Sweet Carolina (7 page)

“Hi,” he said, pausing in the door to her
office. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the
jamb. “How's it going?”

“I'm busy, Dell,” she said without looking up
from her work. “It's your day off – go away.”

“I thought you could use some help.” If he
stayed home, he'd be thinking or drinking, and he didn't want to do
either one. He'd rather sit on his ass and watch Caro work than
spend another day alone.

“The only help I need is to be left
alone.”

Dell ignored her, taking a seat in one of the
chairs in front of her desk. He picked up a stack of forms and
thumbed through them. “I can do these,” he said, holding up the
standard parts orders awaiting approval.

Caro dropped her pen and sat back with a
sigh. “Look, Dell. I hired you to drive. This,” she swept her arm
over her paper-covered desk, “is my job.”

“I'm not saying it isn't, Caro, but I haven't
got anything else to do today. Let me help you. I think I can
manage to order parts without screwing up.”

“Give me those,” she put her hand out and
wiggled her fingers. Dell laid the papers in her hand. She stacked
them on the corner of her desk, out of his reach and shuffled
through another stack. In a minute, she handed him a folder. “Here.
These are the travel arrangements for Phoenix. Go in the other room
and call the hotel, the airport shuttle service on this end, car
rentals in Phoenix, and the helicopter charter for race day. It's
all in the folder. If I've reserved it, verify it.”

“Really? This is what you want me to do?”

“Really, Dell. It needs to be done. The car
and your motor home leave tomorrow. The drivers need a place to
stay when they arrive. The crew flies out Wednesday. They aren't
going to be happy if there aren't hotel rooms for them, and I won't
be happy if I have to sleep in your motor home at the track. And if
I sleep in your motor home, you won't be. Does that clear things up
for you?”

He'd noticed the dark circles under her eyes
as soon as he walked in, but there was a strain in her voice too,
as if she were holding on by a thread. Dell stood, folder in hand.
“I'll be in the other room.” It was a job for an intern, but Caro
didn't even have one of those, so Dell sat at the desk intended for
a secretary and opened the folder. A few phone calls wouldn't kill
him.

More than once over the next hour, he
wondered why he'd come. He'd sneak a peek at Caro, her head bent to
her work and her shoulders slumped in fatigue and something would
twist in his gut, then he'd go back to his phone calls.

She was working too hard. A race team was too
much for any one person to run on their own. Even a team this size
needed support personnel, people who did this kind of stuff – phone
calls, reservations, ordering, scheduling appearances. Caro was
trying to do it all on her own, and it was too much. On top of
that, she was overseeing the garage as well. Hell, she was doing
the work of at least half a dozen people, and Dell was going to
find out why…as soon as he found her.

She'd disappeared while he was on the phone
with the hotel where the pit crew would be staying in Arizona. He
checked the other offices, ones he remembered being staffed back in
the day. He found her in the garage, dressed in a pair of clean
coveralls, arguing about an adjustment on the new fuel injection
system now in use. Dell stood back and listened as she patiently,
but firmly told the engineer what she wanted done, and why.

“He didn't have enough power to win last
week, Charlie. If you make the adjustment, the engine will run
better, and Dell might have a chance of winning in Phoenix.”

“But, Ms. Hawkins –”

“Just do it, Charlie. I know what I’m talking
about, and if it doesn't work, feel free to tell everyone it was my
idea and you were only following orders.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said.

“Good. I want this engine in the car and the
test run done before we close up today. It has to be on the road
tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, ma'am, I'm aware of the time
constraint.”

Caro turned and saw him standing in the
doorway. She raised one eyebrow at him.

Dell raised his hands in defense. “Hey, don't
look at me. I'm all for anything that will squeeze more RPM out of
an engine.”

“You should be.” She pushed past him and Dell
moved a bit to let her pass. “I expect you to win in Phoenix.”

“And I plan to. I always race to win,” he
said to her back as he followed her down the hall, watching her
ponytail swish side-to-side. He was imagining it doing the same
thing while she rode him, naked and flushed with passion.

“That's why I hired you.”

“Will he make the adjustment?” Dell
asked.

Caro stopped and turned to him. She fisted
her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I have no idea. I could
stand over him and watch, but there's no guarantee he wouldn't
change it back as soon as I left anyway, so you'll have to tell me
after your practice runs. If he made the adjustment, you should
have more power: if not, this engine will be identical to the one
you ran last week. Even if you hadn't wrecked, you wouldn't have
won. The car wasn't a winner, even on a short track. You've got to
have more power to be competitive at Phoenix.”

“I agree, but so you know, I race to win,
even if I don't have a prayer.”

“Well, if Charlie makes the adjustment I
asked for, you'll have a prayer in Phoenix.” She turned and walked
away. Dell watched her backside sway side-to-side, wondering when
he'd found coveralls so enticing. Never, was the answer. Of course,
he'd never seen a pair filled out so nicely either. And he was
dying to get his hands on her hair. He imagined some kind of secret
pin hidden in there, and if a man were to find it, and pull…a
cascade of silky blonde hair would come tumbling down….

He shook his head to clear it. Damn, he
shouldn't be daydreaming about taking her hair down, or how those
hips of hers would feel swaying against his, or how much fun it
would be to peel the zipper down on those coveralls and kiss every
inch of bared skin. He was pretty sure she wore them over her
office clothes, but what if…? His little brain filled in the
missing image of soft, pale skin, creamy breasts covered in
something lacy and utterly feminine, something that matched the
scrap of panties he'd have to slide his hand inside her coveralls
to get to. Footsteps behind him snapped him out of his erotic, and
completely inappropriate daydream.

Dell slipped into the first open door he
found and leaned against the wall of the supply closet, closing his
eyes and taking deep breaths. Caro had enough troubles without
everyone in the place knowing her driver sported a hard-on for her.
Pine cleaner and musty mop odor worked surprisingly well as an
antidote to lust, and after a few minutes, Dell left the closet. He
grabbed the travel folder Caro had given him and returned it to her
office where she was, once again, in her prim Junior. League
outfit, hunched over her desk. Not that she wasn't sexy as hell in
that get-up, but in those coveralls…

Dell caught a glimpse of them hanging on a
coat rack in the corner and quickly shifted his gaze back to the
woman behind the desk before his mind filled in the details again.
He dropped the folder on her desk. “I confirmed everything.”

“Thanks, Dell. I appreciate it.”

“No problem, but is there a reason we don't
have return plane tickets from Phoenix?”

“Oh!” she said. She pawed through another
stack of papers and came up with another folder. “I forgot to tell
you – we're going straight to Las Vegas from Phoenix. It will give
us a few extra days to test the new car before practice begins for
the race the following week. I've already made arrangements to get
the new car there.”

“What's to test?” he asked.

“Everything. There isn't a used part on it –
all brand-spanking new.”

“I'll look forward to it then.”

She held out the folder in her hand. “Good.
Then you won't mind confirming the reservations for Las Vegas.”

Dell laughed as he took the folder. “Damn. I
set myself up for that one, didn't I?”

“Yep, you did. Now go make phone calls. I
have work to do here.”

Chapter Six

Caro pretended to work as Dell left her
office, folder in hand. Good lord! Why wouldn't he go away? Dell
Wayne was a distraction she didn't need. It was bad enough he
looked like sin in a fire suit and drove like a demon, but Dell in
tight jeans and a T-shirt was more than any woman should have to
deal with. If there were any doubt whether racecar drivers were
athletes, one look at Dell dressed like that, and the naysayers
would shut up. There wasn't an ounce of fat on the man, and his
body-hugging clothes outlined every hard muscle.

Ever since the night she went to his home to
offer him the job, inappropriate thoughts about peeling his clothes
off and touching every sculpted muscle she found, ran through her
mind on an endless loop that kept her on edge, and horny. Denial
was pointless. Dell Wayne was too luscious, too damned hot for
words. He made her want and need things she'd been successfully
ignoring for a long time.

Caro stared blankly at the parts order in
front of her.
Focus
. She needed to concentrate on her work.
The garage couldn't function without parts and tools, and she was
going to be on the road for at least the next two weeks.

Two weeks. On the road. With Dell. She gave a
moment's consideration to booking a different hotel from the one
where he would be staying, but this close to race day there
wouldn't be a decent room available within a hundred miles of
Phoenix. She'd simply have to keep her distance. Just because they
would be in the same hotel didn't mean she had to see him any more
than absolutely necessary. Besides, he probably had women in every
city on the circuit, and if he didn't, he wouldn't have any trouble
finding one, or one hundred.

Moreover, she reminded herself, there were
enough rumors going around about the state of their relationship,
and there was no reason for her to add fuel to them by being seen
with him outside the garage. She smirked as she signed the purchase
order for the parts and moved on to the fuel and tire requisitions.
Did people think she didn't hear the comments they made behind her
back? As soon as she walked into her first owner's meeting, the
rumors began to fly about whom she was sleeping with, and why. The
world of professional stock car racing was the original old boys'
club, and few had any place for a woman among them. Much less one
her age.

She'd heard it all. She was too young. She
didn't know cars or racing, or her head from a lug nut, even though
she'd grown up on the racing circuit, hanging out in most of their
garages at one time or another. She'd spent more time in the
Hawkins Racing garage than in school in the days before her father
sent her away. And as much as she hated those years away, they'd
been a gift of sorts. They'd given her the freedom to learn
everything she could about cars without her dad interfering. If
she'd stayed, he would have controlled her access to the scientific
and mechanical data she'd consumed like other underage kids did
alcohol – and she'd done it all without her dad knowing a thing
about it.

She was capable of providing knowledgeable
input on the car's performance, and she had ideas that would make
Hawkins engines run better. Convincing everyone else her ideas
would work was going to be hard. And she'd never be able to do it
if she were sleeping with her driver, or anyone else connected to
racing in any way. From the NASCAR officials down to the pit crew,
they were all off limits.

That meant her life was her work. Even if the
company could afford the kind of staff it needed, Caro would still
be here, putting in ridiculous hours by anyone's standards –
because she had something to prove.

She needed to prove to NASCAR, to the fans,
to her team and to herself her dad had been wrong. Maybe they were
right to believe not just any woman could own and run a successful
race team, but there was one woman who could. Caro Hawkins could.
And she was going to prove it or die trying.

* * * *

Dell throttled up as he came out of turn
three, only to throttle back down again as he made it into turn
four. With the backstretch ahead of him, he throttled up again and
made another run at the lead. Only twenty laps to go, and victory
was within his grasp. The adjustments Caro ordered to the fuel
injection worked. After four hundred and eighty laps, the car still
purred like a kitten, and ran like a cat with a pitbull chasing its
ass.

“Nineteen to go,” Caro's voice came through
his headset. “We've made a good showing today,” she said.

“We're not through yet,” he countered.
Not
by a longshot
. He'd be damned if he was settling for second
when there was only one asshole between the checkered flag and him.
It was all in the timing. He checked the fuel cell gauge and
mentally calculated if he had enough to finish without pitting.
He'd been getting good mileage all day – a benefit of Caro's
adjustments. Tires were another thing. The new pavement here ate
tires.

“Can somebody calculate the fuel for me?” he
asked as he ticked another lap off. “I think I can make it if there
isn't a caution, and if I don't have to make more than one run at
the leader.”

“Calculating now,” Caro said. Dell waited.
Finally, she came back on. “It's going to be close, Dell. If you
had fresh tires…”

“I'm not pitting now. Five more laps and I'm
making my move.”

“You don't have to do that, Dell. Hold your
position,” Caro said.

“Behind you,” Jeff warned from the spotter's
roost above the press box. “Closing fast.”