“I don’t know what to do about you, Ryder.”
“I’m a little baffled myself, honey. I…I can’t remember the last time I had a date, much less lost my mind over a woman.”
“Really?”
“Really. So isn’t there something you want to tell me, Hailey?”
“Me? Like what?”
“Like that you’re crazy about me or you at least want me to kiss you again or maybe even that you—” He swallowed hard. “That you might love me.”
“Love you?” she echoed.
“Never mind.” He let her go and turned around.
“No!” She skirted around and planted herself in his path. “Ryder, how can you expect me to say something like that?”
“I said never mind.” He took a step to the side.
“Not so fast, mister.” She grasped his hand. “I didn’t mean that I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, just…why me first?”
A slow, teasing grin. “Because you’re the girl.”
She goggled. “What?”
He shrugged. “Women say that stuff easier.” Her mouth dropped open, and his expression was pure mischief. “It’s harder for guys.”
If she could have incinerated him with a look, she would have. “You Neanderthal. You baboon, you—”
He started laughing. “My, oh, my, Miss Hailey. Granola Girl does have a temper, didn’t I tell you?”
As Hailey spluttered, he drew her against him, picked her up and twirled her around.
“Put me down, you throwback, you—”
He came to a halt and stopped her outburst with a kiss that quickly turned so scorching hot they both moaned.
“I love you, Hailey Rogers,” he said against her lips. “You drive me absolutely insane, but for some perverse reason, I seem to find that more fun than I’ve had in all my years.”
She melted against him. “Oh, Ryder…” She stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss he would never forget. When she came up for air then started working at his buttons while she went back for seconds, he put his hand between their mouths.
“Uh-uh, sweet pea. You don’t steal my virtue without saying it back.”
“Saying what?”
“Hailey…”
She smiled at him from the heart. Then she threw her arms around his neck and laughed out loud. “I love you, Ryder McGraw, you insane, aggravating, control freak of a man. Now help me shove that suitcase off my bed and make love to me.”
“Now?”
Just then they heard the front door open. “Hailey? Honey, we need to talk.”
Ryder froze at the sound of his employer’s voice.
Hailey’s eyes went wide. “Daddy?”
They both heard Dixon’s footfall on the stairs.
“Stay here,” she whispered, and scooted from the room before he could react.
“DADDY, WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” She cut a glance toward her room, then hurried down the stairs to the center landing to forestall him.
“I can’t let you go.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I gave you up once for what I thought was your own good, but it was wrong for both of us. I missed too much of your life.” His eyes were dark and haunted.
She bit her lip. “I thought you didn’t want me. I didn’t understand why, and it hurt so badly.”
He scaled the stairs between them, and suddenly she was in his arms. “Of course I wanted you. Oh, sweetheart, if I’d known…” He shook his head and clasped her more tightly. “I couldn’t give you all my attention during a race weekend, so I…” He leaned back. “I gave up too easily,” he repeated. “As I’ve never given up on anything else in my life.” He gripped her shoulders. “But I’m not doing that this time. I want you in my life, and not just for an occasional visit. Please don’t go.”
“But—”
“I don’t want her to leave, either, Dixon.” Ryder emerged from her room.
Hailey tensed. “Ryder…”
“I love your daughter, sir. I want to marry her.”
Her father’s eyes went as wide as her own had.
And all she’d heard was the I love you part. “Marry you?” she echoed.
Her father’s gaze shifted to her. “Is that what you want, sweetheart?”
She stared at Ryder, whose eyes were locked on hers. “It’s the first I’ve heard of this. When were you going to tell me? Or were you just going to bark an order, Mr. Crew Chief?”
He grinned. “Since you listen to me so well?” He crossed the landing. “You said you love my cabin. I love having you in it. What do you say, Hailey? Will you marry me?”
She felt her father’s arm tense where it rested around her shoulders. “And live here? In North Carolina? What would I do?”
“Travel with me—er, with us, sir.” He shifted his gaze back to her. “Teach yoga. Or I’ll give you a job. Want Greg’s job?”
“You can’t give me Greg’s job!”
“Yes, he can,” said her father.
“Greg hasn’t done anything wrong,” she protested.
Ryder’s eyebrows rose. “That’s not what you’ve been saying since the day you arrived.”
“But I’m a distraction, you said so. And Jeb had a terrible race last week.”
Ryder started down the stairs. “That was my fault because you messed me up so much. He’ll have a better one this week.”
“But I, uh, I—”
“What is it, sweetheart?” her father asked. “What’s wrong?”
She backed away from both of them. “I can’t get married.”
Ryder slipped past her father and stood very close to her. “You told me you love me.” Green eyes turned dark and intense.
“Sweetheart, is it because of us? Your mother and me?”
“No—yes. I don’t know. I just—” Hailey bit her lip. What is wrong with me? Then she heard her mother’s voice in her head, snippets from years and years of misery her mother had brought on herself.
She shook her head to stop the playback. “I’m not my mother,” she said to Ryder.
“No,” he said cautiously.
“And racing wasn’t the problem.” She looked at her father.
“We were never well-suited, honey. If I’d been an accountant, we wouldn’t have meshed well, either. And it’s not all her fault.”
“Lots of families in the sport manage,” Ryder had said. “Some of them home-school and others travel part-time.”
“You work too much,” she said to Ryder.
“I know.” He sighed. “Part of it’s the job, but most of it’s me.” He smiled and moved closer. “I didn’t have any reason not to before.”
“But what about the team? You okay with this, Daddy? If Ryder eases up?”
“I’ve told him myself more than a few times that he’ll burn out if he doesn’t slow down. I’d like to keep him around for a long time.”
“Maybe you could teach me yoga.”
Her gaze snapped to Ryder’s. “Are you serious?”
“No.” He grinned. “Well…maybe. But you can sure teach others. Even—” he exhaled deeply “—my pit crew. I’ve seen the results of your influence.”
“Really?” She hesitated. “Is that a bribe, Mr. McGraw?”
“Would it work?” He took her in his arms and bent his head to her, brushing her mouth with his own.
Her father cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ll just…I’m going back to work.”
Hailey tried to pull away, but Ryder wasn’t letting her go anywhere. “Goodbye, sir.” Dismissal was clear in his tone.
“Ryder!” she said, scandalized.
But her father was already down the stairs.
Hailey looked at Ryder.
Ryder stared at Hailey. “Will you?”
“Teach you yoga? Sure,” she teased.
He shook his head. “Marry me.”
Suddenly, from downstairs, they heard her father again. “Ryder? Son—”
“Uh-oh. This is where he fires me for messing with h
is daughter,” Ryder whispered.
“Take the day off,” her father said. “As long as you don’t let her leave.”
Hailey giggled. Ryder started in surprise. “Um, thank you, sir.”
The front door closed, and they heard the lock turn loudly.
“You heard the man,” Ryder said.
“You can’t really afford to take the day off, can you?”
“Not really.”
“Bristol’s a big race,” she said as her heart sank.
“It is.”
“The team needs a better week.”
“Yep.”
She stepped back from him. “Go ahead and go. I understand.”
His eyes were sparkling with mischief, and he was shaking his head. “So you’re not going to give me a reason to stay? Help me learn to slow down?” He stalked her as she backed toward her bedroom. “What kind of yoga teacher are you? Maybe you should teach me that relaxation stuff,” he said as he closed in on her. “Thought I don’t feel much like relaxing right now.” His lips began to cruise down her throat. “Truth is, I’m afraid if you don’t do something quick, I just might find myself back at the shop. Help me, Teach.” His tone was playful as he caressed her while his teeth nipped lightly at her ear lobe. “You have to save me.”
Hailey giggled. Sighed. Couldn’t help moaning just a little.
“Stay,” she murmured. “I’ll stay, too.”
His head rose. “You mean it? With me?”
Hailey looked at him and thought about how she’d always been so careful not to get too involved. How much she’d let fear rule her for too long.
“My father loves me,” she said. “You love me.”
“I do. He does. Will you stay, Hailey? Make your life with me? Give him that second chance, too?”
Hailey swallowed hard, then realized how free she suddenly felt. “I will.” Then she laughed for pure joy. Opened her arms wide.
And grabbed on tight to the dream she’d thought for so long could never be hers.
Shifting Gears
Peggy Webb
For Debra Webb, dear friend and fellow writer.
Long live the Twisted Sisters!
CHAPTER ONE
THE DAY STARTED LIKE any other Tuesday, except that Rue Larrabee woke thirty minutes later than she usually did with the uneasy feeling that she’d not only overslept, but that she’d also somehow spent her entire life missing the boat.
Shaking off the feeling, she leaped out of bed and grabbed her clothes. She wasn’t about to scrimp on dolling herself up.
Beauty was her business, and by George, she intended to flaunt every one of her natural charms—a thick tangle of red hair, pouty lips she painted cherry-red, a generous figure she was partial to showing off with low-cut blouses and slim, well-fitted Audrey Hepburn ankle pants.
Today she chose a blouse in a festive golden shade, the color of the chrysanthemums she’d bought in pots last week hoping to beat the summer heat and usher in fall. She topped her ensemble with a pair of sensible espadrilles and dangling earrings as big as Arkansas, then grabbed her purse and headed to Maudie’s to pick up the box of doughnuts she always bought for the girls at Cut ’N’ Chat. Rue was sole proprietor of the best little beauty shop in Mooresville, North Carolina, and she was happy to say she owned it lock, stock and curling irons.
As she went downstairs, she whipped out her cell phone and called Daisy Brookshire, her most reliable hair stylist.
“I’m running late, sweetie.”
“Good grief, Rue. Is the world coming to an end?”
“Possibly. Can you hold down the fort?”
“I’m feeling so good I could tame tigers. Can you pick up some extra cream-filled doughnuts for me? I could eat a house.” Daisy, pregnant and big as a barrel, was eating for two.
“Will do. See you in a bit.”
Rue’s little two-story cottage was only three streets over from her shop, which was right next door to Maudie’s Down Home Diner. Today was gorgeous, and Rue walked, as she usually did in beautiful weather.
She had only gone half a block when somebody whistled at her. Though it was only that cute young NASCAR hunk, Bart Branch, driving his silver sports car with the top down, Rue’s spirits perked up.
While she could be the poster child for Women Who Choose Bad Boyfriends, she had no intention of acting like the most often jilted woman in town.
Grinning, she hollered, “Pick on somebody your own age, Bart.”
As he waved and tooted his horn, then disappeared around the corner, Rue wondered why she had never had the good fortune to pick somebody like Bart. He was one of the nicest men she knew, in spite of having Hilton Branch for a father.
Though her bad luck paled compared to the Branch family’s misfortune over Hilton’s imprisonment for shady financial dealings, Rue still wondered if maybe her unlucky encounters with men had to do with her approach. If she’d used her ears and eyes instead of her big heart, she’d never have gone out with the string of men who dumped her, starting with her date at senior prom—who took a shine to cheerleader Barbie and a powder at the same time—and ending with Mark Hayworth, that wart on a hog who left her at the altar. With one of Rue’s bridesmaids, for crying out loud. That heifer!
There was no sense dwelling on it. At forty-four Rue had long ago given up on men and turned her attention to better things. Like taking care of everybody with a sob story who wandered into her beauty shop.
The Statue of Liberty of Cut ’N’ Chat. That was Rue. Give her the tired, the poor, the wretched masses yearning for a better life, and she’d fix them up with hot soup, a place to stay and the good advice she wished somebody had given her when she was twenty years younger.
Too late now. Her parents had died in a car crash when Rue was eighteen, and even if she’d wanted her older sister to fit the bill, Janice was too busy trying to get out of Mooresville to bother with a sister ten years younger. She still didn’t have time for Rue. She was too busy chasing down the world’s most exotic places for her travel magazine to bother with anything that looked like family.
Rue, on the other hand, adored her hometown. When Maudie’s came into view, she picked up her pace. The diner would be filled with people she knew and loved—NASCAR teams and the locals who viewed her as a beloved icon, the woman who could make them laugh and make them look good at the same time.
Rue pushed open the door, smiling. Everybody from Sheila Trueblood, the diner’s owner, to Al Jordan, the cook, called out a greeting.
“Looking good, Rue,” Al said. “If I didn’t already have Louise, I’d be knocking on your door.”
“Al, I’m going to marry the first man I find who can make biscuits like yours.”
“I’ll dance at that wedding,” Sheila said. Whipcord thin and a virtual dynamo, she brought the energy of youth into everything she did, including packing up Rue’s usual doughnut order—with a few extras for Daisy.
Everybody in the diner jumped on Sheila’s remark and joined in the fun. At least two NASCAR drivers promised to give Rue away and one, Jeb Stallworth, who had a formidable record of ending his races in Victory Lane, even promised to lend his cabin in Denver as the honeymoon getaway.
For a moment, it seemed that a wedding for Rue was just around the corner, and she got flushed thinking of the possibilities. In her excitement, Rue forgot to fasten her change purse. Quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies cascaded to the floor and willfully scattered themselves every which way.
Not the least embarrassed, Rue dropped on all fours to gather her runaway change. She’d survived far worse things than this.
Rue wasn’t alone for long. Before she had retrieved two quarters, she found herself crawling around on the floor with Mooresville’s pediatrician, the town’s postman and five NASCAR drivers. All intent on helping and all of them laughing.
Sheila put on a fresh pot of coffee, then planted her arms on her hips in mock horror. “Rue Larrabee, you’re having so much fun down there I’m abou
t to wonder what you’re up to.”
“There’s nothing like a good romp on the floor to start the day right.”
Amid howls of laughter, Rue crawled after a particularly elusive quarter. She was within reaching distance when it vanished under a pair of well-worn but polished ostrich-skin boots. Size twelve, judging from the looks of them.
Rue’s gaze followed the boots upward to a pair of long, blue-jean-clad legs, a belt with the NASCAR logo, a soft denim shirt open at the collar over a delicious-looking chest. Next came a chiseled chin, beautifully molded lips and cool blue-gray eyes.
Rue almost lost her pizzazz. She was practically groveling at the feet of Andrew Clark, six gorgeous feet of careful reserve. If ever there was a man who wore a Keep Out sign, it was the owner of FastMax Racing.
After he pulled off a stunning coup last year—his stepson Garrett had won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, the first time in seventeen years a one-car garage had done such a thing—Andrew had gone from underdog to a man well on his way to NASCAR royalty, especially if Garrett kept ending up in Victory Lane.
While Rue regularly kidded around with NASCAR drivers in Maudie’s, there was something both mesmerizing and intimidating about this team owner. Too handsome for his own good, he was just the kind who might make her forget her bad relationship history and lose her head.
She’d always kept herself at a safe distance from him, and for whatever his reasons, he’d certainly never approached her. And now she was literally at his feet.
You could have knocked her over with a foam hair roller when Andrew knelt and scooped up her quarter. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
Oh, even worse. Now she was practically nose-to-nose with him, their delicate balance of silence shattered. If he’d been grinning, Rue could have laughed it off, but there was not a hint that Andrew found their situation even remotely amusing.
To her heightened senses, it seemed that all noise in the diner had ceased, that everybody had abandoned biscuits and country ham in order to hear what the unflappable Rue would say to the unattainable Andrew Clark.
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