Fast and Loaded: A Bad Boy Sports Romance by Roxy Sinclaire Page A

supposed to do this? Between him grabbing my ass and you kissing me before you raced off?”
    I had no idea why she was getting so upset. “I just don’t think that it would have been hard to give everything a quick once over is all.”
    “Then do it yourself next time,” she hissed at me.
    I fell silent. It didn’t seem like she wanted to talk as her hands dug further into the car. She pulled out small part after part and set them carefully in order. I would never be able to remember where all the small pieces went, but she seemed to know that everything had a home and where that home was.
    “Have you found anything yet?” I asked again a little while later.
    Her attitude wasn’t any better, “Yeah. Sand.”
    I shook my head; I wasn’t in the mood for her humor at all. “I don’t even know why you wanted me to race him in the first place really. He was just being the same jerk that he always was.”
    “Are you kidding me?” She asked. “You wanted to race him too!”
    “I don’t know why.” I muttered weakly.
    “I don’t know, maybe because he called me easy then insulted your car?” Amber said, her voice almost a yell.
    “Yeah,” I muttered again, “Theresa.”
    Before I knew what was happening, a tool was flying at my head. I jumped up from my seat and glared at her.
    “What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your damn mind, Amber? You could have killed me!” I screamed at her.
    “No, if I wanted to kill you, I would have aimed for your head. You better change your attitude and stop trying to pin everything on me. Got it?” she yelled right back at me.
    I looked at her in stunned silence. I didn’t realize that she was taking everything I had said personally. In my mind, I was just doing what I always did when something went wrong. I was just talking about everything. As I replayed the conversation in my head, I realized how I must have sounded. Really though, as long as Theresa was okay, then nothing else would matter.
    Amber and I would hit our stride once again; we just needed to win the final leg of the race. It didn’t matter what had gone wrong. She was all I needed any more, her and the Grand Nevada win of course. I let my mind drift, but it didn’t do me any good.
    Each time Amber made a sound, I was pulled back into what she was doing, waiting for any information on how long it would take before she could fix Theresa. I had confidence in her skills but the night before still had me spooked.
    As I watched her work, I felt every single turn of the wrench, wondering what the outcome was going to be.
    Suddenly, Amber froze. The bolts were all removed, and I watched silently as she pulled off a large casing from the engine. The color drained from her face as she looked at me. I knew something was wrong; something was very wrong.
    “What?” I asked.
    “I’m so sorry Desmond. The interior engine filter is ruined; it couldn’t take the pressure of all the sand,” she replied to me.
    I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, well that’s not so bad, you can replace it, can’t you?”
    She nodded her head. “I can replace the filter, but it won’t do any good. The entire engine is seized up from the sand. There is no way I can get the parts in three days.”
    My mouth felt dry as she spoke. Her words hit me, but they wouldn’t sink in. I felt like the world was closing in around me. I had been so close to having everything. This race was going to be the final stretch for me, the last charade before leaving the world of race cars. I had it all planned out until last night. Until Amber pushed me to take that stupid bet. If I had just let it go and walked away, none of this would have happened.
    My eyes darted to her and narrowed. “This is all your fault.”
    She looked shocked. For the first time since I arrived, she set her tools down and stepped away from the car.
    “What?” she said in a whisper.
    “This.” I repeated, waving to the sand, “This is entire thing was your fault. If