Race For Revenge (Lynsey Stevens Romance)

by Stevens, Lynsey

  For immeasurable minutes Danni stood where he had left her, the sound of the slammed door vibrating in her ears. The cold calmness within her brought welcome numbness, although a small part of her registered almost terror at the horror of what she had done. She moved quietly to the bedroom, undressing, showering, climbing into bed without allowing her mind to dwell on the fact that the bed was huge and empty, and should have been full of them both.

  The whole day had been unreal, as though the entire cast were strangers and the plot a figment of some imagination. She tried to will herself to sleep, but her mind kept tossing over the day’s events.

  She had succeeded in her plan of revenge and she should be rejoicing, but by no stretch of the imagination could that revenge be called sweet. In fact, were she honest with herself then she would admit that the whole thing left her feeling cheap and nasty. And cold.

  It was acceptable for her to call the shots. And it was justified. She had loved her brother, would have done anything for him, as he would her. And to learn that Shiloh also had his own motive for marrying her cut her to the quick. And if she admitted it to herself it cut deeply.

  But he was the one who deserved to suffer, wasn’t he? she asked herself. Yes. He had taken a life, not just any life, but her own brother’s life, and if she lived to be a hundred she would make him pay. And then to use her to cover it up, gloss it over. Oh, he deserved to pay! An eye for an eye. She had judged him and— But in the eyes of the law he was not guilty.

  What if he was as innocent as he professed himself to be? The tiny niggling of doubt forced itself into her mind and she immediately discarded these sympathetic thoughts before they could take hold. As it was, she knew a tiny part inside of her had been harbouring an almost fanatical desire for his innocence, and she cast this aside and concentrated on Rick, reviving her desire to avenge his death.

  Rick’s handsome dark face swam before her, but she found it hard to hold it there, for her brother’s image kept fading, was replaced by Shiloh’s face as he had left her, hard, cold and unforgiving.

  She slept long after the tears dried on her cheeks and awoke slowly next morning, part of her reluctant to relinquish the forgetfulness of unconsciousness, and for a fleeting moment she was hard pressed to recognise her surroundings. But all too suddenly it all flooded back to her and the sound of the shower running in the bathroom off the bedroom had her eyes flying to the opened door.

  Almost mesmerised, her eyes watched that door as she became aware that the shower had stopped running and that sounds of movement came from within. Shiloh appeared a moment later, a deep blue towel wrapped sarong-wise around his waist, droplets of moisture still clinging to his dampened hair. His face was set and his cold eyes turned from her after one contemptuous glance which took in the nervousness of her fingers as they clutched the bedclothes up to her chin in an unconscious defence. Irrelevantly she noticed he had cut his cheek shaving and her senses screamed in the silence for him to say something. Anything.

  He walked across to his suitcase, flung it open and took out fresh clothes. Her startled eyes widened and then looked blushingly away as without a backward glance he nonchalantly removed the towel and began climbing into his shorts.

  ‘Breakfast arrived five minutes ago,’ he said as he moved into the adjoining room.

  Danni scrambled out of bed and grabbing some underclothes and a pair of shorts and matching top, she ran to the bathroom, making sure she secured the door after her. When she joined him Shiloh was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper, and barely registered her presence.

  Nervously she poured herself some coffee and began to eat a warm roll, although the food had a tendency to stick in her throat.

  The fair head and glacial brown eyes appeared over the top of the newspaper and she almost started when he eventually spoke.

  ‘I suppose you haven’t had a change of heart after your night’s rest?’ he asked tersely, his eyes boring into hers.

  ‘No.’ Danni gulped a mouthful of bacon. ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said, her voice a little stronger.

  He appeared to be about to pass a comment, but his lips set in a grim line. ‘So be it. Pack your things after you’ve eaten and I’ll drop you back at Broadbeach on my way to the airport.’

  ‘The airport? Where are you going? We’re , well, we were going to stay until Tuesday.’

  His eyes raked her. ‘I somehow think that’s pointless, don’t you? Besides, there are things I can be doing down south. I had planned on leaving them until later in the week, but—’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Of course, we can stay here if you’d like to insist,’ he said coldly, ‘but I warn you, Danni, if we stay I’m not going without a bed again tonight. I’ll be right in there beside you. So please yourself.’

  ‘I’ll go and pack now,’ she said after a pause, and silently left the room.

  What remained of Danni’s honeymoon she spent alone at her father’s house in Broadbeach. Shiloh didn’t bother to come past the front foyer. He simply deposited her suitcase, gave her a long cold look, returned to his car and drove away.

  After mooching around the suddenly super-empty house she decided to use her few days off work giving the whole house a thorough spring-cleaning. What was done was done, and at least the vigorous effort she put into scrubbing and polishing took her mind away from Shiloh O’Rourke. The strenuous activity had her falling exhausted into bed that first night, and it wasn’t until the next day that everything caught up with her.

  It was such a silly thing that started it all off. She was dusting the ornaments on the sideboard when her elbow caught a little china figurine of a shepherd boy. The figurine had been a childhood gift, the giver long forgotten and the occasion equally shrouded in the past, but the sight of the little shepherd, now headless, had the tears coursing down Danni’s face. She sank down on the floor with the figurine in one hand, her duster in the other, and wept without stopping. The little figurine was forgotten long before her tear-filled eyes blurred it into oblivion. She knew she really wept for herself and for Shiloh, for what might have been.

  Her thoughts kept returning to those days before she had found out who he really was, and the tragic part he had played in their lives. Vividly she was back out at the practice track at Mallaroo and Shiloh was making his first breathtaking appearance in her life, the way he had mistaken her for a young boy, how he had high-handedly interfered with her car and her anger and the uncertainty at the feelings he had awoken within her at that first meeting.

  Then there was the night they had gone out to dinner, the pleasure of finding each other, the dawning sensation of their mutual awareness, the almost instantaneous, physical response that had flared between them and the almost wondrous, ecstatic feeling that love could really be like that. Love? Had she been falling in love with him then? Danni sniffed self-pityingly and more tears fell unrestrained. Oh, why couldn’t he have been innocent of the charges laid against him?

  Maybe he is innocent, repeated a tiny voice inside her, and she clutched avidly at the thought. The, Board of Enquiry would have thoroughly investigated the whole incident, and they had brought down a verdict of Not Guilty. Could Shiloh have been telling the truth? But no. The racing fraternity was a close-knit group and would protect one of their own to the end, especially if there was any doubt about his being responsible for a fatal accident.

  This thought brought in its wake a terrible pre-monition that left her shaken and ashamed. Could she have misjudged him? Should she have simply trusted her own first impressions? His strong lean face swam before her eyes and her heartbeat accelerated. Little incidents came back to her, the way his mouth turned up at the corners, the burning desire in his cat’s eyes, the safeness of his arms wound about her.

  Then why were some people so set against Shiloh’s innocence? Her own father even. And Dallas had said— She stopped. She did only have Dallas’s word that the
majority of people involved in the racing game held Shiloh responsible. But her father believed it, didn’t he?

  She turned over what had been said that night. Dallas had done most of the talking really and her father had sat shocked, stunned. But he hadn’t said a word in Shiloh’s defence and he had been against their marriage.

  Marriage? Had it accomplished anything, this marriage of theirs? It certainly brought no easing of the sadness Rick’s death had left on her heart. There had been no overwhelming thrill of revenge justly meted out. And what of Shiloh’s reason for marrying her? It crossed her mind that his reason for marrying her had really rebounded on him. If the marriage had broken up before it began then wouldn’t that only add to the intensity of the rumours about him?

  Her tears fell again and she recalled the emotion-charged look that had passed between them at the reception. There could have been so much love— A sob caught in her throat. Yes, no matter what, she was in love with Shiloh, desperately, and the thought of life without him was suddenly unimaginable, a deep and aching void within her, and she yearned to feel his arms about her again. Would he be prepared to discuss their differences, attempt to make a go of their marriage? Could they put the past behind them?

  It was worth a try. She would telephone him immediately. She stood up and walked towards the phone and then stopped just as suddenly. She didn’t know his number, or even where he was. In fact she had no way of knowing where to contact him and she shrank from asking his parents. She would just have to wait until Shiloh got in contact with her and then she must hope she could find some way to convince him that it was only the future that mattered.

  But Shiloh didn’t phone or write, and Danni went off to work on Thursday, sick at heart and dreading Lisa’s well-meaning questions about her newly married bliss.

  She managed to carry it all off, but with each day that passed something inside her died just a little

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘There he is now,’ said Jock Mathieson, moving off towards the conspicuous fiery red head of Dallas Byrne, who was weaving his way impatiently through the throng of people scurrying about the huge airport.

  ‘Hi, Jock. Danni. Sorry I’m late. The traffic coming in was atrocious.’ Dallas’s eyes didn’t meet Danni’s as he took her small suitcase from her and turned to lead them outside to the car park. ‘It made me feel like a real country bumpkin. Makes you wonder if there isn’t more racing done off the track!’

  They moved towards the escalators with the other travellers.

  ‘Everything’s ready out at the track. The car’s spot on and ready to go. Your heats aren’t until two-thirty, so there’s no rush to get back. We can take our time, and drop your things off at the motel on the way.’ Dallas stopped beside a pale blue sedan.

  ‘Where’s the utility?’ asked Danni, looking about for their old grey truck.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t bring the ute. We’re travelling with a little more class today.’ Dallas was unlocking the boot of the new Ford. ‘I ran into Shiloh this morning,’ he explained, his ears pink, obviously embarrassed, ‘and he insisted I use his sedan to collect you.’

  ‘Where where did you see Shiloh?’ Danni tried to keep her voice on an even keel while her heart was beating its own tattoo. Just the sound of his name made her senses reel alarmingly, and she could feel her father’s eyes on her.

  ‘At the track.’ Dallas’s voice was muffled as he bent over the boot, stowing Jock’s case next to Danni’s. ‘He’d had his new car on the track for a practice run this morning. I’ve got to hand it to him,’ his voice was gruff, ‘it’s a real beauty. His heats are just after yours this afternoon and it appears he’ll be giving the boys a run for their money, going by his efforts this morning.’

  Danni could only stare uncomprehendingly at Dallas’s back while she fought to regain her composure after the shock she had received at Dallas’ words. She knew her face was pale and she leant thankfully against the back of the car, her mind spinning with a jumble of thoughts.

  ‘What heats are you talking about, Dallas?’ Jock voiced the question that was uppermost in Danni’s mind, a question she was at that moment totally incapable of asking. And when her father would have looked across at Danni, Dallas straightened up between them and turned to Jock.

  ‘Formula 5000. He’s having another go at the series.’ Dallas slammed the boot. ‘Chris Damien’s backing him, although why he would—’ Dallas shrugged.

  ‘What’s all this, Danni?’ Jock stepped aside so that he could direct his question at his daughter, a frown deep on his face. ‘How can Shiloh race with his leg? It’s suicide! Don’t tell me you go along with this foolishness?’

  ‘I—’ Danni shrugged. ‘It’s— I guess it’s something he feels he has to do,’ she said lamely, using Shiloh’s answer to his own father, her heart contracting at the thought of Shiloh racing again.

  Dallas gave her a thoughtful look, although he made no comment, and Danni climbed into the back of the car before either of the men could see the trembling that had overcome her.

  They were all strangely silent on the journey out to the race track and even Dallas seemed loath to discuss Danni’s car, the racing competition or various bits of racing news he had picked up at the track, as he was wont to do. Danni herself was lost deeply in her own thoughts.

  So there had been some truth in the newspaper report. He must have teamed up with Chris Damien. Why hadn’t Shiloh mentioned his intention to race again so soon? This must have been the reason behind his father’s anger. He had thought that Danni knew all about it, condoned it. And surely she had had a right to know his intention, especially before they were married? And what was more important, how could he even contemplate racing again after such an horrific accident and all that came after it? Unbidden, her mind visualised Shiloh lying limply in a twisted wreck, and she closed her eyes weakly, biting her lip so that she didn’t cry out.

  Her father shifted stiffly in his seat beside Dallas and Danni’s eyes opened and rested on the back of his head, taking in the weather-roughened skin and the thinning grey hair.

  Her father hadn’t planned on coming along with her to the southern races, but at the last minute he had announced his intention to do so. Danni was sure he knew there was something amiss between her and Shiloh, but he had made no comment as yet. In a moment of revelation her heart went out to him. Was this how her father had felt when Rick had been competing? And did he experience this same churning dread each time she took to the track? It was such food for thought that Danni had to drag her mind back to the present when Dallas stopped the car and held her door open for her to climb out.

  As usual Dallas had everything arranged and under control. All the paperwork was completed and Danni’s Formula Ford was parked under a tarpaulin strung from the utility, in a makeshift shelter from the sun. Yet even in the shade, the car shone brightly from a vigorous polishing. For the first time in her life Danni viewed the racing car with a feeling almost akin to revulsion.

  ‘I’ll make a pot of tea,’ said Jock, unlocking the door of the small camping unit that was resting on the back tray of the utility.

  Dallas’s inevitable cloth was wiping away an imaginary smudge from the bodywork of the car while Danni stood as if in a trance, not hearing the general babble of voices raised above the throb of burbling engines, not noticing the comings and goings of drivers, mechanics and officials.

  Setting her bag containing her driving suit almost unconsciously on the grass by her side, she continued to look at the car as it took on a terrifying shape, became an object of death and carnage, and her knees began to tremble. She clasped her dampened hands together and tried to suppress the shudder that threatened to pass over the length of her body. When a strong hand rested lightly on her shoulder she started violently, one hand going to her mouth, her eyes widening in fright.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, Danni
.’ The owner of the deep voice smiled crookedly. ‘You must have been miles away.’ Shiloh’s cold tawny eyes flicked over to Dallas who stood watching them, his face set and grim. ‘Thinking about me, I suppose.’ Shiloh’s smile didn’t reach his eyes as he pulled Danni’s numb body to him, his lips descending until they moved gently on hers.

  Her lips opened, partly in surprise, partly in an involuntary pleasure and, at her trembling response, he pulled her closer, his kiss deepening until Danni clung to his broad shoulders for support. Shiloh raised his head, his eyes looking mockingly into hers.

  ‘Now that’s what I call the perfect wifely welcome.’ His voice dropped lower, for her ears only. ‘Or maybe it’s just another of your little lead-them¬around-on-a-leash tricks? Dare I surmise that you missed me, Mrs O’Rourke?’

  Only Danni was aware of the underlying sarcasm in those last two words, and she felt her colour rise at the implications behind his cynical tone. As he continued to look at her, lines of strain became etched around his lips and his hand moved caressingly along the length of her backbone, almost as though he couldn’t help himself, and his half smile was self-derisive.

  ‘Shiloh O’Rourke!’ A petulant, husky voice broke the thread of heightened tension between them. ‘I let you out of my sight for a moment and where do I find you? In the arms of another woman!’ Almond green eyes roved over Danni from top to toe, and the fact that the other girl found Danni wanting was quite obvious. It was there on her face, in the condescending twist of the reddened lips and the tilt of her perfect nose.

  Danni recognised her immediately from the photo in the newspaper and she watched Shiloh’s smile broaden, his expression relax, and, to Danni’s chagrin, his not inconsiderable charm flow, as though the other girl’s presence had turned on a tap. ‘I always told you I was a two-timer.’ He laughed. ‘Anyway, Marla, Chris, come and meet my wife.’

  Danni had to give the other girl her due, she took what was obviously a shock remarkably well, and only after she had noticed the slight flickering of the other girl’s eyelashes and the aggressive light in the perfectly shaped eyes at Shiloh’s shock statement did Danni notice that Marla Damien was accompanied by her husband. In fact, in a crowd, Chris Damien could be very easily overlooked for all that his name was well known in business and sporting circles. He was of medium height and build with mousey brown hair, already thinning, although he was only in his late thirties, and he had one of the plainest, kindest faces Danni had seen anywhere.