By the time they touched down, Ryder couldn’t get off the aircraft fast enough. What was up with her? Did she not get how it made him feel?
She might say she was just trying to help out and keep the sponsor happy. He’d buy that if they hadn’t been thick as thieves the whole way back.
Or if he hadn’t witnessed that kiss at the end of the race.
He didn’t need this. He had a job to do. I need your help, Dixon had asked.
Looks like she’s taken to racing just fine, Dixon. No need for me to spend any more time on a sales job.
All he needed right now was a good night’s sleep, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. He glanced at his watch. Maudie’s was open for another hour. He was starving, and his refrigerator was empty. He threw his bag into the truck and took off.
Sheila had just placed a glass of iced tea in front of him and was taking his order when her attention shifted. “Hi, there, Hailey.”
Ryder didn’t swivel to look, but he didn’t need to. Hailey slid into the seat across from him. “May I join you?” Her smile was bright. Too bright.
He shrugged. “Free country.”
Hailey ordered a salad—with a side order of fried okra, he noted—then Sheila departed.
He said nothing.
“I really like Sheila, don’t you?” When he only grunted, Hailey’s fingers twisted on the tabletop. “She’s young to have created such an impressive business.”
“Why are you here, Hailey?”
“I’m not sure.” Her gaze darted over the room and back. “That’s not true. Why did you kiss me? Again?” Her tone held a note of…what, aggravation?
“Beats the hell out of me.”
Then she looked hurt. “Ryder, don’t toy with me.”
He goggled at her. “Toy with you? Who is it that’s playing footsie with Brandon Granger every time I turn my head, then kissing me as though you liked it?”
“I’m not playing anything with Brandon,” she huffed. “You said it’s important to keep the sponsor happy.”
He stared at her. “That means producing as a team, promoting the sponsor’s product, conducting ourselves in a responsible manner to not besmirch the sponsor’s image.” He slapped his palms on the table. “It does not mean acting like a hussy.”
Her mouth fell open. “Hussy? You’re calling me a…a…” She leaped from the booth. “You are the biggest jerk I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
She threw down her napkin and practically ran from the diner.
“Hailey!” Swearing, he rose and charged after her.
“Wait!” he shouted as she slammed her car door shut and cranked the engine. She began to back out of her parking spot, and he was left with a dilemma—let her go and make Dixon furious that he’d upset her or try to stop her when she wanted nothing to do with him?
The parking lot only had one exit on this side of the diner. Ryder made a split-second decision and loped full-out to beat her to it. For whatever reason, he couldn’t kid himself that he was more than intrigued by her. More attracted than was sensible, but he kept discovering new facets to her.
And she sure hadn’t deserved that insult. She was no hussy, and she was right—he was a jerk to have unloaded on her. When he planted himself in the middle of her only way out, he wondered if she might not just keep coming.
Not that he might not deserve it. He’d worked hard to always be in control of himself, but when his temper was aroused, he had a tendency to go off half-cocked and say things he regretted later. Ergo why he kept it within his rigid grasp.
If he was honest, Hailey got to him on too many levels. He could tell himself that he was out here to stop her because Dixon would be upset, but Ryder wasn’t in the habit of lying to himself. What had really gotten to him was her stricken look when he’d used that stupid word.
Ryder had the sickening feeling that he was beginning to find Hailey Rogers way too compelling. A relationship with someone local, given his hours, would be difficult; to have one with someone three thousand miles away…better nip any foolish thoughts in the bud.
He heard her engine as she rounded the row and headed straight for him. He was almost certain she’d stop—of course Granola Girl would stop.
But she didn’t do it quickly. She actually gunned her engine for a few feet.
Damn, every time he thought he had a bead on her, she surprised him.
Well, he was about to surprise her. The second she slammed on the brakes, he was at her door and yanking it open. He leaned in, unbuckled her seat belt and pulled her to her feet.
“I’m sorry, all right?” Her shocked expression made him smile. “I was…I was just…” He lowered his head to hers, and above her lips, he finished his sentence. “Oh, hell, I was jealous. Feel better?”
Then he proceeded to indulge in a scorching kiss, pressing her body all along the front of his, the way he’d been dying to do for days.
As the kiss ended, Hailey drew back, but he didn’t let her go far. “I don’t understand you,” she said, her pupils huge and dark.
He laughed. “Join the crowd. I don’t understand you, either. But man, do I want you.” And he dove in for another taste of her.
Hailey rewarded him with a softening of her frame against him, tempting him to make an even bigger spectacle of himself than he already had. He didn’t need to see the eyes peering out from Maudie’s to know that word would be all over NASCAR before dawn that Ryder McGraw, Mr. Serious, had lost his mind.
“I don’t care,” he muttered.
“What?” She blinked, her expression dazed.
“Nothing. Just kiss me. Come home with me, Hailey. I’m dying here.” He let his hands and his lips demonstrate the depth of his desire for her.
“But—”
“But nothing.” Before she could think straight, he had her around the car and buckled into the passenger seat and was headed for the driver’s door when he remembered that they’d ordered food that hadn’t arrived. “Wait here. Do not move.”
Faster than he’d ever crossed a distance before, he made it inside the door of Maudie’s and was throwing bills at Sheila. “Keep the change.”
“Well, Ryder McGraw, I do declare—”
Ryder didn’t wait to hear what she’d say. He’d have days ahead to hear about this.
But he and Hailey had been dancing around each other since the day she’d set foot inside Fulcrum Racing. This wasn’t going to solve anything, taking her home with him.
But if he had anything to say about it, they were both going to feel very good in the morning.
And everyone who knew Ryder McGraw understood that whatever he set his mind to was gonna happen.
WITH EVERY BLOCK, Hailey grew more nervous. Whatever rush to her head his kisses had created, she was stone-cold clear now. “I can’t do this.”
“What?” His gaze snapped to hers, then back to the traffic.
“Ryder, turn around. You said you believed I’m not a hussy. What does going home with you make me?”
He stopped at a light and studied her. “You’re from California.”
“So?”
“That’s the most old-fashioned thing I think I’ve ever heard a grown woman say.”
“Why? Because it’s you we’re talking about me going home with?”
He recoiled. “No, of course not. But…Hailey, we’re adults. We’re single and unattached—at least, I am.” He appeared startled by the notion. “Are you involved with someone?”
“Not really.”
“Not really? What does that mean? Either you are or you aren’t.” His jaw flexed. “I don’t poach on other men’s women.”
Hailey had to chuckle at his expression of affront. “Who’s old-fashioned now? Other men’s women? Women are not possessions, Ryder.”
“Don’t change the subject. Are you involved with someone?”
She shrugged. “There’s a fellow instructor I’ve gone out with several times, but—”
“But what?�
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She hunched her shoulders. “He wants to get serious. I won’t do that.”
“What do you mean won’t do that? What do you have against getting serious?”
“The light’s changed,” she pointed out.
He touched the gas again, but only long enough to round the corner and park the car. “Talk to me, Hailey.”
“I’d rather not.”
“You don’t ever want to get married, is that it? No husband, no kids?”
She pursed her lips. “I want them.” Wanted them badly—but not badly enough to risk making her parents’ mistake.
“Is it because of your parents’ divorce?”
She didn’t want to discuss the topic. “Let me drive, Ryder. I’ll take you back to your truck. It’s been a long day, and I’m sure you’re tired.”
“Not that tired.” He cast her a grin that, in the lights from the dashboard, seemed positively devilish.
Her heart gave a little skip. Slow down, girl. There’s no future with this one.
Which, now that she considered it, was perfect. She glanced sideways and took inventory. All man, with that rugged jaw, the five o’clock shadow, the firm mouth. Eyelashes so long women would kill for them, slashing dark brows, strong nose…and that was just the face.
Ryder’s body…yum. Tall and well-muscled with hands…oh, my…she was a real sucker for a man’s hands, and his were just right. Long fingers, wide palms, strong wrists…now it wasn’t her heart skipping, but a tug much deeper within her.
Quickly, she faced front again, searching in the headlights for signs of where they might be. They passed a sign for Lake Norman, an area where many drivers and owners had lake-shore properties and huge mansions, but Ryder kept going.
“Where are we?”
“Nearly there. Another ten minutes.”
She was surprised. He was such a workaholic that she would have assumed he’d live near the shop. “A long way,” she commented.
A cock of his head. “I know. I spend so much time at the shop, I wonder why I bother, but—” he shrugged “—I like to get away when I can.”
Down a solitary road, winding through a virtual forest until Hailey knew she’d never find her way home.
Her father’s house, she corrected. She wasn’t sure where home was. And she wouldn’t be in Charlotte much longer. Nearly halfway done.
How much had she actually achieved in her quest to reconnect with her father? She’d learned that he was a good man and a kind one; she was glad to know that her mother’s tales of his faults had been severely overstated. Maybe he had been a workaholic and put racing first as her mother insisted, but even if that were true, he wasn’t that man now. He couldn’t do enough for her; daily she had to turn down overtures from him for a new car or new clothes or jewelry, all of them attempts, she was sure, to respond to what many women treasured.
But every single one only highlighted that her father didn’t really know her, that they hadn’t truly connected. Nice as he was being, their constant tiptoeing around each other was tiresome.
Ryder McGraw might disapprove of her, might wish her to vanish—well, maybe not now, but certainly for most of her visit—but she never had to wonder where she stood with him.
“Here it is,” he said just then, yanking her from her musings. “Not much to look at.”
Hailey’s eyes widened. On the contrary, this place was more to her liking than anything she’d seen since her arrival. She didn’t say anything at first, only alighted from the car and wished it were daylight so she could see more.
A simple log cabin and a wide porch with two rockers on it. No landscaping to speak of, a crushed stone driveway and front walk. She followed Ryder up to the steps, turning around to see tall trees encircling this clearing, the stars bright as she hadn’t seen them since Santa Fe, the moon bathing the entire scene in a soft white glow.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. And it was, all of it. Oh, she could envision hanging baskets spilling over with blossoms, shrubs and flowers skirting the porch and continuing down the walkway… “It’s…Ryder, it’s perfect.”
She turned back to see him regarding her differently than before. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” He shrugged. “I just—I figured you’d think it was too primitive.”
“Well, you’d think wrong.” She brushed her fingers over one of the rockers, sturdy and very old, judging by the paint flecks clinging to weathered wood.
“My grandfather made those for my grandmother,” he said. “I can still see her sitting in one, shelling black-eyed peas and laughing up at him. I spent a lot of each summer with them up in the mountains of east Tennessee.” His usually stern face softened as he gazed into the past.
“You loved them.”
He nodded. “They were important to me. These rockers make me feel connected to them still.” His hand stroked the top of the same rocker she’d been touching.
“I never had grandparents,” Hailey said. “I envy you.”
“Never?”
“My mother was estranged from her family, and my dad’s folks died before I was born.”
“So it was just you and your mom? Where was she from?”
“Iowa. She couldn’t wait to get away from the cornfields. California suits her.”
“You, too, I guess.”
It was Hailey’s turn to shrug. “I don’t really belong anywhere.” He was studying her too closely, and his perusal made her uncomfortable. “May I see inside?”
“Not yet,” he said, taking her hand and drawing her nearer. He slid one arm around her waist and pulled her body against his, then lowered his head to barely brush his lips over the side of her throat.
Hailey shivered. “Ryder…”
“Hmm?” He continued cruising down her neck, pausing at a spot that made her quiver. He halted, his warm breath bathing her skin until she thought she would scream if he didn’t hurry up and—
What? Why would she want him to hurry? Except that—
“You’re thinking too much,” he murmured, his mouth grazing her skin once more, at last, at last, at last…
“I must not be doing this right,” he said.
Hailey closed her eyes and dug her fingers into his muscled arms. If he did this any more right, she’d, she’d—
He ranged back across her shoulder to the hollow of her throat where a moan escaped her. She heard him chuckle, felt his mouth curving against her skin, but just as she thought she might have recovered the power of speech, his kisses started up again, this time crossing to the other side with similar results that had her back arching, the center of her body pressing against his very eager one.
Very eager. Very…oh, my…
Hailey’s knees gave way.
Ryder swept her up in his arms and locked his mouth on hers in a kiss so blatantly carnal that all she could think was—
More. More, more, more, more…
Vaguely she heard the screen door open, listened to him swear as he fumbled for his keys and unlocked the door. But all she could manage was to sigh and moan and range her hands over that body of his.
He kicked the door shut.
Hailey couldn’t touch him enough, couldn’t get close enough, then he was kissing her again and every nerve in her body seemed attuned to his slightest touch, breath, taste…
“No thinking,” he muttered.
“I can’t—”
His mouth closed over hers again.
With a deep, heartfelt sigh of pure pleasure, Hailey complied.
CHAPTER EIGHT
RYDER AWOKE SLOWLY for a change. Never had a night’s sleep felt so good. He was tempted to simply lie there and fall back into the last dream where he and Hailey—
Hailey. His head swiveled on the pillow.
There was an indentation in the one next to him.
He sat up. He could smell her scent. He brushed one hand over her pillow in a gesture so foolish he was glad no one had seen it. Memories tumbled in,
and he knew they weren’t dreams at all, but were instead snapshots of the night just passed.
Sweet mercy. He hadn’t had much sleep at all, he realized now. They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other.
But not one morning of his life had he ever felt better.
He rose and belatedly recalled that he wasn’t fully dressed. He smiled.
Quite a night. Quite a woman.
Then he frowned. So where was she?
He started to prowl through the house as he was—he had no neighbors, so it wasn’t like he’d scandalize anyone—but then decided that if she were still here, he didn’t know her well enough to predict how she’d react.
Though, he thought with another smile, her reactions last night had been perfect.
He frowned again. Perfect wasn’t good. He didn’t need the Granola Girl being perfect. She wasn’t, really. She was stubborn and driven and wanted her own way on everything. Which, he had to grin as he drew on some basketball shorts, made her remarkably like himself, he supposed.
Except he was sensible and she was anything but.
He stretched and yawned, then struggled his way into the kitchen.
Where a full pot of coffee greeted him. He poured himself a mug. Well, well. She didn’t consume, even hated caffeine, so how would she know to make it? But at this point, any caffeine was—
He sipped.
Maybe the best cup of coffee he’d ever tasted.
Ryder frowned again. Not perfect. Not best.
Not Hailey. No, no, no…
Then he spotted her through the window, curled up in his grandmother’s rocker, eyes closed, slowly rocking, one long leg and slender foot sticking out from the tail of his shirt, the one he’d been wearing last night.
She looked damn good in it, too. Good enough to start thinking about working her right out of it again.
Down, boy. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, only that she looked at peace, so he settled back against the counter and drank his coffee while he watched her.
And tried not to think about how perfect she looked on his porch. In his rocker. In his shirt.
In his life?
Hard to Resist Page 7
