Slide Job (Cameron Motorsports)

by Fox, Sutton

  “You’re not kidding. I know it seats a hundred-thousand, but man...” She stared in amazement at the rows and rows of empty aluminum grandstands resembling small foothills, ten-stories high.

  The rumble of another hauler caught her attention. She turned to see a new Renegade transport pulling in down the row, on the other side of Kyle Spencer. It bore a bright orange number seven on the side. Jim O’Bannon. Creep. He’d probably bought that with her sponsor money.

  Humiliation stung her over again. She couldn’t believe Haskells had reneged on the deal. Dad wasn’t getting well and they weren’t confident in her ability to handle everything. She pressed them and they’d finally admitted it was because of what happened with Lily. Apparently they’d seen the footage of her crying after rescuing Annie and they were concerned the stress would make her fall apart again.

  At first she couldn’t figure out how they’d seen pictures of her when her camera crew had been elsewhere. As they’d talked, it had all become clear. Unknown to Morgan at the time, Jim’s film crew had captured her silent tears.

  The Haskells told her they felt their advertising dollars would be put to better use with the first place team. Jim’s orange number seven. If word got out that they’d dropped her, she’d have a heck of a time finding another sponsor.

  Shows what they knew. She wouldn’t quit this time, not for anything. There would be no more falling apart. It was a luxury she could no longer afford.

  A dark gray Ford Taurus came barreling down the RV lane toward them. It came closer, and she could see curly, yellow pig-tails tied with pink ribbons bobbing up and down in the front passenger seat, next to a waving hand.

  The car came to an abrupt halt just a few feet away. A feeling of foreboding whispered through her soul as a somber vision of heavily leaden snow clouds billowing over the Rockies filled her mind. Thick and treacherous, nothing could stop them.

  Tyler’s sister, Stephanie, bolted out of the driver’s side and hurried over to Morgan. “Have you seen Tyler?”

  “No, we’re all supposed to meet in a couple hours. Why?”

  Annie managed to unbuckle her seatbelt and work her door open. She pushed at it and stumbled out of the car with a big grin in Morgan’s direction. “Morgan, Morgan.” She chirped in her little girl voice, tickling Morgan’s heart with sound. She hit Morgan at a run. Child-size arms wrapped around Morgan’s legs like vines and almost knocked her off her feet.

  “Whoa there, kid.” Morgan spread her feet wide and hung onto Annie’s shoulders to keep from falling. “You could try the offices, or maybe he’s in the media center.” She pointed across the track to the suites perched high on a hill overlooking the infield. Go anywhere. Just get the kid out of here.

  “I don’t have time to run all over the place looking for him.” Stephanie’s blue eyes were clouded with worry and concern. “Our sister Jessica’s gone into labor. Her last was horrible, and I promised her I’d be there for her. I promised Tyler I’d help him with Annie too, never thinking they’d coincide.” She reached down for the wiggling child’s hand. “I’ve got to catch a plane back to Nashville, and I can’t take her with me. Tyler wants her here with him.”

  Morgan’s breath hitched and she took an involuntary step backward before she caught herself. It wasn’t Annie’s fault, a voice whispered softly in her head.

  Remembering the conversation last night, Morgan could only hold still on the tracks while the figurative train she saw coming ran her down.

  “Can I leave Annie with you?”

  Chapter 8

  Her stomach flip-flopped and she wanted to back away, screaming, No, I can’t do this! She’d done her level best to stay far, far away from kids. Especially little girls. After Lily… Well, she didn’t really feel like she should be around them. Helping them sit in her racecar was tough enough. But baby-sit?

  Annie looked up at her with Tyler’s divine blue eyes and grabbed hold of her hand. “I will be a very, very good girl,” she spoke softly, her tone serious.

  Aw, hell. Here we go again. Another frickin’ growth opportunity. Ice encased the most private part of her heart, the part where her secret hopes and dreams were buried. It suffered a crack as she peered down at the lovely, lonely child.

  Morgan knew she traveled from place to place because she loved to. What would it be like to be shuffled around all over the place because others said you had to? Made to feel like you were in the way?

  At this moment, she loved her parents more than she could ever tell them. For giving her a stable home and mostly for always, always making her feel loved.

  There wasn’t anything keeping her from doing this except her own fear. The afternoon was hers to do with as she wanted, other than the meeting, and that was supposed to be short and informal anyway.

  She dealt with fear every day in her job and never let it get the best of her. Her personal life? Now that was a different story.

  She glanced at Annie, patiently regarding her with a tentative look on her face, waiting to be rejected. Man, no kid should have to feel like that. So Morgan plucked up her courage and did what she’d always done at work. She faced her fear head on.

  “Okay. I’ll keep her. Don’t worry about it.” She gripped Annie’s hand tighter and felt her lips part into a wide grin. “We’ll find something to do, won’t we?”

  “That’s great. Thanks so much. Annie, Daddy will be along shortly to collect you, and I’ll be back before you know it.” With a hug for Annie and a smile for Morgan, Stephanie hopped back into her car and sped away.

  What the heck do you do with a five year-old? Determined to make the best of it, Morgan walked back to the hauler with her little charge in tow.

  Jack and Phil were hanging out in back of the hauler, joking with Steve and Blake about their favorite subject besides racing. Women.

  “Hey guys, what’s on the table for the afternoon?” Morgan asked, calmly ignoring the raised eyebrows and questioning glances thrown at Annie.

  Since the next challenge race would take place in Georgia, all the crews had traveled east early to be able to watch the test session in South Carolina, Wednesday, and the FASPRO truck race on Thursday, and then everyone would head south on Friday.

  “Kyle’s dad drove his Suburban down from Indy to watch the testing. He asked if we wanted to go catch a movie and some grub.” Phil looked happy about the prospect of having an afternoon off. She couldn’t blame him. They’d been going non-stop since this whole reality show thing started.

  “That sounds like a great idea.” She felt a little bummed about her new responsibility. With Annie in hand, she wouldn’t be able to tag along. Oh, well. The guys probably needed to do that male bonding stuff anyway. “I’m guessing by grub, you mean hot wings?”

  With a gruff laugh, Jack slapped Phil on the back. “She’s got you pegged, boy.” A vivid pink suffused Phil’s face and neck. He looked down at his shoes with a sheepish smirk.

  “Ya can’t blame a guy.” Phil made an hourglass shape in the air with his hands. “It’s those little orange shorts.”

  The guys on the film crew expressed their amusement by elbowing each other and snickering. They were tagging along with the guys, to film a Crew’s Night Out segment.

  On second thought, she was glad she wasn’t going. She could do without the orange shorts portion of the evening. “Alrighty then. I’ll see you guys later tonight. Have fun.” She moved away from the guys and headed toward the track.

  “C’mon Annie. Let’s leave these silly boys to themselves.”

  Annie giggled and grinned at her. “Silly boys, silly boys,” she chirped in a singsong voice.

  Morgan ignored the quick shaft of pain that pierced her heart, and thought about some of the things she would have liked to do with Lily if she’d been five.

  “I have to check out the track surface and I want to get a closer look at the whole thing. Wanna go for a walk with me, pretty girl?”

  A soft smile graced Annie’s tender young feat
ures. “Okay.”

  They meandered hand in hand through the garage areas and infield grass, stopping to watch a great, yellow and black butterfly flutter his beautiful wings in a mesmerizing dance upon the air. Gradually they made their way over the freshly-painted, white pit road wall, and onto the smooth track surface.

  Filled with anticipation, Morgan stood in the center of the track, near the flag stand, staring into turn one. She could feel the adrenaline sizzle just under the surface of her skin, adding exhilaration to the mix. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow, for her chance to race against the clock, against herself, against the other competitors. Competition drove her, as surely as her heart beat in her chest.

  “Daddy!” Annie’s delighted squeal wrenched her from her musings and back to reality.

  Annie ran up the sloped face of the empty track to the gate under the flag stand, and Morgan followed, her attention ensnared by the man coming down the stairs.

  She walked slowly, captivated by the lithe movement of his body. Sleek grace and self-assurance enhanced his every step. Jeans and t-shirts were the uniform of the day, and he wore his with a casual maleness that made her hormones shift into overdrive.

  Annie struggled to get up on the wall, but wasn’t tall enough. She tried to lever herself up by using her toes, with no success.

  “Here you go, squirt.” Morgan picked up the wiggling bundle of ribbons and curls and stood her up on the barrier wall. She climbed up beside her and opened the gate, allowing Annie to pass.

  “How’s my best girl?” Tyler reached down to raise Annie high above his head. He lowered her to eye level. “Can I have Eskimo kisses?” he chortled, rubbing his nose against hers.

  Shivers chased their way up Morgan’s spine as she heard him utter the words her father had spoken to her so many times. It nearly stopped her short, it surprised her so. Her cynical self argued with her emotional self. He couldn’t be this good looking and still be a compassionate, caring individual. Could he?

  Whoa. She’d have to save this argument for another day. As she came within arm’s reach, she could smell a slight hint of cinnamon in the air. She stepped closer to him, inhaled deeply, and the smell of vanilla rested itself gently on the back of her throat. Curiosity got the better of her.

  “Forgive me if I sound rude, I’ve never smelled cologne quite like yours before. Is it something special from California?”

  His eyes twinkled down at her, as he set Annie back on her feet. “Nope. Don’t worry. I get this all the time. My older sister Patty is into holistic...well, pretty much everything. It’s something she made me for Christmas last year. Gave me practically a vat of the stuff.”

  “Oh. I see.” Wow. A guy who would wear some weird smelly stuff just ’cuz his sister made it for him? No way. He can’t be for real.

  “I wore it at first not to hurt her feelings, and then I guess I just got used to it. I don’t really even smell it much anymore.”

  “Oh.” What was wrong with her? Her brain was stuck in neutral. Seduction of the senses engulfed her. Her eyes simply wanted to devour this heavenly hunk of man, and her nose kept telling her he smelled good enough to eat.

  He gazed at her, questions he was too polite to ask filling his ocean-colored eyes. The wind stirred, mussing his golden hair, and bringing with it the fresh smell of rain, drawing her attention to the sky.

  Clouds gathered in the west, varied shades of gray, stacking one on top of another, billowing toward them. It would rain before the evening was over.

  “Thanks for keeping an eye on Annie. Are you headed to the meeting?” Holding Annie’s hand, he started walking toward the track offices, so she walked along on his other side. “Stephanie called me to let me know where she’d left her off. I was just on my way over to you.”

  “Yeah. You’re welcome. She’s no trouble.” Why the heck didn’t Stephanie call him to find out where he was instead of dumping the kid on her? “Wait. She called you?” Surprise made her voice shrill.

  “She did call and leave a voicemail. I had my cell phone off due to a conference call.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t believe she just said oh again. What an idiot! A speedy exit would be a good thing right about now. While he thought she was only half stupid, not totally stupid.

  “I’m sorry to impose on your good nature, but needs must. I’ve got two more meetings after ours. Would you mind taking her back with you for a bit?”

  Well, so much for a speedy exit.

  He stopped walking and stared fully into her eyes, making things low in her body tighten and churn. “The moment I’m finished, I’ll be back over to get her and we can all go out to get some dinner. I can at least repay you for your kindness.”

  “Pizza, pizza.” Annie turned her own vivid baby blues on her dad imploringly. “Can we get pizza for dinner?” She lifted sparkling eyes to Morgan, “Do you like cheese pizza?”

  “Yes, I like cheese pizza.” Woo-hoo. She’d been able to complete a sentence. Things were looking up.

  “Pizza it is, then.”

  *

  Three hours later the rain came down in torrents, slashing madly at the sides of the hauler. No lightning, no thunder, just walls of water. Light faded to gray, daylight to darkness, and still it rained.

  Annie tired of playing at typing letters on the company laptop and wondered out loud, “When’s Daddy gonna be here?”

  “It shouldn’t be too much longer, sweetie.” Morgan stroked her silky blonde pigtail and patted her shoulder. She hoped it wouldn’t be much longer; the entertainment committee was running out of ideas. “I’ve got some cards in the drawer over there if you’d like to play with them.”

  Morgan motioned to a series of stacked drawers next to the refrigerator, pointing to the second one down.

  Annie walked over and opened the third one down. She stood peering into the drawer.

  “Uh, no, it’s not that drawer.” Morgan’s breath hitched in panic and she started to rise as Annie slowly reached her little hand into the drawer.

  “Whose shoe?” She held aloft a small, white leather baby moccasin, now faded to pale gray around the edges.

  Morgan sat down hard, her chest tight. What to say. What to say. Her mind circled in dread, sweat gathered on her palms. She didn’t talk about it. Everyone around her knew and they were all careful not to talk about it.

  This innocent child had no idea what she held in her hand. It was just a baby shoe. She wanted to know who it belonged to. It was that simple.

  It wasn’t simple. Not at all. That shoe represented the biggest failures of Morgan’s life. And the biggest heartaches. While she struggled to find her voice, Annie walked over and set the shoe on the table in front of her.

  She reached out to gently touch the tattered fringe and took a deep breath. “It’s something I keep in my pocket when I race. For good luck you know?” Fool. What would a five-year-old know about luck?

  Still the child insisted. “Whose is it? It’s tiny.” She patted the toe of the shoe, “And soft.”

  Eyes filled with tears, her voice broke as she whispered, “It belonged to a little girl named Lily.”

  Chapter 9

  Little fingers, soft as butterfly wings, reached out to brush Morgan’s tears away. Luminous blue eyes stared into hers, full of questions. “Don’t cry, Morgan. Is Lily your little girl? Is she lost?” Blonde curls turned this way and that, following the slow turn of her head. “She’s not here.”

  Lost to me, yes. “No sweetie, Lily’s not lost.”

  Annie’s eye’s brightened with a thought, and her lips gave the barest hint of a smile. “Is she with her daddy?” It was clear this pleased her. Coming from her point of view, it would.

  Morgan took a deep breath and willed her tears away. She wondered if she would run out of tears someday. It didn’t feel like it would be anytime soon. Her head started to ache with the pressure. She rubbed her eyes with one hand, touching Annie’s shoulder softly with the other. Annie didn’t know how perceptive
she really was. Kids just had a way of ripping her heart out when she wasn’t looking, and then handing it back to her with a smile.

  “Yes, honey, she’s with her daddy.” Cheating, lying, scumbag that he was.

  Annie’s little brow wrinkled in thought and she stared hard at Morgan. “Why?” She backed a step away, her eyes filled with all the caution a five-year-old could muster. “Are you a bad mommy?”

  Bullseye! Oh...my...God. The pounding in her head reached its crescendo, doing double time on her temples. Nausea tossed the contents of her stomach in willful abandon.

  In one blinding moment, innocence brought to light all the fear and guilt she’d carried for the last five years. No one had ever spoken those words aloud. They screamed and echoed in her head like bells inside a cavern. Was she a bad mommy?

  At the time, everyone told her she’d done the best she could do. Why had it turned out so bad? She blamed herself, she knew. But who was left? Only her. So did it make her bad? All these years, she’d played the if only game. If only she’d done this differently or that differently. Well, that was the funny thing about life. Sometimes people only got one chance. She’d lived; it had to be her fault. Didn’t it?

  Evidently she’d taken too long to think about it and Annie had come to her own conclusion. She climbed up on the seat and got on her knees facing Morgan. She grabbed Morgan’s head and turned it to face her with one hand on either side, and pressed their foreheads together. Eye to eye, noses almost touching, she spoke, “I don’t think you’re a bad mommy. I think you’re a nice mommy.”

  Those simple words were like springtime sunshine warming her frozen heart. The affectionate childish embrace liquefied the remaining ice crystals, smoothing them softly away.

  Funny she should feel relief, hearing those uncomplicated words. Now that her paranoia receded just a bit, she realized where Annie was coming from. Her own mother had run off, leaving her alone.