Substitute Seduction (Sweet Tea And Scandal 2)

The other side of the coin from preparation was luck. Harrison considered himself fortunate that during his career while he’d been involved in several wrecks, he’d walked away from all but one of them. Yet despite the danger inherent in his sport, he never questioned getting behind the wheel of number twenty-five.

Too bad life wasn’t equally easy to prepare for and navigate. Nothing he’d ever experienced could’ve enabled Harrison to see the wreck between him and London coming. She’d completely blindsided him. One second he was in his lane, thinking that he had everything in hand, and the next he was spinning out of control on a trajectory that sent him crashing into the wall.

Ahead of him the entrance gate to Crosby Motorsports came into view. As he sped onto the property, the peace he’d always gathered from being there eluded him. The facility had been more than his home away from home for nearly two decades. It was the center of his world. Yet tonight as he pulled up in front of the engine shop, his heart wasn’t here.

He expected the building to be empty. With the season done, the team had headed home for some much-needed rest and family time. Harrison used his keycard to access the engine shop and easily navigated the familiar space in the dim light. Of all the various components that went into the cars, he had a particular fondness for engines since his earliest memories were of working beside his uncle, learning how all the complicated parts came together to move the vehicle forward in breathtaking speeds.

Of course, the engines designed and built by the Crosby Motorsports team were far more sophisticated than the engines Harrison had learned on. These days the engines were customized each week for the particular racetrack based on the speed and throttle characteristics and even the driver.

“What are you doing here?”

Looking past the neat row of engines lined up along one wall, Harrison spied his uncle headed his way.

“Just clearing my head.”

“How’s London? Things going okay?”

“Why do you ask?”

“She’s the first woman you’ve brought around in a long time. I figured she was someone special.” Jack removed his ball cap and ran slender fingers through his thick gray hair. “And with the hangdog look about you right now, it stands to reason that something went wrong.”

With the season over, Jack became a lot more approachable, and Harrison decided to take advantage of his uncle’s years of experience being married to a firecracker like Dixie.

“When London and I first started dating, I thought our biggest problem was going to be that she wouldn’t give me a chance because I didn’t have the sort of Charleston social connections she was looking to make.”

“And now?” Jack asked, not looking a bit surprised.

“I think those issues are still there, but they aren’t the biggest problem we have.”

Jack shook his head in disgust and suddenly Harrison was an impulsive teenager again, eager to get behind the wheel of a car he couldn’t handle.

“Do you think for one second if I hadn’t fought for Dixie that we’d be together right now?” Jack asked. “Your dad and I had empty pockets and big dreams when I met your aunt.”

“But she married you,” Harrison reminded him.

“You say that like there was never any question she would. Her dad chased me off their property the first time I made her cry.”

Harrison regarded his uncle in shock, intrigued by this glimpse into Jack’s personal life. Usually his uncle stuck to tales about the business or racing and Harrison sensed there was a good story waiting to be told.

“You made her cry?” He couldn’t imagine his tough-as-nails aunt reduced to tears. “Why? How?”

“I wasn’t the smooth operator I am today.”

Harrison snorted. His uncle often told stories, and the more dramatic the circumstances, the better. Not everything was 100 percent true, but there was enough reality to provide a moral. The key was discovering what exactly to believe.

“So, what happened?”

“She was debuting and wanted me as her escort for the ball. We’d been going out for only a few months at the time and I certainly wasn’t her parents’ first choice.”

“Did you do something to embarrass her at the event?”

“I never made it to the ball.”

“Why?”

“Stupid pride.” Jack’s expression turned sheepish. “I turned her down. She and I were from different worlds. I believed if we went together, she’d be the target of ridicule and I didn’t want to put her through that.”

Harrison winced. That same thought had crossed his mind at Richmond Raceway when he’d glimpsed London there. It had been so obvious that she didn’t fit in. And later when he’d seen her with his brother at the Crosby Motorsports party, he’d briefly wondered if she’d prefer to be with someone who shared similar business and social connections.