and fall of her chest against her NASCAR t-shirt. Everything about her was some personification of temptation.
Her gaze sparked as it met mine. “Like a race car needs an engine—only if you want the smile to accomplish anything.”
I clenched my teeth, glaring at her.
“Can I speak with ye fer a minute, Miss Snyder?”
“Uncle G.” Claire ro
lled her eyes. “Her name is Kacey. You shouldn’t talk to her like she’s a teacher.”
I cleared the frustration from my throat, my lips firming into a tight line. “Can I speak with ye outside fer a minute, Kacey?”
She nodded and stood, but not before I caught the shiver that raced up her body.
Claire reached for her apple juice, her astute gaze following Kacey as she walked in front of me to exit the room—another mistake as my eyes immediately drifted to the way her jeans molded over the curve of her ass.
Lust weighted my steps and desire fogged over all the things I should say, leaving only the things I shouldn’t.
Garret
“WHAT ARE YE DOING HERE?” I rounded on her, losing all sense.
I was supposed to be safe from this want here. Safe knowing my voracious need for her had no place to go if she wasn’t in the same building as me. Safe without constantly imagining her padding across the apartment above the garage in nothing but that sheer tee and her underwear.
“Me?” She gasped and her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, adding with a hiss. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Our eyes clashed. I did owe her a thank you.
“I think it’s pretty obvious why I’m here,” I growled softly. I was the one with a sick child.
Her head tipped back toward Claire’s room, and she sighed. “Renner told me to come.”
“He told you about Claire?” I demanded harshly.
“No!” My anger dulled. “He said there were kids here who would love to meet a race car driver,” she explained. “He wanted me to come and spend the day with them… and try to encourage more sponsorships.”
“Dammit.” I exhaled, my nostrils flaring. “Of course, he did.”
And as much as I knew Voigt could have a singular focus when it came to racing, there were times—times like this—when I had an unsettlin’ suspicion that there was more than one motive drivin’ his actions.
Revolution: A Driven World Novel (The Driven World) Page 14
