by Audra North
The second Ranger had seen her name on the sign that idiot had unfurled across the track, he’d known that managing the media shitstorm around this was going to take a much bigger effort than a ten-minute press conference.
The news crews had arrived yesterday and were already all over the track. A few of them even did live feeds throughout the entire weekend. No doubt today’s events were already all over the internet by now.
Hart Racing already had a cash problem, an image problem, and a management problem, and now this proposal fiasco could irrevocably harm the public view—and potential endorsement deals—of their star driver.
Kerri Hart.
“She’s comin’ in!” The pit crew coach, a grizzled older man who’d introduced himself earlier as “Bit,” called their attention back to the opposite side of the track, where Kerri had gotten back into the car, turned it around, and was heading toward the pit.
Ranger lost sight of it for a second as it entered the curve on the track just before pit road. But seconds later, there it was, zooming toward them, big white lucky number thirteen painted on the side.
He could hear that strong feminine voice in his mind. My channel. My car. My team. His pulse jumped. There had been passion in that voice.
The car kept coming up fast. Too fast, it seemed. What the hell? Was she going to stop? He cast a furtive glance up at the faces of the pit crew. None of them seemed fazed. In the next second, Danny and Kyle jumped out onto the road, directly in the path of the incoming car as it whipped into the space, stopping on a dime with a jolt.
Another example of crazy becoming normal.
“What are they doing?”
Bit shrugged. “They’re gonna swap out the tires and gas it up. She was talking about some changes before the spinout, but now she’ll want to do a few more laps and see if there’s anything else before we get to work.”
“Wait a second. You mean she’s not going to get out of the car?”
“I thought you didn’t want her to get out.” Grady’s voice sounded right behind him, and Ranger turned.
“I meant when she was still on the track. But that’s already shot to hell. Now that she’s back here, we need to talk—immediately. Before she talks to anyone else.” He frowned at Grady. “She was surprised just now by the news. You didn’t tell me you hadn’t filled her in about Colt’s involvement in Hart Racing.”
Grady’s face flushed. “If I’d told her, she would have thrown all her energy behind trying to fix the business end of things. We need Kerri focused on racing, not a rescue mission.”
Ranger had to admit Grady had a point. At the moment, Kerri was their only chance for whatever success in this sport entailed. Still, it didn’t sit right with Ranger that no one had told Kerri about the buyout. Given Hart Racing’s financial straits, they’d sold almost everything to Colt.
And no one had told their star driver about it.
God damn it. Ranger certainly hadn’t planned to deliver the news of Colt International’s investment in Hart Racing to Kerri over a headset while she was in the middle of a spinout. But something about her had stirred him up and made him throw his carefully planned speech out the window.
That had never happened to him. Ever.
He needed to get this whole thing back under control, and fast. But right now, they had an even more pressing issue: damage control.
He turned to Bit. “No tires. No gas.”
Beyond Bit’s shoulder, through the netting that served as the car’s window covering, he could see the silhouette of a helmet. Gloved hands. Waiting.
Bit’s eyes cut to Grady’s face, looking for approval, and Ranger cursed.
He stepped over the wall, ignoring the silent power struggle behind him, and sauntered up to the car. Her face wasn’t visible through her helmet, but when she turned her head jerked back fast, as if she’d been electrocuted.
By the time he was standing right next to the driver’s side, she’d recovered. The netting came down. The visor came up. Big hazel eyes in a band of smooth skin stared at him in frank appraisal.
He’d known she was pretty.
But none of her photos had captured the feeling he got from actually seeing her, of being caught in the path of that fiery gaze. The full force of it nearly knocked him back. This woman was one hundred percent passion. Damn. He couldn’t be thinking about that kind of thing right now. The quicker they got this under control, the better, and letting desire rule the day wasn’t a good—
Wait.
That was it. That was the answer. Desire. Romance. What better way to salvage today’s disaster and repair Kerri’s reputation in the media than for him and her to pretend to be a couple? He was stuck with her for the next few months, after all. May as well kill a few birds with one stone.
Besides, you’ll get to kiss her …
Heat, low and burning, snaked its way down his body and pooled in his groin. He tried to ignore it, but the unexpected desire only fueled his need to regain control. He didn’t bother with introductions, just jerked his thumb toward the pit and growled, “Get out of the car.”
Chapter Two
What. The. Fuck.
Kerri stared at the big, snarling, impossibly sexy jerkoff standing just outside her window. This had to be the man behind the voice on the channel just now, the one who’d been stroking her ears and making her feel all kind of things that she had no business feeling in the middle of controlling a potential crash.
Earl had damned near killed himself. Grady had panicked himself into uselessness. Now this man was ordering her around? She was surrounded by men almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and sometimes she really hated them.
“Well?” The jerkoff did something weird with his neck, tightening it or something, that made his head snap forward and his brown eyes spark. It should have made him look grotesque, but somehow the tension only accentuated the broad set of his shoulders, the dark thickness of his hair despite its military-style buzz cut, and a jutting chin that balanced his otherwise too-big nose.
She wanted to grab him, throw him in the car, and ride away like a highway bandit, drunk off the spoils of a wild, moonlit robbery.
Don’t be a fool. He’s from Colt. You hate Colt. Remember?
How could she forget?
As soon as that voice had gone off the line, she’d taken a moment to assure Grady that she had zero plans to marry Earl, and then Grady had gone and shocked her with the news that he’d sold a majority share of Hart Racing to Colt International. Not just accepted their ridiculous sponsorship.
Sold.
It had taken every ounce of control not to get out of the car and walk right off the track for good.
Grady had made his usual terrible failure of an attempt at trying to make things better. Settle down, Kerri. Look, I’m sorry, okay? It’s not like he actually owns everything. Just some of the equipment. And the cars. We’ll figure it out.
They’d “figure it out”? With this stranger, who was staring at her as though he could see her very thoughts? Who didn’t break eye contact even when he pushed that ridiculously out-of-place suit jacket open to place long-fingered hands on attractively slim hips? Whose name she still didn’t know.
Do as he’d commanded?… Or drive over his foot?
Grady appeared next to the Colt man. She could see her big brother in her peripheral vision, but she refused to look away from the stranger’s burning brown eyes. She would not back down. Not from this man. Hell. Especially not from this man. He might already own the goods, but she would not sell her soul—and her father’s legacy—to a company like Colt International.
The thing was, trying to intimidate a guy this hot meant that, after a few tense seconds of holding his smoldering dark gaze, she found herself breathing a little faster, unable to look away.
Shit and damn. How was she supposed to run off this idiot asshole when she was probably flushed and definitely panting with this strange attraction?
“Kerri.” Gra
dy was speaking slowly, as though he were trying to come between two wolves locked in a staring match … to the death.
Bit ambled up. Stepped right between her and Ranger, blocking him from her sight.
Thank God.
She’d been starting to worry that, for the first time since Dad had passed, she might lose a battle of wills. Not that she’d betray that feeling with so much as a sigh of relief.
“You brought it in pretty fast.” Bit’s blue eyes held the barest hint of amusement, but the grooves on the sides of his mouth and at the corner of his eyes didn’t even twitch. Bit had been the pit crew coach for Huntsville Racing, the team Dad had started out racing with nearly forty years ago. When Dad had broken away from the team to start Hart Racing, he’d brought Bit along with him. The older man had been like a second father to her.
She nodded. “I topped a hundred, easy.”
Bit leaned down, crowding his head and shoulders into the cage. He pitched his voice low. “You and I both know how good you are. That run you just did was enough for you to tell how the handling might have changed.” He finally smiled, a wry twist of his lips that made Kerri’s stomach bottom out. She knew what that look meant. “The race is important but this is more important. Time to get out of the car and face the music, Bambi. It’s not like you to run scared.”
Bambi. Only Bit and Dad could ever get away with calling her that. They’d only ever used the nickname when they were trying to soften a blow.
Which certainly fit this situation.
Bit moved back, giving her room, and after a minute, she cut the engine.
Grady’s sigh of relief was so loud, it echoed. Bit finally allowed himself a wide grin. Only the man from Colt didn’t react. Just stood there with hands on hips, staring.
Well, this is awkward.
She unbuckled her harness, brought her hands up onto the roof, and twisted around, shimmying backward out of the window before dropping her legs to the asphalt. Still facing the car, she pulled her helmet off, reveling for a moment in the feeling of fresh air against the touch points that suffered the most—cheeks, chin, ears.
The pit was strangely quiet, given how much work there was left to be done before the race, but it was nice to have a second of relative calm before the storm. She squared her shoulders, steeling herself against the cold-hearted villain who wanted to take away everything that she held dear. But when she turned, she found herself so close to that hard body that she could pick up the woodsy scent of his aftershave through the smells of grease and burnt rubber—the usual hallmarks of her life. Heat invaded her body, the lines of his muscles through his clothes drew her eyes, and—
Damn her treacherous body. Despite her mental resolve, her libido seemed determined to ignore everything except the desire to put her mouth on this man’s neck and scrape her teeth over the light stubble.
Which was probably why her words came out all breathy and weird. “I’m out of the car. Now what?” She hated the way she sounded, like a fangirl meeting a celebrity crush.
Focus, Kerri. She was not going to let a passing attraction allow someone to take advantage of her. Especially not a man who had somehow ended up with control over the thing she’d worked so hard to hold onto. Hart Racing was the only thing still keeping her family together.
He tightened his neck again. “Now it’s time to put out a fire.”
* * *
He’d thought she was beautiful in photos. The publicity glossies he’d seen featured a petite, slender woman with great legs and long light brown hair that curled a little at the ends. The slight squaring of her chin—a stubborn chin, he knew now—in her otherwise delicately curved face offset a pair of full, lush lips.
In person, her eyes were even more incredible. Alive and full of fire. He’d already been surprised enough at the difference from her photos that he’d gotten distracted by the force of his own reaction to her. And when she took off her helmet, it only amplified. All the blood rushed to his groin and he had to jump-start his thoughts a couple of times before his brain reluctantly kicked in again. He almost wished she’d left it on.
It took him a moment to realize that her hazel eyes had gone dark green, intensely dark. She lifted her chin just enough to make it appear as though she were looking down on him, even though she had to be at least half a foot shorter. “I don’t know what the hell that was about, but you’ve got five seconds to explain yourself before I punch you in the teeth.”
He snorted with mock amusement. “Given your reputation for being a loose cannon, I’m surprised you haven’t already decked me.”
Danny and Kyle snickered.
But Kerri simply crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him calmly. “One.”
Interesting. For all that the press had painted her as a hotheaded little thing—hell, even Grady had said she had a temper—it suddenly occurred to Ranger that she’d managed to keep her cool long enough to control a spinning car at over a hundred miles per hour and still manage to have a conversation with her panicking brother and a complete stranger. And now she was waiting patiently as anything, even though her eyes were snapping with something almost intimidating in their intensity.
Her gaze flicked downward and her lips quirked up. “Two.”
Fuck. At least one part of his body still hadn’t received the message that it wasn’t time to play right now. Ranger yanked his suit jacket closed before it became obvious to anyone else. Some things were meant to stay private.
“Three. You’re running out of time, mister.”
She didn’t even know his name.
For some reason, that was what got him talking. Not because he didn’t doubt she would whomp him good. He could take a punch, though. What he didn’t understand was why he wanted her to know it was him, damn it. Not some anonymous mister.
“Call me Ranger. Or just Colt, if you have to. Either way, if you care about the reputation of Hart Racing and being able to do your job without you or your crew being hounded in the media, then I suggest you uncross your arms, look wildly happy to see me, and let me escort you to a private place where we can talk about what happens next.”
She blinked at him. “Ranger Colt? That’s your real name?”
Was this woman really giving him shit about his name? He’d seen her stats on the profile sheet in the portfolio.
Kerri Lorettalynn Hart wasn’t in a position to throw stones.
But he didn’t call her out on that. Instead, he kept his gaze as cool as hers was hot. “Apparently, my mother liked it enough to give it to me. We can exchange pleasantries later, though. Right now, we’ve got some damage control to do.”
The corners of her mouth turned down, and she gave her head a small shake. “I’m sorry for being rude.”
Well. Another surprise. Maybe she wasn’t as much of a hellcat as he’d thought.
“But I don’t know a damn thing about you, and you want me to give up my practice time for whatever fool scheme you’ve come up with to fix that mess that Earl just made? Why should I trust an overdressed, soft-handed corporate suit like you?”
Okay. Maybe she was.
But there was something about that fire that was getting to him, despite that she’d just insulted him. He ignored the temptation to reach out and touch her, to show her that his hands weren’t soft, but if she begged nicely, they could be gentle in just the right ways …
Grady broke in. “Kerri, I think—”
“Shut up, Grady.”
Poor Grady. Man was having a rough day, it seemed. But Ranger couldn’t worry about that. He had to get ahold of this situation before it got even more insane.
“Trust has nothing to do with this. I own that car behind you.” He gestured to her Chevy. “Hell.” He let his eyes flick over her body, trying not to linger on the curves of her breast under that tight jacket. “I even own that racing suit you’re wearing.” He reluctantly brought his gaze back up to her face. Her eyes were narrowed and she looked like she was about to deck him. For som
e reason, it made him grin. “But why should you trust me? Because I’m real good at what I do,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off hers for a second.
Was it just him, or did it feel like every exchange they had was somehow laden with innuendo? He didn’t say anything else after that, just watched her stand there all stiff and belligerent-looking.
After another minute, she slowly uncrossed her arms.
Ranger didn’t let his face betray his relief. But he was relieved, and not just because things could have gotten real ugly if she’d refused. He was just so goddamned out of his element here. Kerri was right, that he was overdressed, but he’d mistakenly stuck with his usual uniform of a dark, perfectly tailored suit and Italian leather shoes because he’d thought it would make him feel more in control.
Except that here, he was the odd man out, the insane guy who careened down ladders to shout at a bunch of mechanics in colorful uniforms and rubber-soled, steel-toed boots.
She turned and handed her helmet to Bit. “Needs more side bite.” Her voice was soft, but brittle-sounding, as though she were chewing on broken glass.
What the hell did side bite mean?
Bit nodded, and that was it. The next thing Ranger knew, she had stepped close and was pulling off her gloves, which she bundled together in her left hand before sliding her right one into the crook of his elbow. It felt like spikes were digging into his skin where she was gripping his arm.
At least she hadn’t punched him in the teeth.
Kerri nudged her elbow into Ranger’s ribs, making him grunt. Not as hot-tempered as he’d expected, but certainly not a wilting flower, either. He turned to look down at her. She was smiling now, just as he’d asked, looking to the world like she was as happy as could be. But he didn’t miss the way her eyes were still flashing a fiery gray green.
“Well? What are you waiting for? Let’s find out just how good you are, Ranger Colt.”
Chapter Three
