Fuel To The Fire (New Adult Contemporary Romance) (2 page)

“Hey
princess, wake up!” Rachael hollers behind me.

I have
check out his upper body to assess his injuries...and what an upper body this
man has. For someone who spends so much time in a car, he’s got a surprising
physique. I let my hands roam over his broad shoulders, down the length of his
muscular arms. He’s got powerful hands and long well-manicured fingers. For a
brief second, I wonder what it would feel like to be touched by his hands. My
fingers feel for possible breaks. I put both hands on his exposed collar bones.
His skin is warm and slightly damp. I let my hands slide down across his smooth
chest. They rise and fall with each breath he takes.

My heart
hammers painfully against my ribs. I can feel the heat rising in my face. I
feel like I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Somewhere along the line,
my exam stopped being purely medical. I can feel every corded muscle and count
every rib beneath my fingertips as they play across his smooth skin. Every time
my fingers make contact with his skin, little bolts of pleasure shoot right up
my arms.

“Carrie,
are you finished already?”

“Yea
Rachael,” I gasp, “I’m finished.”

“Great.
The rescue guys are going to put a cover over you and Marco then they’re going
to pull apart the cars so they can get him out.”

“Got
it,” I reply.

This is
not my favorite part of the rescue. I don’t like being trapped in a car while
there’s screeching metal and breaking glass. Marco’s car has fused with another
and their going to have to pull the two vehicles apart in order to get Marco
out. His legs are pinned and probably broken. But his pulse is strong and
regular, so he’s probably not bleeding out somewhere down there.

Everything
gets dark as a heavy tarp is draped over both of us. I take a deep breath and
will myself to relax. It’ll all be over in a minute. I take another deep
breath, but it catches in my throat as the sound of grinding, protesting metal
assaults my ears. I can feel the car rocking as fire personnel work their
magic. Then with one final jerk, everything goes quiet. Our protective covering
is removed and I can finally breathe again. I crawl out to watch the final
efforts to rescue Marco Panata. Soon he’ll be in the hospital. He’ll be safe,
well cared for, but for him the nightmare is just beginning. As soon as they
decide he is stable enough someone will get the unpleasant task of telling him
his father died in the wreck. And for once it won’t be me doing the telling. 

“Nobody remembers who finished second but the guy who
finished second…”  Bobby Unser

Carrie

Two
years earlier

Danny’s
stirring brings me out of a light sleep. I glance over at the clock—it’s nearly
eight on Saturday morning. My head is pounding and my stomach is in full
rebellion. I’m no party girl, but last night was different. We were celebrating
Danny securing pole position in today’s Poconos 400. Race officials look down
on racers who imbibe so close to a race, but there was no stopping Danny last
night. If I feel bad for having what little I had, he’s going to feel like he
spent the last 12 hours tumbling around in a dryer. I’m just about to roll over
and go back to sleep when my phone rings. I grab it quickly before the noise
can wake Danny up.

“Hello?”

“Hi
Carrie, this is Doctor Carmichael.” Doctor Carmichael is Danny’s neurologist,
the one who cleared Danny to race again after his last accident. It’s strange
that he would be calling me on a Saturday morning. “Just checking up on our
boy. How’s he taking it? It has to be hard, knowing that he’s going to be
watching tomorrow’s race from the pit. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

What is
Dr. Carmichael talking about? Danny has the pole position in tomorrow’s race.
He’s not going to be on the sidelines.

“It’s
not every day that a racer of his caliber gets a career-ending diagnosis. I
just want to make sure he is adjusting as well as can be expected.”

My blood
runs ice cold and my body begins to shake uncontrollably. I just about drop the
phone before I recover my voice and answer him.

“He’s
handling it, doctor.”

“That’s
good to hear, Carrie. You know he has always been a favorite of mine, so it’s
hard for me to see him sidelined as well.”

“Hey
uh...Doctor, do you think you could fax me over his diagnosis? I can’t find his
paperwork anywhere. I had it here and was going to do some more reading and I
guess I misplaced it.”

“Of
course.”

“Just
out of curiosity, Doctor, what would happen if you hadn’t have caught the
problem and he raced anyway?”

“Well
that’s hard to say, Carrie. You never know with seizure disorders. He could
have a seizure and end up embedded in a concrete wall at 200 mph. Or he could
be just fine and win the race. But given that a seizure is what likely caused
his last crash, the risk is way too high for him and the other drivers to let
him race. I just want to make sure he understands that.”

“Yes, he
does doctor, and thank you for your help.”

“Anytime,
Carrie. Feel free to call if you have any questions or concerns. Let Danny know
he can call as well. Bye now.”

Doctor
Carmichael’s last words barely register. If Danny was benched, as his doctor
claims, then how is Danny racing today? And if Doctor Carmichael didn’t clear
him to race again, who did?

With a
sinking feeling in my gut I dress quickly and quietly. I need to get that fax
and read it before Danny wakes up. Before leaving the room I take a quick look
in the mirror. I’m gonna have to put my game face on if I’m going to keep that
call and the fax secret from my fiancé. My face looks well-rested but the
wrinkles between my eyebrows attest to the fact that I am deeply worried. I
close my eyes, take a deep breath, and will myself to relax. I open them again.
No change.

Danny’s
half-joking nickname for me is Taylor Swift. He claims that there’s a
resemblance, but I just don’t see it. I think he just wishes I was her. Sure,
we both have blond hair and small button noses, but that’s all the resemblance
I see. Well, that and we both favor the same bright red lipstick when stepping
out. My height kills it for me. I don’t know how tall the singer is, but at
just over five feet three inches, most people tower over me. I’m on the thin
side, but I have been blessed in the curve department. I look into my bright
blue eyes and ask myself if I can pull this off? I don’t want Danny to know I’m
going behind his back checking up on him, but I have to find out more and I
have to do it discretely.

Danny
got a second opinion and that doctor cleared him, I remember that. I remember
how happy he was. He’s not trying to cheat the system by racing when he’s been
benched. I give myself one more look then sneak out the door. With a little
luck, Danny will still be sleeping off a hangover when I get back. I take my
purse so I can put the fax inside and I can tell him I went for a walk to clear
my head.

When I
get to the lobby a fax is waiting for me. There are two pages outlining the
initial exam after the crash and the results of the CAT scan that revealed he’d
suffered a seizure just before the crash. There’s a lot of information about
seizures and he doctor’s recommendation that Danny undergo further treatment to
determine the cause of the problem and the likelihood that it will happen
again. There’s a separate page prepared for the racing commission declaring him
unfit to race until further tests clear him or declare him permanently unfit to
race. Obviously the Poconos race officials never saw this report. The question
is, what did they see and from whom?

Present
Day…

I wake
with a start. I’m covered in sweat, and I have a pounding headache. I wonder if
I will ever be free of nightmares about Danny. It’s rare I go more than two
weeks in a row without dreaming of him and the accident. It was bad enough to
live through it once, but now I gotta live it again over and over in my sleep.
I think I’ll call Rachael to meet me for dinner. I retrieve my phone from my
purse when it starts ringing the moment it’s in my hand. Sure enough, it’s
Rachael.

“Hey
Rachael, what’s up?”

“You’ll
never guess who just called me!”

“Ben
Affleck?”

“Ha.”

“Robert
Downey Jr.? No wait, Johnny Depp?”

“Are you
finished?”

“Sure.”

“Marco!
Marco Panata wants to talk to the people who helped save his life yesterday.”
Rachael is literally bubbling with excitement.

“So when
are we meeting him?”

“In an
hour. I thought I’d pick you up and we can go together. Afterwards we can grab
lunch. How’s that sound?”

“Fine.
Let me just take a shower.”

I’m not
sure how I feel about a special meeting with a driver but I guess we’ll find
out. An hour later and Rachael and I are pulling into the hospital’s parking
structure. Rachael leads us to his room where we knock on the door. After a few
seconds a voice instructs us to come in.

Marco is
reclining in bed, face buried in a newspaper when we walk up. He lets the paper
slide through his fingers and onto his lap. As the paper falls away and I see
Marco, really see him, and it takes my breath away.

“Are you
alright?” Rachael asks, breaking the spell.

“Yeah...”
I say with some effort, “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

I look
over at my best friend to see if Marco has the same effect on her. She’s
smiling, but definitely not under his spell. She takes a chair by the bed and
sits down. I decide to follow suit.

He
starts the conversation. “Carrie, Rachael, I want to thank the two of you for
saving my life. I understand that at one point I had stopped breathing...so
thank you.”

“It’s
all Carrie,” my roommate pipes up, “We’d just like to offer our deepest
condolences for your loss, Mr. Panata.”

“It’s a
dangerous sport...” he replies, letting his voice trail off.

He sits
up and the hospital sheet slides down, exposing a well-sculpted, muscular
chest. I remember my hands gliding over his muscles yesterday. It’s like I
crossed the line or something. My exam went from strictly medical to...to
something not so medical, and I can’t really say I’m sorry for it.

“Earth
to Carrie...Earth to Carrie,” my best friend says in a sing song voice. “Boy
you’re really out of it today.”

“Oh...uh
yeah, I’m kinda tired, sorry.”

“So how
long have you two been on my father’s team?” Marco asks.

Rachael’s
the first to speak up. “I’ve been there for about four years and Carrie just a
few months I guess.”

“What?
Oh, yeah...that’s about right.”

“But she
was on Ricky Brighthal’s team before.”

“Damn...he
was a good racer. Best rookie out of the gates I’ve ever seen. Well, him and
Franchetti. Damn shame what happened to both of them.”

“Yeah...it
was a shame.” I respond automatically.

“Actually
if I had to pick between the two...Franchetti was the better driver. Did you
know him Carrie?”

“He was
her fiancé actually,” Rachael says for me.

A sudden
light turns on in Marco’s face. “Oh my god, I almost didn’t make the
connection.”

Part of
me wants to just get out of here, but a bigger part of me wants to stay and
keep him talking. I just need to hear him. The more he talks the more I crave
the sound of his voice.

Rachael
asks him another question and pretty soon the two of them are talking like old
friends. That’s fine by me. I get to hear him talk and study him at the same
time. My eyes are drawn to his bare chest like a moth to a flame. I let my gaze
linger on his broad shoulders before sliding down to his pecs, then farther
down to an amazing six pack. How the hell does a driver have enough time to
keep in that kind of shape? It’s not every day I get to just stare at a
beautiful man uninterrupted and I’m going to take full advantage—

“Something
wrong?” Marco suddenly asks me.

Crap, he
caught me checking him out. “Huh...no uh...I was just wondering about
you...your ribs. I thought you might have broken them the other night.” Well
there’s a lame excuse.

“Oh...well,
you don’t have to worry, I didn’t break anything actually.”

When I
finally dare to look at his face again I find he is staring intently at me. He
runs a hand through his hair absentmindedly and I can’t help but follow with my
gaze. He’s got short, jet black, unruly hair that’s all over the place. I find
myself wishing that was my hand combing through his locks. My eyes fall to his
face and this time I allow myself to study with abandon.

His eyes
are the prominent feature on his handsome face. They are amazingly radiant,
twin pools of blue-green light that are framed by dark eyebrows. I let my eyes
sweep down to his jawline. His week’s growth of whiskers only serves to make
him even more attractive. The longer I allow myself the luxury of studying the
man, the more my body seems drawn to his.

I can’t
afford to find out the answer. He’s a driver in a deadly sport. He’s just lost
his father so there’s no convincing me auto racing is anything but dangerous. I
fell under the spell of another driver once upon a time and he turned out to be
this monster and a control freak. All drivers are control freaks who think they
can dictate every aspect of the race from the right type of engine oil to the
ever-changing conditions of the track they drive on. The truth is, very little
is within their control. I will not let myself be with another race car driver
no matter how handsome he is or how good a driver he is. I’m guessing that
under that rock star exterior lurks a wolf just waiting to gobble up
star-crossed fans. They’re all like that. His father is...
was
a total lady’s man who left his
wife for a younger model and I’m sure
that
runs in the family.