In the Groove (7 page)

"Sure wish he'd fire his crew chief or something," the man said. "If he did that, he'd start winning again."

"Uh, yeah," Sarah said, having to blink when she looked back at the man again.

"You going down for the race?"

"E-yeah," Sarah drawled.

"Terrific. What spot are you parking in?"

"Uh." What to say? She had a feeling if she told the guy she was supposed to park in the driver/crew area, he'd freak out. "In a special spot?" she said lamely.

"I have a special spot, too," the man said, completely misunderstanding her. "Been parking there for ten years. Where's your spot?"

"Um, look, I, ah, I've got to go inside. I left something on the stove." Which was as dumb an excuse as she'd ever heard because she'd only just pulled in. But the man nodded, seeming to be content to take her at her word—her being a Lance Cooper fan and all.

"Sure, sure," he said, lifting a hand. "I'll talk with you later."

Sarah lifted a hand, too, diving into Lance's bus with a pounding heart.

Why? Why had seeing that man's RV made her suddenly feel nauseous?

Because you've been telling yourself that Lance Cooper isn't really a celebrity. Because you'd deluded yourself that racing couldn't be that popular. Because until you'd seen those stickers you'd believed exactly that.

But it wasn't until the next day that she realized just how famous Lance Cooper really was. She'd popped into an Internet café, her fingers flying as she Googled her new boss's name.

There were 900,000 hits.

Well, okay, obviously there were a lot of Lance Coopers in the world. She narrowed her search down a bit, typing in: Lance Cooper, race car driver.

This time 441,200 hits.

She felt her eyes widen. Lance Cooper, race-car driver was mentioned nearly half a million times on the Web?

Just for comparison's sake she typed in her own name, kindergarten teacher and then hit the return key.

Results 1 of 1 for "Sarah Tingle" "kindergarten teacher":

Naughty (and Naked!) Teachers!

She gasped, quickly hitting the return key, glancing over her shoulder to make sure nobody had seen that. Why, that low-down, no-good, dirty—

She almost picked up the phone and called her ex right then, but, she quickly reminded herself, what good would that do? The man purposely tried to get her goat. She'd checked her e-mail earlier and found half a dozen messages from him, each with a header like, I'm Sorry, and, Forgive Me. As if. Only a pervert like Peter would send her photos to Naughty (and Naked!) Teachers. But she wouldn't call him, and she wouldn't answer his e-mail, either. The sicko was just fishing to see how upset she was. He'd just sit there and gloat the moment after she hung up with him.

Still, her hands shook as she went back to her original search, all the while chanting, "What's in the past is past. What's in the past is past," to make herself feel better. As luck would have it she soon became distracted because she found Lance Cooper's Web site.

It was a shock to see his smiling and—yes, she could admit it—sexy face staring back at her own. It made her blush, a ridiculous reaction given he wasn't even within four hundred miles of her. But she blushed nonetheless, and then quickly clicked on the
Bio
button. To be honest, it felt a bit like poking around someone's underwear drawer, as if she was doing something bad by snooping on him, but her overwhelming curiosity made her do it anyway. Sarah averted her eyes from the tiny, less intimidating picture that cropped up to the left of the bio. It gave his stats, including his age (twenty-nine, she noticed, five years older than herself), his height (six feet—ai yi yi) and his marital status (single), but not much more than that.

Further surfing revealed a picture of his car. It was white. In the middle of the hood was a large orange star. Bright, there's-no-way-you-can-miss-me fluorescent orange, the words Star Oil in black cursive beneath that. She wondered for a moment who Star Oil was, only to discover a few clicks later that they imported oil, reselling it to refineries.

It was a few clicks after that that she finally discovered a bio worth reading. In it were all the pertinent facts of Lance's racing career. Of how he won a midget championship at age eight (whatever a "midget" was), and how he joined USAC at age seventeen (whatever USAC was, although she assumed it wasn't the opposite of MY-SAC), dropping out of high school to do so. But his lack of education must have paid off in this instance because he went on to win the USAC championship two years later. He'd raced "open wheels" next, and then in the NASCAR Busch series, and so then she assumed Busch was a
type
of race car, and not, as one might think, a car decorated with shrubbery. Finally, when he was twenty-four, he'd entered the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup series with Blain Sanders as his team owner. That threw her for a moment because she'd assumed the driver owned the car, and yet that wasn't the case, apparently. He'd been with Sanders Racing his entire career, although by the sound of another article, it hadn't been the best season so far. Heck. It hadn't been good for a couple of years.

Further snooping revealed other facts, such as Lance's lack of family—he and his father appeared to be estranged. That Lance Cooper was revered by many, and yet, oddly enough, hated by an equal number of fans. The reason for that, she found out later, was because Lance had scored too many wins (obviously before his losing streak), thus irritating the fans of the other drivers who didn't win. What an odd sport.

Her cell phone rang.

She just about jumped out of her chair. The cell phone actually belonged to Lance Cooper, Inc., which meant the caller was either Lance's business manager Sal, or—

"Are you wearing underwear?"

Lance Cooper himself, she realized, blushing yet again.

"You know I could sue you for sexual harassment," she found herself saying, feeling more emboldened because he was miles away from her, while she was staring at his picture.

She quickly closed the screen, almost as if he might know she was snooping on him in some Star Trek, mind-melded way.

"I know," he said. "But you won't. If you were the suing type, you'd have already filed a lawsuit against me for felony hit and run."

"You didn't run."

"That's true," and she could hear the smile in his voice. "How about kiss and run?"

The skin on her lips tingled just before her cheeks heated up. "I'd rather not talk about that," she mumbled in a low voice, looking around her again as if someone might have heard him.

There was a pause. "Yeah. We probably shouldn't."

But she wanted to. Curse it all, she wanted to ask him all sorts of questions about that kiss. Had he enjoyed it? Did he like the way she kissed?

Was he going to kiss her again?

"How are you feeling?" he asked, suddenly all seriousness.

Stop thinking about his kiss. "Well, aside from a few scrapes and bruises, I appear to be fine."

"Taking the medication?"

She snorted. "No. I shudder to think what would happen if I did that. I might decide to head toward Hawaii, damn the Pacific Ocean."

"That wouldn't be a problem as long as you took your scuba gear."

"Actually, I bet your bus has pontoons somewhere."

He chuckled and she waited for him to say something else, getting that uncomfortable feeling one got when someone whom you kissed calls you and you're not quite sure how to react, or what to say.

"Well," she finally heard him drawl. "I was just making sure you were all right."

And that was the thing about Lance Cooper. He really cared. There was no artifice. None of the aloof pretentiousness that she might have expected from a man who'd been mentioned on the Web nearly half a million times. There was, of course, a hint of flirtatious innuendo in his voice, but she suspected that had more to do with simply being Lance's way than any real interest in her. Earlier, she'd imagined the look in his eyes as his head had lowered toward hers. It'd been the medication, that's all.

She just wished she knew why she felt so disappointed.

"Well, thanks for checking in," she said. "I'll see you in Daytona."

But would she? She had instructions to get the bus to Daytona by Wednesday. She'd have one night at the track and then she'd check into a hotel room. There'd be no need to go back to the track after that, or so she'd been told, because Lance only used his bus from Thursday to Sunday—the rest of the time he was at home or off doing media appearances. She'd only return when it was time to take Lance's motor coach to its next destination, Chicago.

But he said, "Yeah. I'll see you there."

And that was that. She said goodbye, coming back to earth and remembering she sat in a coffee shop where she'd been spying on Lance Cooper. And it seemed strange to be there, strange because when she'd answered the phone she'd forgotten her surroundings. She'd just about forgotten everything, including where she was. She even had to think hard to remember what city she was in.

A new customer walked into the dimly lit coffeehouse, the man wearing a black T-shirt with bright markings on the front. A race fan T-shirt, she realized, the things suddenly sticking out like extra heads on a dog. This one was for a driver whose name she didn't recognize, but she would bet Lance knew him. Gosh. Lance was probably friends with the man pictured on the back of the shirt.

How surreal.

It was like working for a rock star, right on down to the bus.

And so why in the heck are you secretly thrilled that he's called?
a voice asked.

Why in the heck did you have the urge to look around the coffee shop and tell people you were speaking to Lance Cooper.
The
Lance Cooper?

The man was famous. Much more famous than she would have ever surmised. Ergo, she had no business having a crush on him. Celebrities did not date kindergarten teachers. Besides, she had no business dating anyone—celebrity or no.

But that's exactly what she wanted, she admitted in dismay. She wanted to date him.

You 're not seriously thinking you could rein in Lance Cooper?

No, she quickly reassured herself. She wasn't that silly. Besides, she probably had it all wrong. Lance Cooper might be a famous race-car driver, but she doubted anyone would know who he was outside of that venue.

That thought lasted right up until the moment she maneuvered the big bus out of the parking lot, lasted until then because as she was passing a gas station she caught sight of a vending machine—one with Lance Cooper's full-length picture on the front, his grinning face seeming to say, "That's what
you
think."

Oh, jeez.

CHAPTER EIGHT

He flew to Daytona early.

It was a stupid thing to do, Lance realized. Why hire someone to drive your motor coach if you were going to fly down early so that the motor coach hadn't even arrived yet when you got there?

But that's exactly what he did, having told his pilot to meet him at the airport Wednesday evening in an attempt to beat Sarah Tingle to the racetrack. Ridiculous. What about his routine?

Thursday: Leave for the track, arriving in time to settle into his motor coach for the night.

Friday afternoon: Practice and then qualify.

Saturday was happy hour—usually. This weekend it was Friday, the whole schedule moved up a day because they were racing Saturday night.

And while he was at the track he didn't leave his motor coach, aside from media appearances. He never had women to his motor coach. He never even went out with the boys. He focused.

Until now.

"You're here early, Mr. Cooper," the infield guard said when he pulled up in a rented Lincoln Navigator.

"Media appearance," Lance lied, smiling at the man through the car's lowered window.

"Good luck on Saturday," he said, waving him through.

"Thanks," Lance said, rolling up the window and resisting the urge to bang his head against the steering wheel as he drove through the narrow tunnel painted to look like a giant checkered flag.

He was doomed.

Doomed, doomed, doomed. He'd broken his routine and now there was no telling what might happen.

Fortunately, someone else was at the track early, too. Todd Peters, the driver of the number forty-eight car. Lance spotted his blue-and-black motor coach the moment he entered the private parking area.

His friend gave him a curious stare when he opened up the door, saying, "Lance Cooper. What the heck are you doing here so early?" Todd had thick black brows that matched his equally black hair, and so when he lowered his bushy brows like he did now, he looked a lot like Mr. Potato Head. They even called him Spud, although they called him that because of his spud-shaped body.

"Sal had me scheduled for some radio show, but it got cancelled at the last moment," Lance lied. "Now I'm stuck with nothing to do."

"Stop the press," Todd said, smiling. "You agreed to come to the track early?"

Lance almost groaned. "I did."

"You breaking your routine now?" he asked. "You that desperate?"

"Can I come in?"

"No," the stocky driver said instantly. "Not after spinning me into that wall last week."

"Me?" Lance asked, pointing to himself. "You got loose all on your own, Spudly."

"Yeah?" Todd said, stepping back from the door. "I can still blame it on you."

And so he would, Lance thought, familiar with the tactic. "You here all alone?" he asked as he took the first step up, knowing Todd wasn't really mad. And, indeed, his friend stepped back to let him pass.

"For now," Todd said with a fox-in-the-henhouse smile. "Don't plan on being lonely for long."

Lance rolled his eyes. "By the way, what are
you
doing here early?"

"Aw, I gotta go do some lunch thing for Super Tools. Supposed to be there at noon, along with a few other drivers, reporters and TV cameras."

"Man, I hate those things."

"Yeah, but you can't get out of them, not and keep your sponsor, even if Super Tool is just an associate. I'm still required to go," Todd said with a shake of his head, "Hey, look. There's your bus now."

Lance paused, turning back from the top step to peer in the direction Todd pointed. Sure enough, there it was, the familiar black-and-silver paint scheme shiny even beneath Daytona's partly cloudy skies.

"Who's that driving?" Todd asked, squinting those eyes to the point that his thick brows became one.

"That's Sarah."

"What happened to Frank?"

Lance looked away, refusing to admit he felt any sort of reaction. "You're not going to believe what happened to Frank," he said, forcing himself to stand there and not rush over like an excited puppy.

"Try me."

Lance bit back a smile, watching as Sarah stopped the bus near "his" spot.

"He ran off to drive for Mötley Crüe."

"He what?"

She hadn't seen them watching her, and Lance bit back a smile as he watched a look of intense concentration cross her face as she put the bus in reverse, the backup warning chime beep-beep-beeping. He had a perfect view of her, white teeth raking her bottom lip, eyes narrowed as she flicked her gaze between the two side mirrors, red ponytail swishing like an angry horse.

Lance finally looked back at Todd. "He took off on us to drive for the Crüe."

"Frank? The man who's been driving your motor coach for the last four years? Frank who was in his forties?"

"He grew up listening to them, apparently, and when he heard about their need for a driver, he bailed."

"Unbelievable," Todd said. "You've been thrown over for aging rock stars."

Lance chuckled. "I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but it left me in a bind. Fortunately, Sal found Sarah."

"Sarah looks cute," Todd said, squinting his eyes again, unibrow back in place.

"Sarah's off-limits," Lance said.

Todd's brows took off, gaze flicking back to him. "Like that, is it?"

"No," Lance denied. "She's just off-limits. I don't want to lose another driver."

The beeping stopped. Lance looked away from Todd, which was just as well because he could tell that his sometimes fishing partner, most-of-the-time best friend (when they weren't out on the track), didn't believe him.

"Yeah, right," Todd said as Lance stepped down from his bus.

Yeah, right,
his own conscience echoed. Because there was one thing Lance couldn't deny: as he approached his motor coach he felt just like he did before a race.

And that wasn't good. That wasn't good at all.

Sarah wanted to rest her head on the steering wheel. She'd made it.

She'd driven Lance Cooper's rolling Taj Mahal all the way to Daytona without once sideswiping a car, cutting a corner too close, or driving off the road.

"Thank you, Lord," she silently whispered. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Now all she had to do was level the bus out, set up the generator, pop out the three sliders and she'd be all set and frankly, she was looking forward to relaxing in a hotel room. Lance and company weren't due to arrive until tomorrow, which meant she wasn't due to check into her hotel until tomorrow, which meant she could spend one more night in The Palace. More importantly, it meant that she wouldn't be bumping into Lance Cooper anytime soon. As silly as it sounded, she was really worried she might run into him—

"Hey, Sarah."

The door, the hiss of the hydraulic lock, and her scream all erupted at the same time.

"Did I scare you?"

She spun around, wondering why the heck people always asked that when it was plain as the noses on their faces that they had, indeed, frightened someone? "No," she said sarcastically. "I always yelp when sitting in drivers' seats."

"Oh," he said. "And here I thought you just sang 'Wheels on the Bus.' "

She narrowed her eyes. "What the blazes are you doing here?" Her heart was pounding against her chest so hard, it sounded like bongos in her ears.

"I came early."

"But," she swallowed, then swallowed again because she was not, absolutely not ready to face Lance Cooper.

"But what?" he prompted, that boyish smile of his back in place.

"But I'm supposed to sleep here tonight."

"You can sleep with me."

"I can't do that."

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded," Lance quickly corrected, making his way up the narrow steps so that he stood over her. "I meant you could sleep on the couch like you've done the last couple of days..."

On the couch? While he slept nearby?

No, Sarah. No, no, no. "I'm sorry, Mr. Cooper, but I wouldn't feel comfortable sleeping in the same bus as you."

"Mr. Cooper is it now?" he asked.

Race-car driver,
she reminded herself.
Hugely famous. Fantastically gorgeous.
And, even more importantly:
man not to be trusted.

"I really think it best if we keep things on a more professional level."

She waited for him to disagree, waited for him to smile at her and tell her that was the last thing he wanted to do was keep it professional. But instead he looked—well, he looked almost relieved. "Yeah, you're probably right," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I just thought..."

"Just thought what?" she prompted, and for some reason her heart had started to thump against her chest like she faced a dentist's drill and not just a handsome man.

"I just thought, I don't know, that maybe we could do lunch."

We could do lunch?
she almost said aloud.

"But you're right. This was a bad idea—"

Someone knocked on the fiberglass door.

"That's probably Todd," Lance said. "Come over for an introduction." And then, she could have sworn she heard under his breath, "Sneak."

But it wasn't Todd. It was the skinniest, leggiest blonde Sarah had ever seen.

"Lance," she said in a rush, stepping into the bus without being invited, a yellow polo shirt with the words
Super Tools
on her tiny little body. The color should have made her look like a kidney patient; instead, it made her skin glow. Not fair.

"I'm so glad you're here early—oh," she said, turning to Sarah, giving her the once-over, deciding she didn't know her, and then turning back to Lance with a perky little bounce of her heels (though actually, they were tennis shoes). "Dan Harris had to pull out of our lunch and I would be really, really, really,
really
grateful if you could take his spot Would you please, pretty please, please, please, please?" she said, tipping her head sideways and looking up at Lance with a pleading expression on her face.

"I don't know..."

"You can bring your friend," she said, glancing back at Sarah.

"I'm not his friend. I'm his new driver," Sarah said.

"Oh, well, you can still come," she said.

"That's okay," Sarah started to say.

But the blonde had already turned back to Lance saying,
"Please.
You'd really be helping Super Tools out."

The mention of his sponsor seemed to clinch it for Lance because he nodded his head.

"Good," the blonde said with another bounce. "I'll have a driver pick you up in a half hour. It's at the Renaissance Hotel and the event starts in less than an hour so you'll have to hurry." She turned back to Sarah. "Can you make sure he's ready?" she asked as if Sarah was his caretaker or something.

"Um, sure, but there's really no need for me to go."

"Oh, it's not a problem. The more bodies there, the better. Makes it look good to the press when the place is packed."

Sarah thought about protesting one more time but figured if she did that she'd come off sounding ungrateful or something. But when the woman left, Sarah said to Lance, "I'll stay here."

"Nah. You should come," he said, crossing his arms across his chest, his biceps bulging as if he lifted weights for a living instead of driving race cars. Jeesh, no wonder he'd been voted sexiest driver two years in a row. "You're new to this sport, so you might find it interesting to see the fans in action. Plus, you'll meet a few of the other drivers."

She almost told him she'd already interacted with a few of his fans. Every time she'd stopped to refuel, someone had come over and asked, "You a Lance Cooper fan?" That little twenty-six car sticker had been like a neon Open sign. Perfect strangers came up and chatted with her like they'd known her forever. Even her lame-sounding "I'm new to racing" hadn't deterred their friendliness. They'd just gone on to list all of Lance's outstanding capabilities, then congratulated her on picking such a good man as her driver.

Her driver. Yeah, right.

"Look, Sarah. I, ah... I wanted to apologize for kissing you the other day. It was a stupid thing to do. You're just coming off a bad relationship and I need to focus on my job."

And for some truly ridiculous reason the blood drained from her face. "Yeah. Sure. Absolutely."

He looked relieved and then maybe sad, but definitely more relieved than anything.

"I need to go get dressed."

"And I need to start up the generator."

"Do you need help?"

"To flip a switch?" she asked brightly, too brightly if he knew her better. "Don't be silly. Plus, it'll give you some privacy."

"Yeah, thanks," he said. And then he smiled at her, holding out his hand and asking, "Friends?"

No, she wanted to scream. No, no, no—you are
not
my friend.

"Friends," she echoed.

Because no matter what she'd told herself the whole way down to Daytona the truth of the matter was that she'd kind of liked his kiss. She'd even thought he might have liked it, too.