by Roz Lee
“Unless he's here to tell us Renfro is dead, I don't want to hear it.”
“Wait, Dell. Please. I think I can help,” Warner said.
“Dell…” Caro pleaded.
“Spit it out. I haven't got all night.”
“Is it true? About the fuel additive?”
“You came to find out if the rumors are true?” Dell shoved past Warner. “I don't fuckin' believe this.” Caro lunged after him.
“Stop! Just stop for a damn minute. Let's hear him out.”
It was a miracle. Dell stopped and turned around. “This better be good,” he said.
“It's true? Someone put something in your gas can?”
Dell's whole body grew still. “Yeah,” he drew the word out. “That seems like the most likely scenario.”
“I think I know who might have done it.”
“Who?” Caro tensed as the word spewed from Dell's lips like venom.
“You have a guy on your pit crew named Trent, right?”
“Yes,” Caro answered. “He's one of the tire carriers.”
“That's what I thought. He's new?”
Caro nodded. “We had to replace one of our carriers. He twisted an ankle playing softball.”
“If he's the guy I'm thinking, he's a relative of Renfro's. A second cousin or nephew or something. I've seen him around our garage a time or two. He looks like a normal kid, but…” Warner ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that reminded Caro of Dell. “There's something about him. He smiles too much, if you know what I mean. It kind of creeps me out.”
“I asked him to put a bottle of champagne in my locker for me,” Dell said. He looked directly at Caro and said, “I was planning a private celebration, just you and me.”
Caro smiled. She'd saved a bottle too, and for the same reason. “Is it still there?”
“I don't know. The hauler wasn't going anywhere for hours, so I wasn't in any rush to get it. I was going to find you first.”
Caro tore her eyes away from Dell to the man watching them with undisguised humor. She no longer cared who knew Dell and she were together. Warner smiled and raised one hand.
“Hey, I'm happy for you. I wish I'd had the nerve to make a move on you before my brother did.”
“No offense, but it wouldn't have made any difference.” Caro wrapped her arm around Dell's waist and he did the same, snuggling her close. His body was still tense, but the rage was gone – for now. “Come on, let's go talk to the officials. I don’t think they're going to reverse their decision, but we can try.”
* * * *
“Stay here,” Dell said. “I don't want you anywhere near Renfro ever again.”
“You aren’t going to keep me from seeing his face when he realizes he's been found out,” Caro argued.
In the end, Dell couldn't stop her. The two of them followed a pack of NASCAR officials across the infield to Butch Renfro's motor coach. It was late, but the lights were on inside. No doubt, Butch was celebrating what he thought was the end of Hawkins Racing.
“Promise me you won't do anything stupid,” Caro said as they approached.
“Define stupid,” Dell said.
Caro's fingers on his forearm stopped him. “Please, Dell. This isn't funny. Don't give the officials a reason to sack you, or Renfro a reason to have you arrested.” Dell wrapped her in his arms and held tight. She apparently knew him well, because that was exactly what he had in mind. But her pleading tone and the shimmer of tears in her eyes was enough to cut through the rage that had been building ever since he walked into the garage tonight and saw what was going on.
“I promise, Caro.” His hands stroked her back as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head where it rested against his chest. “You're the only person who's ever cared enough to worry about me. It's sweet.”
“I'm not being sweet, Dell, I'm being practical. I don't have money to bail my driver out of jail.”
“Come on.” He set her away with a kiss to her forehead. “Let's go. We don't want to miss all the fun.”
Dell didn't expect Renfro to be happy to see him when he and Caro entered behind the officials, but he wasn't prepared for the thundercloud of hate that rolled off the man directly toward them. Dell put a protective arm around Caro and stared the man down.
“What are they doing here?” Renfro asked.
“We thought they had a right to be here,” Stan said. Dell thought he might grow to like this Stan fellow, given time.
Renfro scowled. “What's this about?”
“We just had a talk with your nephew, Trenton Biggs. He told us everything.”
“Well, I don't know what he said, but I wouldn't believe him. The kid's bad news. Why do you think he doesn't work for me?”
“But he does work for you,” Stan said. “He's been working for you all season, and in exchange for his sabotaging Hawkins Racing, you paid off his mother's mortgage and back taxes.”
Renfro dropped all pretense, rounding on Dell with a rage that had Dell shuffling Caro behind him. His face turned puce as he pointed a finger at Dell. “You. It's all your fault. You ruined my life, you miserable son-of-a-bitch.”
“Whoa,” Dell said, taken aback by Renfro's hatred. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You exist. That's enough. If it wasn't for you, she'd be mine.”
“Oh no,” Dell said. “Carolina would never be yours, and if you ever touch her again, I'll kill you.”
“Dell,” Caro hissed behind him.
“Shh, Caro,” he said. “I won't let him hurt you again.”
“I'm not talking about your bitch, Junior. I'm talking about your mother. I asked her to marry me, but she didn't want me. Caudell knocked her up and she married the bastard. I told her not to. Told her he couldn't keep his goddamned pecker in his pants, but did she listen to me? Hell no. She went ahead and married him, and the next thing you know, Pauline Warner shows up at the track with Caudell's bastard. Says she wants her man back. That's all it took. The next thing I know, Pauline and her whelp are hanging around, and Maggie was gone.”
Dell absorbed the tirade. As horrible as it was, it had the ring of truth.
“So, you set out to destroy Hawkins Racing because of me?” Dell asked.
“Damn right I did. I hired Caudell's bastard and by damned if he didn't kill his old man for me. You should have seen his face when I told him Caudell was his sperm donor.” Renfro's laugh made Dell's skin crawl. Caro clamped the back of his shirt in her fists and he wished to hell he hadn't let her come tonight as Renfro continued.
“Then the bastard went after you. I couldn't have scripted it better if I'd tried. I was trying to get that idiot, Trent, into Anderson's garage when Virgil wised up and fired your sorry ass. But you made it easy on me. You went over to the bitch's garage. I knew I had you then.”
He was insane. Dell couldn't care less about the fact Butch Renfro wanted him dead, but he did care about Carolina. “Watch who you're calling names, Renfro. I'm not going to warn you again. Carolina hasn't done anything to earn your scorn.”
“Dell,” Caro warned.
“Let's go, Caro. I've heard enough.” Dell ushered Caro out the door to Renfro's enraged shouts of, “It's all your fault”.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Just hear her out, okay?” Dell faced the solemn group gathered around the conference table at NASCAR's headquarters in Daytona Beach. The last forty-eight hours were sheer hell for Hawkins Racing, and NASCAR in general. Having one team sabotage another didn't do anything for the credibility of the sport, coupled with Renfro admitting to sexually assaulting Caro, and NASCAR was fighting a massive PR battle.
However, Dell hadn't felt this good – ever.
Renfro was certifiably crazy, and under arrest for a variety of charges, including assault on a NASCAR official after Dell left with Caro. As crazy as Renfro was, he'd answered a lot of questions for Dell and Dickey, and all Dell felt was relief. Later that night, with Caro wrapped in his arms, he'd found what he was
looking for.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I am. I always thought there couldn't be anything worse than having Caudell Wayne for a father, but I was wrong,” he told her.
“How so?”
“Just think, if things had been different, Butch Renfro could have been my father.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Caro said.
“No, thank God for you.”
So now he had a new cause, Caro Hawkins.
The officials gathered around the conference table represented the highest levels of ownership and management within the organization. Dell faced them as if they didn't have the power to end his career with the stroke of a pen.
“We aren't asking you to reverse your decision. We'll live with it. You did what you had to. But you need to see the data Ms. Hawkins compiled before and after the altered gas was put in the car. She's one hell of an automotive engineer, and she's built the best damned engine I've ever run. You owe it to yourself, and the sport to hear her out.”
Caro sat quietly while Dell went around the table handing out the packets they'd hastily put together only this morning. Dell called in favors, mostly owed to his father, to get this meeting. She'd argued that he didn't need to do it, but Dell countered her objection, saying for once, he didn't mind trading on his old man's name. He figured Caudell owed him a favor or two.
“You can glance through the first few pages. You'll see the engine performance is steady, not much changes from one lap to another. I can tell you, she was running like a crazy – smooth as glass. So, go ahead, scan the graphs on those pages. Stop when you get to page eight.” He looked down at Caro and smiled. “I think it would be better if Ms. Hawkins explains the graph on that page to you.”
Caro stood, taking Dell's place. “As you can see, precisely four minutes before Dell's last pit stop, engine performance went up by seven percentage points. If you'll flip over to the next page, you'll see a detailed readout from the weather station at the track. At that exact time, a cold front came through. The track temperature dropped ten degrees in a matter of seconds. Now, if you'll turn back to the other page… do you see where the car pitted? “
Caro nodded at the murmurs around the room as they figured out the chart. “That's the stop where the altered gas was put into the car's fuel cell. Now, if you follow the timeline, you'll see Dell went back out on the track, and even though the track temperature was significantly lower than it was when he pitted, the car's performance, though elevated, was less than the seven percent improvement exhibited before the pit stop.” She paused to let the men absorb what they were seeing.
“So, gentlemen, the data supports my conclusion that the additive actually produced a negative effect on the engine's performance, rather than a positive one. Dell won the race despite the additive, not because of it.”
Caro sat. She gave Dell a brief smile. He reached over and took her hand in his and squeezed. Whatever they decided, Caro was okay with. As long as Dell believed in her, it didn't matter if no one else in the whole world did, and she was darned tired of letting other people dictate her private life.
* * * *
Goddamn she was cute, Dell thought as he shook the bottle and sprayed champagne on Caro's scrunched up face. She'd told him more than once how much she hated this part of the Victory Lane celebration, but after their first win following the Talladega disaster, when he'd bathed her in champagne in Victory Lane, then minutes later took her to the hauler and proceeded to lick it off her skin, she'd come to tolerate it. For his sake, she said. She might not admit it, but behind those scrunched up eyelids, she was imagining his lips on her skin, making her squeal and moan as he drank champagne from her navel, celebrating, Dell Wayne style.
“Stop! Dell!,” she protested with a laugh. “Enough!”
He passed the near-empty bottle to the closest person and tugged Caro close. She lowered her hands from her face and allowed him to brush the champagne from her eyelids with his thumbs. He followed that by kissing the champagne from her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back as a chorus of whoops rose from the crowd.
When she pushed against his chest, he let her go, but not before brushing his lips across the shell of her ear and whispering, “I love you.”
A reporter shoved a microphone in between them, and Dell shifted to face the reporter, holding Caro close, with an arm around her waist.
“Dell, your season got off to a rocky start, and here you are now, celebrating another win, and you're on your way to the Chase for the Championship. How do you feel about that?”
Dell gave Caro's hip a reassuring squeeze. They'd come a long way since Talladega, and he'd won more races, and had more decent finishes in the last half of the season than ever before in his career, but none of it mattered to him.
“For me to end up where I am right now is proof positive that anything is possible in NASCAR,” Dell said. “I've got my work cut out for me in the next ten races. I can't let my brother win – that just wouldn't be right.” Dell smiled and waved at Dickey who was waiting for his turn to congratulate the winner.
“Speaking of your brother, it's been quite a season for the two of you. Do you and Richard Warner have any plans to team up in the future?”
“I don't think so, but you'd have to ask him. He's a big-shot team owner now, and I'm just a lowly driver.”
“Are the rumors true you loaned Richard the money to buy out Butch Renfro after NASCAR banned him from racing for tampering with your car?”
“I didn't loan Dickey anything,” Dell said. He'd only given him what was rightfully his, half the remaining money he'd inherited from Caudell Senior. Given Renfro's desperate circumstances, the money was more than enough to buy him out and keep the garage running. But that was no one's business but theirs.
“So you have no plans to drive for Warner Racing next season?”
Oh, hell no! Dell frowned at the camera. “No, I don't. I drive for Carolina Hawkins, and no one else.” He tugged her around, shifting at the same time so they stood face-to-face. He winked.
“Dell,” she whispered, “what are you doing?”
“Cameron,” he addressed the reporter, “if you'll forgive me, I have something I'd like to say.” Dell didn't wait for the reporter's agreement, barreling on as if he had every right to hijack a national television broadcast. “I know this is highly improper, but I've fallen in love with my team owner.” He turned his gaze to Carolina who stood, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Damn, he hated to blind-side her this way, but he didn't want to wait another minute to tell the world how he felt about her, and claim her as his own. He smiled at her, then dropped to one knee on the champagne-soaked ground.
The crowd grew quiet, or maybe she couldn’t hear them over the roar of blood rushing past her ears. Dell had a flair for the dramatic, but she never guessed he'd do something so foolish, and so sweet. He reached for her hands, and she held them out to him. He took them in his and placed a silly, smacking kiss on the back of each one. She laughed, despite the serious look Dell maintained. He looked up at her and she felt dizzy for the first time in her life. He squeezed her hands, and she steadied.
“Carolina, my sweet, Carolina, I love you, and not just because you build a wicked good engine. I love you, because from the beginning, you saw the real me, on and off the racetrack, and not someone you wanted me to be. You believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself. You make me want to be a better man, Carolina. I promise to try every day to be the man you see inside this shell. Will you marry me?”
All seriousness gone, Dell's eyes twinkled with amusement and his wicked smile promised all sorts of things she'd come to need as much as she needed to breathe. Lord, if she said yes, this man would keep her off balance for the rest of her life. And wasn't that one of the things she loved most about him?
She forgot all about the reporters, the cameras and the crowd. Only one man mattered, and he'd chosen this moment to declare himself. Maybe, j
ust maybe, she could keep him a little off balance too.
“I don't know, Dell. Are you sure you aren't just trying to get your hands on my engine?” she teased.
“Oh, honey, I fully intend to get my hands on every inch of you, including your engine,” he said with a wink.
“Well…since you put it that way… yes!”
Dell let out a victory whoop and pulled her in for a kiss that curled her toes. The crowd went crazy around them, and someone dumped what felt like a magnum of champagne over their heads. Eventually, Dell broke the kiss, but he didn't let her go as he grabbed the microphone from the stunned reporter who was scrambling to keep up with the unexpected marriage proposal in Victory Lane.
“So, folks. Looks like I'm going to marry my team owner. Maybe I'll change my name to Caudell Hawkins, what do you think?”
The crowd roared their approval. Dell looked around, then waved someone over. Caro smiled as Richard Warner shouldered his way through the crowd. “Did you get it?” Dell asked his brother.
“Yeah,” he said, handing something to Dell. “You've got to quit ordering people around,” he added with a smile. He clapped Dell on the back. “Congratulations, man.” Then he faded back into the crowd.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I couldn't figure out a way to carry this in the car with me and not lose it.” Caro's heart lodged in her throat when Dell opened the small velvet box to reveal the most stunning diamond she'd ever seen. “You can have this, or if you'd prefer, I'll give you the guitar trophy I just won,” he said. “But, so you know, I come with both of them. You aren't getting away from me now.”
And there she was, completely off balance, and dizzy with love for this impossible man.
“Sweet Carolina,” he waved the ring under her nose. “Which will it be?”
Caro eyed the unique trophy awarded at Richmond. She studied the ring in its blue velvet box. “As much as I love the trophy, Dell, you can keep it. I'll take the ring, and you.”
Dell slid the ring on her finger, then crushed her lips beneath his. As he kissed her senseless, she heard the reporter say, “And there you have it folks. This wraps up our coverage today from Richmond International Raceway in beautiful, Richmond, Virginia, where Dell Wayne is a double winner today – taking home the winner's trophy and a bride!”
