Page 18 of Speeding Hearts

“Really?” Dean rubbed at the stubble on his chin.

He looked as sexy as ever but tired, too, like he was trying to do too much.

That’s because hewasdoing too much. “Dean, are you sure about doing this with me?” I asked for the hundredth time.

“Listen,” he said. “I know you have your heart set on this racing thing, and I feel partly responsible for it, for telling you about my family’s track. For you being here in the first place.”

Embarrassment flashed through me at the reminder that I’d followed him to his hometown.

I stuck my chin out. “Dean, I told you that you can just forget I’m here.”

Never mind that I was relying on him to help me get behind the wheel of a race car for the first time.

He looked right at me, his eyes boring into mine, and whatever I’d been feeling was lost in a swell of nerves. God, the man was handsome as hell. How had I managed to hang out with him like buddies before? To block that from my mind?

I hadn’t.

“Stella, it’s not that. I’m glad you’re here. I just want to be here to make sure you’re starting slow.”

A little surge of something flickered in me. Hurt. More embarrassment. Defiance. “I don’t need babysitting, Dean.”

“Not babysitting. I know you can handle yourself. Just… These cars are dangerous.”

“I want to do this,” I said, my voice as hard as I could make it.

The thing was, I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince.

Over the past week, my first at the Speedway, I’d gotten up close and personal with the street stock cars driven on this track. I’d hammered out the dents and replaced more shocks than I’d done in a year back home. I’d seen drivers training too, ahead of the qualifier coming up in a few weeks that would determine who was eligible for the biggest race of the season—the Oak Bender. There weren’t as many races at the Oak Bend Speedway as there used to be, I’d learned, but that was the big one.

Where I had assumed all that time with the cars and in the pit and by the track would get me jazzed up for driving, I’d found myself growing nervous. When I thought about being in the driver’s seat, taking those corners at speed the way I’d seen some of the drivers doing, my stomach had felt queasy.

Just yesterday, when I’d gone up to the office to ask Colin if he’d changed his mind about letting me race after-hours, I’d almost lost my nerve. I’d stood at the doorway while my boss had angrily stabbed something into his keyboard, and I’d nearly left when he didn’t acknowledge me. But as I moved, he popped his head up.

“Goddamaned computers,” he said, giving his monitor a little slap across the side as if that might actually help.

He reminded me of my own dad. I relaxed just a little. “What’s the problem?”

“This goddamned flyer, website—we need to advertise the Bender if we want anybody to come to it—”

I’d spent the next half hour helping Colin sort out the program he was in—trying to upload information about the upcoming qualifier onto some flyers and on the website. The latter was supposed to be a plug-n-play kind of thing, but it completely mystified the older man.

After I’d shown him how to do it all, I asked, “Do you have a Wi-Fi network here?”

“What the hell for?”

“So people can post about it while they’re here. Upload photos to social media. Help with more promotion of the Speedway for free.”

He’d looked at me for a moment as if I’d told him we should invite the president to the race, but then he’d harrumphed and asked how we were supposed to do that.

I’d ended up promising to help him back in the office on Monday with getting all the info in, including some he didn’t appear to have thought of. It had gone well, but I’d completely forgotten to ask Colin about me participating in the Bender. Seeing as I would have more time with him in the office next week, I figured I’d ask then.

It wasn’t that I was chickening out. If I were doing that, I wouldn’t be here. Would I?

“Well?” I asked, as if in defiance to my own runaway brain. “Shall we?”

* * *

As it turned out,Dean was an exceptional teacher. But of course, he was. He’d always been kind and patient. I’d seen him in the shop back home, chatting to one of my customers while he waited for me, explaining what I was doing under the hood of their car.

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