“His loss.” Wes scowled. “I would have missed out on the best part of my life if I hadn’t raised you and your sister.”
“Better than winning the Knoxville Nationals?” Mack raised a brow, relieved to be teasing her father instead of talking about Kelley. Wes pretended to consider her question and Mack threw him a playful middle finger. “Too bad our mom died and you got stuck with me and Laurie.”
Mack meant it as a joke, but Wes sobered and shifted forward to grab both of her hands. His worn fingers used to steer finicky cars and now the right palm hardly exerted any pressure against her own. “Listen to me, and listen good. When your mama died, I could have walked away but I learned that parenting is a choice. Both you and Shaw deserve a lot better than that jackwad.”
“That’s what you wanted to talk about?” Mack waved an impatient hand through the air, embarrassed Wes still felt he had to protect her from Kelley. “I’m fine, Dad. He is who he is.”
An alarm split the quiet and Mack quickly silenced her phone. She reached across the narrow gap between the table and countertop, grabbed the pill organizer, and handed Wes two tablets. She refreshed their coffee and sat back down as Wes dutifully swallowed.
“That wasn’t all,” he said as he struggled to pull something out of his pocket. It was the small white paper rectangle Janet had given her last night, inscribedJanet Joyner Racing.
From:[email protected]
Subject:Meeting request—Urgent [4/27, 8:16 a.m.]
J—
Contact my assistant immediately to schedule a Zoom about this new driver you want to hire. As you’ll recall, we’ve discussed several more marketable prospects that provide ROI for our sponsorship investment. I appreciate the publicity stunt of “the only girl in the race” but Hartley is more interested in results than spectacle.
Carolina—get this scheduled ASAP.
Hollis O. Whitfield
VP of Marketing
Hartley Harvester Manufacturing, Inc.
A Fortune 500 Company
Chapter 5
4 weeks until the Indianapolis 500
“Found that on the floor in the hallway. Not a speck of dust, so it’s pretty damn recent.”
Mack picked at her bottom lip as she stared at Janet’s card. He hadn’t technically asked her a question.
“How did you get this?”
Mack was torn between telling him everything and telling him nothing, so she deflected instead. “Did you ever race against her?”
“Nah, never that lucky. She was a hell of a driver. Shame she never went further in IndyCar. There was lots of folks then who didn’t think a woman belonged.”
“Look at it now, Dad. That attitude hasn’t grown mold yet.” Not a single woman competed in the Indy 500 last year. In the entire history of the race, only nine women had started. “How come you never told me you knew Janet Joyner?”
“Shit, Mack, I knew everyone back then. You know that. Don’t change the subject. How did you get this? Did you see her?”
There was no point in telling him about something that couldn’t happen. Even if she admitted to herself that she wanted to accept Janet’s bizarre offer—geezus, she wanted to accept—she couldn’t leave her family. They needed her, and the business would fall apart without her. She’d spent years pretending she didn’t mourn her racing career, hidingthe hurt so that Wes and Shaw would never think they were the cause. She couldn’t up andleave. She picked at her cold oatmeal, letting the soft cereal muffle her voice. “It was nothing.”
Wes banged a fist on the faded table, rattling the dishes. Mack was used to his match-strike temper; it flared quickly but never held a flame for long. “You gonna start lying to me now? Why was she here?”
She didn’t lie to him. They’d been through too much together and Wes knew all of her tells. She simply ... kept her feelings to herself. So she surprised herself when she blurted, “She wanted to talk about a ride. But it’s not going to work out.”
Wes’s left eyebrow shot up and he leaned forward, bracing his weaker elbow on the table. “What kinda ride?”
