All The Way. Beverly Bird

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СКАЧАТЬ then, her arms around his neck, her lithe legs wrapping around his waist, her mouth clamping on his. She gave him no chance for finesse, no time for it. Something inside Hunter broke.

      His hands found her bottom, holding her to him. Then they were both down in the dust while his tongue dove for hers hungrily, an agony building inside him too fast. He dragged off her shorts, then his own clothes, then he found his way inside her in one desperate thrust. She cried out, then she made a mewling sound in her throat and clung to him, riding with him fast, fiercely, crying out his name. And all Hunter could think was that this time he’d really come home.

      A voice squawked in his headset, startling Hunter out of his reverie. It was his spotter, a guy who stood on top of the grandstand with radio in hand and an eagle’s view of the track. He warned of pile-ups around the next curve and unseen cars traveling in his blind spots.

      This time there was panic in the man’s voice, and Hunter’s vision cleared to see the turn-two wall in front of him. He pulled hard on the wheel, swerving around toward the apron of the track again.

      “What the hell are you doing?” the spotter bellowed. “Man, you’re all over the track!”

      “Car feels a little loose.” It was the term that described how—at killer high speeds—the back end of a car could fishtail and try to catch up with the front. “I’m just playing with it to figure out how much we need to adjust.”

      Then he glanced at the nonexistent passenger seat one more time. The grown-up Liv was there now.

      Her perfect face was framed, not by straight, waist-length hair, but by long layers, brown streaked with russet and tipped by gold at the ends. She’d wanted him once. She had said she loved him. Then she’d found someone else in four short weeks, and she’d sent him away.

      Now there was the matter of the child.

      His child, Hunter thought. Not Guenther’s. What had she done? Why, Livie, why?

      His spotter’s voice began crackling in his ear again, so loud now as to be almost wordless. Hunter focused on the track again. The turn wall was in front of him one more time. He corrected too fast, too hard. His reflexes were caught in the past.

      The back end of the race car slid around and cracked into the concrete, crumbling like paper in a giant’s fist. Then he was diving nose first toward the infield, coming down off the embankment. Mikey Nolan, in the 42 car, had been coming up hard behind him. He tried to avoid Hunter’s skid, but he connected with his left-rear quarter panel, rocking Hunter’s car around one more time. Hunter slid up the track and straight into the wall with a full-frontal, jarring impact.

      When he came to, he smelled gasoline and heard the deadly snap of fire.

      Liv screamed.

      The sound tore from her throat, raw and unwilling, as she shot up from the sofa in her private sitting room where she’d been watching the practice session. On the television, Hunter’s gold car with the number 4 emblazoned down the sides in black flames was smashed against the outside wall of the race track. Its hood was flattened, its rear end was destroyed, and real flames were licking out from behind the left rear wheel.

      As she swallowed hard against another reflexive sound, a truck rolled up and suited men jumped out of the bed, armed with fire extinguishers.

      Then the net came down from the driver’s side window, and she saw Hunter’s hand shoot out, giving a thumbs-up sign that he was okay. The TV announcer lamented that he’d qualified for the pole position in tomorrow’s race and now his car was more or less demolished. He’d have a back-up available, but changing cars now would put him at the back of the starting line.

      “Oh, you stupid, insane fool!” Liv choked. “When is it enough for you? When? How damned far do you have to take it?” Her heart was rioting.

      A fist thumped against her door. Kiki’s voice shouted through the wood. “Are you all right? I heard you scream.”

      Liv went to open it. Kiki shot into the room, looking around both skeptically and a little wildly. Liv nodded wordlessly at the TV.

      Kiki’s black eyes took in the scene there as Hunter levered himself out through the driver’s window. The stock cars had no doors. The seams and hardware would create drag. “So Michigan doesn’t agree with him,” Kiki muttered.

      Then Vicky hurtled into the room.

      Her knees were scraped and reddened as they usually were, and her long, black ponytail was falling loose from some hard play. “What’s going on? Somebody said you were all up here.” Then she, too, focused on the television screen. “Hey, isn’t that the guy we saw in the restaurant last weekend?”

      Kiki was closest to her. She caught Vicky’s arm and turned her smoothly away from the TV. “What guy?”

      “Mom knows who I mean. Some famous guy.” Vicky craned her neck around as Kiki steered her toward the door. “It is him. He said he drives cars real fast. He’s hurt.”

      Kiki dropped Vicky’s elbow to turn back to the TV herself. Liv pushed between them to see. On the screen, Hunter bent over at the waist, in obvious pain. He did it slowly, as though the earth had suddenly produced an exorbitant amount of gravity and was tugging him down even as he fought it tooth and nail.

      Liv felt light-headed. The announcers’ voices sounded anxious.

      “Sit down,” Kiki said to her harshly. “You’re white as a ghost.”

      “I’m fine. Vicky, go…do something.”

      Kiki started angling the girl toward the door again. “Come on. I just made a new recipe for cranberry muffins. I need you to tell me what you think.”

      “But I want to see what happens to this guy,” Vicky argued.

      “We can watch on the television downstairs in the kitchen.”

      Liv knew that Kiki would never allow the TV to go on downstairs until long after this coverage was over. She offered no resistance when the two went out, Kiki closing the door again smartly behind her.

      Liv went back to the sofa and sat, fumbling blindly behind her with one hand to make sure the furniture was still there. Then she reached for the remote control and hit up the volume. She’d once seen his car do somersaults down the backstretch, nose to tail, nose to tail, and he’d walked away as steady as a rock. He would be fine.

      “They don’t seem to be heading for the infield care center,” one of the announcers said as an ambulance loaded Hunter and drove off. “Looks like they’ll be taking him directly to a hospital.”

      “What does this do to his chances tomorrow, Hal?”

      “I’d say they’re minimal at this point, Bud.”

      He’d driven once with a broken wrist, Liv remembered, taping it for extra support, his jaw set visibly against the pain every time the camera caught him. He’d be in that race tomorrow.

      There was another knock on her door. Kiki entered with a tray holding a decanter of brandy and two snifters.

      “Where’s Vicky?” Liv asked, startled.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ