The Heart's Victory
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Authors: Nora Roberts
Nora Roberts
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Hot Ice
Sacred Sins
Brazen Virtue
Sweet Revenge
Public Secrets
Genuine Lies
Carnal Innocence
Divine Evil
Honest Illusions
Private Scandals
Hidden Riches
True Betrayals
Montana Sky
Sanctuary
Homeport
The Reef
River's End
Carolina Moon
The Villa
Midnight Bayou
Three Fates
Birthright
Northern Lights
Blue Smoke
Angels Fall
High Noon
Tribute
Black Hills
The Search
Chasing Fire
The Witness
Series
Irish Born Trilogy
Born in Fire
Born in Ice
Born in Shame
Dream Trilogy
Daring to Dream
Holding the Dream
Finding the Dream
Chesapeake Bay Saga
Sea Swept
Rising Tides
Inner Harbor
Chesapeake Blue
Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy
Jewels of the Sun
Tears of the Moon
Heart of the Sea
Three Sisters Island Trilogy
Dance Upon the Air
Heaven and Earth
Face the Fire
Key Trilogy
Key of Light
Key of Knowledge
Key of Valor
In the Garden Trilogy
Blue Dahlia
Black Rose
Red Lily
Circle Trilogy
Morrigan's Cross
Dance of the Gods
Valley of Silence
Sign of Seven Trilogy
Blood Brothers
The Hollow
The Pagan Stone
Bride Quartet
Vision in White
Bed of Roses
Savor the Moment
Happy Ever After
The Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy
The Next Always
The Last Boyfriend
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The O'Hurleys
The Last Honest Woman
Dance to the Piper
Skin Deep
Without a Trace
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The Donovan Legacy
Captivated
Entranced
Charmed
Enchanted
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Cordina's Royal Family
Affaire Royale
Command Performance
The Playboy Prince
Cordina's Crown Jewel
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The MacGregors
Playing the Odds
Tempting Fate
All the Possibilities
One Man's Art
For Now, Forever
The MacGregor Brides
The Winning Hand
The MacGregor Grooms
The Perfect Neighbor
Rebellion & In from the Cold
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Night Tales
Night Shift
Night Shadow
Nightshade
Night Smoke
Night Shield
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The Calhouns
Courting Catherine
A Man for Amanda
For the Love of Lilah
Suzanna's Surrender
Megan's Mate
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Irish Legacy Trilogy
Irish Thoroughbred
Irish Rose
Irish Rebel
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Best Laid Plans
Loving Jack
Lawless
Summer Love
Boundary Lines
Dual Image
First Impressions
The Law Is a Lady
Local Hero
This Magic Moment
The Name of the Game
Partners
Temptation
The Welcoming
Opposites Attract
Time Was
Times Change
Gabriel's Angel
Holiday Wishes
The Heart's Victory
The Right Path
Rules of the Game
Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb
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Remember When
J. D. Robb
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Naked in Death
Glory in Death
Immortal in Death
Rapture in Death
Ceremony in Death
Vengeance in Death
Holiday in Death
Conspiracy in Death
Loyalty in Death
Witness in Death
Judgment in Death
Betrayal in Death
Seduction in Death
Reunion in Death
Purity in Death
Portrait in Death
Imitation in Death
Divided in Death
Visions in Death
Survivor in Death
Origin in Death
Memory in Death
Born in Death
Innocent in Death
Creation in Death
Strangers in Death
Salvation in Death
Promises in Death
Kindred in Death
Fantasy in Death
Indulgence in Death
Treachery in Death
New York to Dallas
Celebrity in Death
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Anthologies
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From the Heart
A Little Magic
A Little Fate
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Moon Shadows
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)
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The Once Upon Series
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)
Once Upon a Castle
Once Upon a Rose
Once Upon a Star
Once Upon a Kiss
Once Upon a Dream
Once Upon a Midnight
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Silent Night
(with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)
Out of This World
(with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie Shayne)
Bump in the Night
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Dead of Night
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
Three in Death
Suite 606
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
In Death
The Lost
(with Patricia Gaffney, Mary Blayney, and Ruth Ryan Langan)
The Other Side
(with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
The Unquiet
(with Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)
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The Official Nora Roberts Companion
(edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE HEART'S VICTORY
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Harlequin Books edition / June 2005
InterMix eBook edition / December 2012
Copyright © 1982 by Nora Roberts.
Excerpt from
Calculated in Death
copyright © 2013 by Nora Roberts.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-56972-6
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Chapter 1
Foxy stared at the underbelly of the MG. The scent of oil surrounded her as she tightened bolts. “You know, Kirk, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your lending me these coveralls.” Her smooth contralto voice was touched with sarcasm.
“What are brothers for?” Foxy heard the grin in his voice though all she could see were the bottoms of his frayed jeans and his grimy sneakers.
“It's wonderful you're so broad-minded.” She gritted her teeth on the words as she worked with the ratchet. “Some brothers might have insisted on fixing the transmission themselves.”
“I'm no chauvinist,” Kirk returned. Foxy watched Kirk's sneakers as he walked across the concrete floor of the garage. She heard the click and clatter of tools being replaced. “If you hadn't decided to be a photographer, I'd have put you on my pit crew.”
“Fortunately for me, I prefer developing fluid to motor oil.” She wiped the back of her hand over her cheek. “And to think if I hadn't been hired to shoot the photos for Pam Anderson's book, I wouldn't be here right now up to my elbows in car parts.”
When Foxy heard his quick, warm laugh, it struck her how much she had missed him. Perhaps it was because their two-year separation had worked no change on him. He was precisely the same, as if she had closed the door and opened it again only minutes later. His face was still weathered and bronzed with creases and dents that promised to grow only deeper and more attractive with age. His hair was still as thickly curled as her own, though his was a dark gold and hers a rich russet. The familiar mustache twitched above his mouth when he smiled. Foxy couldn't remember him ever being without it. She had been six and he sixteen when it had first appeared, and seventeen years later it was a permanent fixture on his face. Foxy had seen, too, that the recklessness was still there. It was in his smile, in his eyes, in his movements.
As a child, she had worshiped him. He had been a tall, golden hero who allowed her to tag behind and pay homage. It had been Kirk who had absently dubbed her Foxy, and the ten-year-old Cynthia Fox had clung to the name as if it were a gift. When Kirk left home to pursue a career in professional racing, Foxy had lived for his occasional visits and short, sporadic letters. In his absence, he grew more golden, more indestructible. He was twenty-three when he won his first major race. Foxy had been thirteen.
This tender, testing, learning year of her life had been one of indescribable pain. It had been late when Foxy had driven home from town with her parents. The road was slick with snow. Foxy watched it hurl itself against the windows of the car while the radio played a Gershwin tune she was too young to either recognize or appreciate. She had stretched out on the backseat, closed her eyes, and begun to hum a tune popular with her own generation. She wished briefly that she were home so that she could put on her records and call her best friend to talk about things that were importantâ
boys.
There had been no warning as the car began its skid. It circled wildly, gaining speed as the tires found no grip on the slick, wet snow. There was a blur of white outside the car windows and she heard her father swear as he fought to regain control of the wheel, but her fear never had the chance to materialize. Foxy heard the crunching impact as the car slammed into the telephone pole, felt the jerk and the quick pain. She felt the cold as she was tossed from the car, then the wet swish of snow against her face. Then she felt nothing.
It had been Kirk's face that Foxy saw upon awakening from the two-day coma. Her first wave of joy froze as she remembered the accident. She saw it in his eyesâthe weariness, the grief, the acceptance. She shook her head to deny what he had not yet told her. Gently, he bent down to rest his cheek on hers. “We've got each other now, Foxy. I'm going to take care of you.”
And so he had, in his fashion. For the next four years, Foxy followed the circuit. She received her education from a series of tutors with varying degrees of success. But during her teenage years, Cynthia Fox learned more than American history or algebra. She learned about piston displacement and turbo engines; she learned how to take an engine apart and how to put it back together; she learned the rules of the pit lane. She grew up in what was predominantly a man's world, with the smell of gasoline and the roar of engines. Supervision at times had been lax, at others, nonexistent.
Kirk Fox was a man with one consuming passion: the race. Foxy knew there were times he forgot her existence completely, and she accepted it. Seeing the dents in his perfection only caused her to love him more. She grew up wild and free and, inconsistently, sheltered.
College had been a shock. Over the next four years, Foxy's world had expanded. She discovered the eccentricities of living in a dormitory with females. She began to learn more about Cynthia Fox. Having a discerning eye for color, cut, and line, she had developed her own distinctive taste in clothes. She found that clubs and sororities were not for her; her childhood had been too freewheeling to allow her to accept rules and regimentation. It had been easy for Foxy to resist college men because they seemed to her to be foolish, immature boys. She had entered college a gangling, awkward girl and graduated a willow-slim woman with her own innate grace and a passion for photography. For the two years following college, Foxy poured every ounce of her talent and effort into building her career. The assignment with Pam Anderson was a two-fold gift. It allowed her to spend time with her brother while nudging the crack in the door of opportunity yet wider. Foxy knew the first part of the gift was still more important to her than the second.
“I suppose you'd be shocked to learn I haven't seen the underside of a car in over two years.” Foxy made the admission as she tightened the last of the bolts.
“What do you do when your transmission needs work?” Kirk demanded as he took a final look under the MG's hood.
“I send it to a mechanic,” Foxy muttered.
“With your training?” Kirk was appalled enough to bend down and glare at the top of her head. “You can get twenty years to life for a crime like that.”
“I don't have time.” Foxy sighed, then continued, as if to make amends, “I did change the points and plugs last month.”
“This car is a classic.” Kirk closed the hood gently, then wiped the surface with a clean rag. “You're crazy if you let just anybody get their hands on it.”
“Well, I can't send it out to Charlie every time it gets the sniffles, and besides . . . ” Foxy stopped her justifications at the sound of a car pulling up outside.
“Hey, this ain't no place for a businessman.” Foxy heard the smile in her brother's words as she set down the ratchet.
“Just checking on my investment.”
Lance Matthews.
She recognized the low, drawling voice instantly. Just as instantly her hands clenched into tight balls. Heat bubbled in her throat. Slowly, Foxy forced herself to remain calm.
Ridiculous,
she thought as she flexed her fingers;
resentments shouldn't survive a six-year separation.
She saw from her vantage point that he, too, wore jeans and sneakers. While his showed no streaks of grease, they were frayed and worn.
He's just slumming,
she thought and suppressed an indignant sniff. Six years is a long time, she reminded herself. He might be almost tolerable by now. But she doubted it.
“I couldn't get here for the practice run this morning. How'd she do?”
“A 200.558.” She heard the click and fizz of a beer being opened. “Charlie wants to give her a last going-over, but she's prime, absolutely prime.” From the tone of her brother's voice, Foxy knew he had forgotten she was there, forgotten everything but the car and the race.
“He's got his mind fixed on setting a pit record Sunday.” There was a faint snap, and a pungent aroma drifted to Foxy. It annoyed her that she recognized it as the scent of the slender cigars Lance habitually smoked. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand as if to erase the fragrance from her senses. “New toy?” Lance asked, walking over to the MG. Foxy heard the hood lift. “Looks like the little number you bought your sister after she got her license. She still playing with cameras?”
Incensed, Foxy gave a push and rolled out from under the car. For the instant she lay on the creeper, she saw a look of surprise cross Lance's face. “It's the same little number,” she said coldly as she struggled to her feet. “And I don't play with cameras, I work with them.”
Her hair was pulled in a ponytail back from her grease-smeared face. The coveralls left her shapeless and sloppy. In one oil-splattered hand, she held the ratchet. Through her indignation, Foxy noted that Lance Matthews was more attractive than ever. Six years had deepened the creases in his rawboned face, which, by some odd miracle, just escaped being handsome.
Handsome
was too tame a word for Lance Matthews. His hair was richly black, curling into the collar of his shirt and tossed carelessly around his face. His brows were slightly arched over eyes that could go from stone-gray to smoke depending on his mood. The classic, aristocratic features were offset by a small white scar above his left brow. He was taller than Kirk with a rangier build, and there was an ease in his manner that Kirk lacked. Foxy knew the indolent exterior covered a keen awareness. Through his twenties he had been one of the top drivers in the racing world. She had heard it said that Lance Matthews had the hands of a surgeon, the instincts of a wolf, and the nerve of the devil. At thirty, he had won the world championship and abruptly retired. From her brother's less than informative letters, Foxy knew that for the past three years Lance had successfully sponsored drivers and cars. She watched as his mouth formed the half-tilted smile that had always been his trademark.
“Well, if it isn't the Fox.” His eyes ran down the coveralls and back to her face. “Six years hasn't changed you a bit.”
“Nor you,” she retorted, furious that their first meeting would find her so attired. She felt like a foolish, gangling teenager again. “What a pity.”
“Tongue's as sharp as ever.” His teeth flashed in a grin. Apparently the fact that she was still a rude, bad-tempered urchin appealed to him. “Have you missed me?”
“As long as I possibly could,” she replied and held the ratchet out to her brother.
“Still hasn't any respect for her elders,” Lance told Kirk while his eyes lingered on Foxy's mutinous face. “I'd kiss you hello, but I never cared for the taste of motor oil.”
He was teasing her as he had always done and Foxy's chin shot up as it always had. “Fortunately for both of us, Kirk has an unlimited supply.”
“If you walk around like that for the rest of the season,” Kirk warned as he replaced his tool, “you might as well work in the pits.”
“The season?” Lance's look sharpened as he drew on his cigar. “You going to be around for the season? That's some vacation.”
“Hardly.” Foxy wiped her palms on the legs of the coveralls and tried to look dignified. “I'm here as a photographer, not as a spectator.”
“Foxy is working with that writer, Pam Anderson,” Kirk put in as he picked up his beer again. “Didn't I tell you?”
“You mentioned something about the writer,” Lance murmured. He was studying Foxy's face as if to see beneath the smears of grease. “So, you'll be traveling the circuit again?”
Foxy remembered the intensity of his eyes. There were times when they could stop your breath. There was something raw and deep about the man. Even as an adolescent, Foxy had been aware of his basic sensuality. Then she had found it fascinating; now she knew its dangers. Willpower kept her eyes level with his. “That's right. A pity you won't be along.”
“Not a pity,” he countered. The intensity disappeared from his eyes and Foxy watched them grow light again. “Kirk's driving my car. I intend to tag along and watch him win.” He saw Foxy frown before he turned to her brother. “I suppose I'll meet Pam Anderson at the party you're having tonight. Don't wash the grease off, Foxy.” He patted a clean spot on her chin before he walked to the door. “I might not recognize you. We should have a dance for old times' sake.”
“Stuff it in your manifold,” Foxy called after him, then cursed herself for trading dignity for childish taunts. After shooting Kirk a glare, she stepped out of the coveralls. “Your taste in friends eludes me.”
Kirk shrugged, glancing out the window as Lance drove away. “You'd better test-drive the car before you drive to the house. It might need some adjustments.”
Foxy sighed and shook her head. “Sure.”
***
The dress Foxy chose for the evening was made of paper-thin crepe de chine. The muted pastels of lavender and green clung and floated around her slender, curved figure. With a draping skirt and strapless bodice covered by the sheerest of short jackets, it was a romantic dress. It was also very alluring. Foxy thought with grim satisfaction that Lance Matthews was in for a surprise. Cynthia Fox was not a teenager any longer. After placing small gold hoops in her ears, she stood back to judge the results.
Her hair was loose, left to fall below her shoulders in a thick mane of gleaming russet curls. Her face was now clear of black smudges. Her prominent cheekbones added both elegance and delicacy to the piquant quality of her triangular face. Her eyes were almond-shaped, not quite gray, not quite green. Her nose was sharp and aristocratic, her mouth full and just short of being too wide. There was a hint of her brother's recklessness in her eyes, but it was banked and smoldering. There was something reminiscent of the wilds in her, part deer, part tigress. Much more than beauty, she possessed an earthy, untapped sensuality. She was made of contradictions. Her willowy figure and ivory complexion made her appear fragile while the fire in her hair and boldness of her eyes sent out a challenge. Foxy felt the night was ripe for challenge.
