Dangerous Curves. Pamela Britton
“I’m fine. Really,” she said, hanging up the phone. “I’ll eat something later on. Right now I need to concentrate on my files, and this list of names.” She held up the papers he’d given her.
Disappointment flickered through him.
“Hey,” she said, her eyes brightening. “I heard they ran qualifying. Who won the pole?”
And he felt like a kid all of a sudden, boasting to the cute girl next door as he said, “We did.”
She smiled up at him. Not that fake, sexy smile she’d used on him at the airport. Not the false smile she’d given him any number of times since, but a genuine, happy-for-him smile.
She was happy for him.
Why did that surprise Blain so damn much?
“That’s wonderful,” she said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “You must be thrilled.”
He was thrilled. And you know what? It felt good to share the information with her. Yeah, they might have started out on the wrong foot, but in the past twenty-four hours he’d developed a whole new respect for Cecilia Blackwell. She hadn’t tossed his concerns aside. Hadn’t treated his worries like they were nothing. So far she’d acted with absolute professionalism—well, aside from that incident at the airport, but overall, yeah, she’d done a good job. He respected her for that.
“Yeah, well, I wish you’d stick around for at least the Busch race tomorrow night.” And he really did.
“Too much stuff to do this weekend.”
He scanned her face, noted yet again how pretty she looked without makeup, how much she’d changed, how if she were any other woman, he’d…
He’d what?
Want to date her, he realized. Beauty, brains and a NASCAR fan—a guy could do a lot worse.
“I should get back to work,” she said, looking suddenly uncomfortable.
Had she read in his eyes some of what he’d been thinking?
“What time do you leave tomorrow?”
“Late morning.”
He didn’t know what to say after that. “Then I guess this is goodbye, since I have to be at out the track early.”
“I guess so,” she said, looking anywhere but his eyes. “Good luck tomorrow and Sunday.”
“Thanks.” Damn it. He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted to spend more time with her. To find out what she’d been up to in recent years. Who her favorite driver was. What kind of ice cream she liked.
What?
He stepped back. “Have a safe flight.”
“Thanks,” she said again. “You, too.”
But as he turned away, he couldn’t help but feel regret. His hand even lingered on the door for a moment, then quickly, before he changed his mind, he left her room.
“Bye,” he heard as the door closed.
Yeah, bye.
Damn it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CECE MAY HAVE HOPED for a clean getaway, but apparently that wasn’t on the cards. A phone call from her boss had her speeding to the racetrack when she couldn’t get through to Blain. Apparently the man didn’t like being interrupted on race day, so he turned off his cellphone. Track officials were no help. Nor was anybody at his shop. Thus Cece found herself fighting race fans on their way to the Busch race. Returning to the track made her feel…anxious. Yeah, anxious.
She’d spent the whole night analyzing her feelings for Blain. Scratch that. She’d spent the whole night replaying the look on his face when he’d said goodbye. She could have sworn she’d seen regret in his eyes, regret she felt, too. And now here she was, about to face him again, and instead of concern over the news she had to impart, what she felt instead was anxiety that she was about to see him again.
She parked in the infield again, only today she was wearing regular jeans and a comfy off-white sweater that, perversely enough, was too warm, since today there were no thunderclouds in the distance. Thus she was overheated, out of sorts and not in a good mood when she finally tracked down Blain in his Cup car hauler, not the Busch car garage where she’d spent the last half hour looking for him.
“Cece,” he said when he spotted her outside the sliding glass doors.
Cece almost didn’t recognize him. He wore a different shirt—this one for a different sponsor—the blue polo shirt making his eyes all the more striking.
And there went her heart.
Thump, thump, thump, just as it used to do when they were kids. When he’d been out of her reach and she’d wished he wasn’t, and now, oddly…he wasn’t.
“Changed your mind, did you?” he asked with a huge grin.
“No,” she said, suddenly feeling strange. Okay, so she probably wasn’t looking forward to telling him her news. That was to be expected. But she had a feeling her sudden tension had to do more with seeing him face-to-face again than any official business.
Maybe, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all morning,” she said, suddenly wanting to get this over with.
He looked wary, his smile dimming a few watts. “What’s up?” he asked.
She took a deep breath, wishing she’d never gotten involved with this stupid investigation in the first place. But there was no sense in sugarcoating things.
And so she let out the breath and said, “Forensics came back with a preliminary report on the wreck that killed your friend.”
“On a Saturday?”
“They work round the clock.”
“And?”
Damn it, why did she hate doing this so much? “They found evidence of nitrates.”
His mouth hung open, the smile completely gone now. “Explosives?”
She nodded, quickly and sharply. “It’s nothing for certain yet, Blain. Just a chemical swipe that came back positive. They still have to run things through the computer, but I thought you should know.”
The crowd roared. Blain looked off to the infield. Two paratroopers were in the air, red and blue streamers trailing behind the lower one, an American flag trailing behind the upper one.
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