Her autonomy was probably the wrong answer. “I have a vintage couture—”
He rolled his eyes. “Never mind. Just swear on your right kidney that you’ll never tell your father about what I show you tonight.”
4
“Is Springsteen all right?”
“Sure.”
And that was the extent of their conversation for the first half of the drive into L.A.
Having a twenty-one-year-old socialite as his passenger was an unforced error. Why had he opened his big mouth?
Josh blamed the fact that other people who worked at Fischer Racing were dicks to her. He couldn’t abide by that. Just because she was the owner’s daughter didn’t mean that she couldn’t pull her own weight…eventually.
And the way she stood toe-to-toe with him as he tried to brush her off? Maybe not even eventually. Maybe she might surprise people. But they would either need to give her a chance, or she would have to break them down and take the chance she deserved.
After working for the company for six years, he was pretty sure the latter was more likely. Fischer Racing was not a warm and fuzzy work environment.
As traffic slowed down, he shot a glance sideways at her. She looked rich, for lack of a better description. Slim and yet well-fed, with very good skin and even better hair.Pretty, he had to admit, if one liked them young and saucy, which he didn’t.
He had nine years on her, and she probably had ten million dollars onhimjust because of how trust funds worked. They had nothing in common. Not even if she really liked the growl of his engine and hadn’t blinked at his custom five-point harness seat belts.
Earlier, she’d surprised him by calling him on his weak attempt to intimidate her. He’d leered at her tight jeans and silky top, letting her think he was picturing her naked. Now he had to scrub that from his memories, because he’d saddled himself with a student for the night.
He couldn’t actually guess what she looked like naked, anyway. She was so far out of his league, it wasn’t funny. Did rich girls look like porn stars, waxed and sculpted to perfection?
Josh usually went for down-to-earth bed partners, who didn’t mind a bit of grease (although he always scrubbed his hands, because he very muchdidlike to get his fingers wet), and who knew his heart and soul were in the engine of a car. He wasn’t one for splitting his attention for more than a few hours.
Besides, he didn’t know where he’d land next. He had a plan, and maybe on the other side of that plan, he’d think about finding a woman to settle down with.
He liked the idea in abstract. Pulling the same warm body on top of his every night. The familiarity, the secrets. The babies they would have one day. But it was alwaysin the future, not the now.
His brother Owen had an eighteen-year-old daughter—and Owen had been eighteen himself when he found out he would be a dad. That had been enough “racing to be a grown-up” for all the Kincaid brothers. In the nineteen years since, none of them had settled down.
The rest of them had joined the military back in Canada, as if that might ward off babies. Owen was a paramedic now. Will was a school principal. Seth was a float plane pilot. Adam had just gotten out of the military himself, and was working as a mover but thinking about firefighting school.
Josh was the lone outlier. The one who’d run south of the border and found his way into the racing circuit because he was just that good with cars.
It twinged, sometimes, that he hadn’t done the public service thing the way his brothers had. But it wasn’t like their military service wasn’t selfish in some ways. It paid the bills and gave them adventure, and that had been how racing had started for him.
Now, though…
He glanced down at Monica’s hand, resting on the black vinyl bench seat between them. She waspettinghis ’69 Gran Torino.
His gaze caught on the flex of her hand, on the way her knuckles were pinker than the rest of her skin, and her nails were short, the thumbnail a little ragged.
At least her hands were that of a normal human being. And she appreciated a good-looking car. Or maybe Springsteen just had that effect on people.
She shifted again, then lifted her gaze to look at his profile more intently. “So we’re going to a…”
He hadn’t told her anything yet. “You’ll see.”
“Maybe you’re kidnapping me.”
He laughed. “You begged me to kidnap you. Youdemandedto know what I was doing tonight and knew—without even hearing what my plans were—that your need to learn about car racing trumped all.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a second. “Did I say thank you for including me in your mystery, non-kidnapping plans?”
