HE’D JUST ABOUT kissed her, and not on the cheek.
Damn, Mike thought, steering the car toward the row of cars lined up near the pits, that’d been the first time in a long time he’d felt the urge to do something completely impulsive. Usually he liked to do things in small steps. And usually he liked his women a little more—he glanced at Maggie, at her unkempt, nearly wild curly hair, makeup-free face and casual clothes—polished. And yet the urge to lean in and try to kiss her again had him gripping the wheel as though he were about to start a race.
“You can stay in here if you want,” he said, shutting off the motor.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I, um, think I’ll take a look around. I’ve never been on this side of the wall before.”
“Be careful,” he said. “When they start to hot lap cars will be buzzing in and out of here. If you’re not on your toes, you might get run over.”
“On second thought,” she said, seeming to sink down in her seat. “I’ll stay here.”
He had to bite back a smile. “No, no,” he said. “Why don’t you come with me?” And then he winced because there he went again. It was just like at her house. One moment he was telling himself to take her giveaway items and run, the next he was inviting her along.
“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s probably better if I let you conduct your business on your own.”
Walk away, Mike.
But instead he traveled to her side of the car, held out his hand and said, “Come on.”
“Oh, no. Really.”
He reached in. She reluctantly placed her hand in his. He was almost sorry to have to let her go.
“Come on,” he said, having to almost physically restrain himself. People did double takes as he walked by, but he was used to that. It happened in the garage all the time.
He glanced down at her, taking in her wide-eyed look of wonder when they emerged from between two of the race rigs.
“Have you seen Jerry Talbot?” he asked some guy in the midst of tuning a revving motor.
“Over there,” the guy said, not even lifting his head, his gaze intent upon the timing marks on the front of the engine.
Mike finally gave up and grabbed Maggie’s hand again. He felt her try to pull away, but it wasn’t a hard pull, more like a you-can-let-go-if-you-want-to tug.
He didn’t want to. That shocked him to the point that he almost let go. Almost.
“There he is,” Mike said, recognizing the paint scheme from the résumé the kid had sent Blain Sanders, one of racing’s best-known NASCAR owners and Mike’s would-be silent partner if this kid looked good. The plan was to run a partial schedule, Jerry trading seat time with another driver—maybe even Mike himself—in one of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series cars, but that was only if the kid raced half as well as his résumé made him sound. Word on the street was that he did.
“Is Jerry around?” Mike asked a big guy with dark hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. He wore a yellow team shirt already stained by dark oil.
“Damn,” the guy said, just about dropping the part he held. A rear-end gear by the looks of it. “You’re Mike Morgan.”
“And you’re Brian,” Mike said, glancing down at the name of the shirt.
“You made it,” Brian said, still sounding incredulous. “You’re really here.”
“I’m really here.” Mike glanced down at Maggie and gave her a smile. “This is Maggie,” he said.
“Hi, Maggie,” Brian said, and Mike noticed this time he wiped his hands on the front of his black pants before he clutched Maggie’s fingers.
“When Jerry said you might come by, we all couldn’t believe it. I think even Jerry thought it might be a joke. I mean, you’re Mike Morgan. What are the odds that you’d come to a race all the way out in California to see our driver race.”
“Pretty good considering I’m here.”
“Yes,” Brian said with a grin that strung itself from ear to ear. “You are. Come on,” he said. “I’ll introduce you to Jerry. Man, is he ever going to freak.”
“This is kind of neat,” Maggie whispered to Mike as Brian led the way. “I mean, you might have the power to change this kid’s life.”
“Maybe,” Mike said, giving her hand a squeeze.
And then she smiled.
Mike just about tripped and fell. It was the first genuine smile he’d had from her and it transformed her face. She went from cute to gorgeous in a split second, her blue eyes seeming to light up the space around them.
“I hope he’s as good as your friend thinks he’ll be,” Maggie said.
“Me, too.”
He was. It didn’t take Mike long to realize that the kid had the goods. Watsonville was a short track, but Jerry outclassed the competition by a mile. He had nearly four car lengths on his nearest competitor after only a single lap, and when it came time for his heat race, he won it handily.
“I’ve seen enough,” Mike said a short while later, pulling the headset Jerry’s team had lent him off his head. Maggie did the same.
“That’s it?” Maggie asked. “You watch him circle around a few times and you can tell if he’s good or not?”
“No,” Mike said. “There’s more to it than that. I wanted to hear him on the radio. See how he communicates with his team. How much knowledge he has about his car’s setup. If he’s calm and cool or loud and obnoxious. The last thing we need to do is to hire ourselves a headache driver.”
“But don’t you want to see him win a race?”
“No. Jerry already has solid wins under his belt. He was last year’s NASCAR Whelen All-American Series champion. Blain just wanted me to see him in person, judge for myself what he might be like to work with.”
“And do you like him?”
“He’ll be getting a call from Blain by the end of the week.”
“Neat,” Maggie said, smiling at him again. “Are you going to tell him?”
“Of course.”
“Can I watch?”
She was really excited for the kid. Obviously, she thrived on other people’s happiness—why else would she do what she did for a living? What a unique way to live a life. And how amazing that she’d rather do that—bring people joy—than earn a six-figure salary. Indi had mentioned that working for Miracles was an incredible job, but that it was one that didn’t pay well.
“Let’s go,” he said, resisting the urge to grab Maggie’s hand again. The truth was that he needed to watch himself. He was starting to like Maggie, something that wasn’t good given the fact that her type was strictly taboo. But there was more to it than that. Three, four months he’d be back in NASCAR again, and one of the main reasons why he’d never gotten deeply involved with a woman in the past was because life on the road was no place to raise a family.
Maggie was the type of woman a guy would want to have kids with.
That realization had him drawing up short, had him running a hand through his hair and darting her a glance.
Not his type, he reminded himself.
But it dawned on him then that she was not his type for a reason. The flashy ones weren’t the ones you settled down with. Those women had no depth. More than likely, Maggie had layers of depth he’d probably never seen before, and it scared him.
“We’ll head home right after I talk to Jerry,” he said, more to himself than her.
“Okay.”
“Did you need to call your daughter?”
“No, no. I spoke to her while you were inside the rig talking to Jerry. She’s heading off to her movie.”
He nodded. Maggie fiddled with the headset she’d worn while Jerry had practiced.
Mike Morgan had held her hand.
Maggie stared straight ahead, trying to pretend that walking next to him was no big deal. It was still light out, although sunset was less than an hour away. People kept staring at them as they headed back to the pits. Out on the pavement she could hear a new set of cars circling the track, the sound of their engines pitched high and then low depending on whether they were leaving or entering the corner.
It was obvious that word had spread that Mike Morgan was around. Teams stopped working as they passed by, a few cameras flashing along the way. Maggie had been around celebrities before, but this was the first time one had actually taken time to chat with the people who stopped him. She really liked that. Really liked him. It was ridiculous. Foolish. She barely knew him.
Yet she felt as smitten as the time she’d fallen head over heels for Brooke’s father.
And look where that got you.
She’d been pregnant at seventeen, delivering Brooke two months after high school graduation. Alone. Brooke’s father had left town, ostensibly to go to college, but he’d never been back. Brooke was lucky to get a birthday card from him. And child support? Hah.
She struggled to make ends meet. But she did it. I’m not going to sleep with the man, she told herself. I just want to stare at him so that when our time together is over, I can remember what it was like to feel young and carefree and maybe just a little bit special for the first time in a long, long time.
They reached Jerry’s rig at last and Maggie’s admiration for Mike reached new heights as he broke the news. Jerry just about jumped into Mike’s arms, but Mike didn’t look perturbed. Oh, no. He shared Jerry’s excitement, his grin as big as the one he wore in Winner’s Circle.
“Is this how it feels when you grant the wish of a Miracles child?” he asked her, the two of them watching as Jerry’s team laughed and cried along with the driver.
“It is,” she said, getting teary-eyed herself. Jerry’s father had just been told the good news and the man was holding on to his son and bawling.
“I see now why you do it.”
“Yup,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “There’s no better job in the world.”