Quarter Mile Hearts Read online

  Quarter Mile Hearts – An American Muscle Novel

  By Jenny Siegel

  Published by J Hodge

  First eBook edition

  Copyright © Jenny Siegel 2015

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

  If you are reading a copy of this book that has not been purchased from a licensed retailer please destroy it. Thank you for your support.

  Edited by Jenny Carlsrud Sims of www.editing4indies.com

  Cover designed by Robin Harper of www.wickedbydesigncovers.com

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Quarter Mile Hearts Playlist

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Before Quarter Mile Hearts there was Max’s story – Coming early 2016

  Dedication

  Hard times will always reveal true friends.

  Chapter One

  As soon as I hear the words ‘dad’ and ‘accident,’ I’m in motion. Throwing back the blankets, I climb out of bed and start to move around my small apartment. Stuffing my jeans, a couple of t-shirts, underwear, money, and a few toiletries into a bag, I grab my helmet and lock up behind me, still holding my cell to my ear.

  “I’m on my way.” I end the call abruptly, cutting off the poor nurse mid-sentence. I pull on my helmet and fire off a text to my cousin to let him know I’m on my way before I swing my leg over my Harley and start her up.

  It’s a three-hour drive to the hospital, and I don’t have a minute to spare. If anything happens to my dad… I shudder. My blood runs cold, and I force all negative thoughts out of my mind. The only information to penetrate my panic was Dad, accident, and something about collarbone and ribs. What the fuck has he gotten himself into? This is what I get for living three hours away and only visiting every six months or so. Even when I do visit, I keep them short and sweet. The only people I catch up with are my dad, my best friend, Beth, and her boyfriend, Aaron, who also happens to be my older cousin by a year, and his parents, my aunt and uncle.

  The drive to the hospital is a blur. The miles pass without me even noticing, and my only thought is getting to my dad as fast as I can. When I get to the hospital, I park near the entrance and run inside, frantically searching for bed 6 in the ICU. The elevator takes forever. It moves up at an agonizingly slow pace, and the tinny instrumental music piped over the speakers is grating on my nerves, making me want to scream. At long last, the doors ping open and I search the corridor until I find him. Lying in a room on his own with tubes sticking out of his hand and propped up by pillows, he looks out of it. Even though I’m twenty-four, I want to curl up beside him on the bed like I did when I was a little girl. Instead, I sit beside his bed and take his hand in mine, squeezing it gently.

  I sit there for a long time, just holding his hand, until a nurse comes into the room and offers me some water.

  “Thanks,” I manage to croak out. “What happened?”

  “From what I hear he crashed into another car. He has a collapsed lung, broken collarbone, fractured ribs, and a concussion.”

  “Seriously?” What little color I had drains from my face as I grip onto his hand. “Where did this happen?” I manage to whisper.

  “Oh, I don’t know the details.” I nod and let her carry on with her fussing before she leaves the room. After such an early start and a long drive, tiredness overwhelms me and I lay my head on the bed. Just for a minute. Then my eyes droop.

  A hand stroking through my hair wakes me, and I lift my head to see my dad awake and smiling wearily at me.

  “Dad,” I sit up and take his hand again.

  “You didn’t have to come, Leigh.” He sounds groggy and hoarse. I reach for the water and pass it to him.

  “Of course, I did. I got a call first thing to say you’d been in an accident. What happened?”

  “Last night-”

  “Last night?” My voice rises.

  “I told them not to call you then. I didn’t want you tearing down here and something happening to you.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “I was racing and-”

  “Wait, you were racing? Why the fuck were you racing?”

  “Language.” He gives me a sharp look, but I ignore him, still trying to digest what he is telling me. I take deep breaths and will myself to keep calm.

  He carries on, “It was a reunion night.”

  “A what?” I ask, confused, because I’ve never heard of such a thing.

  “A few of us decided to get together once a month for old times’ sake.”

  “Oh. My. God. After everything that’s happened?”

  “Uh…” His brow furrows, and I can’t believe that he doesn’t understand what I’m talking about.

  “Was it not bad enough that you would come home battered and bruised throughout my childhood? Then Uncle Donnie died, and mom walked out. All because of racing. Hasn’t it done enough?”

  “Leigh,” he shouts, his voice booming around the small room, and then he winces in pain.

  A nurse sticks her head around the door. “You need to keep the noise down.” She walks in and checks my dad’s pulse. “Mr. Storm needs to remain calm. He’s in a lot of pain right now and needs his rest.”

  All self-inflicted.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. “I’ll go now, but I’ll be in to see you in the morning.”

  He nods, looking weak and pale, and instantly, I feel guilty for giving him a hard time.

  “You have your key?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be back tomorrow, and then I’ll check on the garage.”

  “Thanks.” He winces as the nurse rearranges his pillows and then stifles a cry of pain. “It’s in good hands; I’ve left… argh.”

  “Don’t worry. I love you,” I call and leave him in peace.

  • • •

  Born and raised in a small town, I never imagined living anywhere else. Why would I? My dad was there, my best friend, family, and my dad was the Hank in Hank’s Auto Shop. It was the town’s only garage, and therefore, he kept busy. There wasn’t anything that my dad didn’t know about cars, and he taught me a lot of it. Early on in his career, he made a name for himself by kitting out cars for the street racers.

  Racing was a part of the town’s culture. My dad was a racer and so was his best friend, who also happened to be my mom’s brother, so it was the norm for me growing up. Because there wasn’t much to do for entertainment, as soon as you could drive, you went up to the quarter mile. Sometimes even before
then. It was the place to go to hang out with your friends and to show off your car and your girlfriend. And for the older, more dangerous element, it was the chance to race, and money was to be made by those who bet on the races. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were generally race nights. No one raced during the week when I was growing up, but you could sometimes find the odd youngster up there trying his hand at the quarter mile so as not to embarrass himself on race night.

  As a child, I wasn’t allowed to go to the races, but I knew that when my dad came home with bandaged ribs and stitches on his head, it was because he’d been racing and had an accident. The arguments that followed weren’t pleasant. The front door would slam to signal that my mom stormed out. I would curl up into an even tighter ball and pull the covers over my head. Heavy footsteps would trudge up the stairs and my dad would come into my room to make sure I was okay. Even when I pretended I was asleep, he would lean over and kiss me good night and tell me that he loved me.

  “Night, Storm,” he would say at the door and turn off the light.

  My mom would always be back by morning, but you could cut the tension with a knife, and my dad would take me to the garage with him for the day. The closer it got to the weekend, the more tense my mom would grow, knowing that my dad would race. It didn’t help that her brother raced, too. Uncle Donnie and Dad were best friends all through childhood; it is how Dad and Mom met. She was always hanging around the two of them, following them to places, and developed an interest in cars because that was what they were into. Then my dad started to take an interest in her, and the rest is history.

  According to my Aunt Lynda, it all changed after I was born. My mom didn’t want my dad racing because she knew how dangerous it was and hated when he got injured. It all came to a head when Uncle Donnie was killed in an accident. He and Dad had traveled to a race two hours away. My dad wasn’t racing, but he’d been helping Donnie get the car ready and made some modifications. The stakes for the race were stupidly high, and my dad tried to get Donnie to back out, but he didn’t want to lose face. There were four racers—Uncle Donnie, Tom Anderson—a guy they knew, and two others. They were racing along backroads, and although he knew the circuit pretty well, something happened on the last turn, which caused him to spin out of control and hit a tree. The car exploded, and he was killed outright. That was the final straw. Mom left after the funeral and never came back.

  • • •

  The next stop is my dad’s house. Well, my house too, I guess. It’s the same house we lived in while I was growing up. When I push open the door, everything is exactly as I left it, and I head straight up the stairs to my room. Dad hasn’t changed anything, and there are still some clothes hanging up and in the drawers. You hear of some parents changing their child's bedrooms into a home gym or cinema room when their kids leave, but thankfully, not my dad.

  I flop down on my bed and wonder why I haven’t heard back from Aaron or Beth by now. I am itching to see them, but I’ll wait until later and track them down. It’s a Sunday night, so there is only one place they could be.

  A framed picture on the nightstand catches my eye, and I roll over to pluck it up. It was taken a few months before I left. We were at the quarter mile, as was the norm on a Saturday night. Beth gave her phone to someone and asked them to take a picture of the three of us. Aaron, Beth, and I are standing in front of my car. Aaron’s arms are wrapped around our shoulders. He shouted ‘show me your come face’ just before they took the photo and had us in stitches. I peer closer at the figure captured in the background—Max Morgan.

  My stomach flips violently just looking at him. At over six foot, he is the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome with his rugged, dangerously good looks and a smile that makes my insides melt. It’s the dark eyes that do it; the wicked glint that has my core clenching just from one look in my direction. My eyes zoom in on the person standing beside him. Fuck knows who she was. There was always some girl or two hanging around him. At one time, I thought he might be interested, but who was I kidding? Max was never interested in just one girl, hence my nickname for him—Max ‘Manwhore’ Morgan. Even after all this time, jealousy twists in my stomach when I look at him with his arm slung over her shoulder. Over the past few years, I successfully managed to avoid seeing him whenever I’ve visited. Mainly because I refused to take a trip to the quarter mile, saying instead that I’d rather spend time with my dad or the little family I have.

  But I can’t avoid him now. This won’t be some fleeting visit; a collapsed lung, broken collarbone, and fractured ribs take time to heal. I don’t want my dad doing anything stupid like going back to work too early or, god forbid, agreeing to another race.

  No, it’s time I faced Max Morgan head-on. Surely, after four years, things will have changed and hopefully for the better. Max and I have always had this ability to rub each other the wrong way. In fact, we went out of our way to annoy the hell out of each other. Like two rivals, we never mixed, and our friends never mixed, either. Every time we saw each other, it was a pissing contest to see who could wind the other one up the most. Who could trade the best insults and have the wittiest comebacks. Most of the time, it was him, and he irritated me like no one else ever had, but I hope that I irritated him just as much.

  The night before I left, at Aaron’s twenty-first birthday party, something happened between us that I never dreamed would happen. Since then, I’ve avoided him like the plague.

  Max caught me on the landing as I came out of the bathroom, almost as if he was waiting for me. His mouth tipped up at the edges, a wicked smile spreading across his full lips. But for once, I didn’t have it in me to fight with him. I didn’t want to. If anything, I wanted him to kiss me… all over my naked body.

  What was up with that?

  Mentally, he appeared to be lining up his insults, but then he reached for me, snagging my wrist in his hand and tugged. Willingly, I went to him.

  “Tell me what I’ve done to piss you off.”

  “I’m not pissed at you.” And for once, I wasn’t.

  “You usually are.” He stepped closer, trying to gauge my reaction. I didn’t stop him, so he moved even closer, his hands resting on my waist. Up close I noticed, not for the first time, how gorgeous he smelled. I couldn’t even blame alcohol for feeling lightheaded because I was stone-cold sober.

  Forcing my eyes to meet his, my breath stuck in my throat. Long dark eyelashes framed dark eyes that stared down into my green ones. There was a warmth to them that I’d never noticed.

  In slow motion, he lowered his mouth to press his lips to mine. When I didn’t protest, he kissed me again, his tongue running along the seam of my lips. Butterflies soared and swooped in my stomach and my hand slid up to his neck to finger the hair at the nape. One of his hands fisted in my hair at the base of my skull, and he moved closer so our bodies brushed against each other.

  Desire mounted the longer our tongues dueled with each other and with a growl, he pulled away, grasping my hand in his before fumbling with the doorknob next to the bathroom. It was the guest bedroom, and thankfully, it was empty. Max led me in and slammed the door behind us. The next morning, I left as if nothing happened. But everything changed that night.

  It has remained our secret. Even Beth doesn’t know. There is no way I’ll manage to stay out of his way, but a small masochistic part of me wants to see him. To see whether he can still affect me in the way he always did. As much as we used torment each other, I always wondered if it was my way of not admitting how I really felt about him.

  Max Morgan is dangerous to my heart, body, and soul. Which is why I need to keep away and not have a repeat of that night, despite how much I might want to.

  Chapter Two

  As I pull up behind the haphazardly parked cars on the road to the abandoned quarry, a ripple of excitement works its way through me. It’s all exactly as I remember it. The noise from the banging stereo and speakers hooked on the back of someone’s flatbed blares out. All the headlights are
on and I always used to wonder how none of them ever ran their batteries down. The girls in skimpy clothes drape themselves over the souped-up cars. It doesn’t matter if the racer is as ugly as sin, as long as he has a kickass car and knows how to drive it then the girls don’t care. Of course, some of them change their mind once they lose the race. They have no loyalty or very few of them have. Beth, on the other hand, has never cared whether Aaron wins or loses. It helps that he isn’t as ugly as sin, and he does have a kickass car.

  As soon as I’ve parked my bike off the road, I scan the crowd for Beth and Aaron since her bright red Honda stands out. Skirting around a couple of kitted-out Honda Civics, I weave through more cars and people, not stopping to check any of them out.

  It may have been six months since I saw Beth, but she never changes. Petite with big brown eyes, a head full of natural bouncy blond curls, and a bubbly personality to match, she is the total opposite of me. As is the norm, she is wrapped in Aaron’s arms, and I can just make out her blond curls as he dips his head to her ear. If I know my cousin, he is no doubt whispering something inappropriate. Beth is transfixed and whatever he says brings color to her cheeks. As I thought, inappropriate.

  Not sure how to announce my arrival, I hang back for a second longer, but her eyes drift over Aaron’s shoulder and grow wide with amazement. Aaron is shoved roughly out the way as she leaps off the hood of her car and covers the short distance in a few steps.

  “Leigh,” she squeals, and Aaron turns, a smile forming on his face. “Why didn’t you tell us you were here?” My reply is muffled as she grabs me in a huge hug, which is hard as she is a good few inches shorter than I am. Another pair of arms wraps around us both as Aaron joins in the group hug, squeezing tightly and jumping on the spot so we are jostled about. Too much. I can’t breathe.

  I extricate myself and sling one arm around Beth and the other around Aaron.