Wounded (An Aspen Series Novella) (Prequel to Relentless) (4 page)

“Why should I?  All I got from you was a cold
email.”  Why did she have to press it and force him to be a dick?

“Whoa,” Tyler whispered.

“Harsh,” Scott agreed.

Jerry hated putting her on the spot like he was,
but who the hell did she think she was coming in looking all sexy and acting
like she hadn’t broken his heart?

She visibly swallowed.  Her bottom lip quivered,
betraying her cool demeanor and making him feel like shit.  She opened her
mouth to say something, then stopped.  She turned and walked away, dragging the
pieces of his heart behind her.  It was better this way.

The guys stared at him like he was an alien.

“What?” he said to the group.

They exchanged glances.

“She’s still in love with you, man,” Milo finally
offered.

“The hell.”  He challenged them all with a glance
and then looked toward the bar.  “Where’s my damn beer?”

*        *        *

Kimber climbed into her Mazda and shut the door. 
She would not go back in a third time.  She inhaled and slowly exhaled, letting
her whispering breath calm her.  She hadn’t expected his anger to be so
strong.  Hadn’t expected him to look so good.  His dark eyes had always weakened
her, although in the past that had been in a good way.  The expression in his eyes
tonight had been a mixture of anger and something else, and none of the sexy
tease she was used to.

She’d thought she could hold her own, but this
was too important to her, and she’d let him intimidate her.  He’d always been a
man worth a second look with his towering height and impressive muscles, but
now his body seemed more hardened.  It was as though his time overseas had
toughened him inside and out.

She summoned her own anger from deep inside
because that made it easier to handle his.

To hell with Jerry.  Yes, she’d been an idiot and
had sent him that fateful email in a moment of fear and uncertainty.  Yes, she
deserved some of his anger.  But he hadn’t completely held up his end of the
bargain, and she didn’t deserve the cold humiliation he’d just tossed in her
face.  She started her car, but instead of driving, she hit redial on her cell
phone.

After six rings, Noelle answered.

“He’s a total, complete ass.”

“Didn’t go so well, huh?”  Her friend’s voice
echoed with compassion.

“No.”  Tears welled behind her eyelids, and she
tried to coax more anger to the surface.  Crying equaled hopeless, and she
couldn’t accept that.  “He refused to talk to me.”

Silence ensued from the other side, and she heard
a male voice ask who was on the line.

“Oh, God.  You’re with Ian.  I’m so sorry.”  She
had to stop being so self-focused.

Noelle giggled and then cleared her throat.  “It’s
okay.  I’m here for you.”

Kimber didn’t want to picture what she might have
interrupted.  “No.  I’m going to let you go.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the derby, then?  Did you
finish painting your car?”

“My dad helped.”  A watermelon-sized tub of
anxiety bottomed in her stomach.  Surely, Jerry wouldn’t be driving.  With him
just getting home, there’s no way he’d have a car ready in time.

“I can’t wait to see it.  Afterwards, we’ll come
up with a kickass strategy that will have that man begging at your feet.”

A laugh spilled from her, relieving some of her
stress.  “I love you, Noelle.”

“Love you, too.  Good night.”

*        *        *

Jerry woke the next morning sprawled in the bed
of his youth, his mouth as dry as the Afghani desert and his head pounding like
rapid gunfire.

He groaned and rolled over, his thoughts
immediately returning to Kimber.  He wished to hell someone would have told him
that all the drinking in the world wouldn’t erase her from his thoughts.  He’d
done a damn fine job trying, though.

He’d spent the rest of his night trying to ignore
the sick feeling churning inside him.  No one brought up Kimber’s name again,
and neither did he.  But the pain he’d glimpsed in her expression had burned
into him much like looking at the sun before closing his eyes.  He’d tried to
distract himself by drinking and by dancing with a few more ladies, but he
could not get the scarring image out of his mind.

He and his friends had stayed until the bar hat shut
down, and he vaguely remembered the five of them piling into the back of someone’s
truck.  He’d passed out until his friends had tossed him out near his front
porch.  He’d managed to make his way to his bed, but still wore the clothes he’d
partied in.

The hell if he’d do that again.  His days of
acting like a teenager were over.

He made his way to the bathroom where he popped a
couple of aspirin and downed a large glass of water before climbing into the
shower.

When he stumbled downstairs thirty minutes later,
his head still pounded, but he believed he might survive.

“Morning, sunshine,” his mom said as she rolled
out the pastry for a pie.

He grunted in return and filled a cup with
coffee.  She’d be entering that in the yearly contest as usual.

“Your friends are out in the garage working on
your derby car.”

He glanced outside, spying his newest vehicle
parked in front of the house.  “How did my Camaro get home?”

“Luke and Milo brought it this morning.  Crazy
night?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.  Fucked up, crazy night. 
He poured his coffee into a plastic mug and set the cup in the sink.  “I’ll be
outside.”

As he entered the garage, his friends quickly
stopped talking and eyed him with wary looks.

“What?”

Luke focused on the car’s engine, and Milo
shrugged.  “Just wondering how you’re feeling this morning?”

“Like a semi dragged my ass down five miles of
pavement,” he snapped.  “How the hell are you feeling?”

Luke looked at him beneath raised brows.  “Feeling
a little grumpy this morning?  I’m not surprised after how much you drank last
night.”

Jerry looked at his friends like they’d lost
their minds.  “I wasn’t the only one.”

Luke glanced at Milo with a grin.  “You going to
tell him, or should I?”

“We might have all had a few beers, but you were
the only one who was muttering about Kimber after passing out on Tyler’s lap on
the way home,” Milo said.  “I won’t mention how you tried to hug him.”

“No.”  He would not have embarrassed himself that
way.

Luke snickered.  “Yeah.”

He stared at his friends for a moment, not
certain what to say.  They were known for pulling pranks on him, but little
snippets of memory flashed in his brain, and he was pretty certain they told
the truth.  God help him.

Instead of replying, he walked to his toolbox and
grabbed a screwdriver.  “If we’re going to get this beast running, we’d better
start fixing that carburetor.”

Milo and Luke exchanged glances, and Jerry didn’t
give them a chance to change the subject back to Kimber.  “Well?  If we don’t
get our asses in gear, we’re not going to have her ready in time.”

It took most of the afternoon, but by the time
four o’clock, Saturday night rolled around, Jerry, with the help of Milo and
Luke, had his old New Yorker loaded onto the flatbed trailer, and they hauled
her to the town’s rodeo grounds.

The afternoon sun hovered in the sky, sitting at
the perfect angle to blind Jerry whenever he looked west across the field of
cars and drivers.  Engines roared and sputtered in preparation for one of the
town’s favorite annual events.  Some of the drivers were pretty serious about winning,
but most of the entrants just wanted the chance to bash another car, him included.

As he exited his dad’s old truck, his gaze
constantly wandered to the stands.  It was a relentless battle between his
subconscious who couldn’t resist looking for Kimber and the smarter half of him
who wanted to kick his subconscious’s ass.

“
Dude
.”

Milo’s voice jerked him from his reverie, and he
glanced to his friend with raised brows.  “What?”

“If you don’t get your ass out of the way, you’re
going to be your car’s first hit.”

He focused on the scene in front of him and
realized if Luke had backed the car off the trailer another inch, he would have
taken him to the ground.  “Shit,” he whispered and moved out of the way.  With
all of the engines roaring around him, he hadn’t realized one of them had been
his.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Milo asked, studying
him with a discerning gaze.

“Of course.  I’m ready to kick some ass,” Jerry
responded.  He needed to burn off his frustrations somehow.

Milo hesitated a moment longer before nodding.  “You
sure?  Sometimes that Afghani heat can really mess with a guy’s head, if you
know what I mean.”

Jerry shook his head.  “No.  I’m good.”  He wasn’t
denying that his service to his country had changed him forever, and for a
while, he’d struggled to manage his issues, but things were better now.

“Then it’s Kimber,” Luke commented as he joined
them.

“Do you have to keep bringing her up?”

Luke adjusted his ball cap.  “Just calling it
like I see it.  I think you’re a little more whipped than you’re letting on.”

“Shit.  How about we just don’t mention her name
again?”

“You sure about that?”  Luke lifted a teasing
brow, making Jerry want to punch him in the gut.

“Damn sure.”  He turned to Milo.  “Did you get me
registered?”

“Yep.  You’re in the first round.”

“Good.”  He climbed into his car and slammed the
door.  He did not need this shit from his friends.  The engine growled as he
revved it, and he gave the car a little extra gas as he started toward the
opening to the arena.  He took a fair amount of satisfaction knowing the wheels
had spit some dust at his friends in his attempt to show off.

He joined the line of cars waiting to be
announced as they entered the arena.  When the announcer called out The
Smashmaster, Jerry circled the dirt-covered area, doing brodies that created a
cloud of thick dust.  Man, it felt good to do something a little wild and
reckless after the last four years of regimented days.

When he finished showing off, he backed up his
car until it bumped against the tractor tires that lined the boundaries of
their playground and waited with the other drivers.  A few more cars followed
suit, creating enough dust to have the fans choking.

“Uh-oh.”  The announcer’s voice rang through the
air.  “It looks like we also have a Crashmaster this year.  That sounds a lot
like Smashmaster….”  He let his voice trail off, encouraging the crowd to
speculate if there would be a rivalry.

Jerry couldn’t agree more.  This idiot needed to
come up with his own name, not a rip-off of Jerry’s.  Whoever it was had more
or less painted an invisible target on his car as far as Jerry was concerned.

A neon pink Grand Prix entered the arena and
created enough of a brown haze that he couldn’t see the driver.  When it came
to a stop, the driver had parked on the opposite side of the ring.

Jerry revved his engine in response.

The announcer laughed.  “Looks like the
Smashmaster has thrown down the gauntlet.  We’ll have to see if the Crashmaster
accepts.”

A loud muffler-less growl roared from the Grand
Prix, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Game on
.  A grin spread across his mouth. 
There was no way a Smashmaster and a Crashmaster could civilly share the same
arena.  Not if Jerry had any say.

He held his excitement in check while the rest of
the cars joined them.  Then the announcer along with the crowd counted down to
one.

A cacophony of engine roars filled the air, and he
pulled out into the fray.  Straight in front of him, a big, green station wagon
was backing wildly across the arena toward a black Caprice with painted flames
licking its sides.  He couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Jerry threw it into reverse and headed after
them.  The driver of the wagon kept his attention on the Caprice, which was
what Jerry had hoped for, and a second after the wagon hit the Caprice, Jerry
slammed into the hood of the station wagon.

It made a nice vehicular sandwich, if anyone
asked him.

He jerked the shifter into forward and pulled
away.

Luckily for him, the neon pink Grand Prix had
just smashed into a red Chevy not all that far from him.  First round down.  On
to the main event.

He crushed his accelerator to the floor, kicking
up a good bit of dust, giving the Caprice a final insult.  Jerry took a hit to
the passenger side before he made it to the Grand Prix, and he was sure it left
a nice dent in his stars and stripes décor.

He didn’t give a shit.  It was unlikely this car
would be worth running again.

He swiveled his head around, making a mental note
to go after that car once he’d taken out the Grand Prix.

The second he was close enough to the blaring
neon pink, he stopped and threw his car into reverse, intending to use his back
bumper as the offense in an effort to protect his engine.

He had a pretty good run going and itched for the
moment his car would make contact with the Crashmaster.  Seconds before he hit,
the banged up black Caprice came out of nowhere, bashing his front end and
shifting his course of action.

He ended up parallel to the Grand Prix, his ass
to its engine, the driver side windows of both cars next to each other.  He
looked over, ready to say some smart ass remark about lack of originality, but
his words died on his tongue when he found Kimber’s beautiful face peering out
of her helmet.

He sat stunned for an awkward moment.

She widened her eyes and stared at him with an
unreadable expression.  Then she revved her engine and shot away from him. 
Before he could make another move, the Caprice attacked again.