Alison Kent's Blah Blog

“The last time I saw you standing still, you had your pants around your ankles.”

What the hell? Trey looked around.

“And my memory hasn’t failed me. You do have a fine back side.”

Glowering, Trey turned. The woman in the doorway had the sun at her back, which put her face in shadow. It didn’t matter. He knew without question who it was standing there, giving him the eye.

“Cardin Worth. It’s been awhile.” She wore black Converse sneakers, low-riding jeans, and a black Dahlia Speedway logo T-shirt. His pulse began to hum, but not because of the way she looked in her clothes. Humming was what it always did when she was around. What it had done even before the pants-around-his-ankles incident. “How are you?”

Pulling off her sunglasses, she came further into the trailer, her long black ponytail swinging. “I’m good. You?”

“The same.” He looked on as she laid down the glasses, picked up and fondled the wrench he’d come for. “What brings you out here so early race weekend?”

“I’m actually looking for my grandfather.” Her gaze came up, intense, searching. “Have you seen him?”

“Jeb? No.” Trey shook his head. He hadn’t remembered her eyes being that blue. Her body being that . . . delicious. “Is he doing okay?”

A dimple fondly teased one side of her mouth. “As ornery as ever, thanks.”

“And you? You’re doing okay?” Because he sure as hell wasn’t.

Her smile took pity, her gaze softened. “We already did that part.”

“Right. Sorry. My mind’s – ”

“On the race?”

Actually, it had gone back seven years to the night of her class’s high school graduation, and the pants-around-his-ankles incident.

He still wondered how long she’d been standing there, how much she’d seen. He cleared his throat. “Yeah. This race is always a big deal.”

“For all of Dahlia,” she reminded him sagely.

“That’s true.” Though her family, along with the others whose businesses thrived on the spring drag racing series, would get the bad news soon enough.

Without the owners coming through on their promised repairs and improvements, Corley Motors—and Trey–wouldn’t be back.

Cardin turned the torque wrench over in her hands, a thoughtful crease appearing between her arched brows. “It has to be strange to have grown up here, and yet never visit. Except during the racing season.”

He wanted to tell her it wasn’t strange at all, that he liked it this way. That these days he didn’t think of Dahlia as anything more than another track.

But he didn’t say anything, just waited for her to dig deeper.

She did. “Don’t you miss hanging out with Tater? Seeing your other friends? Spending time at home?”

He shook his head.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Hmm.” Her tone said she didn’t believe a word. “There’s not anything about Dahlia you miss?”

“Nope.”

“Or anyone?”

“Nope.”

“Not even Kim Halton?”

Kim Halton had been the girl on her knees when his pants had been around his ankles.

“There is one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I miss seeing you.”

“Right. When did you ever see me before?”

He wondered how much of the truth she really wanted. He went for broke. “You mean besides the time you stood there and watched Kim go for the gold?”

Color rose to bloom on her cheeks, but it was her only response until she gave a single nod.

That one was easy. “I saw you at school, in the halls, shaking your ass on the football field. I saw you in the bar every time I came in for a beer.”

“That was a long time ago, Trey,” she said, her voice showing her surprise. “At least – ”

“Seven years,” he finished for her.

“You say that like you’ve kept track.”

“I have.” He knew exactly when he’d moved away from Dahlia.

“I don’t get it. You were two years ahead of me. I don’t remember us exchanging more than a couple dozen words.”

Words had nothing to with anything. “So?”

“So, there’s no reason for you to miss seeing me.”

“None you can think of, you mean.”

“Whip – ”

“Hold up.” He lifted a hand. “Let’s talk about the nickname.”

That got her to laughing, a throaty, bluesy sound that tightened him up. “Hey, I had no idea it would stick.”

She returned the wrench to the shelf, her fingers lingering, her lashes as thick and dark as the bristles of an engine brush as she lifted her gaze coyly to his. “At least most people think it’s about you cracking the whip over your team.”

That was because most people hadn’t been there to hear the gossip about him whipping it out for Kim Halton.

He was lucky it hadn’t been worse. That no one knew he couldn’t have cared less about Kim. That the girl he’d really wanted had been watching from the doorway. The one too close to his doorway now.

He moved to block it. “I suppose it could’ve been worse.”

“You’re right.” She paused, then added with a giggle, “I could’ve called you . . . Speedy.”