Table of Contents
Racing Toward Love
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Everleigh Clark:
Bearly Shifted
Bear With Me
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Racing Toward Love Copyright 2017 Everleigh Clark
Editor Wizards in Publishing
Cover Art by More Than Words Graphics and Design
Table of Contents
Racing Toward Love
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Everleigh Clark:
Bearly Shifted
Bear With Me
Racing Toward Love
By
Everleigh Clark
Copyright © 2017 Everleigh Clark
Edited by Wizards in Publishing
Racing Toward Love
A forty-three-year-old divorcee finds love in the arms of a younger man while training for the hardest race of her life. Which will prove to be more difficult? Running a grueling one hundred thirty-five mile race through Death Valley or the not-so-socially acceptable relationship her family can’t handle?
This novella was originally part of the Wanna Be Bad boxset, under Everleigh’s other pseudonym. Three thousand words have been added in a fun, romantic epilogue.
Chapter One
Get your ass to the office now
Ryan frowned when he received the text. “You’re all finished. Great job today,” he praised the sweet, older woman as she finished her final set of lateral pull downs. “I have to go meet the big man. Do you want to hit the showers, or are you going to hang around and ogle Mr. Kemph for a while?”
Ruth turned her attention to the other side of the room, while pulling her silver hair out of her ponytail. “I think I’ll stick around for a bit. You go on now.”
“If you’re going to hang around, at least don’t make it suspicious. Do some cardio.”
The plump woman, old enough to be his grandmother, grinned mischievously, her eyes twinkling and the corner of her lip rising as she watched a fit, elderly man doing biceps curls. “Any cardio?”
Ryan loved this woman. She was a hoot. “Naughty, Ruth. Cycle, Transformer, or walk on the treadmill. Hook up on your own time.” His phone beeped at him again, so he waved her on. “Have fun. I’ll be back when I can.”
“Don’t you worry about me. Shoo.” She beamed at him. “Your time with me ended thirty seconds ago. I’m on my own, young man.”
He strode to his boss’s office. His best friend, Max, owned the fitness club, and had hired him as the head trainer. The big man never texted him when he was with a client, so he wasn’t just summoning him to catch up on yesterday’s game. Pushing the door open, he paused at the sight of a gaggle of men and women surrounding a petite, scowling blonde in her early thirties sprawled across the couch.
“I told you I’m fine.” She swatted a wet towel out of the hands of a female employee. “I need a minute to recover. If you want to be helpful, get my water bottle.”
“What’s going on?” Ryan asked, and every head turned to him.
“This crazy woman was exercising like a maniac in the sauna.” Max’s nostrils flared, and a vein bulged in his forehead. “Carley went in to check on her, right before Miss Kamikaze passed out.”
“I didn’t pass out.” Her gorgeous blue eyes flashed. “I got a little dizzy when I was getting out.”
Carley, Max’s administrative assistant, handed the woman a frozen turquoise water bottle. She sat up, unscrewed the lid, scooped some slush into her mouth, and started crunching.
“Max, do you mind if we clear out the room, give Miss…?” He arched a brow.
“Shaylee Markle,” she supplied.
“Give Miss Markle some privacy while we talk?”
“Everyone out!” Max waved the others out the door and closed it behind them.
“How are you feeling now, Miss Markle?” Ryan offered his hand and pulled her into a sitting position.
“I think I’m okay now. I got a bit dizzy and overheated.” She winced, and the fine lines around her eyes became more pronounced. He revised his assessment of her age to late thirties, early forties. “And call me Shay. I know I’m old enough to be your mom, but I’d at least like to pretend we’re in the same generation.”
“So that’s it?” Max fumed as he paced. He had been rifling through her client file a moment earlier. “You hit forty-three, decide you’re too old and need to drop some weight, have a midlife crisis, and decide to work out to death in my club?”
Before Ryan could say anything to calm his friend down—Max would regret his outburst later—she leapt to her feet. The cool towel they had wrapped around her shoulders fell to the floor, showing almost every inch of her beautiful, toned, sweat-glistening, curvy body. The goddess—a petite, sweaty, red-faced, very angry goddess—pulled herself up to point right in Max’s face. Confronting two hundred pounds of chiseled muscle, straight out of the Army, made her a beautiful warrior goddess. She showed no fear of him and wasn’t backing down.
“I am not having a midlife crisis, you arrogant asshole. And if you think I need to lose weight, then you’re also a dick who doesn’t deserve to work under the tagline Compassionate and caring trainers for real people. You can go suck—”
“Okay, okay, guys, let’s all take a deep breath. Catch our bearings.” Ryan watched their collective glares turn toward him. “Come on, just one breath. I’ll go first.”
He closed his eyes and inhaled, envisioning the angry, feisty little woman giving it back to Max. She had spunk. And she was more than ten years older than him, closer to Max’s age, it seemed. The age difference made her even more appealing. A woman like this would keep Ryan on his toes. She might enjoy discussing politics, a passion of his. She wouldn’t ask him to tell her what she should eat for dinner, or constantly ask if she “looked all right in these jeans,” using his knowledge as a trainer as a crutch. As much as he loved his personal training job, he preferred to turn it off after hours. Yes, Max constantly told him he was the best in the business. Not only due to his compassion, but also because he could read people and knew how hard to push them, pushing them to their limits and further than even they had anticipated.
He loved his job. But, sometimes, he wanted to turn it off. Enjoy the company of a more seasoned partner.
Max was forty-four, a hard-ass, domineering alpha type all the women swooned over. Max and he had found a great rhythm. Age didn’t matter. They complemented each other’s natures and had made Max’s tiny fitness club the most popular in the region in less than eighteen months.
And this woman, this Shaylee Markle, was the female version of Max. He should
n’t be thinking this way—not while on the job—but God, the thought of having a real woman, a strong woman who knew what she wanted and would say it, in his bedroom, appealed.
“What are you plotting about over there?”
His vision popped. “I don’t plot—especially during work hours with the man looming over me.” He glanced over at Max, who still fumed but at least wasn’t yelling any more.
“Sorry.” She gave him a view of perfect white teeth behind her plump rose lips. “You look almost young enough to be my son’s age. When you cocked your eyebrow and raised one side of your lip, it reminded me of the times he came up with his less-than-brilliant ideas.”
Less-than-brilliant ideas. Ouch.
“Miss Markle, Ryan Banks is almost thirty and is the best trainer on staff. I’m willing to bet, the best in the nation.”
“I didn’t mean to offend either of you. You just look really young.”
“It’s okay. I get it a lot. So, since we’ve all had a chance to recover, mind if we talk about your training plan?” He motioned for her to sit, and pulled up a chair across from her and Max.
“I’m not having a midlife crisis.” Her brows furrowed, and she squinched her nose. “At least, I don’t think I am. I’m tired of doing the same stuff every day, being a boring, by-the-book type A. After Roger left me—he’s my ex-husband.” Her lips thinned, and her forehead wrinkled as she choked on the name. Shaking her head as if to dispel the negative thoughts, she continued. “I took the last year to find myself again. I ran the 5K and 10k in college. I wasn’t great, but not terrible, either.”
Another former athlete. He dealt with them every day, and, with the right motivation, they succeeded in achieving their goals, especially big ones.
“I found a race I want to do.”
Some sort of couch-to-marathon training. A competitive runner during and after college, he’d trained plenty of people for their own races. He could do this. This was right up his alley.
“When and where’s the race?”
“March. Death Valley, California.”
He tried to remember what big marathons were in California in March. Usually, the big races were held during cooler seasons—late fall or early spring. But in Death Valley?
“It’s the Badwater Ultramarathon. A journalist named Kirk Johnson ran it. I read his book and want to run it, too.”
Realization sent his adrenalin coursing through his body. “Do you mean the 130-mile race through the hottest part of California?”
“It’s 135, and there will be a cold night, too, when we race overnight on the trail to Mount Whitney. It’s over thirty hours and the toughest race in the world.” She nodded and raised her chin defiantly, daring him to say something.
Max spoke first. “That’s crazy. A beautiful, intelligent woman like you should be doing….”
“What? Going out to dinner. Hosting PTA functions? Charity auctions? Bake sales?” She sneered at him. “Been there. Done that for over twenty-two years of my life. And you know how I got repaid?” Her cheeks flushed, eyes wide and staring. “Left for a damn nineteen-year-old. So, I am supposed to give my life to my family, my husband, and home. Get older gracefully, while gaining some weight, but not too much. And then, when he’s done with me, I’m set aside like Monday’s trash?” She jumped to her feet again, her chest heaving, her breaths fast and furious as her eyes misted.
“Holy crap.” Max sank back into his seat. “I’m sorry, Miss Mar—”
“Shaylee or Shay.”
“Shaylee,” Max acquiesced. “If I ever see the mother fucker, I’ll pound him in the head myself.”
“Thank you, but it’s not necessary. My lawyers took care of everything. I am in the home I’ve loved for almost half my life. My children are away at college but visit often. And I have my own life back.”
“Yeah, but—”
“It’s all right. I’ll be fine. But I want to run this race. And I am going to need help, probably a team for the actual race.”
“Okay, this is good. We can help you find a team, and you’ll want to do some more heat training. The predicted temperatures for this spring are a lot higher than normal,” Ryan offered.
“You are both crazy,” Max muttered.
“No, it’s okay. I’ve done the shorter Badwater—the eighty-five miler in North Carolina—and know what to do. She has to do sauna training to get her body ready for the dry heat of California. If we monitor you and up your fluids the week before…” He made a mental list of everything needing to be done.
“It looks like you found your first team member,” Max said, inclining his head toward Ryan.
“Oh no. I can’t afford to pay for an actual trainer at this point. And I don’t want to put you out.”
“You will take Ryan up on his offer. The club will sponsor your training fees. You can wear the logo on one of your shirts.”
“Hold on, now. I did not agree to a trainer or to wear your logo.”
Max lifted her file, his focused gaze indicating he calculated one of his maneuvers. “It might be pretty hard to train when I call every fitness center within a hundred miles and tell them about the crazy woman who passed out in my sauna. Liability forms. Ambulance rides are pretty expensive. You think anyone will allow you in their front doors for your heat training?”
“God, you manipulative son of a bitch. I just want to train for a race. What is wrong with you?”
“Shay.” Ryan almost touched her tense shoulder, but stopped short when she turned to glare at him. “I get it. Max can be an asshole when he wants to be.” He met his friend’s gaze and nodded. “But I promise, he is not trying to stop you from reaching your big goal. He wants to keep you safe. He cares about all of his clients. He just doesn’t show it in the way most people do.” In fact, if he read it correctly, Max was more than interested in this woman and was acting on his own need to protect someone he liked. “Would you give me a chance to work with you? Together? Planning, working like equals? We can help you make this the best event of your life.”
“Okay.” She released a low puff of breath and curved her lip ever so slightly on one side. “You’re cute. I think I can work with you.”
Better than nothing.
~.~
She had lost her mind. All those years of kid raising and passive-aggressive mommy competing had caught up with her. Shay dropped the fluffy towel from her head and jogged into the kitchen. She had invited Ryan over for dinner so they could discuss her training needs for the next eight weeks. She could have gone back to the club, but after a long day of working out, blogging, writing, a quick cleanup of the house, followed by one final dose of cardio, she was spent. She had frozen ten different meals last week in preparation for her training, and she desperately wanted to put her stocking feet up on the couch and lounge in her favorite jammies while drinking a glass of wine—alternating with water, of course.
They could kill several birds with one stone. Eat, plan, get to know each other, and confirm they could work together. She sipped at her room-temperature water and placed a bottle of Merlot and one of Chardonnay next to each other on the counter. After confirming the lasagna was bubbling and boiling as it should be—so it only needed maybe ten more minutes of cooking—she picked up her laptop and collapsed onto the couch to wait for her guest. No, her trainer.
The sweet young man with the dimpled cheeks who had listened to her and acknowledged her respectfully. God. If she were ten years younger, she could see herself being interested in someone like Ryan Banks.
Self-assured, confident, but not cocky; sweet, charming, hard to rile up. Articulate, but not boisterous and annoying. They’d had another quick five-minute chat after she showered and changed and he finished with his current client. Those few minutes had given her a real glimpse into the man who would help her train. He was a good man, excellent at his job, and kind enough to take her on, in addition to his extra duties. Too bad he was too young for her.
Ryan arrived promptly at
seven p.m. Her ex had never been on time in his life while always reminding her to be ready for him. Young and naive, a virgin bride at twenty, she’d had no idea she could have a say in her marriage. That awareness took a few years. She had been happy raising their children, though. And things went downhill way before Shay ever started speaking her mind.
Well, she wasn’t going to worry about that now. It was time for her to try a new stage in life, and the man to help her through this waited for her to answer her front door.
She got up and groaned as her fatigued legs shouted their displeasure at her. Okay, maybe she did need a trainer. She would kill herself at this rate and never make the starting line.
“Hi. Thanks for coming.” She didn’t have to fake her pleasure at seeing the handsome man holding two bottles of wine tucked in one arm and a small package in his other. She motioned for him to come in.
“I didn’t know what kind of wine you liked. I hope I wasn’t being presumptuous, but when you said homemade lasagna…”
“Hell, yes, you have to have wine. Thanks.” She took the bottles and placed them on the counter, right as the timer went off.
Her hamstrings did not seem to like the idea of her bending over to get a heavy tray of hot, gooey food, and she bit her lip, trying to hide her groan.
“I didn’t do a double workout today.” Ryan pointed at the potholder next to her. “Mind if I do the honors?”
Handing him her turquoise-and-black patterned oven mitt, she smiled. “Thanks. My hamstrings and lower back are a bit angry with me. I need to go over a plan that will still allow me to get food out of the oven at least twice a week.”
His deep chuckle filled the air as he pulled out the tray. The scent of tomatoes, spices, and ground beef wafted through her nostrils. “I think we can come up with a good plan. And if you need any more help, I’m always willing to work for food.”
Racing Toward Love: A Second Chance Romance Page 1
