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She’s not as tough as she acts. So you do whatever you have to do to make sure she sees how smart our plan is, but keep your hands off her, hear?”
    Part of her was touched by Ernie’s unyielding protectiveness of her. Another part, the wholly female part that had been fluttering ever since Mick had emerged from the other side of a race car, was not touched. And wanted to be. By Mick.
    “No fear, Ernest. It’s not like she’s throwing herself at me.”
    “Oh, she won’t,” Ernie said. “But if you lay a hand on her, we’re done.”
    “You drive a hard bargain.”
    Shelby couldn’t keep the smug smile off her face. The hauler lounge was definitely the place for secrets.
    At least she knew how to get rid of Mick Churchill if she had to. If she wanted to.
    She did want to, didn’t she?

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    S HELBY DARKENED THE computer screen with one keystroke and pushed herself away from the desk very slowly.
    Still, Thunder sounded a groaning opinion.
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said to the noisy chair, scooping up her handbag and turning off the desk lamp to bathe the room in complete darkness. “So he’s famous and I never heard of him. So a Google search turned up seventeen billion hits. So he’s in a thousand pictures carrying around various versions of blond arm candy. Now we know the enemy, Dad.”
    And the enemy was not exactly on top of his game. The Striker, it seemed, hadn’t scored a goal in his last ten games. In fact, this year he hadn’t renewed his contract and had taken a “hiatus.” At least that’s what his agent called it. In her sport they called it nonrenewal.
    The chair was silent, and Shelby stood very slowly, listening to the quiet of the shop this late at night. What she wanted to hear was the one voice she’d never hear again. The real voice, and not just one she imagined.
    It was one thing to pretend Daddy really did squawk his opinions to her from this chair, one thing to refuse to oil him into submission. But in truth, she’d give anything to hear what Thunder Jackson really had to say about Mick Churchill worming his way into their business.
    Maybe he’d say if Ernie wanted to do it, then it was smart. He’d always respected his father. Maybe he’d say she was being pigheaded and shortsighted.
    Or maybe he’d roll over in his grave if he knew an interloper was sniffing around Thunder Racing and threatening to change the family business that Thunder and Ernie had built from nothing but sweat and grease and raw determination.
    But he wasn’t there. She was on her own. Once again.
    The first time, she’d been six and Mama had decided she hated the racing life. So she took Shelby to Minnesota and was diagnosed with breast cancer a year later. When she died, Thunder brought Shelby back to the races and spent the rest of his life trying to be two parents to her. At sixteen, Shelby fell hard for a boy who was killed on the highway driving to his first race.
    Change had never been good for her. Just about the time she and Thunder had hit a perfect stride, he’d changed crew chiefs and switched from Fords to Chevys and worked himself to…well, to death. At least it seemed that way when he went to take a nap in his motor coach right after qualifying fourth at Darlington and never came out.
    She’d been twenty when Thunder had died of a heart attack, long past the age where she needed a parent. But Ernie had stepped into the job with both feet, and as a business partner she’d relied on him for years. What tragedy could this latest change bring? She closed her eyes and thought of Ernie, looking older and more frail than she could remember.
    Something about this deal just didn’t feel right. If Ernie wanted to retire, that was understandable. But couldn’t she figure out her own way to save the company?
    She slipped into the darkened hallway. It was nearly eleven o’clock and none of the mechanics were working late tonight. Did that mean everything was hunky-dory out