Jesse's Soul (2) (10 page)

A sideways glance up at the man walking beside her started a crack in her heart. The reason that fell off his tongue had been as close the truth as he probably could tell, without repeating the gory details that Molly had. He did seem easy to be with, although she wouldn’t have described him as simple. More like good-hearted and not materialistic. A quick pass over him—well, maybe not that quick—and she’d admit to only Molly that he was ten kinds of fine. But he was as far from her definition of simple as the moon. The man knew how to make casual look anything but. A t-shirt and 501’s on most men appeared sloppy. Jesse made what he called
simple
, look like he’d stepped off a modeling shoot. The front of his brown leather bomber wasn’t zipped, leaving a strip of cotton visible from underneath it, and from where she was standing, Emery could see it was taught. From a visual ingrained in her memory forever, she knew the strain on the material wasn’t because it was a size too small, but from his chest that was so ripped he belonged on a billboard. Advertisers killed for men with bodies like his. So did some women, but she wasn’t going there.

“You are definitely what I picture when I hear the word cowboy.”

He chuckled loudly and bumped her with his shoulder. “Okay, D.”

“That’s funny. She does always call you
her cowboy
.”

“She has from day one. It’s the accent, and maybe the boots. But I’m from
Texas, I can’t help it.” He put his arm around her. “Thanks for coming on a date with me.”

Time stopped…as did her heart.

“Jesse.” Blowing out her panic, she looked him straight in the eye. “This is not a date.”

“I picked you up at your place, I’m taking you to dinner, and I’m walking you back. Sorry, honey, it’s a date.”

“Jesse.” Emery shook her head, trying to make sure he didn’t get the wrong idea.

His arm was around her, casually, but it kept her pace matching his. It probably kept her from hightailing it in the opposite direction, which is what the voice inside her head was repeating over and over for her to do.

“Hey, it may be under protest, but if it looks like a date and it feels like a date, then I’m calling it a date.” He squeezed her to him. “Sorry, sweetheart.”

As nervous as she was from
the switch up in conversation, she appreciated his humor. One minute she was speechless regarding his ex, the next he was teasing her. About dating, but teasing nonetheless. His ability to flow from conversation to conversation without missing a beat was a skill. His playful disposition was a gift. She needed him to shake the awkward from the moments for her. To the outside world she was cold and stern. It had been a necessity. Not many got to see her sense of humor, and most that did, didn’t get it.

Jesse had. The joke from before and his response didn’t elude her.

Emery bit her cheek to keep the snicker from escaping. “You’re a mess. You know that?”

“Yeah, I may be a mess, but you’re hot.”

An unladylike snort escaped. “Oh, good grief.”

“I’m serious. You have a hell of a body, Em. You can’t really see it in that team crap, but tonight, you look amazing.”

“Thanks,” she replied with no girly appreciation at his flattery.

She had thought she’d been doing her best to keep the evening platonic. Apparently she was way off base. And failing miserably.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He had been holding her close, but he squeezed tighter then leaned over and kissed her cheek as they were walking. “You’re welcome.”

Emery sucked in a breath, feeling the light kiss all the way to her toes. It had been so unexpected. It could have been a friendly peck, but Emery knew better. The last thing in the world she intended to do was lead him on, especially since it would only hurt him.

“You’re bound and determined to make this personal, aren’t you?”

“Yeah…I am, Em. I like you.”

What did she say to that? Jesse was turning out to be an
open-book, heart on my sleeve, and I’ll win you over if you’ll let me
kind of guy.
Most women wanted that. But she wasn’t most women. She didn’t want or need flowery words, empty promises, and casual sex.

She wanted permanent.

And why does he have to keep calling me that?

“What?”

“What, what?”

“The huff?”

She looked up to see his confused face, not realizing her frustration was audible. “It’s nothing.”

“Uh-uh, girl. Spill it.”

Emery rolled her eyes and felt her cheeks heat. “It’s just, well…only my dad and brother ever call me that.”

“What?”

“Em.”

Jesse wiggled his eyebrows. Judging by his face, he was apparently quite proud of the newfound knowledge.

“Well, Em, I like it.” He winked.

The breath she took in was a desperate attempt to calm herself. She didn’t want to like that his arm was around her. She didn’t want to acknowledge the warmth of his body next to hers was spreading through her like wildfire. She didn’t want to like the affection he was showing her. She didn’t want to be all tingly and excited.

She didn’t want to get hurt, not again.

Emery glanced up at him and saw hi
m smiling like a foolish schoolboy at her, and she couldn’t help but grin back.

The future was vivid in her mind, ending in a huge, flaming fireball, the crash killing them both. But like a train wreck, she was finding it harder and harder to look away.

“We’ll talk after the race tomorrow night. You may not feel the same way.”

“You don’t scare me. I’m not going anywhere.”

But you should.

“We’ll see.”
The lack of faith laced her tone, but it was out before she could call it back.

He might be able to handle working with her during a race, and they might actually make a good team, but as far as personal stuff, she really doubted he would stick around if he knew everything. Knowing everything—that was a game changer. And she’d lost that game once before. She had no desire to pull herself back off the bench for a second round.

Emery just needed to keep reminding herself of that. It’d better in the long run for the both of them that way.

Chapter F
ive

The clock started the minute she opened her eyes before daybreak. Not an actual clock, but the metaphorical one that she had to race against until the last bike on her team crossed the finish line, over eighteen hours after the time she got up.

Race days were long, dirty, sweaty, adrenaline pumping bursts of madness once a week during the series. Every decision she made during the week was tested on Saturday. It separated the men from the boys, or in her case, women.

Perfection was crucial, and mistakes were not allowed.

To some, her world appeared like a cakewalk, a cushy job where one got to travel the country, party, and have a grand old time. The public didn’t see the hours, the dedication, and the hard work. They came to be entertained
, and the races did that.

For her, it was her life. Errors cost points
, and that made for unhappy factories and sponsors. That was the best case scenario. Worst case…she didn’t think about worst case, because worst case left a rider in the hospital, hopefully alive. That kind of pressure the fans never saw. A bike locking up mid-air due to a mechanical failure was a mechanic’s nightmare come true and a machine was only as good as the man that built it.

And Emery thrived on it.

“Hurry, get it up on the stand for me.”

Emery turned to her table with her tools
lined out in perfect order. A glimpse was all it took. “Who the fuck took—” Mike handed her the wrench she was about to scream for. “No one touches my shit. Got it?”

“Sorry.”

She threw her hand up and shook her head at Mike’s apologetic face. “No, I’m sorry. It’s okay this time. Don’t do it again.”

He didn’t know yet, but they’d all learn very quickly not to move anything from her
OCD
line up of tools. That was a sure fire way to get their asses ripped. The pressure, the stress, and the pace fueled her. The hunger to achieve ran through her just as much as it did any rider. Perfection was what won races. From the perfect form in taking a berm, to the way her screwdrivers were laid out in a precise order. Everything she did affected Jesse and vice versa.

In that relationship, she would give him everything she had, including her soul.

She looked over at John. “Why don’t you have that oil draining yet? What the hell?”

She began to do it herself. “I know you know what you’re doing, but you said you wanted to help me. I don’t need you if you’re just going to stand there and watch me. I don’t have time to train you on stuff you already know how to do.”

Emery stopped for a brief second to look at John a second time. “You want to work on this bike, then you have to understand what it means to put your name and your reputation on the line. I will not give you the chance to screw with mine. Have your ass down on the track watching every practice, every qualifier, every heat, and every race. Pay attention to every conversation. I will not hand hold you on how to perform maintenance that you know how to do. You have to know what your rider needs from the bike and what to do to make it happen. Look around, John—this is a factory trailer. We have everything at our disposal to put that bike up on the podium. It’s up to you to read every scenario and know what it is going to take to make that happen. That is what I will teach you. But you’re going to have to pull your head out of your ass and learn.”

She scooted around to the other side of the bike. “Seriously, John, move. You won’t cut it if you don’t step up.”

The space in which she had to work in was plenty big enough so a grown man could easily walk around the bike, but not so big that her tools were out of reach. Just a few feet away, another bike sat on another stand, and so forth down the line of four. Emery could easily hear the conversations floating through the workspace while she focused the majority of her time on their one hope at a championship on the 450cc. They had three 250cc bikes, and two of the three lites bikes were ridden by rookies this year. It’d be a building year, but Lance had come in with a strong resume and had been holding his own, leaving the other two chasing his tail.

Emery’s idea of fun didn’t include having another mechanic under f
oot. Being there, answering questions and pitching in when problems arose was one thing, but mentoring some guy was totally different. Especially John. For some reason, he rubbed her the wrong way. He knew what he was doing, had gone to school, trained, and on top of that, he’d worked for her father for two seasons already. She needed to figure out whose bright idea it was with the whole “mentoring” thing anyway and smack the crap out of him. It was like John’s brain had seeped out of his head every time she was around. He just stood there with a dumb look on his face waiting to be told what to do.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” she muttered under her breath as once again John was looking at her completely clueless.

Her dad and Jesse’s voices snapped her attention as they came out of the semi.

She hollered for her rider, “Jesse.”

“Yeah, Em?”

Without taking her eye off the bike, she continued to let the oil drain as she spoke. “How’d it feel?”

“I took the second fastest lap time so far today. It felt great.”

“But that back tire? I think in those sand sections, you need more traction. You were slipping every time you went through them. You lost one or two seconds there almost every lap.”

“But my qualifying time was right where we need it to be.”

“It’s up to you. What do you think, Reid?”

Although she didn’t get the satisfaction of catching him shake his head, too many years spent in the pits of a track together told her he was. He never understood the importance to her, but regardless, she always called him by his first name when she was working.

“I think you’re right, change it.”

Emery eyed the tread of the tire, studying the wear patterns. “It’s the dirt here…it’s looser than we expected.”

She looked at John, her eyebrow raised. “Are you still standing there, John? Why don’t you have the tires off yet? This is what I’m talking about.”

“I didn’t know what type you were going to put back on it.”

“Nevertheless, we always change the tires after it comes off the track. He doesn’t so much as roll the gate without new tires. You could have at least had these off and waiting, even if we hadn’t decided to change the type of tire at all. Common sense, John. Use it.”

“Em, it’s—”

“Don’t, Jess. Not when she’s working. You’ll suffer a wrath like no other.”

There was never an extra second in the day, but she paused briefly, just to long enough to sneer at her father.

“Kiss my ass, Reid.”

“And her hearing is perfect.”

Rolling her eyes, she went back to changing the oil as John got the new tires put on. To some it might seem like a mad dash of chaos. To Emery it was pure bliss. Normally
, she’d lose herself in her work, so immersed the only thing she cared about was the clock. Today was different. Jesse was watching her work—she could feel it. It was a more than a little unnerving having the tingles running across her skin as she was trying to focus on the bike, though. Concentrating as hard as humanly possible, Emery tried her damnedest to block the rider belonging to her bike from her mind.

“
Frost. Hey, you’re back.”

Hearing her dad snap at Jesse was one thing, hearing him snap his fingers was another. Jesse
was as dedicated as they came; it sounded to her as if he was having trouble concentrating too, and her father caught him spacing off. The part of her that she kept locked up tight almost wished if that was the case, that maybe it was because of her?

“What?” Jesse asked.

That maybe he was having the same issues as she was, and her father was going to get on to him.

Serves him right.

Reid only snickered and moved on to business at hand. If he had any loyalty toward her whatsoever, the least her father could have done was embarrass him a little.

“Gas,” Emery hollered at John.

She had tried with all her might to keep her temper under control, but the man was trying every last thread of her patience, something that was never her strong suit to begin with. It was her expectation of perfection, both of those around her and of herself. That’s what got her where she was today. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten the memo.

“You’ve had the tire on for three minutes, you need to have grabbed the gas and have it filled by now.”

John looked at her like she had three heads. “I didn’t want to gas it with you down there.”

“I’m fine, unless you’re telling me you’re a slob. Hurry up. We should have this all done in less than ten minutes. There are two of us working together. It’s a freaking oil change, tire, and gas, John. It’s not rocket science. Pick up the pace or go back to the lites bikes. You won’t touch
my bike again if you work like this. Understand?”

“You’re a great mechanic, John”—Rei
d shrugged—“but I heard you very clearly ask her if you could work with her.” Reid motioned around them with his finger. “This is working with her. You want to be able to say you were trained by a Kincaid, this is it, son.”

Emery had caught her father’s actions from the corner of her eye and busied herself to keep from laughing. She didn’t need his help running her mechanics, but it was always nice to have his vote of confidence.

“You should see her with Riley sometime, Jess.”

It couldn’t be considered eavesdropping if the two people talking were within two feet, at least that was the rule in her book. Her interest was piqued.

Jesse chuckled. “They get into it pretty good, huh?”

“No. They don’t even speak. It’s amazing to watch. They can anticipate each other’s actions and it’s completely fluid,” Reid replied.

Okay, now he was just embarrassing her. The vote of confidence from a minute ago had slid rapidly into the
embellishing my child
area. She was sure he’d argue that it was just pride, but whatever, she was shutting him down.

“Reid,” Emery said over her shoulder, the gruffness amplified for his enjoyment, “If you’re just going to stand around and bullshit, then go check on my lites bikes. Make sure they’re done and ready for the heats.”

“You talk to your dad that way?” John put the gas cap back on and stared at her.

“He’s not my dad here.” She spun on her stool, her head cocked to the side, and leveled him with a look of patented Kincaid cocky. “Here…he’s a damn good mechanic who is standing around doing
nothing.”

She over
-enunciated the last word for her dad’s benefit, and laughed when he did nothing but wink back at her.

God, it felt good to be back. Back to the bikes, back to a place she felt needed instead of needy, and at the risk of inflating his ego, it was fantastic to be working alongside her dad.

The crash of metal hitting metal jarred her from her thoughts. Her head jerked up so fast she nearly fell off her short stool.

Everyone froze, except the one man whose anger had gotten the best of him. Anthony threw a second wrench into the toolbox closest to him. Narrowing her eyes, Emery watched, giving him a chance to calm down on his own.

His temper hit the other end of the spectrum.

“
Fuck! This radiator is cracked,” he yelled at the top of his lungs. His face had gone red; irate, screaming, and flailing his hands about for added emphasis.

“How the hell do you keep breaking shit? Damn it, Lance. What the fuck were you thinking? I’m so sick of bullshit like this. Do you not know how to keep the damn bike upright? You’re supposed to be a pro. What the hell?”

Instantly, fire spread through her. Emery stood up, looking wide-eyed at Reid and Jesse and breathing hard. She turned on her heel, hastily putting herself in between Anthony and Lance with no fear of being close enough to kiss to the very pissed-off mechanic.

“Don’t. You. Ever. Let me hear you yell at your rider like that again, or any of my riders, for that matter.
Ever!” She was clear, concise, and fiercely in control.

“What the fuck?” Anthony
turned his fury on her.

She read the words
screw you
in his beady eyes. He narrowed his gaze, and seemingly he understood that she wasn’t backing down.

“He’s doing his job. You do yours. If you can’t handle shit breaking and be able to fix it in time for his next race, that’s your problem, not his. You should have been down on the track watching him, then you’d know what the problem was. You’d know that he was slipping coming out of the sand section and you’d already have had a different tire on the back right now. You’d know that he was thrown over the handlebars and that we’re damn lucky he’s able to ride his heat inst
ead of laying in the nearest ER. So don’t you dare yell at him. It’s not his problem you’re freaking out. If you can’t handle the pressure, find a different fucking career choice. Are we clear?” Emery said through gritted teeth.

“You’re a bitch.”

With no hesitation, she steeled her glare. “And you’re fired.” She pointed for him to leave. “Get the hell out of my team’s way.”