Shifting Gears (2 page)

Ranger shook his head. “It hasn't been as high a priority. I've been able to handle a lot of it, and even though I got on your case about working too much, I really do appreciate that you're still pitching in so much with the races. Especially with you trying to ramp up Carbon Works.”

Carbon Works was what Grady had named his new business, because he was focused on designing and building carbon fiber parts for anything that could use a boost in speed or portability. That included cars, trucks, snowmobiles, motorcycles … hell, even lawn mowers. As long as it had an engine and a body, he wanted to be a part of it.

He just didn't want to race it.

He'd bought the big 3-D printer so he could use it to create the designs for his parts—actual, working parts like bolts and mufflers and spoilers that were “printed” out of carbon fiber. The machine had been staggeringly expensive, and he was determined to make sure he recouped that loss as soon as possible, so he'd been working round the clock to make it happen quickly.

But in the meantime, he wasn't the only one working extra hours to pick up the slack. Ranger had a wedding to plan on top of everything else.

“Why don't you let me take care of finding a team manager? If Fogerty ends up helping us out as crew chief, I'll have a little more free time to get some people in for interviews.” He tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. He didn't want Ranger thinking he was trying to butt in where he no longer belonged. But this was still his family, damn it. And if Fogerty was coming on board, Grady wanted to get someone in place as team manager who was nothing like that asshole. Someone who would think of the crew as family, who would care about them as people, not just as part of the job.

Fortunately, Ranger blew out a relieved breath and nodded emphatically. “Yeah. That'd be a big help. Thanks, man. Meanwhile, I better get a move on.” Ranger lifted his keys and waved. “I'm even later now. Kerri's probably fit to be tied.” But he grinned when he said it, and Grady laughed.

“Good luck. See you tomorrow.”

Ranger left, and the garage was suddenly, eerily quiet. Usually, Grady didn't mind the heavy silence—it was great for concentration. But tonight, his mind kept wandering.

Once they hired a replacement crew chief and a team manager, Grady would be well and truly out of Hart Racing. Despite how much he hadn't wanted to be so tied to the racing world, it would still feel … strange, to say the least.

Hell. Of course it would. He'd been with Hart Racing for as long as he could remember. Dad had started the team when Grady was six years old—twenty-five years ago—and it was the only place he'd ever worked. Despite the excitement he'd felt about his new venture, he had to admit he was worried, too. Not about the team, but about himself.

Kerri was a crackerjack racecar driver. Lee, their younger brother, was heading off to college soon, but he was still racing and would probably be as amazing as Kerri in another couple of years. Ranger had brought Hart Racing back from the brink of closure, and his involvement and can-do attitude—not to mention his relationship with Kerri—had brought the Hart family even closer in the process.

Grady had always wondered where he belonged amidst all that greatness. He practically had a heart attack every time he was on the track, he had a master's in mechanical engineering that he'd never put to any use, and he'd nearly ruined the company within a year of Dad's death.

No matter how excited he was about this opportunity, he couldn't help but wonder whether he would fail at this new venture, too. What if he really was sub-par at everything? If this business didn't go well, what would he have then?

Well. One thing for sure. He wasn't going to get any more work done tonight.

He started up the print job, then gathered up his things, turning the question over in his mind the entire time. But in the end, there was really no answer. He'd already started down this path. Fogerty was coming in for an interview, Ranger had pretty much admitted that Hart Racing had outgrown Grady, anyway, and none of them were getting any younger …

There was no turning back now.

*   *   *

“I'm going over to Mrs. Hart's, Momma.”

Annabelle Murray kissed her mother on the cheek, then left the kitchen and headed out to the front hallway to slip her shoes on. She took one last look in the mirror that hung over the narrow console table along one wall, crinkling her nose at the made-up face and styled hair that had her looking like a Miss North Carolina contestant. Put a little Vaseline on her teeth and some hairspray in her bright red locks and she'd be all set.

Who are you kidding?
Donnie's voice whispered from inside her head.
What makes you think a pageant would want you?

She froze for a second, pink painted fingernails hovering over the pie she'd made earlier this morning, and tried to put the ugly thought out of her mind. But after so many years of being told by her own husband—
ex
-husband, now—that she was too insignificant, too untalented, too
unwanted,
it was hard to simply stop believing it.

If Donnie was right, she had nothing to offer a pageant.

You aren't what I want anymore. I want a
real
woman. Not a nag in dirty coveralls.

Annabelle's lungs hurt all of a sudden, and she had to consciously pull in a deep breath at the same time that she pushed his voice away. Donnie didn't belong anywhere in her life anymore, and she hated the way he kept making an appearance in her thoughts.

Of course, it didn't help that, in the ten days since she'd returned home, her own mother had continually reinforced all the things he used to say to her. Not specifically that she was
insignificant.
More like, Momma didn't think Annabelle should try to be anything
significant.

The clock in the den started to chime the hour, spurring her into action. Pie in hand, she opened the door and stepped into the warm August sunshine, shutting the bad memories and imaginary pageants and her mother's demands inside.

Wow,
that felt good.

Silence, sunshine, and solitude.

She took a moment to stand on the front stoop, basking in the rays and the feeling of freedom. How long had it been since she'd felt like this? The sun in Texas had been just as warm—warmer, really—but she'd rarely been able to enjoy it back in Nacogdoches. She was too busy trying to keep her and Donnie afloat.

What, you think you could have done better on your own? You'd be nothing without me, Annabelle. Nothing.

He'd told her that many times—usually any time he had a bottle in his hand, which had become a lot more frequent over the years.

Remembering that made the cloud come back on her mood, so she moved on, click-clicking down the front walk in those stupid kitten heels she'd bought to show the world that
I'm trying, damn it,
the swish of her skirt the only other sound, it felt like, in the entire neighborhood.

She guessed that nine in the morning on a Wednesday didn't exactly get a lot of action in the suburban cul-de-sac where she'd grown up. Most of the residents were like her mom—older folks who'd moved into this neighborhood thirty years ago, raised their kids in the split-level ranches, and aged along with the street signs after their children left to do the exact same thing, just somewhere else.

She reached the sidewalk alongside the street, turned right, and walked up the front path of Mrs. Hart's neighboring house. This time, she didn't pause on the front stoop to enjoy the sun. She had a nine o'clock pie date with the woman who'd lived next door to Annabelle's mother for the past thirty years, and she didn't want to be late. Especially since this was the first day she'd left the house since she'd returned as a resident of Shady Oaks subdivision.

Nothing like pushing thirty and coming back home with your tail between your legs to live with your mother.

God damn it, Donnie! Get out of my head!

There was no place for that here, at Mrs. Hart's house. Annabelle had never known a woman more serene, kind, and absolutely fearless than Nancy Hart. She was a paragon.

But then, all of the Harts were exemplary in their own way. Almost a year before, Lee, at barely sixteen years old, had become the youngest driver to win a stock car race in all the association's history. Kerri, Annabelle's sometime-playmate when they'd been kids, was one of the best-known drivers in the sport, and a woman that so many females looked up to. And Grady …

Oh, Grady.

Well, back when they were both teenagers, he'd been everything Annabelle had ever wanted. Except for the part where he'd never noticed her.

And she'd never thought to go after him. Momma had a rigid, old-fashioned idea of how women should behave—she'd actually said the other day that if Annabelle had only been softer and more submissive, she never would have gotten left for another woman.

Annabelle had resisted the urge to retort that acting that way hadn't seemed to make her mother very happy. Without Dad around, Momma didn't seem to have any purpose other than making her own daughter miserable.

But it offended Momma that Annabelle had
failed
at marriage. And Annabelle couldn't afford to offend her mother—quite literally. She couldn't afford
anything,
when it came down to it. Donnie had blown through all their savings, taken out a lien on the house and on the garage by forging Annabelle's signature, and left her with a fifty-thousand-dollar debt when he'd run off with that waitress.

There was nothing like going to court to file bankruptcy one day and going again the next day to end one's marriage. Annabelle had had to borrow money from her mother just to get divorced.

She had a lawyer working on her case, trying to prove the fraud, but she'd already been cautioned that it could take several years before everything was cleared. Meanwhile, her credit was shot and she still had to make payments on the debt that wasn't even hers to begin with.

How long would she have to live like this? As a guest in her childhood home, feeling like a loser, angry that she still wasn't independent after all these years and even angrier that she felt like it was all her fault.

She needed a job desperately, but she hated her original career of teaching and wasn't looking forward to going back to it. At this point, though, there weren't many other choices. She'd worked under the radar at the garage back in Texas—all the work orders had been signed under Donnie's name, all the payments made out to him, and she didn't know enough people around here anymore to convince them to take a chance on a woman mechanic with no references. She didn't have time to prove herself enough to find a job she truly loved. Not when money trumped everything else.

She shifted the pie to her other hand and reached out to ring the bell.

Behind the door, she heard footsteps, and she quickly plastered a friendly smile on her face. She didn't want to lay any troubles at Mrs. Hart's doorstep, even though she was practically exploding with the need for someone to confide in.

Mrs. Hart opened the door and made a sound of excitement.

“Well, Annabelle Murray, all grown up. I've missed you!” Mrs. Hart managed to gather Annabelle into her arms while deftly avoiding the pie and not mussing either of their makeup.

How had such a graceful woman like Nancy Hart raised Kerri, one of the most tomboyish girls in the state? Possibly even the country? Maybe it was impossible to avoid, with a race car driver for a husband. Mr. Hart had been well-known in his day. In fact, it was in Mr. Hart's garage that Annabelle had learned so much about cars.

Even though she'd never actually worked on a car there. Never asked if she could try, despite wanting to so badly that she'd dreamt about it at night. Even when Mr. Hart had asked her if she wanted to help out, she still hadn't had the courage to say yes.

Growing up, Annabelle had often been chastised whenever she did something foolish like climb a tree, or hurl a ball over the fence, or try to sneak out of the house wearing a pair of ripped jeans.

Ladies don't call attention to themselves like that.

Like how?
she'd once asked.

In any way. They don't call attention to themselves at all.

That had been especially hard to hear when she'd become a teenager and started noticing Grady in a way that made her want to call
his
attention to her. He was the first guy she'd fantasized about, alone in her room. She'd had a lot of ideas about what would happen if she'd ever gotten his attention.

“How was the trip back home?” Nancy asked, breaking into Annabelle's reverie.

Great.
Here she was, thinking dirty thoughts about Grady Hart in front of his
mother.
Awkward.

She made herself focus. “It was nice. It's lovely to be back. And you look wonderful.”

Annabelle presented the pie she'd made, with its evenly-baked crust and delicate flower cutouts. During her years of teaching home economics to surly middle-schoolers, before she'd taken over the garage from Donnie, she'd vented her frustration over her limited life through precision-made baked goods.

Mrs. Hart gasped with delight. “Oh, Annabelle, this is incredible. You have such a deft hand with pastry. How did you get this pattern on top?”

The kind of thing that got her compliments and envious looks from other women … but no man had ever looked over at her and said,
Damn, honey, that pie is the sexiest thing I've ever seen. You pie vixen, you.

She wrinkled her nose a little. No man had ever said that probably because it didn't sound sexy at all.

Then again, what did she know? It wasn't like she had a ton of experience in that area. For all that she'd worked in a garage for years, the guys employed there had kept a certain distance between them and her. She'd overheard some of their jokes, yes, but they'd saved the raunchiest ones for their smoke breaks out back. Meanwhile, Donnie hadn't exactly fueled many fantasies in her. In fact, he'd been too drunk half the time to even get it up.