Table of Contents
DIRT DRIVEN
Copyrights
Dedication
BOOKS BY SHEY STAHL
Quote
Prelude – Arie
Chapter 1 – Arie
Chapter 2 – Arie
Chapter 3 – Arie
Chapter 4 – Arie
Chapter 5- Rager
Chapter 6 – Rager
Chapter 7 – Arie
Chapter 8 – Arie
Chapter 9 – Arie
Chapter 10 – Rager
Chapter 11 – Arie
Chapter 12 – Arie
Chapter 13 – Arie
Chapter 14 – Arie
Chapter 15 – Arie
Chapter 16 – Rager
Chapter 17 – Arie
Chapter 18 – Rager
Chapter 19 – Arie
Chapter 20 – Rager
Chapter 21 – Arie
Chapter 22 – Rager
Chapter 23 – Arie
Acknowledgments
Meet the Author
Copyright © 2020 by Shey Stahl
Published in the United States of America
This book is a work of fiction. Names, sponsors, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, dead or living, is coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASCAR, its employees, or its representatives, teams, and drivers within the series. The car numbers used within this book are not representing those drivers who use those numbers either past or present in any NASCAR series, USAC or The World of Outlaw Series and are used for the purpose of this fiction story only. The author does not endorse any product, driver, or other material racing in NASCAR, USAC or The World of Outlaw Series. The opinions in this work of fiction are simply that, opinions and should not be held liable for any product purchase, and or effect of any racing series based on those opinions.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of Shey Stahl.
Engine/car definitions were used from the following websites:
http://www.empiremagnetics.com/glossary/glossary.htm
http://www.world-sprintcar-guide.com/
Cover Design provided by Tracy Steeg
Editing provided by Becky Johnson, Hot Tree Editing
Interior Formatting by Shey Stahl
For my dad.
Thank you for inspiring me to live my dream.
RACING ON THE EDGE
Happy Hour
Black Flag
Trading Paint
The Champion
The Legend
Hot Laps
The Rookie
Fast Time
Open Wheel
Pace Laps
Dirt Driven
Behind the Wheel – Series outtakes (TBA)
STAND ALONES
Waiting for You
Everything Changes
For the Summer
Deal
All I Have Left
Awakened
Everlasting Light
Bad Blood
Heavy Soul
Bad Husband
Burn
Love Complicated
Untamed
How to Deal
Promise Not to Fall
Blindsided
Revel
SEX. LOVE. MARRIAGE
Saving Barrette
Redemption
Room 4 Rent (Coming Soon)
THE FMX SERIES
Shade
Tiller
Roan
Camden (TBA)
Red Lined (TBA)
CROSSING THE LINE
Delayed Penalty
Delayed Offsides
THE TORQUED TRILOGY
Unsteady
Unbearable
Unbound
ANCHORED LOVE
The Sea of Light
The Sea of Lies (TBA)
The Sea of Forever (TBA)
Stator – Stationary member of a motor.
“Where have you been?”
The sky rumbled, his eyes lazy and bloodshot, lightning dancing on the horizon. “Bar,” he explained. A slow exhale rose his chest as he watched the streaks scatter overhead.
Bolts of nervous energy shot through my veins. “With who?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to this, but I asked anyway.
At first, he didn’t reply. Maybe he wanted to lie, but we didn’t lie to one another. “Olivia was there.” Our eyes locked, his hiding, mine curious. Rager wouldn’t do this to me though. It wasn’t in him to cheat on me. He was the most loyal man I had ever met besides my father. I knew that, but still, it didn’t stop me from wondering. Loneliness had a way of playing tricks on you.
I bit my lip nervously, staring at my hands. “Just you guys?” And then I looked up, waiting on his words.
“I went there alone.” He swallowed, hard, eyes unblinking. “She showed up later and I let her buy me a fucking beer.” His harshness tore at my heart. “Don’t make it out to be something that it’s not.”
Though I knew Rager would never, ever, do that, your mind could play tricks on you. I didn’t want to believe either one of them would go there, but maybe with alcohol courage and sadness… I didn’t know. I couldn’t even justify what my mind was thinking, let alone Rager doing that to me.
“And you left alone?” Sadness lingered in my words, like an aftertaste of betrayal. Rager wouldn’t. He couldn’t, right?
“Jesus Christ.” His jaw clenched, emotion he’d held down deep surfacing. “Yes.”
“And?” Accelerated beats in my chest shiver up my spine, the anticipation almost too much to bear. Confusion tainted my thoughts like dust on a shelf, floating through my mind like the tiny bits of paranoia I tried so hard to escape.
“And now I’m here.” He sounded defeated. It was hard to watch someone struggle, deflect accusations only to have them thrown back in your face. My heart pleaded with him to speak, but in truth, I didn’t nor would I ever understand what he was going through.
Lightning ripped through the sky. “Are you telling me the truth?”
Right then, the moment he finally let his guard down, a flash through the sky lit the night. He dropped to his knees in the backyard. That was when I finally saw it. I was witnessing what that night in Williams Grove had done to my now cold and restless husband.
It had destroyed him.
“I’m fucking telling you the goddamn truth!” he screamed back at me, his breathing harsh, mine stopping all together. “Why the fuck would I lie to you about this of all things?”
He was burning, so bright I feared the light would go out. And then what? What would be left of my husband then? This sport, one he loved, had taken something from him. Some people had a passion for racing. Others, it was their life and if you said to them, “it’s over; you can’t get back in that car,” well, their life might as well have been over as far as they were concerned.
Since the accident, Rager feared that car and what it’d done to him and the lives of those he cared about. He feared the unknown. This doubt, that wasn’t Rager and
