“There’s a lot more guys who dream of going out there than will ever get the chance. You have to go out there and drive like you mean it. Drive with your heart and your guts. All your dreams are right out there. Keep your focus and—” he shrugged, looked up at the sky as though for inspiration “—do what has to be done.”

  “Okay.”

  “What we do is amazing. Right?” Carl looked like he’d pumped himself up with his pep talk. “This is so cool.”

  “It sure is. I’ve been practicing my back flips, in case I win.”

  Carl treated them to his toothy grin. “Stick to something you can handle. Like a cartwheel.”

  The picture of Hank in his blue-and-yellow uniform turning cartwheels was so ridiculous she had to laugh.

  He appeared to take the suggestion seriously. “Think that’s too flashy? Maybe I should stick to one of them, what do you call them? Somersaults.”

  Carl gave him a mock punch. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Then the drivers were being introduced. She heard Hank’s name called and felt another swell of pride. This was it. While he made his introductory lap, she made her way to the team’s spot on pit road.

  The air was buzzing with excitement. She took a moment to look up at the stands and enjoy the spectacle of more than 165, 000 fans all set for one of the premier events in racing. The stands were a sea of color. Fans sported racing gear, most of which was in bold primary colors. It was a rainbow of caps, jackets, T-shirts. Even their coolers matched.

  Hank arrived, looking pretty colorful himself in his blue-and-yellow uniform. He stood by his car chatting with his crew chief and Denise, who looked gorgeous in a blue tank top and curve-hugging yellow jeans. Her long dark hair shone and she was clearly loving the moment. Fortunately, Cutie Pie was currently snoozing in Hank’s motor home since Denise had been afraid the engine noise would scare him.

  Photographers were everywhere, snapping photos from every conceivable angle. Hank, like most of the drivers, did his best to pretend he didn’t notice.

  As drivers walked by, they’d give him a good-natured shove, or mumble something that she assumed meant good luck in some incomprehensible sports-guy speak.

  Hank talked to his crew chief and Taylor was thrilled to see a broadcaster walk by for a quick interview.

  “How do you think you’re going to do out there today?” he asked. A no-brainer question and one she’d prepared him for.

  “I’m going to do my best. I’ve got a great team behind me, a company I’m proud to race for and sponsors and fans who believe in me.” He broke into his infectious grin. “I have to tell you, and everybody out there who’s rooting for me today, that I feel ready for this.”

  Denise gave him a big hug and then was escorted to sit on top of the pit box to watch the race. Taylor doubted she’d stay there long, but she’d done exactly what Hank had wanted her to do. She’d looked gorgeous, sent him off on his first race in style. And, Taylor thought with relief, after the race, she’d be flying on to Miami for a modeling assignment, meaning she was no longer Taylor’s problem.

  Taylor stood by while he climbed into his car, put in ear plugs, pulled on his helmet and plugged it in. She wished she had time to go for a run as she watched him strapping in, putting the steering wheel on—getting ready to go.

  When she heard the words, “Gentlemen, start your engines,” she thought she might hyperventilate. This was it. Not only Hank’s rookie race, but hers.

  She walked with the crew chief to the pits and took her place behind the war wagon, stationing herself at a monitor.

  For the next four hours, she’d be taking notes on everything going on. She’d have to write a recap after the race for sponsors, fans, media and Hank and the team. At the same time, she was looking for something interesting to give to one of the four pit reporters who would in turn feed any story nuggets to the broadcasters in the sky.

  She remembered Mike’s advice to make good friends with them and could see how that could be important.

  She had notepads and pens, and her own headset so she could hear the conversation between Hank and his crew chief. She had a good supply of cola to see her through. She was ready.

  She imagined the three commentators in the booth and hoped she could find something to feed them. Already the pit reporters were running up and down pit road with a camera crew following them.

  She watched from her monitor as the pace cars pulled away and the race began.

  She scribbled furiously, which in a way helped keep her tension to a manageable level. Hank was holding steady but not trying anything clever, she noticed. She heard the ongoing conversation between him and his crew chief and she got the feeling the older man was a calming influence.

  Hank’s spotter was up high, looking down. She liked to think of him as Hank’s personal guardian angel.

  The first half of the race passed in a blur. Hank moved up so he was in the bottom of the top ten, juggling between six and nine. If he ended the race in the top ten she knew he’d have to feel successful.

  There was a caution called and Hank took the opportunity to pit. All four tires were changed and she finally had something newsworthy for the pit reporter. She ran after him with a note that said, “cut tire.”

  Next thing she knew, the camera crew was upon them. “That caution came out at the right time for rookie driver Hank Mission,” the reporter announced. He held up the tire that she’d marked with chalk to show the developing hole. “Yeah, it was a great time. You can see where there’s a gash of some kind right here in the circled area. Hank got in before it blew up. I guess you call that beginner’s luck.”

  As the race wore on she wrote a lot of little notes with cryptic messages like “four tires, half round of wedge out” or “took a half pound of air out of front tire.”

  Hank sounded strong and confident, even when he was complaining, “It’s pushing like a truck.”

  And all the time she charted his progress. Her notebook was full of things like: lap thirteen, sixth place, three seconds back, lap forty, caution. She’d need these notes to write up her report which she’d send to all the sponsors, put up on the Web site and send to Hank’s fan club. She’d also send a post-race report to all media by e-mail.

  During the pre-race media madness, she’d seen the big-name drivers getting swarmed. Her driver wasn’t, but he certainly wasn’t ignored, either. His was a new face and that alone generated some interest.

  He’d handled himself well, remembered to say all the things she’d taught him and added a big dose of his own charm and youthful energy. If, today, he stayed in the top ten, she had good reason to think he’d get a lot more interest. She listened to the dialogue between Hank and his spotter. They weren’t exactly chatty. There was a lot of silence punctuated with bursts of information on what was ahead and behind of the driver.

  Hank still appeared well placed. Of course, there were almost two hours to go yet. Anything could happen. All she wanted was for him to make it all the way through his first race and not to come in last.

  She knew that someone had to come in last, but she didn’t want it to be Hank, not on his debut.

  Then, one of those events that make racing so utterly unpredictable and exciting happened. The car running third clipped the side wall on Turn Three and took the fourth-place car out with him.

  Hank was suddenly no longer sixth. He was fourth. The possibility of him placing in the top five was very real.

  For a full ten minutes she forgot to take a single note as she watched her monitor, transfixed.

  Anything could happen.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MIKE SAT HUNCHED OVER HIS laptop in the media center at Daytona, probably as stunned as anyone. Rows of workstations allowed the journalists and photojournalists to write and file material. Outside he could hear convivial laughter from those not currently sweating over a deadline, who could hang out over coffee and doughnuts in the main foyer, where most of the socializing took place.

  He imagined most of them were talking about the same thing he was currently typing about—the incredible second-place finish of rookie driver Hank Mission.

  Incredible didn’t begin to describe the accomplishment. To finish the race without humiliating himself would have been an achievement. Mike couldn’t imagine what kind of talent, smarts and coolness under pressure was hidden under that flop of hair and the “aw, shucks, it weren’t nothin’” attitude.

  He’d watched the race from the press box that overlooked the start/finish line. As races go, it wasn’t the most dramatic, or it hadn’t been until Hank Mission had made his mark on Daytona.

  Up front was the raised stage area where the top three drivers were required to appear after a race for a media scrum Q & A.

  Hank Mission was the story today. And what a story. He’d taken the decision not to pit late in the race and luck had swooped down and kissed him full on the lips. Shortly after most of the teams had pitted, a caution was called and Mission saved probably ten or twelve seconds. It put him up in the top three, and after that he’d been the story of the race, swapping the lead a few times but never faltering. In fact, there’d been a while when it looked like he’d do the unthinkable and win his first race.

  Luck, mechanics, driving skill, a pit crew that had worked flawlessly and with blind determination; everything had aligned for the rookie driver, and Mike was curious to see how the normally shy-seeming, soft-spoken driver would handle himself riding the rush of his amazing accomplishment.

  So, it seemed, did everyone else. The chatter outside died down as every reporter and photographer in the place made their way into the media room. The three top-placed drivers walked in a few minutes later, pausing to acknowledge the congratulations. This wasn’t hard news reporting or a presidential scrum. The men and women who covered NASCAR got to know one another and the drivers, and Mike knew most everyone in the media was happy to imagine a new face in Victory Lane, not only for a fresh story, but also because most of them genuinely liked the new guy.

  The three drivers made their way to the front, but Mike’s attention was snagged by the woman who slipped into the room behind her driver. Taylor looked radiant, he thought, as well she might. If he knew her, and he did, she’d be almost as excited as Hank himself.

  Her eyes scanned the room quickly, her gaze hovering over him but never landing, and then she made certain not to glance his way again. Her obvious avoidance shouldn’t have annoyed him, but it did. They’d been married. As close as two people could be. Now she couldn’t even look at him? Okay, so maybe he hadn’t handled things as well as he could have when their marriage hit a rough patch, but had she done any better? Maybe he’d withdrawn from conflict, as the one counselor he’d been crazy enough to see had suggested, but he’d only gone as far as work or a buddy’s place for a poker evening. So, maybe he’d retreated a little, but his lovely wife had run screaming into the night as fast and as far as she could. He’d gone to work more than he should, but she’d high-tailed it to frickin’ Australia.

  He looked at her, knowing he was safe to do so since her eyes were so firmly and determinedly turned away from his direction. The trouble when you’d been intimate with someone was that you never forgot. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t see Taylor as Hank’s PR manager. He saw her as his wife. As the woman who got all his jokes.

  He remembered that about her from the first day she’d walked into the newsroom, young and fresh and still full of the idealism of journalism school. She was too blond, too cute, too preppy. He’d assumed the managing editor had got lost in her green eyes and given the cub reporter position to a gal who didn’t have enough toughness in her to cover a student council meeting. Then he’d cracked some stupid joke and she’d laughed. The sound had amazed him. It was like old, smoky malt whiskey pouring out of a pop bottle—unexpected, attractive, seductive.

  She’d caught all his references, whether to sports or current events or obscure historical facts. Like many reporters, he was a trivia buff. Turned out she was, too. In the Pacific Northwest where the top sports were baseball, football and basketball, it turned out he and Taylor were the only two NASCAR fans at the paper.

  Now he thought of it, NASCAR had brought them together. He didn’t believe in dating a coworker, it was just a bad idea on every level. So he hadn’t thought of it as a date when he and Taylor met at a local sports bar to watch the races on a Sunday afternoon. Naturally, they loved different drivers. She tended toward the younger daredevils while he put his money behind the seasoned guys, the ones who knew every inch of every track, who’d seen years of action and could read a car the way a palm reader interprets an open hand.

  First they bet over who’d buy the beer and burgers. Then one amazing day, after he’d had more of the former than the latter and his courage was high, he’d suggested whoever won had to cook the other dinner. She had a way of looking at him that suggested she’d heard all his lines before, knew his moves as well as he did. The idea that she was on to him kind of turned him on. The fact that she was into him turned him on even more.

  When she stared at him for a long moment, and then agreed, he knew he’d won. It didn’t matter who cooked the dinner, what mattered was that they were moving on to the next stage.

  He should have been nervous. He never got personal with anybody at work. It was a bad policy. Bad, bad, bad. But for some reason everything seemed different with Taylor. She felt like a friend more than a woman he was interested in, but of course, he was fooling himself. He was more interested in her than he ever remembered being in any woman.

  He remembered the current that flowed between them, unspoken but strong, as they watched the race that day. The knowledge that if she cooked dinner for him or he cooked dinner for her, they were moving from buddies to—well, there were a lot of directions this could go, but a man had his hopes.

  Within three months they were married.

  Three months. He scowled down at his keyboard while the race winners got themselves settled up front. Three months. What had they known about each other really? She laughed at his jokes. They both loved NASCAR. He was a better cook than she was. She was the only woman he could go to bed wanting and wake up wanting a little bit more.

  Sometimes she made him angry, but she never irritated him, which was rare in his experience. Was that enough to build a lifetime on?

  Clearly not.

  An image flashed into his mind of her in front of the full-length mirror, turning this way and that, trying to convince herself that her pregnancy was showing. She was maybe seven weeks at that point and her belly looked as flat to him as ever, but he lied and said he definitely saw a bump there.

  She was still lithe and lean, he thought as he watched Taylor position herself to the side but well within Hank’s line of vision. The driver needed that point of contact with someone he knew and trusted. Yet it annoyed him to see Hank looking to Mike’s ex-wife for reassurance before his first big media scrum.

  He glanced between the two of them. Taylor was beaming, as excited about the win as her driver. It was obvious those two had a rapport going. Which was good, of course.

  Hank was considered a pretty funny guy. Mike wondered if Taylor got all his jokes.

  If Mike were a driver, he’d try to win a race for her, but he wasn’t a driver. He was a newspaper columnist, and no matter how inspired and thrilling his commentary on NASCAR, he doubted it would be the stuff to win a stubborn woman’s heart. For the second time.

  He wasn’t a poet or a songwriter; he couldn’t even write short stories or a novel. He had a couple hundred of pages of drek to prove it.

  Maybe, whatever it was that would unlock her heart was something he didn’t have at all, he thought grimly as things got started and he reluctantly turned his attention to Hank Mission, now fielding questions.

  “How does it feel to place second in your first official season?”

  The driver’s grin was sure and slow. “It feels nice. Real nice.”

  And they were off. All three took questions, but Hank was the obvious story.

  “How were the other drivers out there?”

  “Some guys gave me some slack.” He grinned. “Maybe they won’t do that again. We had a car that was fast, and my team really pulled together.”

  He talked about track conditions, strategic decisions that had made a difference, and he transferred a lot of credit to his crew chief and his pit crew. Nice going, Hank, Mike thought. Then he glanced at his ex-wife, who was watching Hank with clear, careful eyes. Or nice going, Taylor, he thought.

  Hank was talking from his heart, but he was talking well and mentioning everybody he needed to. Taylor had been in the media long enough to know all about sound bites and image. She’d obviously coached Hank to get him ready for this day. It had come sooner than anybody had imagined, but good for her for thinking ahead. Good for Hank for listening to her. He was media-ready.

  Mike focused on Hank’s words, on doing his job, writing his column, but Taylor remained in his mind, there but not there, like a familiar and comforting scent. She was wearing jeans and a Winfield Racing golf shirt, but he got hints of her athletic body when she moved around.

  When the top three were done with the Q & A, they left. As Hank headed down the aisle beside the workstations toward the exit, he put a hand over Taylor’s shoulder and gave her neck a squeeze. Mike felt as though he’d taken a bullet somewhere soft and painful. He couldn’t look away, and so he didn’t miss the way Taylor leaned into her boy and gave him one of her wide, mischievous smiles.

  Taylor and Hank? The idea revolted him. She was working for the guy, she had five years on him; Mike hadn’t seen it coming. But the worst part, of course, was that if she was seeing Hank, then she wasn’t thinking about her ex-hubby. So why was it that her ex-hubby couldn’t stop thinking about her?

  NASCAR drivers have incredible reflexes and Mike had noticed that a lot of times their senses seemed heightened, too, so it almost wasn’t a surprise when Hank paused at the door, turned his head and returned Mike’s stare. Neither of them acknowledged each other in any way, just locked gazes for a second, and then the driver turned, still with his hand on Taylor’s shoulder, and left.