A NASCAR Holiday 2: Miracle Season\Season of Dreams\Taking Control\The Natural by Pamela Britton

Author:Pamela Britton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2012-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

AT THE END of the morning’s tour, Aidan took Ellie up to the fancy office that had been her uncle’s. He didn’t tell her Walter hardly ever spent time there; he’d always been more interested in hanging around in the garage area or the pits. She met Shirley, who had been Walter’s secretary for nearly twenty years, and who’d made Ellie’s hotel reservation.

“This afternoon we’ll go out to the track,” Aidan told her. “You can watch practice laps.”

“Good.” She nodded. “I’d like that.”

“And if you’re interested, I can arrange for a demo ride.”

The eyes of the cool socialite and businesswoman lit up like a kid seeing her first Christmas tree. “Really?”

He liked the gleam he saw, wondered what else might provoke that excitement. Funny how good the notion of eliciting it again made him feel.

Shirley had already called out for half a dozen sandwiches and now offered Ellie and Aidan first choice, saying she and the girls from accounting would split what was left.

Ellie selected the provolone and Black Forest ham, while Aidan went for the turkey-and-bacon club with Swiss on sourdough. They ate off the paper wrappers in the maple-paneled office. Not the style to which his new partner was probably accustomed, he quickly surmised. Welcome to the world of racing.

“How long did you know my uncle?” she asked after wiping her mouth with a coarse brown paper napkin.

“Almost fourteen years. I was fifteen when he came to give a speech at the juvenile center where I was residing at the time. We talked afterward, and the following weekend he received permission to take me to a race he was sponsoring.”

She eyed him, not sure if he was pulling her leg. “Why were you in a juvenile center?”

“My old man beat me one time too many and I ran away. Refused to go back to live with him and the lush he’d married after my mom died.”

She took another bite of her sandwich. Crunched into the dill pickle, sipped her sweet tea, all the time avoiding eye contact with him.

“He was real proud of you,” Aidan told her. “Harvard Business School. Top of the class.”

“Third, actually.”

“Close enough. I got my GED. Never went to college. But then, neither did he. Called himself the black sheep of the family.”

“I’m sorry I never met him.”

“You didn’t?”

“Maybe when I was very young, but I don’t remember.”

“I figured since he and your mother were such close friends—”

“Friends? What are you talking about?”

“The cruises they took together every year.”

She stared across the desk at him. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. My mother didn’t take any cruises with him.”

He seemed to consider her reply. “She didn’t take a Caribbean cruise every January?”

That caught her unawares and instantly put her on the defensive. “I don’t think what my mother does is any of your business, Mr. O’Keefe.”

He chuckled with amusement. “Ah, so it’s back to Mr. O’Keefe, is it?” He bit into his sandwich to hide his smile. Apparently Estelle Satterfield had been keeping a secret.

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