Grady pulled his truck into the driveway of his mother’s house and idled there for a moment, staring at his childhood home. He didn’t usually come out here during the week, but driving home from the garage last night, he’d gotten the idea that Mom might be the perfect person to ask about the team manager position.
Not that he was going to ask her to take the job. More like, she knew everyone in town, and if anyone could point him in the right direction, it was Mom. She knew what the job involved. She’d actually been the manager for a couple of years, way back when Dad had first started Hart Racing, though most people didn’t remember that.
He turned off the engine and got out, heading up the short walk to the front door, where he gave a courtesy knock, then turned the handle. Mom never locked it. He kept chiding her for it, but she never listened. Once, he’d come over while she’d been napping. Vulnerable. He’d stayed and waited for her to wake up, then asked, What if I’d been some kind of violent criminal?
She’d just looked at him in that way that only mothers can and said, Then I’d be very disappointed in you.
He pushed the door open and walked inside. “Mom! It’s Grady! Are you decent?” he called out.
But instead of his mother’s voice echoing back at him, he heard a duet of feminine giggles coming from the kitchen. Great. She had company. Probably one of her friends from her weekly Bunco night. He walked toward the kitchen in slow motion, trying to figure out what to do. He wouldn’t be able to talk to her about the job while she was entertaining a guest. He didn’t want to share anything private about Hart Racing with someone else.
Too bad. Now he’d probably have to sit here for the next hour, listening to some older woman drone on about how he should find a nice girl to marry and settle—
Holy shit.
He stopped in his tracks as he walked through the archway into the kitchen, his body going haywire at the sight of the woman sitting next to his mother at the table. Flame-red hair brushed sleek and straight down her back, light blue eyes that were both serious and mischievous at once, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, lending a sweetness to her sexy, heart-shaped face.
Annabelle.
Annabelle Murray was back. The girl next door, whom he’d thought about morning, noon, and night before she’d married a guy she’d met in college and moved to Texas seven years ago. Hell. He’d even thought about her almost daily even after she’d left, and mourned his lost opportunity. He’d always wanted to ask her out, but she’d always been so reserved and shy-seeming that he wasn’t sure how to approach her. She wasn’t like Kerri’s other friends—all you had to do was shout at them or get them moving in a group and let momentum carry everyone along. But Annabelle …
Well, he still felt that way about her. Like he didn’t have anything to offer her that might entice her to go out with him, other than a couple of temperamental siblings and a fledgling company that didn’t even have a product yet.
You’re ridiculous. And you need to say something.
“Hello, Grady.”
Oh, damn. Her voice. That low, husky voice, so at odds with her flowing, feminine appearance. And her eyes …
They were always alert, always watching. Despite how quiet she’d been when they were younger, her eyes always seemed to be saying something. And as she rose from the table to greet him, Grady could see that hadn’t changed. Those eyes were intense and focused … on him.
Except—maybe he was imagining it, or maybe he’d just forgotten in all this time, but he couldn’t help but think she’d gotten a lot thinner. Too thin, like she’d been through something rough and lost a little strength along the way.
It pulled at something protective—almost possessive—in him. It made him want to reach for her and hold her close and soothe away whatever had happened to her, to make her forget it completely.
Instead, he simply said, “Annabelle. It’s been a long time.”
He was responding too slowly, and she was already moving, coming toward him, arms outstretched. Shit, they were supposed to hug. Wasn’t that what long-time neighbors did? Of course they did. But not when one of them had starred in a lot of hot fantasies of the other, often when he’d been alone in his bed—
“Seven years, in fact,” she laughed, just as her arms came around his back and she rose on her tiptoes, ever so slightly, to be able to reach her chin over his shoulder as she hugged him. She smelled like sunshine and sugar as his arms came around her in an automatic reflex, his hands settling over her fine shoulder blades, feeling the rise and fall of her back as she breathed.
He had to admit, he liked the feel of her. For someone so delicate-looking, she felt surprisingly strong. Like she could carry the weight of the world and barely bend. It was a second of contact before she was pulling away, but he already felt some of the tension that he carried around with him at all times ebbing from his body.
Mom had stood up, too, waiting for Grady to come give her a hug and a kiss hello. When Annabelle stepped away, though, it took him a tick too long to move toward his mother, and from the look in Mom’s eyes as he pulled away from that hug, she’d noticed.
Great. He loved his mother, but he didn’t need her getting any ideas. If he thought her friends were bad when it came to nagging him about getting married, Mom was even worse.
Not that it mattered, anyway. Annabelle was already taken.
Wait. Why was she back here for the first time in seven years? She hadn’t even been able to make it to her own father’s funeral. Grady hadn’t seen her since before her wedding …
His eyes flew to her left hand.
No ring.
Aw, hell. Poor Annabelle. What had that guy done to her? Ron? No—Don. Donnie. He was an idiot. No sane man would ever let a woman like Annabelle go.
Just like you did?
Damn. He had to be going crazy. Letting her go? He’d never had Annabelle in the first place.
Exactly.
But the possessive feeling wasn’t going away. If anything, it was only getting stronger.
“This is a nice surprise,” Mom said, thankfully bringing his mind back to reality. “What brings you out here like this?” She gestured for him to sit—in the chair right next to Annabelle. “Sit down and tell me what’s going on and I’ll bring you some of Annabelle’s pie.”
He barely managed to suppress a snort at the way his brain turned that into an innuendo, but all he could think about was how he was going to sit all up close to Annabelle and eat her pie. His dirty mind was working overtime, and he made the mistake of looking over at Annabelle as he said, “I’m sure it’s mouthwatering.”
Their eyes met and her cheeks flushed, and the realization that she might be thinking of his words in the same way he was hit him in the gut like a cannonball. While lower, he was raising an eager flag, so to speak.
Annabelle Murray, thinking sex thoughts?
He shook it off. No. Couldn’t be. There was no way her mind was in the gutter like his. She’d always been so proper, definitely not the kind of person who would make everything about sex. He must be imagining too much. She’d probably blushed because she was being complimented.
Except … the way she blushed drew his attention to her neck, to the pulse point there and the delicate skin that shifted when she turned her head had him thinking that she was so damned sexy. And she smelled good. And her lips were really plump and pink and—
“Sit, Grady.” Mom sounded exasperated, and he blinked in surprise, realizing he was simply standing next to the empty chair.
He sat, lacing his fingers together on top of the table so he’d have something to focus on other than Annabelle.
“Actually, I wasn’t planning to stay very long. I came by to talk to you about something, but it can wait.” He purposely didn’t look at Annabelle when he spoke, but she still took it as a hint.
“Oh, gosh, please pardon me. I’ve imposed long enough, and I have to be getting back.” She started to rise, but Mom tsked and shook her head.
“No, Annabelle. Don’t mind Grady. He interrupted an important conversation. If anyone is going to leave, it’s going to be him.”
Grady watched as the two women exchanged significant looks. What had they been talking about before he’d arrived? What had he interrupted? Did this have anything to do with the fact that Annabelle wasn’t wearing her wedding ring?
“Hey, I get it. I’ll leave. I didn’t mean—”
“Well, now that you drove all this way, we can hardly ask you to go, either,” Mom interrupted. “Just share your news in front of Annabelle. She’s practically family, anyway.”
What was his mother up to? Why was she insisting on including Annabelle?
But then, he hadn’t missed the way Annabelle had beamed at Mom’s words. There was no mistaking it. She’d enjoyed being called a part of their family.
It did something funny to him. Sure, he loved his family. They’d been through everything together. But he also didn’t fool himself into thinking that other people felt the same way about his stubborn sister or wild little brother. Knowing that Annabelle felt that way about them too, made him want her even more.
He cleared his throat, trying to settle his desire into something more manageable. “All right. It’s about the garage. Ranger is looking to hire a team manager.” He nodded toward Annabelle, not quite looking at her. He didn’t want to risk getting distracted by her again. “I told him I’d help in the search.”
Mom placed a plate of pie in front of him, and he paused to look down at it.
Wow. It was like a work of art. A wedge of golden-brown crust that looked like it had been carved with flowers, with a small cutout in the shape of a leaf near the crust. Thin sliced peaches made up the filling, and they were layered in a way that made the pie keep its shape even when it had been cut like this.
He made a loud exhale and didn’t look away from his plate as he said. “Wow, Annabelle. This is the most beautiful pie I’ve ever seen.”
“I was telling her earlier that she has a deft touch,” Mom agreed.
Next to him, Annabelle went ramrod stiff. What was that about? And at the same time, another part of him thought, I’ve got a place where she can put that deft touch.
“Thank you both.” Annabelle said softly, and then—oh, Lord, and then—her hand reached out and touched his shoulder, squeezing lightly.
Deft touch, indeed.
Grady stopped breathing for a moment.
And uttered a prayer of thanks that they’d installed a gym in the garage, so that even though he worked so much, he still managed to stay in pretty good shape, if he did say so himself. If Annabelle was going to touch him like that, he wanted to be proud of what she felt.
“I have to admit that I’ve never had a man even notice my pie, much less compliment it like that.”
That sounded … suggestive. Did she seriously just say that in such a way? For a second, Grady felt nothing but hot, embarrassed arousal. Even when her hand fell away, he was left with the burning desire to throw her over his shoulder, haul her away in his truck, and take her home so that he could bury himself between her legs and give her all the compliments in the world.
“So what does hiring a team manager have to do with me?” Mom went back to what they’d been discussing, thank God. Not only was he sitting at his mother’s table with an erection—something he’d have to bleach his brain clean of later—but he was pretty sure he was being too obvious again with his interest in Annabelle.
“I thought, given how involved you are in the community, you might know someone who’d be interested in the job. Someone who knows cars and the family, and can deal with both of those things.”
Mom got his drift. Everyone knew his siblings were a bit hotheaded, and though Ranger was a good guy, he’d earned the nickname Ruthless Ranger during his career as a consultant because he was a hard-nosed businessman who could sometimes be a bit overbearing in his manner.
“I do know a few people. But it just so happens that the best person for the job is sitting right next to you.” Mom gestured to Annabelle.
Grady frowned. Annabelle, working in the garage? Wasn’t she a home ec teacher? That’s what he remembered her talking about one time when she’d been home from college. But he could feel something—some kind of intensity—coming off of her at the suggestion, practically reaching out and grabbing him, and his confusion was replaced by a jolt of arousal that came from the sensation of being somehow connected to her at a level deeper than just pie.
It felt electric and hot and almost desperate.
He desperately tamped down the images of her spread out atop one of the race cars at the garage, naked and moaning—not just because it was ridiculously cliché, but because if she really was qualified and wanted the job, he was going to have to get better at keeping it in check at all times. May as well start practicing now, just in case.
He shifted a bit so that he could face her, and as he moved, his knee grazed her thigh.
Damn. He was going to need a lot more practice.
“Do you have experience with managing a garage?” He tried to keep the skepticism out of his voice, but this was Annabelle. The few times Dad had asked her if she wanted to help out with a car, instead of just sitting there watching, she’d looked like a deer in headlights and refused. Besides, it was a rough business. The guys could be tough to take sometimes.
Hell, not just the guys. At times, Kerri was the crudest of them all. And he had nothing against women mechanics, even if he’d met only one in his career. It was more that he couldn’t see Annabelle in an environment like that.
Look at her. She put on makeup and heels just to come next door.
But she nodded. “Yes, um … I did some things at Donnie’s garage…”
She started to trail off, but then Mom cleared her throat in that stern way of hers that had always preceded a reprimand when they were kids, and Annabelle straightened her shoulders and said in a much clearer voice, “I ran it, actually, and acted as head mechanic. Full time. For five years. For two years before it, I was part-time, since I was still teaching.”
What?
Grady blinked. And then blinked some more. In fact, he was so surprised that pretty much all he could do was blink at her. Well, no … wait. The blinking stopped.
Now he was just kind of staring, entranced by that pink flush climbing up her neck and into her cheeks. He had to hand it to her. Despite her blush, she held her ground and didn’t pull her gaze away from his for a second.
It was getting a little awkward, actually—now both of them were staring at one another. What he wouldn’t give to go back to that goddamn blinking. Too much longer and this would turn into a staring showdown.
Fuck.
He looked away.
“Well, that’s settled, then!” Mom chirped. “When should she start, Grady?”
Wait. What? He hadn’t even interviewed—
But he took one look at Mom’s face and wisely kept his protests to himself. He wasn’t going to gainsay his mother in front of company.
He pitched his voice in Annabelle’s direction. “I don’t know if my mom told you, but I’m working on something else now and transitioning out of the racing side. Everyone has a race this weekend, so the whole team is kinda busy, but if you’re free next Monday, come in around eight in the morning and we can talk a little more before any final decisions are made.”
Her eyes went wide. “Yes, I am. I mean, I’m free and I’ll be there. I just—I don’t know what to say.” She sounded breathless. Excited.
It was getting him excited … in a way he shouldn’t be feeling. If she did get the job, they’d be together nearly every day, seeing as how he was still sharing the garage with Hart Racing….
He ignored the warning bells clanging in his mind and rose. “No need to say anything.” He picked up his now-empty plate and putting it in the sink. “I’d better be going, though. Someone’s coming in at ten for a crew chief interview.” He nodded toward Annabelle. “Thanks for the pie.”
But she stood up, too. “I really should leave, too. I’ve imposed long enough.”
She cleared her plate, too, and Grady waited for his mother to insist that Annabelle wasn’t imposing, but Mom surprised him by replying, “Thank you for coming over, Annabelle. It was so nice to see you, and don’t be a stranger.” Then she added, “Oh, and leave the dishes. I’ll clear the table while Grady walks you out, since he’s going now, too.”
Ah. Now it makes sense. Mom wasn’t exactly being subtle with that one, but on the other hand, he wasn’t going to argue about being sent off alone with Annabelle, even if was for only a few minutes.
He nodded and kissed his mother on the cheek before gesturing to Annabelle to lead the way to the front door before following after her. He made a pretty valiant effort to keep his eyes on the back of her head, but the swish of her skirt proved too distracting. His gaze dropped lower … taking in the slender column of her neck … lower … gliding over the curve of her back … lower still, to where her skirt flared at her hips and skimmed over what appeared to be a very fine—
“You’ve done a great job with the crew this year.”
Her voice brought him up short. They’d reached the front door, and Annabelle said the words as she stopped and turned, so at least he had time to yank his focus off her ass and back up to her face.
Damn, she had a pretty face.
He made a noncommittal sound that came out like a grunt.
Great conversation, man.
He immediately scrambled for a halfway coherent response to follow up with, so she wouldn’t think he was a complete Neanderthal. “Uh … yeah. We hired a former Olympic athlete for the pit and he added a lot of speed to the team.”
She nodded. “Yep. Neil Castillo. I’ve watched some of the earlier races this season and I noticed him in the crew. He is fast. Wow.”
She’d watched the races? That surprised him. But more importantly—she’d noticed Neil? For a brief moment, a stab of irrational jealousy sliced through Grady’s chest.
What was going on? Feeling like this about a woman he’d met again for the first time in nearly a decade was not his style. He forced himself to smile as he slipped his arm past her body to turn the door handle.
But as he did, he heard her gasp, sweet and soft and so incredibly erotic that he had to grit his teeth against the rush of arousal that shook him. His fingers locked around the knob and he twisted it almost violently, pulling the door open.
Fuck if that wasn’t a mistake. The way they were standing, she had to press closer to him in order to make space for the door to open, and for some perverse reason, his body was refusing to yield to hers, to give her room to step away. But she didn’t even try. She didn’t even attempt to squeeze tight in order to avoid touching him, and for a brief moment, her breasts were pressed against his bicep, the dip of her waist against his hip.
And then the door was open and she was turning away, stepping over the threshold and onto the stoop like nothing had happened, while every last hair on his body seemed to be standing on end. By the time they reached his truck, he was having a hard time thinking about anything but taking her. Just … taking.
“Well. It was nice to see you again, Grady.”
She sounded breathless from walking a mere ten feet.
Ha. So she wasn’t as unaffected as he’d thought. Feral satisfaction coursed through him for a moment, but then he remembered that she was coming in for a job interview next week. That meant hands off.
Damn.
He nodded. “Good to see you again, too.” He debated whether to hug her goodbye, but there was no way his already taxed control was going to survive that without the hug turning inappropriate, so instead he settled for a half-salute, half-wave. “And I’ll see you Monday.”
“Monday,” she echoed. A promise.
He tried not to read too much into it.
* * *
She’d actually flirted with Grady Hart this morning.
Annabelle wasn’t sure whether to be proud or utterly mortified, but she couldn’t deny that she’d purposely put a little more swing in her hips as he’d been walking behind her earlier, then pressed against him in the foyer of Nancy’s house.
She hadn’t flirted in what felt like years. Maybe ever. Not like that, anyway, where she felt like she was someone else entirely. Someone sexy and in control.
I want to be someone significant.
Immediately after she’d said that to Nancy this morning, she’d been mortified at confessing something so deeply personal. The fear had taken hold and she’d wanted to snatch back the words. Tried, in fact, but before she’d been able to pretend it was just a joke, Grady had walked in and turned her world upside down. She’d barely been able to think straight when she’d seen him, looking like a more mature, more muscled, more … well, manly version of the guy she’d known seven years ago. He was as tall as she’d remembered, but his previously lean physique had grown into something bigger, harder, more dominating. There were small lines at the corners of his eyes, and his light brown hair was cut short, accenting his square jaw.
His lips were the only soft feature on that otherwise chiseled face.
When he’d held her, for that brief span of time that she’d hugged him hello, she’d felt every inch of her skin come alive, like it had been lit with millions of tiny sparks crackling like hot fire all over her body. She’d thought about those soft lips skating over the sparks, and her knees had nearly buckled.
And then he’d noticed the pie she’d made. Right after she’d been thinking about how men never cared about that kind of thing—the only kind of thing she was allowed to be openly good at here in Charlotte—Grady had noticed. More than noticed. He’d commented on it in a way that had made her think he didn’t just mean the dessert, and her body had heated and expanded with want.
She might not have as much experience as a lot of other women her age, but she wasn’t completely oblivious. Except she hadn’t been able to figure out whether Grady had also noticed her flirting with him. She thought maybe he had, but from the casual goodbye he gave her, she wasn’t certain.
Even now, after replaying the whole thing in her head for the past ten hours, she couldn’t figure out whether he was into her or not.
It doesn’t matter. Stop thinking about it.
This potential job at Hart Racing was her ticket to independence, after all. It wasn’t a mechanic’s position, but it was a step in the right direction. Team managers at least got to be around cars, even if they didn’t get to work on them. Either way, getting involved with Grady would be a terrible idea.
A sexy, hot, terrible idea.
She sighed and finished buttoning her blouse, then walked out into the front room of her mother’s house, about to announce that she was ready to leave for the church potluck. But Momma gasped, “Annabelle!” so loudly that Annabelle startled, nearly tripping over her own feet, at the harsh sound.
It was like a reprimand in and of itself.
Her name coming from her mother’s lips usually was, anyway. Annabelle suppressed the urge to sigh in disappointment. She already knew what was coming. Of course she’d known. Hadn’t a small part of her chosen this blouse for precisely that reason? Almost because she’d wanted to get a rise out of Momma, to needle her mother just a little for siding with Donnie over her. For holding her back, holding her down.
It had been a childish urge, but after the faith that Mrs. Hart—Nancy—had shown in her this morning, and the interest in Grady’s eyes … well, it was just so difficult not to at least let a smidge of anger at her mother show. Why did Momma have to be so … so …
Unimaginative?
Something rebellious had gotten ahold of Annabelle and she couldn’t seem to shake it. She’d tried to bake it away, had gone straight to the kitchen after Nancy’s this morning and produced three dozen perfectly square layer bars and another of those deft-handed pies, but her restlessness hadn’t abated one bit. Her restless hands had plucked this blouse from her closet and her restless fingers had closed up the buttons as though sealing her into a suit of armor.
What are you trying to prove, stupid girl?
Donnie’s voice had started to blend with Momma’s. But it didn’t really matter anymore whose words they were. They were the words of doubt. The words of not-good-enough that she’d carried around for years.
They were the words of fear. And she was just so tired of living in fear.
I want to be someone significant.
She wanted to be someone with a mother like Nancy, who had listened and cared enough about the message in a single statement, suggesting to Grady that Annabelle take the team manager job, while right this moment, Annabelle’s own mother could only stare in shock at the sheer blouse that she was wearing, which revealed a shadowy outline of her bra underneath.
Momma’s imagination was clearly being taxed to its limit.
Annabelle felt her annoyance taking over and tried to push it back down. She had to tread carefully. “What is it?” She tried to school her voice into sounding calm and unaffected, despite the roiling anger inside.
Her mother shook her head and said sharply, “Annabelle, I think the lighting in your room is not adequate. Your blouse is—” she lowered her voice to a whisper, as though Deacon Brown was listening in on their conversation all the way from the First Baptist reception room—“completely transparent.”
Oh, honestly. It was not as see-through as that. Admittedly, she should have chosen a better time than the church social to bring out this top, but she’d seen other ladies in church wearing the same fabric and no one had said a thing.
She’d bought it shortly before her and Donnie’s second anniversary, when their sex life had already started to wane a little and she’d hoped to distract him from his drink long enough to be tempted by her. Not that it had helped.
But it was Grady who she’d been thinking of when she put it on tonight. Grady, who’d made her feel powerful in her femininity, and who was giving her a chance to prove what she was made of. She had to keep reminding herself of that. She couldn’t let the fear take her over. She had to be brave.
“I don’t think—” she began, but Momma cut her off.
“No, you didn’t think. This is my house, Annabelle. As long as you’re living here, you’ll respect my sensibilities and not flaunt yourself in such a way. Do you understand?”
Of course … sometimes there was a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Pushing her mom on something as minor as clothes could get her kicked out. The message had been clear.
As soon as she was finally free and standing on her own, living in her own apartment, and choosing her own clothes, she was going to walk around town in pasties and a thong to celebrate.
Okay, fine. Maybe not. But she would wear a top like this every day if she wanted.
She knew she wasn’t doing a good job of being an adult about this. An adult would stand up for herself and tell her mother to shove it. But then, that would mean packing her bags and finding another place to sleep tonight, even though she had no money and no friends. Maybe she could ask Nancy, but no way would she involve her neighbor in a family thing unless it was an emergency.
And this was not an emergency. At least, not one that she couldn’t prevent. She’d save her fight for something that mattered.
But what about you? Don’t you matter?
The thought shocked her.
Because for the first time in as long as she could remember, the voice in her head wasn’t tearing her down.
She paused for a moment, debating—
Then again, no need to cut off your nose to spite your face …
She swallowed the lump of restlessness that had been clawing its way up her throat, trying to find a way out, and gave a tight nod. “I understand. I’ll go change. It’ll just take a minute.”
As she turned to go back to her room, she told herself it was good sense and not her old cowardice that was pushing her to that decision. But every part of her hated the symbolism in her actions as she pulled off the blouse she’d been wearing and exchanged it for one that covered her over completely.