“Not as effective.” Liam was focused. He stopped in front of a huge garage. It looked closer to the size of a small plane hangar. “We’re here—number seventy-six.”
He turned around and faced Colby. She was utterly and completely bewildered. Liam placed both hands on her shoulders. “You ready?”
Colby hunched her shoulders. “Umm . . . I guess?” She had no idea what Liam wanted to show her, and if she were honest, she really didn’t care. Colby just wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
“I never knew when Brian bought Daughtry Racing that it would change my life. What started out as a problem I needed to help him fix has morphed into something so much more. Our goal was simply to win one race. You need to understand that I’m a man who likes order. I like certainty and predictability.”
“You also like being in control,” Colby said with a small smile.
“I can’t argue there either.” He smirked. “Nothing about this situation is certain or has been predictable. You’ve turned everything on its head. The first time I saw you drive, I knew you were special, but I wasn’t ready to admit it. I wanted to follow the plan. Win this damn race so that I could go back to my life. Then I got to know you. I saw how driven you were, no pun intended.” He smiled before turning serious again. “After that night in my hotel room, I also realized that Brian and I were part of the problem, intentionally or not. We continued the entrenched position of protecting sexism and racism by knowing you were the best driver on our team but ignoring it because you weren’t a white male. We no longer want to be part of the problem. We want to be part of the solution.”
Liam gave the signal, and the garage door slowly lifted.
“What did you do?” Colby watched with bated breath as it slowly rose. It took forever. When the door was fully open, Colby’s hands came up and covered her mouth. She was going to be a mess. Her emotions were all over the place.
In all their glory, stood her entire Lockwood Racing team. Brian stepped forward. “I want to unofficially give you Lockwood’s lead driver position. As you heard, I’m contractually bound to give that title to Asher. But we all know what’s up.”
Colby couldn’t believe it. “What? But you said . . .”
“I know what I said, but you more than deserve this. We weren’t sure if we could pull everything together before the race, so until we knew for sure, we decided to keep things status quo. Liam worked his ass off to make it happen.”
“But,” she turned to Liam, “what if I lose? Then you’ll lose—” Colby stopped short of spilling all of their family’s business.
“Didn’t I tell you that Liam always has a plan?” Brian grinned. “He has a plan for that too.”
The sound of a large semitruck caught her attention. “What’s that?”
“Oh, you think this was the proof of my faith in you?” Liam asked. “Nah. That’s not it.” He pointed toward the trailer. “That is.”
The trailer pulled up to their garage. Again, it took the damn door forever to lift. But when it did, Colby was speechless. Gonzo drove the brand-new custom Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE down from the ramp. It had her brother’s number—Lucky #12, and Ms. James underneath it on the doors and hood.
Shocked didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. “This is my car?”
“It is your car,” Liam confirmed. “Your team worked day and night to get her ready.”
“Y’all did this for me?” Her eyes were glassy. Colby had cried more in the past twenty-four hours than she had in her entire life.
“Damn straight,” Ben said.
“There will be four Lockwood cars on that track come race day. Jordan and I will have your back. We couldn’t let our favorite James go into battle without us,” Chris stated firmly. She ran over and hugged each and every one of them. Lockwood Racing. They were her family.
“C’mon, girl, check this baby out!” Cyrus said. “You designed one helluva car, and we made sure to build it exactly to your specifications.”
Colby had experienced absolutely every emotion imaginable in the last few hours. She couldn’t understand how she was able to go from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs in such a short period.
Like a giddy child, Colby almost skipped over to her car. Slowly, she walked around it, caressing the cold metal and admiring all the sponsor decals. “Wow. How were you able to get all of these sponsors in the past couple of weeks?”
Brian pointed to Liam. “The man can be very persuasive when he believes in something or someone.”
“I told you.” Liam stared lovingly into her eyes. “I have faith.”
Colby held his gaze before coming to stand face-to-face. She stood up on tiptoes in front of everyone and kissed him.
It was a slow, passionate, and soul-stirring kiss.
At the sound of Cyrus clearing his throat, they slowly pulled apart.
“I thought you wanted to keep us a secret?” Liam asked.
“If you can take a chance, then so can I,” Colby said softly.
“I know it’s a big ask, but I hope you can bury the vengeance and use this car, this moment, to build on what I know will be an incredible future.”
Colby couldn’t respond. Her hatred for Lorene had been a part of her for so long that she wasn’t sure she could let it go. The emotion in Liam’s eyes almost made her believe that she could. Almost.
“Okay, okay . . . can we hurry up with all the mushy shit?” Gonzo had a twinkle in his eyes.
“You knew about this?” Colby asked.
“Yep. We all did. So, I wasn’t going to let you punk out. We can discuss all of that later. Right now, we have the track for another thirty minutes. So, Ms. James,
