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there?
    She wouldn’t know. She’d been so distracted all day she’d forgotten to check the status of the engine building and the new tires they’d ordered. Instead she’d spent the last hour and a half Googling Mick Churchill.
    She locked the back door and kept her keys out, pointing them at her black Chevy Colorado truck to unlock the doors and turn on the lights. Stomping the cold, hard asphalt, she started toward the truck but paused at the sound of a strange rhythmic noise. Thwack. Bump. Thwack. Bump.
    What was that? Peering into the darkness toward the grass beyond the lot, she saw a shadow moving, heard the smack of…
    Oh, Lord. A soccer ball.
    Thwack. Bump. Thwack. “I thought you’d never finish up in there.” His English accent spilled over the night air like hot caramel on ice cream.
    He moved closer, into the beam of her headlights so that halogen bathed his hair in an ethereal glow and made his teeth even whiter against tan skin. He bounced the ball from knee to head and back again, keeping it in constant motion. And yet his hands stayed tucked into jeans pockets, unused. Misty puffs of cold air surrounded his face, and his down vest hung open, revealing a broad chest she’d spent way too much time noticing all day.
    Was he crazy playing soccer out here in the cold?
    “I heard that heading the ball can give you brain damage.” She hadn’t actually heard that; she’d read his quote in an interview. “Although someone said most players have so few brains it’s not much of a loss.”
    “No, I said I had so few brains. It was self-deprecating humor and it works very well with the media, you know.” He let the ball hit the ground and set one foot on top of it with the ease of a man who’d made the move a billion times. “But I’m flattered you’re reading my press clippings.”
    No use denying it. “My daddy always said, ‘Know thy enemies.’”
    She waited for the quip, the teasing grin, the wink that probably melted the legions of blondes hanging on his arm and his every word.
    Instead he gave her a very serious look, then jerked his leg, and the ball came right back up and he grabbed it with his hands. He held it to her like a peace offering. “Shelby, I’m not your enemy.”
    She shivered and prayed that was the cold night air and not the look in his eyes. “Aren’t you freezing out here?” she asked, continuing toward her truck.
    He shrugged. “I wanted to talk to you.”
    “You could have come into my office. The door is always open.”
    “You looked busy.”
    Good thing she’d admitted the truth. He’d probably stood in her doorway and watched her peruse every word ever written about him. “I have a lot of work to do to get ready for the season. Daytona is right around the corner.”
    “And it ends in Homestead after thirty-six races. See?” He followed her to the driver’s-side door as she pulled it open. “I’m learning.”
    “You still don’t know what an intake manifold is.”
    “Teach me.”
    She shot him a look as she climbed onto the running board. “There’s a book called NASCAR for Dummies. You’re the target audience.”
    He laughed. “So what did you learn today?”
    “That my grandfather is not too old to surprise and astound me.”
    He lifted one eyebrow. “That’s for sure. But I meant what did you learn in all your Internet searches about me?”
    She pulled herself into the driver’s seat, and he immediately filled the open space, blocking her from closing the door.
    “Where do I begin?” she asked. “From your birth to your last goal, it’s all out there in cyberspace. Your accomplishments, your celebrity, your twenty-five-million-dollar contract, your rise…and—” she gave him a deliberately hard look “—your pathetic last season.”
    “Pounds,” he said with a half smile. “The contract was for pounds, not dollars. Quite a difference.”
    “Regardless of the exchange rate, you’re rich and you’re finished.” She tugged at