“High stakes,” he said, and it came out more intimate than he’d intended.
She sobered. “You’ll be careful.”
“I will,” he promised. “And if anything feels off, if you hear or see anything weird from your window, you call me. Or Brian. Or Colby. In that order.”
She rolled her eyes lightly. “Yes, Sergeant.”
Somewhere beyond the trailer, Brian shouted his name. A bike revved, the note familiar; Julie clearing her throat.
Duty called.
Hank brushed his thumb over Bree’s lower lip once, unable to help himself. “I’ve got to get back.”
“I know.” She angled her face into his hand for one more second. “Go do your thing. Break physics in a legal way.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “I’ll try.”
He stepped back reluctantly, already feeling the absence of her warmth. “Text me when you’re in your room tonight. I’ll sleep better.”
“You sleep,” she said. “I’ll be the one chewing my nails.”
“I’ll text you too,” he amended. “We can chew together.”
She smiled, small and real. “Deal.”
He watched her walk away toward the hotel entrance until she disappeared past the line of trailers. Only then did he turn back toward his pit.
Brian was waiting with a torque wrench in hand, eyebrows raised.
“Everything okay?” Brian asked. “You were MIA for a minute.”
Hank glanced once toward the gap where he’d last seen Bree, then back at his crew chief, his friend.
“Not yet,” he said, taking the wrench. “But we’re working on it. I need to talk to you and Colby tonight; we’ve got a problem with the Dragons.”
Brian’s grin faded, his expression sharpening. “How bad.”
“Bad enough,” Hank said. He looked out across the pits toward the gleam of red and black. “But we’ve got eyes on it. And we’ve got something worth fighting for.”
He thought of Bree, hands shaking around her sketchbook, still walking into the lion’s den because her friend had asked.
He thought of the way she’d kissed him back.
Yeah. Worth fighting for.
He dropped into a crouch beside Julie, mind already shifting gears as he reached for the next bolt.
Chapter 12
Bree woke before the alarm, heart racing like it had heard a starter’s pistol in her sleep.
For a few seconds, she lay very still, listening. The room was dim and cool, the air conditioner humming in the corner. Beneath it, muffled by glass and curtains, came the low, restless growl of engines starting up.
Race morning.
She shut her eyes again, and Hank’s mouth was right there; the press of his lips on hers; the way his hand had settled at her hip like he had always known it belonged there; the rough scrape of his jaw when she had leaned in without thinking. Her chest tightened with the memory; warmth and fear braided together.
Then another image shoved in beside it; Einstein’s gloved fingers cradling a dull silver cylinder; the tiny gauge that had jumped when he pressed the horn; the way everyone else had watched Heidi and Marcus while he hid a secret inside the frame.
