Burning Rubber: Extreme Racing, Book 2 Read online

  She had been too, Derrick realized, because she looked equally crushed.

  “Callie,” an impatient voice called, Veronica having stopped for a moment so she could call her lackey to her side.

  “Just a moment, Ms. Adams.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How the hell do you put up with that crap?” he found himself asking.

  The pretty little brunette shrugged. “She’s all right. She just needs to be the center of attention. Like a poodle that needs to be in its owner’s lap.” She covered her mouth—as if she couldn’t believe she’d said such a thing out loud, but it was an apt analogy.

  “It’s okay.” He leaned toward her. “I won’t tell.”

  She blushed again. He kind of liked how easily he could bring color to her cheeks.

  “We’ve put lots of work into this.” She glanced back at her boss again.

  He followed her gaze. Veronica tapped her foot, arms crossed, and in Derrick’s opinion, looking as ugly as the hind end of a coonhound.

  “You should probably get going.”

  “She can wait.” Callie narrowed her eyes, holding her ground like a dog refusing to heel.

  Good for her.

  “You have to admit the idea has merit.”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t know the first thing about racing.”

  He was surprised when she nodded in agreement. “She doesn’t, but I do.”

  “You?” he asked. “What do you know?”

  “You’d be amazed what you can learn spending weekends at a track.”

  “Racing what?”

  “I didn’t race, my dad did. Modifieds. I was a crew chief for years.”

  “You,” he said again, eyeing the loose-fitting slacks and librarian hairstyle.

  “Derrick.” Brett came up behind him. “We need to get going.”

  “I can tell you the firing order of a Chevy engine forward and backward.” She stepped closer. “And what size jets might work best on a small-block engine bored thirty over. So between the two of us, we’ve got the bases covered.”

  “Derrick,” his crew chief called again.

  She took a step back. “Think it over. You’d be surprised at how plausible the idea really is.” Then she started, as if she’d forgotten something. She reached behind her, swinging a giant leather satchel around.

  “Here.” She flipped the front up and rooting around inside. “Look this over.”

  She handed him a document-sized envelope which he immediately gave to his crew chief. “It’s our prospectus. Everything from what tracks you’ll be racing at, to our proposed racing schedule, to how much money you’ll make. Guaranteed income your first year. Check it out, and if it interests you, we’re having a meeting next month at a resort in the Florida Keys. You’ll be wined and dined and shown a good time all the while learning more about the X-TREME Racing League.”

  “Honestly…” He lifted his palms.

  “Just look it over,” she insisted, stepping away before his crew chief could hand the envelope back to her. “I know it’s a wild idea, but I really think it’ll work.”

  She turned away before he could say another word. Derrick shook his head again and watched her walk away.

  “What was that all about?” His crew chief glanced quickly at the envelope he held.

  “Nothing,” Derrick replied.

  “It says X-TREME Racing on the outside. What’s that?”

  “The world’s craziest idea,” he muttered, grabbing his helmet off the roof of his car.

  When he climbed inside a moment later, a white-clad official signaling to him not to move (as if he didn’t already know that), Derrick found himself wondering what would it be like?

  How would it feel to race like they had in the old days? Not to have to watch every word he said? To get behind the wheel of a car that had no restrictions on horsepower? To be allowed—no, encouraged by the sound of it—to drive a little dirty.

  Man, wouldn’t that be something?

  He started his car, eight-hundred horses roaring to life and causing his teeth to rattle and his vision to blur for a split second. He longed for the old days, the days when he’d started his racing career, the days of driving on a dirt track, no-holds barred, no stupid rules, just the fastest car winning.

  As he rolled off a few minutes later he found himself thinking maybe, just maybe, he should take a trip down to the Keys. Not because he was curious about the X-TREME Racing League, although there was that, but because. Strangely enough, he had an equal curiosity about the grease monkey in the business suit otherwise known as Callie Monroe.

  That was the craziest thing of all.

  Chapter Two

  “Ms. Monroe, someone’s here to see you.”

  Callie sighed at the interruption before looking away from her computer screen and glancing at her phone.

  “Can you tell them I’m in a meeting?” she asked plaintively.

  There was still so much to do before their first test session in November. They were still scrambling to find themselves a headliner and Callie’s eyes were blurry from scanning the Internet for potential names.

  Callie’s black-and-white business cards said Vice President of Development. Truthfully, the title sounded a lot more grandiose than it was. It meant she wore many hats, most of which kept her up late at night and involved doing anything from approving a race schedule, to reviewing the schematics of an engine, to what she was doing now—research.

  “I already told him you were free.” Mary’s voice was low and secretive, as if Callie’s uninvited guest stood right over her.

  “Did they give you a name?” Callie asked.

  The receptionist at Adams Enterprises didn’t say anything for a moment. “Just a min—” the phone beeped, the connection having been prematurely cut.

  Callie smiled. Mary was at least sixty; she had the gray hair and laugh lines to prove it. In other words, no competition for Veronica. Callie was convinced that’s why she’d been hired because, according to her resume, the last time Mary had been a receptionist had been during the Cold War. Thus, she was a tad bit rusty.

  The phone beeped again. “He says he’s a driver.”

  Callie’s brows lifted. “Which one?”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Monroe,” Mary said using the same low and secretive voice as before. “He’s refusing to give me one.”

  Callie’s brows lifted even higher. Who could it be then? A local driver, perhaps? Someone with a puffed-up view of their own self worth? Wait, most drivers had high opinions of themselves despite the fact only a small percentage of them were any good.

  “He has dark hair and dark eyes, if that helps,” Mary added.

  Dark hair and dark eyes. Who on their list had dark hair and dark eyes…?

  She jerked in her seat.

  “I’ll be right there.” She shot up from her chair so fast she about knocked it over, then rushed over to the framed poster hanging on the wall to her right—a kitten trying to hang onto a tree limb—and tucked stray hairs into her loosely coiffed bun.

  Wait.

  What was she doing? It might not even be him, him being Derrick Derringer, of course. A man such as Derrick would have called ahead of time, or had his people call them, or set up an appointment with Veronica. It was probably some local nobody who’d heard about the XRL through the grapevine.

  She shook her head at her foolishness and immediately turned toward her door.

  The scent of fresh paint immediately filled her nostrils. They had the entire top floor of the Los Angeles high-rise, although most of the offices were empty while they got XRL off the ground. It was costing Veronica a fortune for five-thousand square feet of prime real estate, but where else would they set up shop but in a city best known for its entertainment? If the league took off, cubicles and offices would be filled to capacity: marketing personnel, safety officials, IT department. For now all was quiet. The grandiose glass-walled conference room next to her office stood empty. No clackity-cl
ack-clack of people on keyboards. No lingering smell of yesterday’s lasagna. No low-murmuring of employees on the phone. Not yet.

  “He’s over there,” Mary hissed when she spotted her.

  Callie drew up short. It was Derrick Derringer.

  He stood behind Mary’s desk, in front of a wall of windows which looked out over L.A.’s smoggy skies. Adonis come to life, sunlight silhouetting his frame, a black jacket and black turtleneck accentuating his perfectly tanned skin. He did something that startled her then, something strange. He shushed her with a finger and focused on Mary.

  “Could we go somewhere and talk?”

  “Ahh,” she swallowed in an attempt to lubricate her vocal chords. “Sure.”

  Callie glanced at Mary. The woman peered between them, her friendly face alight with curiosity.

  “We’ll be in the conference room.” She turned toward her office and motioned Derrick to follow her.

  Crap, he’s probably staring at my butt. She shouldn’t have worn pants today. She wasn’t skinny like Veronica. Her rear-end was as wide as a barge.

  “Here we go,” she called brightly, pushing open one of the double glass doors.

  What was he doing here? Why the secrecy?

  “Thanks.”

  She caught a whiff of him as he passed by. He smelled like baby soap—clean, sweet and with a hint of talc.

  Oh, boy.

  “Thanks for not blowing my cover.” He pulled out a chair for her. Callie nearly stumbled at the courtly behavior. Southern charm at its best. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.”

  Callie sat down. He chose a chair as well.

  Right next to her.

  Callie rolled back quickly, ostensibly to give him more room to sit, but in reality, to give herself more space. It was like sitting next to a barrel of radioactive waste. She sensed danger, but couldn’t very well turn and leave the room.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  Get it together, Callie. This is one of the world’s best drivers. We need him. Badly. Quit gawking and acting like a silly teenager.

  “Let’s just say, I’d rather not ruffle any feathers if I don’t have to. Word might get out I was here if your receptionist knew my name.”

  His eyes. They weren’t brown. They were like the insides of a candy bar. Caramel and cream.

  Clearly she needed to eat lunch. She’d lost her mind.

  “I see.” She gathered up the split reins of her intellect and gave them a firm jerk. “Well, ah. How can I do it for you?” She blanched. “I mean what can I do for you?”

  He stared at her. Hard. Yes, that was very definitely amusement she spotted in his eyes. Callie had to resist the urge to lean back. Overhead, cool air whirred out of a duct. Callie envisioned standing on the ebony-colored table, parting her black jacket and cooling herself in front of it. Maybe if she took of her glasses and let her hair down…

  “…talk to you about the X-TREME Racing League.”

  She shook her head. Damn. She’d done it again. She’d lost focus, just like she’d done at the race track.

  “I, ah…” Callie’s cheeks combusted. “Wouldn’t you rather talk to Veronica?”

  “No.” The word was firm, sharp.

  He was staring at her, doing the thing with his eyes where his gaze would linger on her lips, then move back to her eyes, then to her hair, then back to her lips again. She grew more and more self-conscious as she sat there.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked suddenly, shooting up at the same time.

  One of his brows twitched upward. “Ah, yeah. Sure.”

  She bolted like a rabbit from a hole.

  Nerves.

  Derrick waited for Callie to return to the conference room, hoping against hope she would calm down. He could tell he’d thrown her for a loop by showing up unannounced.

  The glass door opened a minute later, two steaming black mugs of coffee in her hands. Those fingers trembled. Coffee vibrated against the edges of the cups like water on a stereo speaker.

  “I hope you like it black.” The ceramic base clinked against the glass-covered table. “I, ah…I could go get you cream and sugar.”

  “Black is fine.” He scooted the mug closer. The handle was still warm from her touch.

  “Okay, great.”

  Where was the spunky girl from the race track? The one who’d stood up to her boss? Who’d impressed him with her racing knowledge? Who had thrust a prospectus at him so boldly he’d had no choice but to take it? If she hadn’t done that he wouldn’t be here today, he admitted. Did she know that?

  “Nice offices,” he said, feeling an overwhelming need to set her at ease. He was used to women fawning all over him, or being nervous in his presence. Usually, he found it amusing. With Callie Monroe he found it endearing. She wasn’t star-struck. She was on edge. Why? Was it because she wanted him to join the X-TREME Racing League so badly? Or was it something else? Something more…basic?

  Attraction.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she muttered back.

  He took a sip of his coffee, watching her closely. She had a hard time meeting his gaze. So maybe it was attraction.

  “It’s good,” he pronounced with a smile.

  “Thanks.” She took a deep breath and clasped her hands on the table in front of her. “What can we do for you, Mr. Derringer?”

  “Derrick,” he corrected, setting his mug back down.

  “Derrick.” She gave him a small smile. He would bet when she grinned the corner of her eyes would crinkle.

  “Tell me more about the X-TREME Racing League.”

  “What do you want to know?” Her green eyes glowed with…what was it? Warmth? Intelligence? Wariness? All of the above, he realized.

  “I’d like to know about the cars we’re supposed to race. The prospectus didn’t talk a whole lot about them.”

  “That’s because we’re keeping that information under our hats.”

  “Really?”

  “We’re afraid of being copycatted, Mr. Derringer. Derrick,” she quickly corrected. “We only want individuals who are serious about our league to know the nitty-gritty details. We’ll go over all of that at our orientation in the Keys.”

  “I don’t want to wait for the orientation.”

  She blinked behind her glasses. “I see.”

  Such pretty eyes. They were a startling color. Like opaque glass or marbles.

  “I want to know now.” If he went to their orientation it’d be all over the world of motorsports he was joining the newly formed X-TREME Racing League, even if it wasn’t true. If that happened, it might present problems with his owner. He’d rather find out now if the idea had merit. If it did…well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked again.

  “I want to hear about the cars I’ll be driving. Specifically, what will they look like? What sort of engines? What sort of chassis?”

  She almost seemed to smile. If he hadn’t been studying the unique color of her eyes he might have missed how they flared suddenly.

  “They’ll be patterned after this year’s model of cars. Mustangs, Cameros, Chargers. Anything goes…as long as it’s based on a car currently in production.”

  “No universally mandated body style?”

  “Nope.”

  He pursed his lips for a moment. “Interesting.”

  “Obviously, that will present a problem aerodynamically,” she explained. “But we won’t be doing anything about that, either. We refuse to be like NASCAR and so we’re going to leave it up to the teams to level the playing field.”

  He leaned away in surprise.

  She smiled. A full-fledged, wonderfully delighted smile.

  It transformed her face.

  He found himself gawking for a moment at the way her whole appearance changed. Her eyes lit with an inner light, one that set her entire face aglow. Her lips turned full. Her cheekbones popped into prominence. She went from being average to stunn
ing…and all because of a smile.

  “As the prospectus states,” she went on, unaware of how he studied her anew, “we intend for this to be a no-holds-barred, anything goes kind of league. Yes, we’ll monitor each team’s body style. Like NASCAR, we’ll have templates the cars will have to conform to, but outside of the radius of that template—say if you wanted to pull the lower edge of a front fender out to give yourself an aerodynamic edge—we won’t be monitoring that.”

  He loved it when she talked cars.

  “Power train?” he asked.

  “Standard V-8s,” she smiled. “All we ask is that the engine blocks be made of cast iron.”

  Oh, yeah. She was a gear-head, all right. “Big or small?”

  “Big.”

  He loved that she knew a lot about cars. If he were honest, it was kind of a turn-on.

  “You’ll be given a blueprinted engine to work with, one that should be pretty competitive all on its own,” she added. “But if you want to tweak with it, we won’t care. Use whatever you can to make yourself go faster.”

  He rocked back in his chair, an appreciative whistle escaping his lips. “You really are patterning this off old-school racing, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “We are.” She pushed her glasses back up her nose.

  He had a sudden, completely ridiculous urge to remove those glasses. To pull the pins from her hair too.

  “There’s only one difference,” she added.

  “What’s that?” he asked, squirming in his chair because if he were honest with himself, he was stimulated in a way that took him by surprise.

  “The chassis you’ll be using is state-of-the-art. No expense has been spared to ensure your safety. You won’t be allowed to fabricate your own frames for that reason. You’ll need to use ours so we know you haven’t cut corners. That’s the only thing we’ll be monitoring closely—the undercarriage and frame of each car—but it’s for your own good. You’ll be going faster than ever, so if you wreck, we want to ensure you have a good chance of making it out alive.”

  Before he could think better of it, Derrick found himself plucking her glasses from her face.

  “Hey,” she cried, making a grab for the dark-brown frames.