Impulsive Gamble

by Lynn Turner

  ‘This job that’s supposed to be waiting for you,’ Mal finally said in a deceptively soft murmur, ‘it wouldn’t happen to be with a newspaper, would it?’

  Abbie somehow managed to limit her reaction to a startled blink. ‘A newspaper?’ Miraculously, her voice conveyed only mild surprise. ‘Why … no.’ Think of something, for pity’s sake! ‘It’s in a doctor’s office. I’m a medical secretary.’

  She forced herself not to fidget while she endured another long, assessing stare from those narrowed eyes. Did he believe her? Eventually he released a heavy sigh and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.

  ‘I don’t think …’ he began quietly.

  Abbie heard the flat rejection in his voice. Evidently so did his friend. Deke interrupted before Mal could finish.

  ‘Why don’t we take her out to the farm and let her drive the car around the track a few times?’ he suggested. ‘Find out if she’s as good as she claims to be.’

  ‘And what if she’s not?’ Mel countered.

  Deke hitched his shoulders in a negligent shrug. ‘There’s nothin’ out there for her to run into. The worst she could do would be to get stuck in the mud. And is she did, we could use the tractor to pull her out.’

  Mal still looked reluctant. ‘Dammit, Deke, she’s a woman!’

  Abbie gritted her teeth to keep from blurting out something she was sure she would immediately regret, and reminded herself how badly she wanted an interview with this man.

  ‘Noticed that, did you?’ Deke drawled in amusement. Before Mal could respond, he added earnestly, ‘Come on, give her a chance. What have you got to lose? You need a driver and she needs a ride east. Sounds a perfect arrangement to me.’

  Mal’s dour expression made it clear that he didn’t agree, but apparently he wasn’t able to come up with a good reason to veto Deke’s suggestion.

  ‘Oh, hell,’ he muttered after a moment. ‘All right, you win.’

  The rush of exhilaration Abbie felt almost made her forget her resentment at being talked about as if she weren’t there. She was going to be able to write her Malachi Garrett story, after all!

  Deke was grinning as he rose from his chair and held out a long, bony hand. Abbie clasped it firmly, resisting the urge to throw her arms around him in gratitude.

  ‘The name’s Deke Craddock,’ he said as he worked her arm like a pump handle. ‘And this mean-tempered so-and-so is known as Mal Garrett, among other things. Don’t pay him any mind—his bark’s worse than his bite.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Mal denied as he pushed his chair away from the table and slowly unfolded his rangy frame from it.

  For some reason, Abbie had expected him to be bigger. He was roughly the same height as Deke and probably weighed fifteen or twenty pounds less—there was no sign of a beer belly under Malachi Garrett’s sweatshirt. His body was lean and hard, all muscles and sinew.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked tersely. Abbie noticed with a feeling of relief that he didn’t offer his hand. If his handshake was as vigorous as Deke’s, he’d probably dislocate her shoulder. She responded to the brusque impatience in his voice by automatically providing her full name.

  ‘Abigail Prudence Kincaid’

  Unexpectedly Mal’s lips twitched in amused surprise. ‘Abigail Prudence?’

  Abbie was uncomfortably aware that she was blushing. ‘That’s right,’ she muttered self-consciously. ‘But everybody calls me Abbie.’

  There was a mocking gleam in his eyes as he gestured towered the door to the lobby. ‘Well, Abigail Prudence …’ He deliberately used both names, his deep, lazy drawl daring her to object. ‘Let’s go find out if you’re as good a driver as you say you are.’

  Abbie didn’t responded to the challenge. At least, not out loud. By the time she’d collected her bag from the other table, both he and Deke Craddock were halfway to the door. She hurried after them.

  Arrogant swine, she thought as she glared at Malachi Garrett’s broad back. So he wanted a demonstration of her driving skill, did he? Her mouth curved in a slightly malicious smile. Well, she could do her best not to disappoint him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Abbie’s muscles ached from the strain of trying to hold herself erect on the hard bench seat of Deke’s pick-up truck. For the past half-hour she’d been sandwiched between Deke on the left and Malachi Garrett on the right—neither of whom had offered to initiate a conversation after they left the hotel—while the vehicle barrelled down one rutted gravel road after another. When the truck hit another pothole and she was thrown against Garrett’s shoulder for perhaps the twentieth time, she gritted her teeth and asked a bit desperately, ‘How much farther is it?’

  Deke took his attention from the road long enough to give her a sympathetic smile. ‘Sorry it’s been such a rough ride, but Mal insists on doing all his R and D work out at the farm.’

  ‘“R and D Work”?’ Abbie repeated, deliberately sounding confused.

  ‘Research and development,’ Mal provided.

  His bored, slightly patronising tone set her teeth on edge. She affected a puzzled frown as she faced him. ‘Research? What kind of research? I figured you were just a mechanic who’d built a car out of spare parts or something.’

  The remark made him stiffen in offence. Deke, on the other hand, hooted with laughter.

  ‘A mechanic! Wait till the boys in town hear that!’

  Mal ignored his friend’s outburst. ‘For your information, Abigail Prudence Kincaid,’ he replied irritably, ‘I possess engineering degrees from three of the top universities in the country, including a doctorate from MIT.’

  Abbie feigned sceptical amusement. ‘No kidding?’ Her tone implied that she suspected he was pulling her leg.

  ‘No kidding,’ he confirmed tersely.

  ‘You’re putting me on … aren’t you?’ He gave her a withering look, but didn’t deign to reply. ‘Well, if you’re telling the truth, how come you go around looking like that?’ she challenged. ‘You look like a bum.’

  ‘She’s got you there, Mal,’ Deke said soberly. Once again he was ignored.

  Abbie watched Mal Garrett closely, alert to every nuance of expression on his rugged face. She sensed that his pride was ruffled, but that he was stubbornly resisting the urge to defend or explain his grubby appearance. There was arrogant disdain in the strong line of his jaw, and also a hint of resentment; yet she thought she saw a glimmer of surprise beneath his lowered lashes. She concluded that he probably wasn’t used to such a blunt honesty, at least not from a woman. She had begun to think he wasn’t going to respond to her unflattering remarks, when his mouth suddenly quirked in a wry half-smile and he drawled a laconic, ‘Thanks.’

  Well, at least he possessed a sense of humour. Encouraged, Abbie decided to press for more information. ‘Have you been working on this car you built?’

  Before Mal could answer, the truck hit another hole and Abbie pitched to the right, straight toward his lap. Without thinking, she threw both arms out to brace herself. The next thing she knew, he had her clamped firmly against his side. Her startled eyes flew to his face. His cool ones were waiting to capture and hold her gaze.

  The breath she’d just inhaled inexplicably became trapped in her lungs. How was it that she hadn’t noticed that deep cleft in his chin before now, or that he possessed eyelashes any woman would envy?

  ‘OK?’ he asked with a slight frown.

  Or how deep and incredibly sexy his voice was, she added silently as she finally exhaled.

  ‘Yes. Fine.’ She was aware that she sounded a little short of breath, and it irritated her. What was wrong with her, for heaven’s sake? So, he was an attractive man. She’d known attractive men before; dozens of them, in fact.

  She started to pull herself upright and belatedly realised that one of her hands was resting on the front of his sweatshirt and the other hand landed on his thigh. And pretty far up on his thigh, at that. She hastily withdrew them both, but when she tried to edge away fro
m him, Mal didn’t seem inclined to let her.

  ‘You might as well stay where you are,’ he told her. ‘The last stretch of road is the worst.’

  Abbie soon discovered that he hadn’t been exaggerating. By the time Deke steered the truck off the road and on to a narrow gravel drive, her teeth felt loose. Thankfully, the drive had been kept in much better condition than the roads. As soon as they were headed down it, Mal slipped his arm from around her. Abbie wasted no time scooting back to the centre of the seat.

  Evidently they had arrived at ‘the farm’. Straight ahead was a white two-story house with dark green shutters. To the left of the house stood a big red barn. The doors of the barn were standing open and a wrought-iron weather-vane turned lazily on the roof. Both the house and barn looked freshly painted and were obviously well maintained. To the right was a third building, larger and newer than the barn. Probably some kind of equipment shed, Abbie thought as Deke parked his truck next to the building.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ he announced with a grin. ‘Ready to take the test drive, or do you need to rest a bit first?’

  ‘That depends,’ Abbie said drily. ‘Will I have to drive on the same roads you took to get us out here?’

  It was Mal who answered, as he opened his door and stepped down from the cab. ‘No. There’s a test track out back.’

  Abbie grimaced as she slid across the seat. ‘Paved, I hope.’

  His fleeting smile surprised her, but not as much as the casual way he reached up to grasp her waist and lift her out of the truck. He didn’t step back, so that when he released her there were only a few inches of space between them.

  ‘If I said no, would you back out?’

  The soft challenge made Abbie draw herself up to her full five feet six inches. She looked straight into his eyes as she answered. ‘No, I wouldn’t. I told you, I have to get to Washington by next Monday.’

  ‘Right,’ he drawled. ‘You have a job waiting.’

  Something in his voice—scepticism? outright disbelief?—made Abbie tense with wariness. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘In a doctor’s office,’ he murmured. Now his voice carried no inflection at all, which worried her even more.

  ‘Yes.’ Seeking to distract him, she turned toward the building. ‘Is the car you built inside?’

  She tried to convince herself she only imagined that he hesitated briefly before answering. ‘Yes. But I didn’t build the entire car, just the parts that make it go.’

  He led the way through a metal door set into the side of the building. Abbie followed, with Deke right behind her. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it definitely hadn’t been the ultra-modern, almost sterile-looking environment they entered. Her first impression was that it reminded her of a hospital operating room. It was that clean and bright. She half expected someone in surgical greens to step forward and present them with masks and rubber gloves. She didn’t see anyone dressed like a doctor on the way to surgery, but there were several people engrossed in work of some sort. They all wore immaculate white overalls and matching canvas shoes.

  The door banged shut behind them. Mal stopped and turned to Abbie, one heavy brow forming an expectant arch.

  ‘Is this where you work?’ She didn’t try to hide her surprise.

  ‘This is it.’ He indicated the people intent on their various task. ‘These guys are all master mechanics. They work for me,’ he added, just in case she’d failed to draw the obvious conclusion.

  ‘Fascinating,’ she murmured with a marked lack of sincerity. ‘I’m curious—how am I supposed to drive this car of yours, when the engine seems to be in a million pieces?’

  ‘Not to worry,’ he assured her. ‘I always stock at least three of every component. The ones that are being tested are spares. The car’s ready … if you are.’

  His slight pause was as much a challenge as the words that followed it. Abbie squared her slender shoulders and nodded briskly. ‘I’m ready, Mr Garrett. Lead me to it.’

  A few of the mechanics spared time from their work to glance at her curiously as she followed Mal and Deke through the garage. The car was parked at the rear, behind a wall of sophisticated electronic equipment. When Abbie got her first glimpse of it, she came to a surprised halt. A second later she was hurrying forward with an excited exclamation.

  ‘A Shelby Cobra! A sixty-eight model, isn’t it?’ Not waiting for an answer, she started circling the car for a closer look, trailing her fingertips over the gleaming black body as if she had to touch it to assure herself that it was real.

  ‘Yes.’ Clearly Mal was surprised that she’d known what it was, much less been able to name the model year. ‘Have you ever driven a Cobra?’ he asked as he faced her over the roof.

  Abbie shook her head with a rueful smile. ‘No such luck. My older brother had one when I was a kid, but he’d traded it for a newer model by the time Dad let me start driving.’

  Mel stepped closer to the car, lifting his arms to rest them on the roof. Evidently this snippet of her family history had captured his interest. ‘Oh, yeah? What did he trade it for?’

  ‘Another Mustang,’ Abbie answered as she bent to peek through the driver’s window. ‘A seventy-two. I told him he was crazy. The Shelby was twice as good-looking.’ She was grinning when she straightened. ‘Twice as fast, too. It could blow the doors off everything else on the base, including the CO’s Corvette.’

  A spark of indulgent amusement flickered in Mal’s eyes. ‘You like fast cars, do you?’

  Abbie sensed that he’d temporarily let himself forget that she was female, and therefore the enemy. She instinctively sought to take advantage of their tentative rapport. In order to do an in-depth story about him, she needed to find a way around his antagonism and mistrust and get to know the Mal Garrett his closest friends knew—the man of whom Deke had said. ‘His bark’s worse than his bite.’

  ‘You bet I do,’ she replied honestly. ‘Don’t you?

  He shrugged. ‘For me, speed isn’t as important as overall engine performance. But yes, I like fast cars.’

  ‘Otherwise he wouldn’t have kept that old Cobra all these years,’ Deke added. ‘It was your first car, wasn’t it, Mal?’

  A soft, reminiscent smile made his already attractive mouth look positively sensual as he nodded Abbie watched his long fingers caress the highly waxed surface of the car’s roof, and shocked herself by wondering how they would feel moving over her body that way. What on earth was wrong with her? What had happened to her professional detachment, her objectivity?

  ‘How old were you?’ Abbie asked.

  He glanced at her in surprise. She had the feeling that he’d momentarily forgotten she was there. ‘Seventeen.’ His tone was suddenly brusque, almost curt. ‘We’re wasting time.’ He walked around the car to select a crash helmet from several resting on a shelf behind Abbie. ‘This looks like the right size,’ he said, handing it to her.

  Her lips twitched in amusement as she examined the gleaming white helmet. ‘Do you really think it’s necessary for me to wear this?’

  Mal’s expression hardened noticeably. ‘Let me put it this way: no helmet, no test drive. No test drive, no deal.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if she’d be required to wear the helmet all the way to Washington, but she curbed the impulse and instead settled it firmly on her head.

  ‘Exactly what do you want me to do, once I get the car on to the track?’

  Mal’s faint smile was infuriatingly supercilious. ‘Just try to complete two full laps without ending up axle-deep in the mud.’

  It was obvious that he didn’t expect her to complete even one full lap without losing control of the car.

  ‘Fine.’ She turned away slightly, pretending to adjust the helmet’s chin-strap while she brought her temper under control. She glared at the shelf from which Mal had taken her helmet while she struggled to subdue her indignant outrage. Her eyes suddenly widened. An instant later they narrowed shrewdly. When s
he turned back to the car, she was holding a bright red helmet a couple of sizes larger than the white one she had been bullied into wearing. Mal’s shaggy brows jerked down over his nose when she thrust it into his hands.

  ‘You can’t judge my driving by watching me from the garage door.’ She spoke calmly, reasonably, careful to keep any hint of challenge out of her voice. ‘The only way to make a fair judgement is to ride with me.’

  Mal’s frown became a scowl as he racked his brain for a reason to refuse to get into the car with her. Abbie quickly opened the door on the driver’s side and slide behind the wheel before he could come up with one.

  ‘Well?’ She let just a trace of impatience creep into her voice as she turned to Mal in question. ‘Are you coming, or not? A minute ago you complained that we were wasting time.’

  She pretended not to see the dark look he shot her as he reluctantly donned the red helmet and ducked into the car. She twisted the key in the ignition before he could change his mind and climb back out. The engine instantly roared to life, and she just heard his muttered objection.

  ‘Sorry.’ Abbie flashed a smile that she hoped looked apologetic. ‘I barely tapped the accelerator, honest. It must need some adjustment.’

  Mal glared at her as if she’d deliberately insulted him. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the accelerator,’ he informed her coldly. ‘This happens to be a finely tuned piece of machinery, Miss Kincaid, not that I expect you to appreciate the fact.’

  ‘You’re the mechanic,’ she said with studied indifference. The jibe produced exactly the result she’d expected: his features tautened, his nostrils pinching as he inhaled sharply. ‘Oh, excuse me … the engineer,’ she corrected in a tone that made it clear she was only humouring him. ‘The point is, I only have to be able to drive the car, and I assure you, Mr Garrett, I can drive it.’

  His lips thinned in a glacial smile. ‘I’ll be the judge of that. It’s time to back up your talk with some action, Abigail Prudence Kincaid.’ He inclined his head toward the open door at the rear of the building as he buckled himself into his seat. ‘The track is straight ahead. Let’s see if you can really drive, or if you’re just full of hot air.’