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CHAPTER FOUR
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Greer Styger said into the phone she had tucked between her chin and her shoulder. She was trying to water the plant on her desk without having the water gush out of the bottom. Holding the water in one hand and the paper towel in the other, she was pouring slowly.
“Why don’t you just put a plate or something underneath the damn thing?” her co-worker Louisa Alcorn asked as she watched Greer struggle.
Greer shot a frown at Louisa as she spoke into the phone, “No, Mom, I’m not coming home for the bridal shower.”
“But you are in the wedding party. You have to be there for your sister,” her mother pleaded.
Greer set the water bottle down on her desk. “Actually, I don’t. From what you’ve been telling me, Lyric is being a total bridezilla, and I don’t need to be anywhere near her right now.”
“She’s your sister,” her mother said again. “And she’s not being a bridezilla. She just wants her day to be perfect.”
“Mom, you just told me she wants to kick her best friend out of the wedding party because she’s pregnant and Lyric thinks her belly will ruin the pictures. That’s pretty bridezilla if you ask me.” She glanced over at Louisa, who nodded her agreement. “Louisa agrees.”
“Still, I can see her point.”
“No, you can’t. You would never do something like that. Face it—you raised a monster, and she’s being a pain in the?—”
“She’s still your sister.”
“Half sister, Mom. She’s seven years younger than I am, and we have nothing in common.” They really didn’t. Greer had taken after her father and had little in common with her half sister, or her mother for that matter. The fact that Greer didn’t currently speak to her father was beside the point. She was not close with her mother or Lyric, and nothing was going to change that. “I’m only in the wedding party because you forced her to ask me. We don’t like each other at the best of times. This is not the best of times. Plus, it’s way too long of a flight to go from Germany to L.A. for a bridal shower. I’ll be there for the wedding, and that’s it. I’ve got to go.” She said goodbye to her mother and clicked off the call.
“Your sister is something else,” Louisa said, rolling her eyes.
“My sister is a bitch. She’s a total princess because my mother and my stepdad never told her no. Not once.” Greer tossed the paper towel into the trash can and pulled out the last drawer on the right side of her desk. She immediately rested her feet on it. It was the best impromptu footrest ever. She loved sharing a cubicle with Louisa. They’d become instant friends the moment they’d met.
Louisa leaned back in her chair and ran a hand over her short dark hair. “You have any plans for the weekend?”
“No. Maybe do some hiking. You?”
Louisa shook her head. “Want to do a Hallmark movie marathon? They’re available on streaming.”
Greer smiled at her friend. Hallmark movies were not her thing, but Louisa loved them. “Sure.”
“Hold that thought,” her boss, Frank Foster, said as he came around the end of the cubicle. “Greer, I need you to go to Red Bull Ring. Hughes Racing had an accident.”
Greer’s throat closed over, and her blood froze. Please don’t let it be Dalton. She held the arms of her chair in a death grip and managed to force the air back into her lungs.
After clearing her throat, she said, “Race drivers always have accidents. It’s racing. What’s so special about this one?” She tried to sound nonchalant, but the loud thump of her heart almost drowned out the buzzing in her ears. Seven years later, and she still panicked at the thought of Dalton getting hurt.
“A driver died,” Frank said.
Greer’s stomach dropped to her knees, and she broke out into a cold sweat. “Died?” Her voice squeaked. “Are you sure?” It seemed incredibly unlikely that someone would die in a Porsche Cup car accident. Those cars were built to take a beating. She couldn’t get her brain around it. “Was it a massive pileup?”
“Nope. Just one guy.”
She willed her breakfast to stay down. “Um—” she croaked again, so took a sip of her coffee. “Do we know who?”
Louisa sent her a funny look, but Greer ignored her friend. Her voice had sounded weird even to her own ears, but she wasn’t about to get into her past in front of her boss.
“A newbie driver that came on just for the season. I think he’s American.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding. Dalton was American, but he’d been living in Germany for a couple of years, or so she’d been told. He also owned the team, so he wasn’t a newbie. It wasn’t Dalton. Her shoulders sagged in relief.
She glanced at her boss and realized he was waiting for some kind of response from her. “That makes no sense. You know as well as I do that the safety level of those cars is very high. How could someone die?”
Frank leaned on the cubicle wall. “That’s what you’re going to find out. If you leave now, you can be there in about five hours. Hughes Racing has an insurance policy with us. Go see if we’re going to have to pay out on it or not.”
