Crystal set down the phone and gazed at Rufus. She’d taken him for a walk first thing this morning. But for some reason, he hadn’t seemed able to find the right spot to do his business. She didn’t dare leave him inside or load him into the truck without walking him now.
She slipped into a pair of running shoes and retrieved the leash.
“Walk, Rufus?” she asked.
His uneven ears perked up.
She jingled the leash.
He came to his feet, looking at least a little bit interested in the activity as he padded toward her.
“Good for you,” she crooned, scratching him on the head as she clipped onto his worn, leather collar
She scooped her purse from the counter, popped a cap on her head, then locked up behind her.
She led him down the long staircase to the paved parking lot behind the office. They crossed to the wooded area out back, taking the trail that skirted Stanley Pond.
Happily, as soon as she let him off the leash, Rufus got right down to business.
Afterward, she clipped him back on and took the long way around to the bay door and the delivery truck. She might be committed to temporarily fostering Rufus, but her mother would find a dog entirely impractical. And Crystal wasn’t ready to have that argument just yet.
So she hustled him into the passenger seat and shut the door before tracking down the shop foreman to get the paperwork for the delivery.
While she drove, she tried not to think about whether Larry would be at his brother’s garage. He’d said he didn’t spend much time down there. And, really, it was of little consequence.
He was a nice guy, sure. And they’d had a fun chat over smoothies. She was impressed by his intellect and, she’d admit, she kind of liked his formal, courteous manner.
The man had actually pulled out her chair. She smiled at the memory. Even more impressive, they’d carried on an hour-long conversation. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had shown such a strong interest in her thoughts and ideas. Simon never had.
Which meant she was probably hanging out with the wrong kind of men. Something to think about for the future.
She swung north on I-85, glancing at her watch, thinking maybe she’d try to stay at the track for the race. There was no law that said she had to watch it from her parents’ living room. She could buy a ticket for the grandstands, or maybe she could wrangle a pit pass, and maybe she’d meet up with Larry again.
She made up her mind. If Larry was there, she’d ask him to get her a pit pass.
The odds of her running into him amidst the two-hundred odd thousand spectators was slim. But, if lightning did strike twice, she promised herself she’d ask. Maybe they’d chat some more. Maybe she’d figure out what it was she was supposed to be feeling about him.
At the track, she carefully maneuvered between haulers, service vehicles and hundreds of people rushing to get ready for the race. The noise level was high, the excitement level even higher.
She squeezed the delivery truck as close as she could get to the Cargill Motorsports garage and lined the back of the truck up with the bay door. Before shutting off the motor, she lowered both windows to give Rufus some fresh air.
He yawned and stretched, finding a more comfortable position on the seat, his ears flopping over the edge. She gave him a scratch on the head, and a sigh whooshed through his body.
“You have a dog,” came a familiar male voice through her open window.
She turned to find herself face-to-face with Larry, his eyes taking on a green tone in the bright sunlight.
Something lurched in her chest, and she went breathless. “I’m fostering him,” she managed.
“I’ve never had a dog,” said Larry.
“My first,” she admitted. Her parents always claimed to be too busy for a pet. The business came first. Running Softco Machine Works took sixteen-hour days, seven days a week.
Larry opened the truck door for her, and Crystal slipped off the seat, her running shoes coming down onto the roasting pavement.
“And here you are again,” she observed as they both headed down the length of the delivery truck.
“Surprised?” he asked.
“I’m surprised you’re in the garage twice in a row.”
“Yeah.” His expression sobered. “After the incident with Kent’s car-”
“Those animal-right activists?” Crystal had heard about the incident on the radio.
“I thought the family might need some moral support.”
She nodded, admiring his devotion to his family. It was nice of him to show up to lend a hand.
She flipped the latch and rolled up the door. “And here all I brought was an axle.”
“That’s important, too.” He gazed at the boxes in the depths of the truck. “Any chance you’ll let me carry the box?”
“You’re treating me like a girl again.”
“I know,” he agreed. There was a thickness in the inflection of his voice.
She looked up, and there it was. A wave of desire sizzled between them. She could almost smell the scorched heat. Although she supposed it could have been tire smoke.
“Can you get me a pit pass?” she asked, partly because she’d promised herself she would and partly because this feeling was very much worth investigating.
His eyes registered surprise. “Sure.”
“Good.” She lifted the long box. “Then go do that while I finish up here.”
His gaze flicked to the box, and she could see the war going on inside him.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warned.
“Is it more than ten pounds?”
“None of your business.” It was probably about forty. “I do this for a living, remember?”
“You write for a living,” he countered.
“If I only wrote for a living, I’d be residing in a cardboard box and be a whole lot thinner than I already am.”
He took in her figure beneath the khaki pants and plain T-shirt. He didn’t say a word, but his expression told her he liked what he saw.
She liked that he liked it, which was not her normal reaction.
“You going to let me stand here holding this box?” she asked.
He reflexively reached for it.
“I meant you should get out of my way.”
He stepped to one side to give her the room she needed. “Sorry.”
But she grinned. “Don’t be sorry. Please go get me a pit pass.”
Larry gave her a salute and a smile in return, as he turned to go.
“I’ll park Rufus in the shade,” she called after him. “And get him some water.”
Larry turned back and shot her a grimace. “His name is really Rufus?”
“I picked it myself. You got a problem with that?”
He held up his hands in surrender. “No problem here.”
She shifted her attention to the garage to find the Grosso team watching with bemused expressions on their faces.
“My new dog,” Crystal explained as she walked toward the workbench, pretending what she and Larry had going was nothing more than a budding acquaintance. And it
THERE WAS TROUBLE ON THE track.
There was also trouble on pit road.
Out on Turn Three, race cars banged into each other like dominos. Metal clanged, tires screeched and smoke filled the early evening air. Near the Kent Grosso pit box, Crystal’s hand clamped down on Larry’s knee. The yellow caution flag came out, while the warning flags inside Larry’s head turned to red.
He nearly gasped out loud as sensation zapped up his thigh at the speed of light. Okay, it was more like the speed of his circulatory system, or more appropriately, the speed of synaptic transmission along his sympathetic
