Chapter Fifteen
Jazz didn’t readtoo much into Dan’s off-handed declaration of love. Apparently, the girlfriend gag had grown stale enough that he was upping his game in his attempts to distract her, which was sweet, but also annoying, because his timing was terrible. Today had been one of the hardest days of her career and she wasn’t in the mood for the joke when she needed a shoulder to lean on. Not just any shoulder, either.
Usually, Dan understood her.
She’d meant it when she said she didn’t think she could do this. Being responsible for other people was beyond her capabilities. It was why she’d left Las Vegas and it was why she planned to withdraw her name from the competition for McCall. She was great at looking after herself. She had no problems with being part of a team when the responsibility was shared. But put her in charge of others and her weaknesses all floated straight to the top.
“How would you like to steal a car for a few hours?” Dan asked.
Her brain tried to shift gears.Enough with the jokes, Dan.She should say yes, just to see his reaction.
“I thought you’d put grand theft auto behind you.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. Dark blond eyebrows went up. “I know motorbikes are more your thing, but try and tell me you wouldn’t like to take Ryan’s Jaguar for a spin.”
“I would,” she admitted. She could imagine the look on his face. That alone would be worth a few months in jail. “But it’s not really stealing if you know he’d lend it to you, and a sedate drive along the Yellowstone at midnight with a law-abiding sheriff sounds mind-numbingly dull, even in a Jag.”
“Would it still be dull if the law-abiding sheriff is friends with the owner of the Grand Dragstrip Racetrack, who also happens to owe him a favor?”
He was serious. He was going to let her take one of Ryan’s luxury cars to a racetrack. She hugged him. “You’re the best.”
He wouldn’t let her drive his sheriff’s SUV to the ranch though, which took away some of the fun, but he gave her the key fob to a brand-new, bright red, Jaguar XE to make up for it.
“If you scratch it, I’ll have to buy it for you,” he warned her.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the sleek car. Her heart was tripping so fast with excitement she thought her chest would explode. “I bet you terrify women when you make threats like that.”
“I tailor my threats to the women I’m trying to terrify,” he said, popping the passenger side door and easing his injured leg into the seat.
Keeping the Jag under the speed limit on the way to the track was almost too much for her to stand, and if Dan hadn’t been with her, she would have opened it up.
The racetrack was a few miles outside of Grand. The owner was waiting to let them in when they arrived at the gate. His name was Roman. He looked like Dwayne Johnson’s larger, meaner brother. He whistled as he looked the car over.
“Your buddy must love you,” he said to Dan. “This baby has a real engine in her. You aren’t driving it on my track without a few rules. Wait here.”
He returned a few moments later with a helmet swinging in each hand and a third clenched to his side by the bulge of his arm. “You have to wear these. Dan, you sit in the back. I’m taking shotgun as instructor.” He gave Jazz, who was at the wheel, the same onceover he’d given the car, with the same admiring look in his eyes. “Speed limit’s one hundred. Maybe more if you can handle the turns.” He got in the car and reached for the seat belt. “Buckle up, ladies.”
The next hour was the most fun Jazz had had in months. Dan appeared completely relaxed in the back seat as Roman showed her how to heat up the tires, then coached her through turns, gradually allowing her to increase her speed until she passed the one-hundred-mile limit. He called it a night at one hundred and ten.
Dan thanked him as they said goodbye at the gate.
“No problem. She’s a natural. Nerves of steel,” Roman said. White teeth gleamed as he grinned at Jazz. The weight of one muscled arm strained the cant rail on the roof as he leaned in her window. “Any time you want to come back without him, give me a call and I’ll find something for you to drive.” He passed her his card.
“Quit hitting on my girlfriend,” Dan growled from the passenger seat.
Roman put his hands in the air, laughing. “I don’t see no ring on her finger.”
“Not yet. It’s coming, though,” Dan replied.
Jazz was so used to hanging with firefighters she’d known for years and being treated like one of the guys that she’d almost forgotten what it was like to have men over twenty flirting with her. She wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t flattered. But Dan was the man she was attracted to, and tonight, he’d shown her just how well he knew her. It was scary and exhilarating, and felt much the way driving the Jag at more than one hundred miles per hour had.
He didn’t know everything about her, though. For instance, if he made one more joke about her being his girlfriend, she was going to run him down with his friend’s car.
They purred along Yellowstone Drive. The streets were empty. She backed the car into the Endeavour’s garage and cut the engine. The headlights winked out on their own and darkness closed in. The inside of the car held the smell of burnt rubber.
“Feel better?” Dan asked.
“I do.” She did.