The Comeback

by Abby Gaines

  Huh, Trent had fallen back. No denying that did something for Zack’s confidence. He had the craziest urge to hum as he got back on the track from pit road. He laughed at himself.

  “What’s so funny?” his crew chief growled through the earpiece.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” Zack said.

  “Uh, Zack…” Chad now. “You okay?”

  “Dandy,” he said, as he swept past Danny Cruise, and caught a one-fingered salute for his efforts.

  “Nice move,” Chad said. Then he evidently decided to shut up and leave Zack to it—to what became one of those races a driver doesn’t get very often, where he can do no wrong, where obstacles melt away, or are navigated with no more difficulty than a pile of sludge after a spring thaw.

  Zack swept over the finish line on a wave of speed and glory. He’d won!

  The crowd went wild as he drove his victory lap. Trent had a habit of spinning doughnuts all the way around the track in this situation. Zack contented himself with one doughnut as he returned to the finish line, then he headed for Victory Lane and his team.

  Already he knew how he wanted to celebrate tonight. He would invite Gaby out for dinner.

  GABY COULDN’T STOP GRINNING, no matter that she was supposed to be a seasoned PR operative, surprised at nothing. Every minute of Zack’s race had been sheer joy.

  “Did you see that? Did you see Zack?” she babbled to one of the industry’s most hardened reporters.

  “I did,” he said dryly.

  Gaby tried to reclaim some professional distance. “I daresay you’ll want to interview him.”

  His chuckle told her she wasn’t fooling anyone. Mentally, she ran through a list of the people her client should talk to once he was done with the shouted questions and quick photos here in Victory Lane. Today, they could pick and choose.

  She could get some serious mileage out of this for the bachelor contest, too. Man of the Week is Man of the Day, that kind of thing. Gaby pulled out her cell and called Leah Gibbs, the junior account exec who acted as Motor Media Group’s gofer at the track on race days.

  She allocated Leah some of Zack’s free time over the next day or two, and asked her to set up some of the appointments. Gaby would call Diana at Now Woman herself.

  As she talked to the editor, Zack caught her eye across the throng. He grinned, and she gave him the thumbs-up.

  By the time Zack left Victory Lane, she could see his adrenaline levels were dropping, exhaustion was kicking in. Though he still had a spring in his step, his shoulders drooped slightly.

  “You need an early night,” she said. She knew he didn’t plan to head back to Charlotte until tomorrow.

  “Funny you should mention that,” he said. “I was about to ask you to a celebration dinner.”

  “Who else is going?”

  “No one.”

  Her stomach flipped. “You mean, like a date?”

  “Yeah, very like a date.”

  The knowledge that he wanted to be with her above everyone else made her tempted, seriously tempted. But while Sandra didn’t forbid her staff to date clients, she’d made it clear she didn’t think Gaby could keep her priorities straight if she was dating. “Remember what we agreed? We wouldn’t suit each other—you’re too selfish, I’m too ambitious.”

  “In which case it would hardly be fair to inflict ourselves on other people,” he said reasonably. “We deserve each other.”

  Gaby smiled. “I’m sure one of those girls who gave you their number today would make the sacrifice.” Those girls were another excellent reason to refuse dinner. Every muscle in her body had tensed, she’d been rigid with jealousy, when they’d come after Zack. She’d wanted to smack them. She had no desire to be in such thrall to any man, least of all one like Zack, who would never return the favor.

  He fished in his pocket, held something out to her. Gaby took it…and realized it was a crumpled bundle of phone numbers.

  “I think I mentioned, I prefer to date women I already like,” Zack said.

  He was making it hard. But Gaby still had a modicum of strength. She curled her fingers around the tattered phone numbers.

  “Zack, I won’t go to dinner with you,” she said. “Go with your family, they should be the ones to share this moment with you.”

  He’d talked to her once about self-preservation. That was what she had to practice now. Before she did something stupid, like lose her heart.

  AMBER SHIVERED AS SHE stepped out the door of Matheson Racing into a morning made cool by an unseasonable wind. She could feel the flesh on her legs turning to goose bumps below her running shorts. She rubbed her arms briskly, and began to do her warm-ups. At seven-thirty on a Monday morning, there was no one to see her—the parking lot was vacant, except for one lone sports car over on the left that had obviously been there all night. Amber figured she could enjoy some peace and solitude on a one-hour jog, then shower and dress for work and be behind the reception desk at nine.

  Not many staff came in on Mondays. Later, the tourists would arrive to visit the team store, but for now, the business park was near empty and it was easy to ignore the buildings in favor of the trees and grassy lawns.

  She held on to her right foot, stretching her quad, then switched sides. Next she put one hand behind her neck, and clasped the elbow with her other hand. She repeated the exercise with the other arm, then dropped down into a lunge.

  The slam of a car door turned her attention to the lone sports car that had been parked all night.

  Ryan Thorne was crossing the pavement and coming toward her.

  “Hey,” he called.

  Amber wobbled in her lunge. “Hi,” she said discouragingly.

  But he was one of those guys who never took a hint. Insensitive, interested only in what he wanted. He was smiling as he reached the steps and looked up at her. Amber fought the urge to tug her tank top down. Her goose bumps grew more pronounced.

  “I didn’t see you at the Glen,” he said.

  “I wasn’t there.” Her mom and Brady had invited her to fly to the race on their plane. Amber had acted suitably grateful, but she’d refused. She had so many bad memories of race tracks, of her father losing it under pressure, of the blazing arguments after they arrived home, she had no interest. However, she knew Zack had won his race, and Ryan had trailed the field in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race, which wasn’t uncommon recently.

  Ryan wore snug-fitting jeans with a black T-shirt that molded to his biceps and offset his sandy blond hair. As he walked up the steps, Amber was irritated to feel a frisson of awareness. Yeah, yeah, good-looking guy, big deal, she told her hormones.

  “Are you going to Patsy Grosso’s birthday party on Wednesday?” he asked.

  “I doubt it.” She folded her arms across her chest, trying to imply her life was none of his business without actually saying so.

  As he came close, she absorbed the fact that his rumpled hair wasn’t the designer kind of rumpling, and he needed a shave. Plus, he smelled. It was the warm, earthy smell of a guy who’d just woken up. Something primitive tugged in Amber’s stomach. “Did you sleep in your car?”

  He rubbed his stubbled jaw. “Yeah.”

  “Too drunk to drive home?” Her father had often claimed to have slept in his car. It had taken Julie-Anne a long time to see what was obvious to Amber—that her dad was spending his nights with other women.

  He scowled. “I wasn’t drunk. I had an argument with my father and needed to get out of the house. I planned to sleep on the couch in reception, but I forgot my card-key.”

  “You still live with your parents?” He was twenty-six years old, according to Libby, her fellow receptionist. “Can’t you look after yourself?”

  RYAN COULDN’T FIGURE OUT why this woman had such a downer on him. He’d spoken to her maybe a dozen times since she started working for the team, and he was yet to receive a smile. Which was especially annoying because he’d seen her smile, at her mom, at Chad and Zack, and he wanted that s
mile for himself.

  He couldn’t engage her in a discussion of the races—he’d tried, but gotten nowhere. She didn’t attend them and he had a suspicion she didn’t even watch them on TV, which for a woman with her NASCAR background was bizarre.

  Or maybe she did watch the races, but she just didn’t like Ryan. Again, he struggled to understand. Sure, he’d been known to tick women off by ending it when they got too serious, but he hadn’t asked Amber out yet, and she was already acting as if he’d dumped her.

  It wasn’t fair, he thought. Especially when she was so damn pretty that he’d thought about dating her the moment they’d met. She had an amazing figure, slim in the right places, and curvy in the best places. And her dark hair and olive-toned skin made her seem exotic.

  She thought he was a mama’s boy, going by that dig she’d just made.

  “I’ve looked after myself for years,” he said. “I moved back in with my folks when Matheson Racing hired me. Dad pointed out that I wouldn’t want to be worrying about an apartment while on the road constantly.”

  His father had omitted to mention that the right to question Ryan’s every move was part of the bargain. That was the cause of last night’s argument and many others previously.

  Maybe that was why he was so drawn to Amber. Everything about her shrieked independence and a determination not to do things just because someone else wanted her to.

  “How about I take you out to dinner tonight?” he said.

  She straightened up. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ll take you to BamBam,” he offered generously. “It’s the coolest place in Charlotte.” He usually took first dates somewhere less expensive, but he figured nothing less than his best effort would work on Amber.

  “No thanks.”

  Ryan tried to think of the last time a girl had turned him down for a date, and failed to recall such an incident. Amber clearly had no compulsion to explain her refusal. Strangely, he liked that. I’m a masochist, wanting only what I can’t have. Which pretty much summed up his racing at the moment.

  “Is it the age difference?” he asked. “Because I can handle an older woman.”

  “Don’t even think about handling me,” she warned.

  “How old are you, anyway?” he asked.

  “Way, way too old for you.”

  “Your mom doesn’t look that old, did she have you when she was twelve?”

  She pffed, but her lips twitched.

  “I saw that,” he said. “You nearly smiled.”

  She rolled her eyes, but there was no animosity in it.

  “Have dinner with me,” he coaxed her. “The food will be great and you can ignore the company.”

  Again that twitch of the lips. She drew in a breath and Ryan thought yes. He was shocked how excited he was at the prospect of an evening with Amber.

  “It’s very nice of you to offer.” She sounded as if she was appeasing a kindergartner. “But I don’t date race car drivers.”

  “Why not?” The indignation in his voice definitely had a kindergarten quality. But he’d never heard anything so unreasonable.

  “They’re too slick,” she said. “You can’t trust a slick guy.”

  “Slick? That’s not true,” Ryan protested. “Look at Zack Matheson. Look at his dad—Brady used to drive, and no one would say he’s slick.”

  “I don’t trust the gruff type, either.”

  “Which camp have you pegged me for, slick or gruff?” They both knew he had to be at the slick end of her weird scale. It was a direct insult to his trustworthiness. He decided not to call her on it, not while there was still a chance he might get this date.

  “Will you go out with me if I promise not to talk about NASCAR? We could pretend I’m a—a jockey.” When her eyes flicked to his full six feet of height, he figured he’d snagged her interest.

  She shook her head. “You can’t not talk about NASCAR. You live for the sport.”

  He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, what if it wasn’t me? What about a stunningly good-looking driver from another team who can’t speak due to a throat operation, and therefore physically can’t talk about NASCAR? A guy who’s not slick or gruff, and who’s incredibly kind to children and animals.”

  She blinked at the convoluted scenario. “Nope.”

  “What if a driver saved your life, then he asked you on a date. Would you go out of gratitude?”

  She laughed.

  Her laugh was everything Ryan had anticipated, and more. Light, musical, clear in the morning air. It turned her eyes the sparkling blue of a spring sky, widened her mouth in a generous curve. He was bewitched.

  “Maybe I’d go on one date out of gratitude,” she conceded. “But that’s all.”

  Ryan looked around, half hoping some nutcase would come speeding through the parking lot and up the steps so he could drag Amber to safety.

  “Goodbye, Ryan.” Before he could protest—and before he remembered to borrow her card-key—she burst the fantasy bubble and jogged down the steps, breaking into a run as she reached the bottom. She ran fast, as if she was trying to get away from something—him.

  Okay, maybe their dinner date wouldn’t happen tonight, Ryan thought, as he sat down on the steps to wait for another early bird. But it would happen.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “YOU JOB IS TO BOOST my image,” Zack said, as he thumbed the elevator button at the Charlotte Getaway Hotel. “So how come when I win a race, which is the best thing I can do for my image, you disappear?”

  He sounded ticked off, and that’s because he was. Right after Gaby had refused to go to dinner with him, she’d disappeared off somewhere and left him with her junior sidekick.

  “Leah is very capable, she was following my instructions. I understand from her you did a great job in your interviews.” Gaby stepped into the elevator.

  “You are my PR rep,” Zack persisted.

  “And I was busy representing you.” She glanced anxiously at her reflection in the polished steel doors. Zack could have told her she looked fantastic in her cream suit and her black silk blouse with large cream polka dots. “While you were doing those interviews, I was briefing Now Woman magazine and trying to convince the news desk at one of the major networks to interview you in their weekly roundup next Friday.” Gaby paused. “How was your celebration dinner with your family?”

  “It was fine,” he admitted. “No one said anything stupid, mainly thanks to Kelly cracking the whip.”

  “Good.” Gaby touched his arm, and for a second he couldn’t move.

  “You were right about me spending the evening with them,” he said reluctantly. Reluctant because he still wanted to have that dinner date with her.

  They reached the business center where Rob Hudson had arranged a meeting between his staff at Getaway and Matheson Racing, to talk about how they could build on Zack’s win at Watkins Glen and the cover story in Now Woman.

  When the meeting started, eight of them sat around the boardroom table: Zack, Chad and Steve Parr, Matheson Racing’s day-to-day sponsor liaison for the No. 548 car; Gaby and Sandra from Motor Media Group; plus three guys from Getaway.

  Zack was thankful that for once they were going into a meeting with a positive tone. The downside was, they wanted to set the PR strategy for the next four weeks leading up to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Zack wanted to set his racing strategy.

  Gaby sent him a significant look and a teeth-gritted smile. Oh, yeah, he was supposed to smile. Zack followed orders, and her smile turned genuine. There was a lot a guy might do for a smile like that, he mused, as the meeting delved into media impressions and weightings. Zack listened with half an ear, and gathered that even without the win and the magazine profile his impressions had been more favorable over the past couple of weeks. But he still had some way to go before his name and face had the pulling power of, say, Trent.

  He reined in his impatience as a marketing assistant from Getaway ran through a PowerPoint presentation. He could ha
ve told these people all of that without recourse to fancy charts, statistics and opinion surveys.

  He preferred to watch Gaby—a far more pleasant occupation. She was angled toward Sandra as she watched the presentation. She looked just like the others—smart, capable, professional. Which was just as well, because these guys didn’t pull their punches. The Getaway people had no qualms about complaining loud and long over any failure to meet expectations.

  Twelve million dollars gave them that right, Zack supposed.

  The discussion moved on to the bachelor contest.

  “Now Woman plans to run another story about Zack next week,” Gaby said. Approving noises came from around the table.

  “The first article was a great success. In the last week, our call center has taken a number of calls from people wanting to reserve a room Zack has slept in,” Rob Hudson said. “I have to admit, I know the rest of my team liked the idea immediately, but I wasn’t so sure about putting our focus on the contest when you had first mentioned it.”

  Huh, she hadn’t told Zack that.

  “Your own research shows women are the major vacation decision-makers,” she said modestly.

  “If Zack wins the bachelor contest—” Hudson addressed the assembled group “—we might have a hope of a decent return on the money Uncle Brian poured into this sponsorship.” Uncle Brian was Brianna’s late father. Just about the last thing he’d done before cancer struck him down was get board approval for a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series sponsorship. Rob turned to Gaby. “How do we make sure Zack wins?”

  Sandra straightened in her seat and shot Gaby a loaded look.

  “Winning the contest isn’t something I can guarantee,” Gaby began.

  When Rob made an impatient movement, Zack saw something flash in Gaby’s eyes. Something he recognized. Panic. The sense that although she was doing well, she was only hanging on by her fingernails, and that at any second now she would let go, hit the wall and screw up any one of a thousand ways that would cost her control of her future.