He gave her that cocky smile again and Anna’s blood pressure reached a new peak for that day. ‘Nope. Your experience includes a high-speed passenger lap.’
Anna began shaking her head. ‘I… I don’t think…’
‘You’ve already paid for it,’ Ade replied, not smiling now, and his eyes glittered with challenge.
Anna started to feel a little queasy. It was the sort of look Spencer would have given her in a situation like this, full of boyish arrogance, so sure he was right about everything. She couldn’t help thinking about what he’d have done if he’d got to use this voucher as planned. She could imagine him diving out of the driving seat and jumping into the passenger side, banging on the dashboard to make Ade hurry up and get on with it.
You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you?she said to someone. Whether it was Spencer, God or her conscience, she wasn’t sure,but it didn’t mean the answer didn’t come back just as clearly.
Yes.
She set her chin and looked at Ade as she tightened her helmet back up. ‘Let’s do this.’
THREE MINUTES, THAT was all it took to do one complete circuit of the racetrack, and Anna was sure she was going to be reunited with Spencer every second of it. ‘Oh, God! I don’t want to die!’ she wailed as they took another corner at what seemed like two hundred miles an hour, even though Ade had patiently explained while zooming through the chicane that the turns came too quickly for the car to reach its maximum speed. But as they accelerated into yet another bend, Anna decided she wasn’t quite sure she believed him.
She was doing her best not to shout out or brace herself against any part of the car’s interior because she’d already worked out that Ade took it as a sign to stamp his foot down. When she got out of this car and got the use of her legs back, she was going to kick his butt, she really was. Let’s see who’d be smirking then!
The G-force as they went into the turn threw her against the car door, making her head bounce around like a puppet’s, and she’d barely got her breath back when Ade began to accelerate along one of the straighter patches. Tarmac and greenery streaked past the window in a blur. She glanced across at him and he was laughing, actually laughing.
‘Only one more turn,’ he mouthed at her as she closed her eyes and began to pray again.She could already feel the car surge forwards as he floored it.
It was worse with her eyes closed, she discovered, like being locked in a washing machine on the spin cycle, so she quickly opened them again, only to discover they were hurtling towards a safety barrier. The back wheels skidded, and she flung her arms out and gripped onto the dashboard. She didn’t care if Ade saw her fear anymore, because they couldn’t possibly go any faster than they already were.
Much to her relief, she saw the spectator stands looming ahead, meaning they were about to pass the finish line. She almost wept with relief, only to scream loudly when Ade didn’t bring the car smoothly to a halt but executed a perfect handbrake turn that left her stomach in the top of her skull.
The world kept moving, even though the car had stopped, but Anna didn’t care. She scrabbled at the door handle, managing to catch it on the fourth try, and practically tumbled from the car and onto the tarmac.
She bent over, bracing her hands on her knees and gulping in great lungfuls of air. And then, very strangely, she began to laugh. And once she’d started, she couldn’t stop. It might have been endorphins or adrenaline or just plain old insanity, but she crumpled like a rag doll and sat on the track, laughing until she almost couldn’t breathe anymore.
Ade came around to help her up, his smirk finally gone.
It took two attempts to get Anna to her feet because she was giggling so hard, but when he managed to do it, their eyes met. He gave her a nod, and that little gesturemighthave contained a hint of approval. ‘You’re not dead, then,’ he said.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m not. I’m very much alive.’
Ade just grinned at her.
Anna sobered and narrowed her eyes. ‘No thanks to you,’ she told him, but instead of belting him around the chops as she’d planned to, she planted a big wet smacker on his cheek and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Six
BRODY STOOD IN his garden, the scents and sounds of twilight all around him. Now and again a bat flittered between the nearby trees and the eaves of his outbuildings. It was past nine o’clock but, this far south in June, the sun still glowed behind the trees down the valley.
His phone rang and he pulled it from his jeans pocket. He no longer kept it on his desk until late in the evening, when he’d retire to his study to read and wait for it to light up. He’d got into the habit of keeping it on him. Just in case. And here was his reward. He smiled as he lifted it to his ear.
‘I did it, Brody! I actually did it!’
Brody smiled. Whatever it was that she’d done, whatever she was celebrating, he was glad she was sharing it with him. And by the sound of her voice, he was the first person she’d shared it with. A little flame of hope flickered inside his chest, but he snuffed it out. It meant something, but it didn’t mean that.
‘What did you do?’ he asked, but before her answer came, a thought flashed across his brain. ‘You used the voucher. You went to the racetrack.’
Anna gasped. ‘How did you know?’
‘I just… did. You had fun, then?’
‘No! I thought I was going to die!’ Anna erupted into laughter. Laughter with a slightly hysterical edge, it had to be said. ‘But I suppose, in a strange way, I did enjoy it. Not the actual experience, maybe, but the feeling afterwards.’
‘Which was?’
