He’d texted her during the meeting, thumb moving quicker than his brain had any right to, asking if she was headed to the balcony. Telling her to stick with Brian or Colby. Promise me.
She’d promised.
He slipped the phone into his back pocket and scanned the pits, that automatic sweep he’d never quite shaken. Bikes, tools, crew, fans leaning over the fences; all the moving parts that turned race weekend into something alive.
His gaze snagged on a splash of red and black.
The Red Dragons’ hauler, glossy as ever, their pit taped off like a stage. Music pumped low from a truck, some driving beat that vibrated underfoot. Heidi stood near the center, waving her arms at a man with a tablet. Marcus hovered at her shoulder.
And just off to one side, near the edge of their taped line, stood Bree.
She held her sketchbook to her chest, fingers white-knuckled around the spine. Carmen stood beside her, the two of them a little island of denim and bare legs in all that branded red and black.
Something in Hank’s chest pinched.
She was supposed to be with Brian or Colby. She was supposed to be up on that balcony with her pencils and that ocean light she liked so much.
He could hear his own voice from earlier in the week, teasing. This is the lion’s den.
It felt a lot less like a joke now.
He watched her for a beat. Her posture was wrong; she wasn’t just observing for art reference. Her shoulders were tight, eyes too focused. Not drifting like an artist soaking in color and line, but tracking something. Calculating.
She took a step; then another. Carmen said something, touched her arm; Bree shook her head and peeled away, moving with purpose through the open lane between trailers.
His hurt, stupid as it was, bled out under something heavier.
She looked scared.
Hank started toward her without thinking. The world narrowed down to a corridor of noise and movement with her at the end.
She turned her head slightly. Even from across the pits, he saw the moment she spotted him.
Her face changed. Relief flooded it so fast, it hit him like a physical thing.
They met near the back of his trailer, in the sliver of shade that cut across the gravel. Up close, the tightness around her mouth and the strain in her eyes were impossible to miss.
“Hank,” she said, voice low but steady. “I need to tell you something.”
He wanted to say a dozen things first; You promised. What were you doing over there? Are you okay?
What came out was, “Come on, honey. Let’s get you out of the crowd.”
He jerked his chin toward the narrow space between his trailer and the next one. It wasn’t much, but it was quieter by a few decibels and out of the line of most cameras and curious eyes.
She followed, fingers flexing restlessly around the edges of her sketchbook. When they were tucked into that little pocket of shadow, engine noise muffled by steel and fiberglass, he leaned one shoulder against the trailer and really looked at her.
Her cheeks were a little pale under the sunburn from earlier. A tiny muscle ticked in her jaw.
“You all right?” he asked. “Anybody bother you?”
“No. I mean, not like that.” She took a breath, tried again. “I saw something. I think I saw them cheating.”
The word snapped the rest of his focus into place like a safety being flicked off.
Hank’s jaw tightened. “Tell me from the beginning. Start with why you were over there.”
Guilt flashed in her eyes. “Carmen came to my room. Heidi wanted another opinion on Marcus’s suit; she’s melting down over the design. Carmen swore it’d be quick.” She swallowed. “I know I promised. I thought if I went, it’d just be fabric and attitude. I’m sorry.”
