“I’ll meet up with you later. I need to change.”
His eyes narrowed. She caught a look of suspicion just before he asked, “Into what?”
She shrugged. “Something a little more racelike. Remember, I’m not here in an official capacity. Well, I am, but we don’t want your fellow trackies to know that.”
“Trackies?” he asked with a lifted brow.
“What else should I call the people you work with?”
“How about crew members?”
“Whatever,” she said, lifting a hand in dismissal. “Just let me get changed. Unless you want me to show up in a business suit, toting an FBI badge.”
He shook his head. “Just remember there’s a dress code in the garage.”
This time it was her brows that lifted.
He nodded. “No sleeveless shirts. No open-toed shoes. No bare legs.”
She snapped her fingers in mock regret. “Damn. I guess that means I can’t wear my thigh-highs.”
His eyes narrowed further.
She rolled hers. “Relax, Blain. I promise not to embarrass you. I’ll look the part. Just let me do my job.”
AND SHE DID LOOK THE PART, judging by the raised brows she received from certain members of the male persuasion. As she walked toward the garage, she tried not to feel self-conscious. All those years at Bimbos and she still felt uncomfortable when gawked at—made her think she might have a piece of tissue trailing from her heel.
Perfect.
She’d decided on a chic yet revealing mode of dress—not for Blain’s sake, although that might have been fun, but so she blended in better. And so she wore a black chemise covered by a black mesh, long-sleeved shirt, powder-blue jeans hugging her legs like giant tube socks, a black stripe of leather running down the side. Of course, tucked into her black half-boots was a.22 handgun. Still, she felt very sexy in an Annie Oakley kind of way.
Unfortunately, Nevada weather in the spring was like a woman who couldn’t make up her mind, and so Cece damn near froze in the getup. Off in the distance what looked to be a thunderstorm was brewing, dark clouds gathering over the granite mountaintops. Terrific. And she’d forgotten a jacket.
A guard wearing a bright yellow coat eyed her up and down, the word SECURITY emblazoned across the front as if someone might mistake him for a race car. The obnoxious color wasn’t very flattering to his Hispanic face, a face that lit up when he saw her.
“Good afternoon,” he drawled flirtatiously as she paused near the entrance he “guarded.” Yeah, right. The guy didn’t even have a gun. “May I help you?” he added.
On a normal day Cece would give him one of her patented Death Star FBI agent looks. But this wasn’t a normal day. Undercover. One of Blainy-poo’s friends. So she smiled back, flicking her long blond hair over her shoulder à la Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.
“Good afternoon,” she answered with a smile, flashing him the hot pass credential she’d picked up at a trailer outside the racetrack.
“Go right on in,” he said, waving her by.
“Thank you,” she drawled in a sexy alto she hadn’t used since her days at Bimbos.
The Frankenstein heels of her boots sank into fresh tar as she headed toward the garage. Four white buildings were lined up like dominoes along the homestretch, the lesser mortals (i. e., race fans) kept out by the tall wrought-iron fence with giant don’t-try-to-climb-this spikes at the top. The buildings were nice in a single-story, no-frills kind of way. Some cars were in their garage, others half out as if they’d stalled and come to a rolling halt. It wasn’t race day, which really bummed her out. Yup. Her guilty little secret. She was a closet race car fan.
She paused midway between the fence and the garages and took it all in: the smell of burnt oil and high octane fuel. Compressors and air wrenches whirring in the distance. The crack, crack, crack of a motor idling. Crew members in their multicolor team shirts darting around.
Little darts of electricity lifted her skin into goose pimples. Dang. She’d always wondered what it was like on the inside.
She found Blain’s car parked in a garage stall at the very end of the second building; the pylon-orange stars painted on the trunk lid were hard to miss. The front end of the vehicle was jacked up off the ground, and two men stood near the front, peering into the motor compartment as if a girlie flick played inside.
“Excuse me,” she said, trying not to gawk as an ex-driver-turned-famous TV commentator walked past her, clipboard in hand, gray hair plastered in place like an elderly Ken doll.
A head peeked around the lifted hood, another from the other side, like two wide-eyed chickens peeking around a coop. She looked down as the sound of a creeper’s wheels grinding against smooth concrete caught her attention. A pair of feet emerged from beneath the car—big feet in brown leather shoes. Legs. Black pants. Blain.
The thought was confirmed when a taut chest encased in a team orange, polo-style shirt turned into a tan face with angry eyes.
Uh-oh.
“Well, well, well.” He glared up at her. “Look who decided to show up.”
“Well, well, well,” she drawled right back. “Blain Sanders at my feet. Just what I always wanted.”
He frowned, rolling the creeper around so he could sit up. “You get lost on the way out here?” he asked, grabbing a red rag that lay nearby, then tossing it aside.
“No,” she answered, smiling brightly, even though his question irritated the heck out of her.
“Get caught in traffic?”
“No,” she repeated quickly. Okay, so she’d been primping. It wasn’t often that she got to go undercover as a glamour girl. Usually she was playing the role of anything but, and she was woman enough to want to dress in cool clothes. “I just took my time.”
He frowned again, his gaze scanning her up and down. And even though he sat at a lower elevation, he must have noticed how cold she was because she could have sworn his eyes caught on her less than soft nipples. She blushed, but darn it, it was cold standing here in the shadows. A stiff breeze blew between the garages, tossing dust and grit and empty wax cups around. “I thought team owners didn’t work on cars.”
“This team owner does,” he grumbled, rising to his feet. “Especially when his crew chief is off running around and there’s a problem.”
She resisted the urge to step back. Blain was a big guy. In a lot of places, she found herself thinking before clamping down on that unprofessional and unwanted thought.
“Are you ready to give me a tour?”
He looked irritated. Really, really irritated. He glanced at the car, and the crew still gawking. He glared. The chicken heads ducked back behind the coop.
“In a minute,” he said. “We’re
