I don’t really belong anywhere.
But somehow she seemed to belong right here, in his bed, in his arms…
She’s only visiting, Ryder reminded himself. And it was only one night.
Even if it had been the most remarkable night of his life.
Oh, Miss Hailey, you are one very dangerous distraction.
One I absolutely cannot afford.
Ryder glanced at the clock and knew that by now he’d normally have put in two hours at the shop already. He had a lot to do to get ready for Michigan next weekend. There was no time to waste staring at a woman’s ankle or her shapely thighs…those lips that had driven him crazy, marking every inch of his body….
A part of him rebelled. What was so wrong with taking a little of this beautiful morning simply to enjoy? To spend a few more moments kissing Hailey?
Because, he reminded that traitorous impulse, a lot of people are counting on you to build on yesterday’s win.
And Hailey wasn’t for him, however much she tempted him.
Visiting. Just visiting. Gone in under two weeks.
For the first time in years, Ryder found himself resenting the demands of his job, and that scared him more than anything else could.
With a sigh, he swallowed the rest of his coffee and went to take a shower.
One very cold shower, coming up.
THE SOUND OF THE SHOWER running broke Hailey’s reverie, and she couldn’t help tensing, wishing she’d put on her own clothes instead of donning his shirt. But she’d inhaled his scent and yielded to the impulse to be closer to him than she dared be to the sleeping man inside.
Now she wished she could just vanish into thin air. The urge to flee was strong. What had she been thinking, coming home with him last night?
Sex with a gorgeous man—girl, don’t kid yourself.
The thought brought a smile. He was gorgeous, that was for sure. Memories rose like champagne bubbles, snippets of pure bliss at the hands of a man who really knew his way around a woman’s body.
Who would have guessed that the very driven and serious crew chief would turn out to be such a skilled lover? Though, as she pondered it, the intense focus he brought into everything he tackled should have alerted her. Ryder McGraw believed to his core that anything worth doing must be done with the greatest of effort and concentration.
Her body warmed like honey in the sun as the night replayed on the insides of her eyelids. Lawsamercy, as Sue Ellen would say.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
Hailey jolted and leaped from the rocker, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. She tripped on one board of the porch and grabbed at thin air.
Ryder was there in an instant to steady her, and his touch rippled through her.
She didn’t say a word. Couldn’t.
Neither did he.
For a few long seconds, their gazes locked and their bodies warmed, instinctively leaning toward the other as plants seek the sunshine.
Until Ryder’s cell phone went off.
He backed away as he fumbled in the holster attached to his belt. “McGraw.” A pause. “Yes, Dixon. Her phone’s turned off. She’s with me.” His shoulders stiffened. “We’ll be there soon.”
Hailey closed her eyes. She was a grown woman, but at that moment, she felt like a fifteen-year-old caught late for curfew. She scooted past Ryder’s back, scooped up her clothes and headed for the shower.
Regretting the night and her poor judgment.
Every bit as much as she savored every minute of memories.
THE TRIP BACK TO town passed in silence.
Ryder wondered what she was thinking, but the fact that she hadn’t spoken one word to him this morning didn’t bode well for her reaction to the night that had, for him, been so unforgettable.
And knowing they’d been caught by her father, like two truant teenagers, didn’t help his mood, either. He was fairly certain seducing the man’s daughter hadn’t figured in Dixon’s request to make Hailey feel comfortable with the racing scene.
Hell. He hadn’t felt this stupid or all thumbs since he was a teenager, and he still had to get through reclaiming his truck at Maudie’s and encountering everyone at the shop.
He frowned and tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, punching the accelerator, so ready to get this trip over with.
“I’m sorry,” Hailey said quietly. “I shouldn’t have—it’s my fault.”
He turned to her. “What’s your fault?”
She shrugged. “Everything. It was a big mistake.”
Mistake? The word shouldn’t hurt. Yes, the whole thing was a mistake on many levels, not one bit wise.
But it had still been one of the best nights of his life. He wasn’t going to say that, though. Ryder McGraw didn’t do vulnerable. “What’s done is done,” he said tightly. “I’ll take the blame with your dad.”
She shot him a quick look he couldn’t decipher. “No. You have to work with him, and I won’t complicate your life any more than I already have.”
“You’re his daughter.”
It was her turn to shrug. “He’ll probably forgive me as long as I promise never to do anything so stupid again. And if not, well, he’s lived a long time without me. He’ll get over it.”
Anything so stupid. Well, that just put him in his place, didn’t it? Ryder ground his jaw and focused on his driving. “I don’t hide behind a woman’s skirts. I’ll take my lumps.” With relief he saw Maudie’s up ahead and pulled into the parking lot. He found a spot near his truck and emerged, then forced himself to do as he’d been raised and go to her door and open it for her.
Her big blue eyes caught him. “Ryder…” She placed one hand on his forearm. “I…”
“Weird to see you here this time of day, McGraw. That win go to your head?” The speaker was none other than his fired car chief, Marcus Conroy, and his gaze shifted back and forth between Ryder and Hailey. “My, my, my…wonder what Daddy will think?”
“Beat it, Marcus,” Ryder growled.
“I don’t work for you anymore. I don’t have to listen to you.”
Ryder pointedly ignored the man and turned his attention back to Hailey, but too late.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured and slipped past him. The second she was back inside her vehicle, she started the engine and drove off.
“Not such a good night, lover boy?” Marcus taunted.
Not to go for the man’s throat required the greatest of effort, but Ryder was late enough getting to work.
But it sure was tempting.
CHAPTER NINE
THE REST OF THE WEEK was pure misery. More than once, Hailey started to pack her bags. She’d been right; her father had gone easy on her, but the situation was awkward. Maybe it was just that Ryder was his employee or maybe any father had qualms about his daughter having sex. Regardless, she feared that she’d confused and disappointed him.
What surprised her was how much doing so hurt, though it was difficult to measure in light of how much worse Ryder’s blatant dismissal of her felt. He acted as though she were invisible, and everyone else at the shop was so uncomfortable that she’d quit going there altogether. She’d canceled her classes and had even done little yoga herself, something that would have been unthinkable B.R.
B.R. Before Ryder. That’s how she thought of it. Before she’d gotten the crazy idea that there was something between them, when it obviously had only been a simple physical reaction to a virile man.
Every time her mind strayed toward his cabin and that lovely porch, to say nothing of the incredible lovemaking they’d shared, she yanked it right back. Sex, that was all it had been. Scratching an inexplicable and very foolish itch.
She’d clearly lost her mind, or certainly any fragment of good sense.
“Hailey?”
She looked up from the dinner she’d barely tasted, to see Brandon’s concerned gaze.
Yes, Brandon. He’d stepped right into the breach left by Ryder’s withdrawal. They’d had din
ner together three of the five nights that had elapsed since her disastrous night with Ryder, and he’d offered to fly her on his plane to the race at Michigan. She did want to attend the race for her father’s sake, and not having to be anywhere near Ryder would be a relief.
But it also made her feel like a coward.
“Have you decided about the race? We’ll be wheels up at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.”
Tomorrow was Saturday. Everyone, including her father, had already left, though he’d done so reluctantly. Hailey passed each hour by thinking wistfully about what the various team members were doing right now. How they were getting along.
Except Ryder, of course. Him, she wouldn’t spare a second’s thought for.
Sure thing, Hailey. You just keep telling yourself that.
Well, if she didn’t have the control she wanted yet, she would keep working on it. The first step might be accepting Brandon’s invitation. “I’d love to.” She summoned a smile to meet his delighted one.
“We’ll have a great time, you’ll see. I’ll have my pilot fly us into Chicago for dinner at this great little place I know, and I’m having brunch catered in my suite on Sunday before the race. You’ll enjoy watching the race from up there.”
But I won’t see how my guys are doing, she thought. There will be glass between me and the race and—
No, not Ryder. She wasn’t thinking about him.
Not at all.
“BOY, YOU HAVE GOT some kind of bug up your butt,” growled Bodie Martin during the final practice session at the track on Saturday. “You going to get your head in the game or not?”
Ryder barely resisted the urge to snap back.
Except he knew he was in the wrong. All week, everyone had been tiptoeing around him like he was a coiled rattlesnake.
Which wasn’t too far off from how he felt.
“I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve noticed. So has everyone else.”
“Bodie…”
“Son, I know you got woman trouble, and there’s nothing worse to mess with a man’s head, but in case you hadn’t noticed, the whole team is tight as a tick, and that’s not good for anyone.”
“I don’t have woman trouble.”
“Whatever you say.” Bodie returned his attention to the laptop screen.
Ryder exhaled loudly. “All right. I’ve been a total ass all week. But I haven’t neglected my duties.”
The older man snorted. “Uh, no. I’d say that’s the problem. Have you had four hours’ sleep any one night since you got back from the Glen?”
No. Especially not Sunday night, when he’d been too busy making love—having sex, he corrected—with the woman who couldn’t get close enough to his sponsor now. And didn’t have the guts to face him.
“I said I’m fine,” he snapped. “Now read me those lap times again.”
Bodie shook his head. Apparently thinking better of commenting again, though, he called off numbers instead.
Ryder dove into the numbers and tried once more to shoehorn himself into a mental place that had once been second nature.
Until he heard the sound of Hailey’s laughter. His head jerked up, and his gaze arrowed straight to her. Laughing, yes. And beautiful as ever.
She was also clinging to the arm of the man who could cripple Ryder’s team if Ryder mismanaged this by hauling off and planting his fist in the too-pretty mug of the man who shouldn’t be touching his woman.
Whoa. Not his woman. Not that he even wanted her to be. Ryder yanked his attention back to the laptop screen that was flooded with gibberish. Focus, damn it. She’s just a woman. The world is filled with them.
Then, with the snap of a steel trap closing, Ryder McGraw summoned his legendary self-control to banish everything but Jeb’s car and the Michigan race from his mind.
AFTER SHE’D BATTLED the covers all night as she recalled Ryder’s scowl at seeing her, Hailey finally gave up on sleep at 6:00 a.m. and walked out onto the balcony of her hotel room. The horizon held the faint glow of the rising sun, and Hailey sought refuge in the discipline that had so often brought her peace in the past.
“Greetings, my friend,” she murmured to the sun as she slid into the familiar rhythms of the sun salutation. She closed off her mind to any other thought but moving through the paces and relishing the stretch of her muscles as they warmed and once again rewarded her with the sense of well-being she had been missing for days.
She chanted her mantra and let the vibrations of her voice and the healing breaths take her away from anything but how good it felt to inhabit her body, to let her blood flow swiftly and smoothly with her unspoken intentions to be well, to spread her peace to others, to simply let go and…exist. Not think, not worry, not regret, only…be.
With every movement, she found herself unwinding, letting go of the cold, sad knot at her core. When she reached the end of her routine, she settled to the floor and let the sun’s warming rays and the rising flood of color suffuse her heart, ease her mind and strengthen her body.
After her meditation ended, Hailey rose and went to shower and dress. She would enjoy this day with her father and Brandon, she would smile at the team and let them know her troubles were past, she would go back to her classes if she could find another place to hold them for the slightly more than a week she had left.
And she would even smile serenely at the man who did not deserve to unsettle her. She had allowed it to happen, but it would not happen again.
When it was time to depart from North Carolina and her father’s life, she would know that she had not allowed a foolish fancy to wreck a serenity that had been years in the making.
LAP 160, AND RYDER knew every person on the team was wondering how this race could get any worse. Two blown pit stops, a brush of the wall and a spin that had nearly sent Jeb into his teammate had all contributed to a very frustrating day for the No. 464 team.
He knew how it could get worse, though. Lousy mental focus could wreck Jeb, and the team was snakebit already. Relentlessly, Ryder kept his voice calm and talked the whole team down from the ledge once again.
“This car is a lost cause,” Jeb snapped. “I might as well just drive it into the garage right now.”
Ryder didn’t react. Yes, his stomach burned like he’d dunked it in an acid bath, but when he spoke, it was with an even tone. “We’ll add a round of wedge next time. Three laps until your last stop. You’re doing fine, Jeb. Just keep digging.”
“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing all day?” Jeb said tightly. Normally unflappable himself, even Jeb was spooked by how many mistakes they’d made, and being in thirtieth wasn’t helping his mood.
“I know you have,” Ryder said. “I haven’t gotten you the car you need, but nobody’s giving up, Jeb. Just hang in there. Anything can happen in the laps that are left.”
That much was true, but what was also true was that every bit of the brimming confidence the team had possessed after last week’s win had evaporated as if it had never existed.
And Ryder knew who was responsible. The buck stopped with him, even when he wasn’t in the wrong—but this time, he was totally at fault. He’d allowed his emotions to get the better of him all week long—and over something as unimportant as a woman, that was the hell of it.
No more. Hailey Rogers would not claim one more second of his time or attention.
He adjusted his headset and hunkered down. “Your lap time was only a tenth of a second behind the leader that go-round, Jeb. I let you down, bud, but I promise you it won’t happen again. Listen up, everyone, this race has been a rough one, but it’s all on me, and it ends here. Let’s finish this one out the very best we can, and know that we’ve seen the worst for this season or any other one. This will not ever occur again, I promise you.”
The silence on the radio was resounding, but Ryder could sense from the easing of postures in the pit box with him and on the ground below that they were listening. That he’d done what he needed to, which was to take
any blame off the shoulders of his team and give them a chance to get optimistic again.
He meant it, too. His lapse was unforgivable, and he would never repeat it.
“Let’s show the fans thirty-nine laps of top-notch racing, folks.”
He saw the nods and heard the murmurs of agreement. He wouldn’t forgive himself, but they had.
Now to live up to the confidence they demonstrated in him.
HIS RESOLVE HELD the team together through the race, and Jeb managed to pick up four spots, finishing twenty-sixth. Ryder called the team together at the end and told everyone to go find their favorite way to relax, forget this lousy race and show up on Tuesday ready to kick some serious butt at Bristol.
He even sent away the guys who normally packed up the hauler and asked the hauler driver to come back in thirty minutes. Then, methodically, he did the grunt work, losing himself in shoving heavy toolboxes back up into their slots, letting out his frustrations with himself on mute metal.
He didn’t deserve to be a crew chief if he couldn’t control himself better than he had this week. Damn it, didn’t he know better?
“I want you to help me make her feel comfortable, Ryder,” he mocked.
“Talking to yourself?” The insidious tone of Marcus Conroy had him grinding his teeth. “Can’t say I blame you. Ready to admit you’re not crew chief material? Dixon should have promoted me, and everyone knows that now.”
“What are you doing here?” Ryder looked up and saw Marcus’s smirk. “How’d you get on the track? Your hard card’s been revoked.”
“Ah…guess you havn’t heard. The No. 593 team just hired me to be the new crew chief.” Another smirk. “Though I imagine Dixon’s regretting giving in to you now and firing me. I just might wind up with your job after all. You know this disaster is your fault, all because you couldn’t keep your hands off of a mere piece of tail.”
Ryder wheeled on him. “You don’t talk about her like that.”
“Ooh, boy’s got it bad for the boss’s daughter,” Marcus taunted. “Not enough to have the top job, now you want Daddy’s money, too?”
Hard to Resist Page 8
