A NASCAR Holiday 2: Miracle SeasonSeason of DreamsTaking ControlThe Natural

by Pamela Britton

  Danny closed his eyes against a sudden throbbing in his head. “Please tell me this isn’t part of the same conversation.”

  “You soon learn that although they’re all there to race, some want to win more than others. You start to see it in their eyes.”

  “So why haven’t you retired on your winnings?” he said.

  “I placed a few mental bets that would have paid big money,” she admitted, “but other times I read them wrong.”

  “Ha,” said Danny, satisfied. He looked down at the dog. “Surely the sedative is working by now.”

  “Yep, I’ll give him a dose of local anesthetic at the wound site, too.” Madison picked up a syringe and bent close over the patient. “And there’s some grit I’ll have to flush out with a saline solution before I stitch him.”

  When she’d done that, she told Danny she needed to neaten up the edges of the wound to make stitching easier. It was a painstaking process executed with great care, and it seemed to prohibit speech, which he at first counted a mercy. He liked that she was so focused on her work, just as he was. Then he found himself wanting to argue with her about her conclusions.

  At last it seemed she’d finished. “Okay, gorgeous, now we can sew you up.”

  The dog, which until now had been droopy to the point of semicomatoseness, made a sudden movement in response to her voice, and Danny soothed him. “Easy, buster.”

  Madison’s head jerked up, and Danny realized she’d forgotten he was there. The unexpectedness of her reaction—when every minute of every day he had people vying for his attention—made him smile. The creasing sensation around his eyes felt unfamiliar, and he realized it had been weeks since he’d felt anything other than tension. Madison blinked twice, then smiled back, her lips curved generously, sweetly. For a sudden, still moment something hung in the air between them.

  Then she dropped her gaze back to the dog, made her first stitch, knotted it. “Even though I’m a fan of Trent’s, I really thought you’d win the Cup.”

  Danny shook his head to clear away that odd sensation. “The racehorse thing, right?”

  “That…and you did actually drive better most days.”

  “The most sense you’ve made all night,” he approved.

  She continued her work in silence. When she’d knotted the last stitch and put a dressing over the wound, she pulled off her latex gloves. “If you’ll carry the patient through to the recovery room, you can go to your party.”

  Danny looked at the clock. “The speeches will be starting right about now. If I walk in during Trent’s speech, it’ll look as if I’m trying to upstage him.” He pulled out his cell. “I’ll ask my girlfriend to make my excuses.”

  Kristal would be furious. Twice since he’d lost the championship, Danny had forgotten about dates they had scheduled.

  “She’s the model with the navel ring that you rub before each race, right?” Madison said blandly.

  Last year at Daytona, he’d teasingly patted Kristal’s navel ring. When he won, people said the gesture had brought him good luck. Danny didn’t believe in luck. But he did believe in getting his share of camera time for his sponsors, so he’d played to the media by rubbing Kristal’s navel ahead of every race after that. It wasn’t his classiest moment, but it got attention.

  “That ring is just one of her many excellent qualities,” he assured Madison. He turned away as he dialed Kristal. She answered right away. “Hey, baby,” he said. He heard a snicker behind him.

  “Where the hell are you?” From the way Kristal whispered into the phone, Danny deduced the speeches had already started. “Do you have any idea how late it is?”

  She had an annoying habit of asking questions designed to lead him to an admission of guilt.

  “I had an accident.”

  “It’d better be serious,” she hissed.

  So much for playing the sympathy card. “I hit a dog and I had to bring it to the vet. I can’t walk in there now, so if you can explain to everyone—”

  “Don’t you dare.” Her voice rose, then quickly dropped. “You’ve been jerking me around for weeks, Danny. I don’t give a damn about the dog, just get here fast.”

  The thing he’d liked most about Kristal was that she was as wrapped up in her modeling career as he was in his racing. Neither of them depended on the other. But on this occasion, he could do with her giving an inch. “I’m not going to barge in on the proceedings now,” he said. “I just need you to—”

  “That’s it, Danny, we’re finished,” she snapped.

  “Kristal, listen, I—”

  The phone went dead. Bemused, Danny hit the Off button.

  “Patience not one of her many excellent qualities?” Madison suggested.

  “She dumped me,” he said slowly, trying to decide how he felt. One thing was for certain, his heart was still in one piece. His relationship with Kristal would have ended sooner or later—maybe now was a good time. He had to win the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup title next year, even if it meant two hundred percent focus. If he wasn’t with Kristal, he could spend his evenings watching reruns of every race from last season, trying to work out where he went wrong….

  “I’m so sorry,” Madison said.

  Danny shoved his brain into reverse, tried to figure out why she was chewing her lower lip in that cute, anxious way. Oh yeah, Kristal. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

  But Madison felt awful. She’d made Danny stay here, and as a result his supermodel girlfriend had dumped him. Not that she personally thought the loss of Kristal Kane was a tragedy. Call her a short woman with a grudge, but Madison had always thought Kristal looked stuck-up and self-centered. But it was Danny’s opinion that mattered, and he’d dated her right through last season. Poor guy.

  “Where do you want this thing to go?” Danny indicated the dog.

  Madison excused his calling the animal a “thing” on account of his broken heart. “Two doors down on the left.”

  She went ahead, opened the door to the recovery room. Danny deposited the dog in the cage she indicated.

  “So long, buster,” he said. The dog licked his hand.

  “He likes you,” Madison encouraged Danny, mindful of his fragile state.

  Danny rolled his eyes. As he stood, he wiped his hand on his pants. “It’s too bad he’s a guy, otherwise I’d date him.”

  She felt herself flush. “Animals can sense feelings of rejection and hurt, and many people derive comfort from—”

  “Are we done here?” he asked.

  Madison pursed her lips. “You are, I’m not. I noticed his pupils are uneven—there’s risk of a rise in intracranial pressure.”

  “Wow.” Danny sounded impressed. “He’s that worried about my feelings of rejection and hurt?”

  “I’m talking about a swelling of the brain, resulting from a head injury,” she said repressively. “A head injury caused by someone running him over with a truck.” She patted the dog. “Wait right here, gorgeous.” Then she headed out of the room toward reception, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll stay to observe him. Hopefully it’ll come to nothing. If the owner doesn’t come looking for him, I’ll send him to a shelter when he’s well enough, probably later next week.”

  She pulled Danny’s credit card from the drawer behind the counter, where she’d left it for safekeeping. “I’ll put this through.”

  Danny nodded, but Madison could tell his mind wasn’t on their conversation. He must be fretting about Kristal. She put the charge through on his card, had him sign.

  Then it was time to send him back out into the rain. She found herself oddly reluctant to say goodbye. Not because of that weird sensation she’d had when he smiled at her. She felt sorry for him, that was all. He was obviously still smarting from losing the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series championship, yet he’d helped Madison, then been dumped by his girlfriend for his pains.

  She handed the credit card back to him, and as he took it, she wrapped both her hands around his. Surprise and faint alarm flashed
across his face. He jerked his hand back, but she didn’t let go, even though the contact heated her right through.

  “You’re looking at me the way you looked at that dog,” Danny said suspiciously.

  She said, “I know you’ve had a rough couple of weeks, but it won’t last—Christmas is right around the corner. If you take a break, you’ll find—”

  The incredulity in his dark eyes told her she’d let the sympathy that dogs, cats and rabbits responded to so readily go too far. She swallowed, fell silent. Slowly, deliberately, he extracted his hand from hers.

  “Forget Christmas,” he said, his voice colder than the rain that lashed the clinic’s windows. “You get what you want in this life the same way you win races. By running hard and never stopping.” He took a step backward, and it was as if a gulf had opened between them. “You go ahead and have a Merry Christmas if that’s your thing—” she discerned contempt in the gaze that flickered to the stocking on her head “—but don’t tell me what to do.”

  The clinic door banged behind him, cutting off the gust of icy air that blew in. Despite the central heating, Madison rubbed her arms. So much for trying to dispense a little Christmas cheer. Darned cynical NASCAR driver. It was all very well for him to say forget Christmas, but not everyone wanted to. Not everyone had that luxury.

  Her mom had phoned today, tense and anxious, to report that Madison’s father would be “home” for Christmas. Her parents had divorced years ago, thanks to her dad’s infidelities, which had all but destroyed Mom. That didn’t stop Dad phoning every other year to invite himself for Christmas. Mom always gave in, and each time it ruined their holiday.

  Madison pulled the stocking off, ran a hand through her hair to fluff it up. She couldn’t forget Christmas, but she could darned well forget Danny Cruise.

  “IS CRUISE A BAD SPORT?” Danny read the headline aloud, then tossed the newspaper down on Hugh Naylor’s desk. “Dammit, Hugh, you know I’m not.”

  Danny’s team owner leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers. “I know it, but I sure as heck wish you’d turned up to that party last night so other people would know it, too.”

  Danny gritted his teeth. The Sunday morning summons to the SouthMax Racing headquarters hadn’t been all that unusual—the habit of working on Sundays was hard to break, and in the off-season he and Hugh often spent the day at the office. He hadn’t expected his PR representative, Sandra Jacobs, to be here. He certainly hadn’t expected to be handed several newspapers, all with headlines along the same theme—that Danny Cruise’s failure to show up at Trent’s party meant he was sulking.

  “Didn’t Kristal explain about the dog?” he asked.

  “What dog?” Hugh’s forehead creased in perplexity.

  By the time Danny finished telling him, Hugh was shaking his head. “Next time, don’t ask a woman who’s just dumped you to pass on a message. Kristal told everyone you weren’t coming and she wasn’t surprised because you’ve been depressed ever since you lost to Matheson.” He tapped the newspaper. “It turned a boring party into a great story.”

  “John from Sports Force America called me at seven this morning,” Sandra said. “He wants to know how we plan to kill this thing.”

  Damn. Sports Force America, the chain of sporting equipment stores, was Danny’s primary sponsor. He only had to think the name to have the jingle from their radio and TV ads run through his head, relentlessly upbeat: Sports Goods for Good Sports.

  “Having their spokesman labeled a bad sport in the middle of the Christmas shopping season is not good,” Hugh said, in the kind of understatement that would have betrayed his British origins even if his clipped vowels hadn’t.

  Christmas. An image of Madison clutching his hand, her brown eyes worried, that stupid stocking on her head, flashed into Danny’s mind, as it had more than once since he left the clinic last night.

  “If we don’t fix this, we’ll lose Sports Force America,” Sandra said. “And chiming in late with a story about a dog won’t do it.” She held up her hands against Danny’s indignation. “I know, it’s not a story. But it’s going to look like we’re covering our butts.”

  Danny had a lot of respect for Sandra; she knew her stuff. He glanced across the desk at Hugh, who had become pretty much the most important person in Danny’s life over the fifteen years since his parents had died. If he couldn’t have his own father, Hugh Naylor would be his next choice.

  But Hugh wasn’t his father. He’d invested unstintingly in Danny’s career, not out of paternal love, but because he trusted Danny to deliver results. Danny had felt as bad for Hugh as he did for himself after the race at Homestead.

  “We’ve already lost a couple of smaller sponsors to Matheson Racing,” Hugh reminded him.

  This time last year, they’d been turning sponsors away—there was no more room on Danny’s car. If they lost the Sports Force America sponsorship, it would be a disaster for Hugh, for Danny, for the whole team.

  “What if I produce the dog?” Danny said.

  Sandra perked up. “You know where it is?”

  “The vet planned to keep it at the clinic a while. We could take a reporter to visit.”

  “Or a whole bunch of reporters.” Sandra began making notes. “A photo opportunity. Was it a good-looking dog?”

  “Definitely not,” Danny said.

  “You’re handsome enough for two. We’ll snuggle you up together.” She ignored Danny’s shudder. “I’ll call the clinic and tell them we’re coming. We’ll ask the vet to corroborate your story.”

  “I’ll make the call,” Danny said. He had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling he might have left Madison in a frame of mind that wasn’t conducive to her cooperation.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TURNED OUT forgetting Danny Cruise wasn’t that easy. You shouldn’t have held his hand, Madison scolded herself as she ran through her list of appointments in the small office behind the clinic’s reception desk on Monday morning. She chewed on her pen as she summoned her focus to the list.

  If she hadn’t touched him, she wouldn’t be struggling to remember the exact nature of Mrs. Barrett’s poodle’s breathing disorder, yet at the same time be able to recall with perfect clarity the strength of Danny’s long fingers, the firmness of his flesh.

  It was nuts—and the final proof of her insanity was that, despite the man’s rudeness as he left, she’d spent the rest of the weekend imagining there’d been some connection between them.

  “Danny Cruise,” said the receptionist with a kind of gasping excitement.

  Madison’s head snapped around—was she somehow broadcasting her thoughts to the entire clinic?

  No, it was worse…or better. When she craned her neck she saw Danny standing at the reception desk. He wasn’t, to Madison’s regret, wearing that rain-dampened white shirt. But the black polo emblazoned with the Sports Force America logo showcased the breadth of his shoulders, tapering to narrow hips in well-fitting black jeans. Madison’s undisciplined mind immediately set about memorizing this new incarnation.

  “Is Madison Beale here?” Danny said.

  He was here to see her! What’s more, he was carrying a bunch of flowers, deep gold roses and red gerberas wrapped in red paper and tied with gold ribbon. Was it possible that Danny Cruise, NASCAR star and dater of supermodels, had felt the same connection?

  Okay, would whoever put those butterflies in her stomach please remove them immediately?

  He’s here to inquire about the dog. She pushed her chair back from the desk, stood slowly, allowing time for the heat to wash out of her face before she stepped into the reception area.

  “Hi, uh, Danny.” Halfway through the greeting she realized she hadn’t addressed him by name before. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. Around her, silence fell as every person in the waiting room realized the Danny Cruise was here. Her boss, Roger Smales, stiffened to attention.

  “Madison, good to see you.” Danny stuck out his hand.

  Don’t make me ho
ld his hand again. I won’t sleep for a week. But, of course, she shook it, then accepted the flowers he offered.

  “I hardly recognized you without your stocking.” He cast an appraising eye over the hair she wore loose and wavy over her shoulders.

  She remembered his contempt for that stocking. “I hardly recognized you without your bad manners.”

  The receptionist gaped and Roger Smales made an anxious sound, but Danny was unfazed. “I want to apologize for my rudeness on Saturday night.” He nodded at the flowers he’d just given her. “I called yesterday, but you weren’t here.”

  “Apology accepted,” she told him, pleased that she managed to sound gracious rather than grateful.

  “And, uh, I also came to ask for your help.” He handed her a newspaper clipping.

  Madison unfolded it, scanned it. Seemed the media had misinterpreted Danny’s absence the other night. Seemed his appearance here today had nothing to do with a sudden urge to apologize.

  “I’ve invited a few journalists here to verify my story about the dog,” he said.

  “You mean the dog whose progress you haven’t bothered to ask about?” Her foot tapped the floor.

  “Uh, Madison…” Roger, who’d witnessed Madison berating substandard pet owners before, called a nervous warning.

  Danny didn’t appear to notice her tension. He shrugged. “You said he’d be fine. Is he?”

  “He’s doing as well as can be expected.” Madison didn’t mention that she expected the dog to be alert, playful and champing for his freedom. She added less truthfully, “Subjecting him to the attention of a crowd of journalists might set back his recovery.”

  Danny looked downright skeptical. “I get that I should have asked about the dog,” he said. “But caring about animals is your job. Mine is to win races, and I won’t apologize for putting that first. That newspaper article has done a lot of damage. If I don’t produce the dog, my main sponsor will walk.”

  She folded her arms. “You’re asking me to care about that and the dog?”

  His eyes narrowed. “If I lose my sponsor, I can’t race. If I can’t race, my team loses their jobs. That’s thirty-three people who work on my car. Unemployed.” He paused, then delivered the coup de grâce. “Right before Christmas.”