Читать книгу Out of Control - Julie Miller - Страница 8

Dahlia, Tennessee Present day

“MMM. YEAH. RIGHT THERE.”

Alexandra Morgan caught her tongue between parched lips as her thoughts drifted away from the fan belt she stretched between her hands and took note of how the fender of the ’94 Buick she was repairing pressed against the juncture of her thighs. A pocket of pressure was gathering where hard steel met soft woman, fueled by an errant fantasy that seemed to keep cropping up at the most inopportune times.

Normally, she relegated her secret fantasies to the privacy of her bedroom or one of her late-night bubble baths where she washed away the grime of a day spent in the family garage where she worked as a mechanic. But this was a routine fix on a slow day, just maintenance stuff for a local customer. The real excitement of her job wouldn’t start until tomorrow or Thursday, when the drag racers who frequented the Dahlia Speedway across the parking lot started showing up for replacement parts and tune-ups in preparation for the regular weekend races.

In other words, Alex was bored. And when she was bored, her mind wandered. Wandering into something as pleasant as her fabricated forbidden affair with the big-city cop with the wide shoulders and hushed, seductive words was a welcome respite from the grief and anger over her brother Nick’s recent death that normally filled her head these days.

Outside the open doors of Morgan & Son’s Garage, the afternoon air was heavy with the promise of a spring rain. Maybe the green scents of budding trees and flower blossoms hanging in the mist and dappling her bare arms with moisture had reminded her subconscious mind of those bubble baths where a cop with stormy gray eyes had had his way with her time and again in an assortment of imaginary story lines.

Her imagination took her to places far removed from tense, worrisome reality.

“You like that, milady?” her knight in shining armor drawled, sliding his hand between her legs and cupping her warmth.

“Yes,” she moaned, closing her eyes against the pleasure of his strong hand reaching into the water and rubbing against her clit. “Please don’t stop.”

“Ah, my damsel is in distress, is she?” Broad shoulders filled her vision as he bent over her to gentle her soft cries with a kiss. “You don’t have to beg with me.”

Her diaphanous bathing gown floated in the water, its sheer material hiding nothing from his eyes. The smoky gray orbs lazily looked their fill, each visual caress like the stroke of his hand on her body.

He was unlike the other men in her kingdom. This one came from a far-off country. He served her willingly, while the treacherous knights of her own kingdom were not allowed to touch her. Her mystery knight, the Silver Fox, spoke in hushed, seductive tones. He ruled his own lands with an iron fist but always treated her as nothing less than a lady.

“Will you join me, good sir?”

“You only had to ask.” His tunic and breeches became a taut black T-shirt and jeans as he peeled off his clothes and slipped into the tub with her. Water sloshed over the sides and she laughed as his big frame displaced all the bubbles. Alex’s thighs clenched together when he wrapped his viselike arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. A well-honed warrior, he’d fought many battles. But each evening he returned to her chamber to take her in any number of ways. Tonight’s seduction was to be slow and sensuous. And merciless, she thought with a gasp of pleasure, as the bulging evidence of his arousal poked against her bottom. “Milady should never have to beg for pleasure.”

He kissed the back of her neck as he palmed her breasts. His big hands lifted them and kneaded them with a gently urgent reverence—like the patient, mature man he was, not some grabby, greedy teen who could earn ten bucks on a bet if he touched them.

Teen? Eeuw. Reality tried to nudge its way in and mess with her fantasy.

Alex squeezed the humiliating memory from her mind and tried to feel the hardness of the grown man pressed against her.

“You don’t think I’m common, do you?”

“You talk too much, milady. Let me show you my appreciation.” No. She smiled wickedly. This time she’d show him. She spread her thighs slightly, boldly catching his arousal and squeezing it. “Alexandra…”

How did he know her name? That was one of the rules between them. No names. Ever. She squeezed him again, gently punishing him for forgetting.

Alex squirmed in his lap, guiding him closer and closer to where she wanted him to be. Inside her.

“Alexandra…” No names. She adjusted herself over him. He moved beneath her. This time they’d come together. He wanted it, too. She was a lady. His lady. The kingdom need never doubt her fine qualities again.

The pressure was building. The water on their skin—lapping between them, surrounding them—simmered with heat. Their heat.

“Alexandra…”

Someone was shouting her name.

But not in passion.

“Alexandra Morgan!”

Alex jerked at the drill-sergeant shout, bumping her head on the open hood of the Buick. “Ow. Damn.” She slid off her perch on the fender and tugged her tool belt back into place, embarrassed to think that an errant monkey wrench and a tan sedan had triggered one of her stupid fantasies.

“Daddy?” Alex rubbed at the sore spot beneath the yellow bandanna wrapped on top of her head, clearing her brain of naughty thoughts and ignoring the male laughter coming from underneath the car in the next bay. She quickly scanned the length of the garage, from the lube pit to the office hallway door, trying to account for each of the employees who hadn’t gone on lunch break yet. No one had seen her squirming on top of the car, had they?

But she had bigger problems.

“Alexandra!” Her father’s deep, booming voice—as crisp and quick as his military stride—announced she was in trouble. Again.

The door to his office slammed, jolting through Alex’s body with dread. “Oh, no. He found it.”

“Found what?” Winston “Tater” Rawls, a longtime employee of the garage and the closest thing to a big brother she had now that Nick was gone, rolled out from under a Ford hybrid in the next bay. “What’d you do this time, Alex?”

She grabbed a rag off her tool chest and wiped her hands, mentally shaking her head at the lanky blond goofball’s question. “I was thinking for myself again.”

He made a tsk-tsk sound behind his teeth. “That’ll teach you. I think I’ll just listen to the fireworks from here, if you don’t mind.”

“Thanks for having my back, Tater.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

“Anytime.” He rolled back beneath the Ford, his laugh echoing from under the chassis. “Anytime.”

Alex dashed toward the exit leading to the business offices. She made it all the way around the sedan before the stale smells of body odor and cigarette smoke stopped her in her tracks. Not now.

She tipped her chin to the black-haired mechanic who blocked her path. Artie Buell was nothing if not persistent. Of course, she wished he’d also learn how to wash his stained coveralls, use a little less gel in his hair, and take no for an answer.

Using his tongue, he rolled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with a suggestive swipe. “I’ll watch your back, Alex,” he drawled. “You need me to smooth over anything between you and your daddy, I’m your man.”

Right. Ever since their sophomore year of high school, when dating his older brother hadn’t worked out so well for her, he’d tried to be her man. She’d grown up, moved away and learned to dream of bigger things than small-town stereotypes. She’d come home again because her father and brother had needed someone to manage their home and feed them. She couldn’t cook as well as she could fix a car. She couldn’t sew or garden as well as she could grow a business. But she loved the men who’d been her only family from the time she was a toddler, and for right now—especially now that Nick was gone—she’d be whatever her father needed her to be.

Artie Buell, however, hadn’t changed a bit in nine years. If he wasn’t such a good mechanic—and the sheriff’s son—she’d have raised a stink about him working here. But she had her own reasons for wanting to stay on the Buell family’s good side now. The truth might depend upon their cooperation. And for that reason alone, she summoned a smile. “I can handle my dad just fine. Thanks.”

“I think I impressed him when I won the Moonshine Run last month.” Damn. The polite chit-chat wasn’t over. Alex froze her smile into place and endured. “You know, I didn’t see you at that race. I kind of thought you might want to root a friend on, especially seeing as how I rebuilt most of that car right here in your daddy’s garage. Remember I ran some of those last-minute calibrations by you?”

“Sure. I’m glad they helped. Gotta go.”

When she would have scooted around him, Artie’s hand snaked out to grab her arm and halt her beside him. “You should have at least helped me celebrate at the party afterwards.”

Working with Artie was one thing. Anything more personal would be like reliving a nightmare. Keep it nice. “I told you I was busy that weekend. Congratulations again, though.” She tugged against his grip. “Dad’s waiting.”

Instead of releasing her, he pulled her close enough that she got a whiff of the cigarettes on his breath when he leaned down to whisper. “You haven’t even been down to the pit to see my trophy. It’s a bigun.”

Right. Like she’d ever venture down into that sunken room that reminded her of a burial chamber unless she had a damn good—work-related—reason to do so. The fact that it was Artie’s main work space at the garage probably added to the eerie claustrophobia she got whenever she went down there. “A bigun? That’s a pretty lame line, even for you.”

“C’mon, Alex. I’m not the bad guy in the family. Remember?”

“Artie.” Tater was out from underneath the Ford again. This time, he wasn’t laughing. “I thought I asked you to get the specs for this car off the computer for me.”

Artie winked one dark eye at Alex but spoke to Tater. “I got ’em.”

“Then move it.”

“I’m movin’.”

When he pulled the printouts from his pocket and released her to deliver them, Alex glanced down at her forearm. She didn’t know which bothered her more, his grimy fingers on her skin, or the memory of another Buell’s touch. Both turned her stomach.

“Alexandra!”

The steel door connecting the garage to the office corridor swung open. Alex jumped as her father’s barrel-chested physique filled the doorway.

For a moment, his stern green eyes looked beyond her into the garage. “Get to work, Artie. I need you back down in the lube pit to change the oil on Jeb Worth’s car before he stops by at one to pick it up. I don’t pay you to stand around and flirt with my daughter.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Artie handed off the papers to Tater and both men returned to the cars they were working on, Alex hurried on over and greeted her father’s ruddy expression with a wry smile. “Thanks for the rescue, Daddy.”

But Staff Sergeant George Montgomery Morgan, USMC, Ret., didn’t smile back. Instead, he waved a bill at her face. “What is this? What new scheme are you cooking up now? You know I don’t like surprises. I told you I wanted to be cautious about expenditures now that the Fisks are selling the track to Whip Davis.”

Alex’s relief came out as an embarrassing snort. Thank heaven. He hadn’t found the papers she’d taken from Nick’s things, after all. She stuffed the shop rag into the back pocket of her baggy denim overalls, using the moment to compose her thoughts before she gave away what she’d been working so hard to hide. “I thought something serious had happened.”

“This is serious,” he groused.

“Right. The money. Of course, it is.” She should have known her father wouldn’t go snooping through her personal things. But if he’d found the stash of notes she’d been sorting through regarding her brother’s death, he’d be in a whole new world of hurt. She’d worried and confounded him enough over the years. Not enough of a lady. No husband. No man. She knew he didn’t blame her for their trouble with the Buells, but still, it had to be disappointing for him to know how Artie’s older brother had forever changed her view of men and relationships. Causing her father more pain was the last thing she wanted. In fact, she was doing her best to help her father climb out of the emotional pit he was already trapped in by investigating the truth behind Nick Morgan’s car crash.

Artie’s father had declared it a tragic accident—said Nick had probably fallen asleep at the wheel and careened off the country highway into the bottom of a ravine. Maybe she was grasping at straws, but Alex had seen two sets of tread marks on the muddy shoulder before winter rains had washed the evidence away that night. “Somebody probably stopped there to see if they could help him,” the sheriff had suggested. So how did he explain away the twin sets of skid marks on the road near the crash site? Sleeping drivers didn’t slam on their brakes. And what was the likelihood of a second driver laying tread in the same exact location?

Sheriff Buell had come up with many plausible scenarios to explain away Nick’s death, but Alex wasn’t buying them. The rain hadn’t started until after the crash that January night. The family business was taking care of cars, for God’s sake, and Nick’s had been in top-notch condition. Nick had raced at the speedway before heading to law school. He knew how to handle a car. Knew how to handle any road condition. The crash made no sense. His death made even less.

Though George Morgan seemed to accept walking through life with his son in the ground and his heart buried there beside him, Alex wasn’t ready to let this town deal her another cruel blow. Especially not when, in Nick’s last phone call before his accident, he’d told her that he’d be missing their traditional New Year’s Eve game night because he was working on something for the state attorney general’s office—and that that something could have serious consequences if the wrong people found out what he was up to.

“Wrong people?” she asked. “Here in Dahlia? Who?”

Nick laughed at her curiosity and ignored her concern. “Don’t worry, Shrimp. It’s just some paperwork I need to finish up. Boring stuff. I’m afraid you’ll have to find someone else to play that marathon game of RISK with this time. But I’ll be looking for a rematch next year. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll give Dad the message. Happy New Year, Nick. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Shrimp.”

The next time she saw her brother was at the county morgue. That night Alex had wept with her father and vowed to uncover how boring paperwork could get a good man killed.

But right now she had to deal with whatever current crisis she’d brought into her father’s world. “Is there a problem?”

“A five-hundred-dollar problem.” He smacked the paper with his hand. “I appreciate you stepping up to help with the business side of things now that—” Alex’s heart twisted at the hesitation “—now that Nick isn’t here. But the racing season has only been going for a couple of months. I don’t want to be spending money we may need to see us through the rest of the year.”

Alex reached out and wrapped her fingers around her father’s fist where he clenched it at his side, holding on until the tension in him began to relax. When he turned his hand and squeezed hers in return, Alex knew he was going to be all right. For now. Her secret was safe. Suspicious bills she could argue—suspicions about Nick’s death she could not. Not until she had something more to back them up with, at any rate.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the Fisks or Mr. Worth or changes at the speedway. You’re afraid I’m going to screw something else up. But I’ve really thought this through, Dad.” Alex pointed out the letterhead on the paper. “The Nelson Racing Team is making a name for themselves on the circuit. Skyler Nelson won the Missouri Flats in 4.89, running with an LSX 427 iron block motor. Exactly what we specialize in building. If he puts our name on his car, just think of the advertising. Our business could grow exponentially. We might have to open a second garage.”

“I suppose you’d want to manage it?”

Why not? Nick had been the lawyer. She was the one with the business sense. “During my internship my senior year at Tennessee, I worked in that auto parts store in Knoxville. In six months’ time, my business plan saved a struggling business and helped put them in the black.”

Her father scratched his fingers over the top of his silvering crewcut, gradually transforming from the grizzly bear who’d stormed into the garage into the gruff teddy bear who might love her, but who rarely understood her. “I’m not interested in opening another garage or going nationwide. We have a thriving business right now, right here in Dahlia, growing as attendance at the track grows. I hope we’ll continue to turn a profit once the speedway changes hands, but during this transition time, I can’t guarantee what kind of cash flow I’m going to have. I want to see how things pan out with Davis managing things before I start dipping into our cash reserves.”

Alex used his perfunctory explanation as an opportunity to steer the conversation away from anything remotely personal. “What about sponsoring a local driver, then?”

“This is five-hundred dollars out of our budget already. And you want to spend more?”

“We have to spend money to make money, Dad. We need to sponsor a car, not just service the cars whenever the driver needs something. If we hook up with a big name and he or she is successful, then we’ll be successful.” Oops. Open mouth, insert foot. Retreat to the brig. “I mean, we’ll continue to be successful and you won’t have to worry about our future, no matter who’s running the speedway.”

But his eyes shuttered and the debate was over. Her father drew back his shoulders, silently reminding her that it was his experience and own two hands that had started this business twenty-two years ago. Nick and Alex’s mother had died and George Morgan—former chief mechanic at the Camp LeJeune motor pool—had left the marines to settle in one spot and raise them. The garage had been built from a small military pension and big dreams. “My decision stands. I can absorb this bill. Just don’t surprise me with any more new ideas.” He reached out and tapped the point of her chin in a gesture he’d used as far back as she could remember. “Okay?”

But Alex wasn’t Daddy’s little girl anymore. When he opened the door to the office corridor, she followed right behind him. “Drew Fisk and his father and grandfather have poured a lot of money into the speedway to bring it up to code, modernize the track and add the amenities that racers and fans want nowadays.” Her father’s sigh told her she wasn’t making any headway, but he held the door to his office open for her and let her keep talking. “Those upgrades brought in the Farron Fuels Racing Series, and Dahlia is turning into a booming little town again. We can do the same—increase our promotional budget, sponsor a team and take advantage of the influx of business and money.”

He swiveled his leather chair forward, pointing to the door as he sat behind his big walnut desk. “I want to be careful about who we sponsor and where our logo shows up, honey. Remember, it’s my name on this company.”

Alex’s hands fisted at her hips when she glanced back at the red-and-white logo painted on the safety glass. Morgan & Son’s Garage. It was a sad reminder of dashed hopes—for her father, and for herself. That sadness painted her voice when she turned back to face him. “It’s my name, too.”

“Ah, honey, I didn’t mean…” A powerful engine gunned outside the front of the garage, loud enough to be heard in the interior offices. But George Morgan ignored the potential customer and reached for his daughter’s hand, pulling her closer as he sat on the corner of his desk. “I didn’t mean you aren’t an important part of this family. Or this business. Or that it hasn’t meant the world to me to have you close by these past few months. It’s just…”

“Dad—”

“Let me say this.” He grasped both her hands now, and Alex willingly held tight to his strong grip, wishing she knew the right words or actions to ease the pain that deepened the grooves beside his eyes and mouth. She couldn’t be hurting any more than he was. “I had it in my head all these years that Nick would be taking over the garage and running it with me one day. Even when he became a lawyer, he always found a way to stay involved.” He brushed his knuckles beneath her chin, and Alex did her best to summon a smile for him. “You’ve always been my little tomboy. But I hoped you’d grow up to be a fine lady like your mama was. I guess I’m still hoping to see you in a dress, with a good man at your side and little ones running around your feet.”

Work boots, overalls and dirty hands hardly lived up to that legacy. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’ve tried. I just don’t seem to have much success when it comes to being that lady you want.” Besides the fact she’d been raised by a marine, and hadn’t had much feminine influence growing up, most of the eligible men of Dahlia—like Artie Buell—didn’t see her as much of a lady. One man had created the lies about her being a teenage tramp, but it took the well-oiled gears of small-town gossip to perpetuate them. “But I do know my way around cars and business. I’m good at this. Please give my ideas a little thought, okay?”

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll think about it, honey. I promise. In the meantime, just run it by me first before you spend five-hundred dollars on anything besides car parts. Okay?”

Not exactly a victory. But Alex wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, anyway. “Okay.”

A sharp knock on the door ended the father-daughter moment. George stood as Alex pulled away.

“You two open for business?”

“Well, look who’s here. Drew Fisk.” George reached out with a smile. “Where have you been keeping yourself, son? You weren’t at the track during last weekend’s races.”

Alex tilted her head to welcome the blond-haired man in the tailored blue suit and white dress shirt. As usual, the tie was long gone. “Hey, Drew.”

“Alex.” He winked by way of acknowledgment and reached in front of her to shake her father’s hand. “George. How’re y’all doing? I’ve been in and out of town, taking care of business.”

“For your father and grandfather? How are they?”

“Fine. Dad’s in India, trying to work out an agreement to build an aluminum fabrication plant there like the one we have here. Grandfather is as cantankerous and crusty as ever.”

“I can’t imagine him slowing down, even now that he’s retired.”

“He seems to keep his nose in everybody’s business, for sure.” Drew turned his attention to Alex, his bright blue gaze traveling up and down her body, appreciating her curves in the same way he had from the day he’d realized his best friend’s younger sister had sprouted breasts, and was no longer just a tagalong for his adventures with Nick. “Alex. You’re looking as pretty as that spring day outside.”

“And you’re full of it,” she scoffed, burying her dirty hands deep in her pockets. Though he used that same smooth BS on every female, it was nonetheless good to see an old family friend again. She smiled, knowing he liked talking about his cars almost as much as she liked working on them. “I thought I heard a seven liter V8 engine driving up. Did you get that new sports car you were bragging about?”

“I did.” He arched a golden brow in a devilish smile. “As I recall, somebody here wanted to know how the engine runs on one of those. Care to find out for yourself? It’s clouding up outside, but we can take it for a spin before the storm hits.”

Alex shrugged, appreciating the invitation, but knowing she had too much on her plate right now to have time to fritter away. “I’ve got Mrs. Stillwell’s Buick out in the shop that I need to finish.”

She felt her father’s hand in the middle of her back, nudging her toward Drew. “I’ll put Artie or Tater on it. I think I can spare you for a half hour or so.”

“But Dad, I—”

“Go. With his grandfather selling the track, Drew might not be around quite so often. Better seize the moment, as they say.” His hopeless matchmaking wasn’t obvious, was it? She had responsibilities here. “Oh, by the way, honey.” He reached back across his desk and picked up a pink slip of paper. “I took a phone message for you. From a Daniel Rutledge?”

Dan Rutledge? As in Nick’s friend from the state attorney general’s office Dan Rutledge? The man whom Nick had been going to see that awful night? Alex snatched the memo from her father’s hand, her fingers trembling. “Thanks.”

“He a friend of yours?” her father asked, no doubt hoping for news of a decent man in her life.

“I’ve never met him.” Technically, that wasn’t a lie. She only knew Daniel Rutledge through Nick’s notes and a series of phone messages and e-mail inquiries she’d asked him to return. Alex stuffed the note into her pocket. “I guess I’ll have to call him to see who he is and find out what he wants.”

She couldn’t reassure her father with a better answer than that? Especially with a mixture of excitement and fear that was no doubt stamped all over her face. Did Rutledge have suspicions about Nick’s death, too? Answers for her? Alex lowered her head, feeling her cheeks steam with her lousy cover-up.

Fortunately, her father was perplexed enough by the mystery to miss her reaction. “The name’s familiar. Wasn’t he a friend of Nick’s back in school? Did you ever know him, Drew?”

Drew shook his head. “Must be from law school. Nick and I lost touch for a couple of years when Grandfather sent me off to Princeton to finish my education.”

“I hope he wasn’t looking for Nick.” George sank back onto the corner of the desk. “Maybe he doesn’t know about the accident, and he was trying to reach him. Oh, hell. Somebody else I didn’t tell.”

“Daddy?” Alex reached out, but he was already drifting away from her, shrinking back into the distant shadow of the man he’d been before grief had ravaged him. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

George Morgan barely nodded. Tears burned behind Alex’s eyelids. Some son of a bitch was going to pay for what they’d done to this man. “Daddy?”

A long arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her into the hallway. “Let’s give him his privacy.” Drew closed the door softly behind them and turned her against his chest for a hug, pressing her nose into the scent of designer cologne at the open collar of his shirt. “He’ll be all right, Alex. Give him some space.”

When she felt his lips brushing against her temple, she pushed away. “No. I want to fix this.”

“You can’t.”

“Watch me.”

“Alex.” His familiar, indulgent smile stopped her from retreating across the hall into her own office. “I miss Nick, too. I thought he and I would be a team forever. You can’t make your father’s hurt go away for him. You have to let him grieve.”

“In my head, I know you’re right. But…” Drew Fisk was no fantasy knight in shining armor. But he was a friend, and he drove a fast car. And right now, Alex needed some speed to drown out the frustrations roiling inside her. She mustered up an answering smile. “Maybe I could use a little fresh air, after all. Give me a few minutes to find Tater to tell him I’m leaving. Start your engine, Drew. I’ll be right there.”