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As Smith’s hand curled around hers and he said a low, “Hello,” she felt Zach tense against her.
Wait a minute, did he actually think his movie-star brother would be interested in her?
Ryan appeared next to Smith and grinned at her. “Great to see you again, Heather.”
Just like Zach, Ryan was the picture of good-looking charm. But that was where the similarities ended. Where Zach thrived on his sarcastic edge, Ryan was all laid-back ease. She could see why women fell for him, beyond being impressed with his skill on the pitcher’s mound.
Smith nodded toward the track. “Looks like they’re ready for you down there, Z.”
Ryan grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of Heather.”
Zach’s jaw clenched. “Don’t flirt with her.”
Had they forgotten she was still there? She was just about to remind them, when Zach’s hands were in her hair and his mouth was on hers and he was kissing all the breath from her lungs.
And then he was gone, leaving her to gasp for air in the middle of a half-dozen Sullivans, all of whom were grinning at her.
“Come, sit with me,” Smith said, leading her to one of the padded folding seats out on the bleachers. Ryan snagged the seat next to her and her butt had barely hit the seat when Zach’s two famous, single brothers started flirting.
Big time.
* * *
Photographers were out in droves to catch the pro race car drivers who’d come out in support of the San Francisco food bank. Zach figured he only had to put up with their flashbulbs until they caught wind of Smith in the stands.
Barry Jones made a crack about getting a run on him in turn two, but Zach didn’t have a comeback for him. Not when he was too busy staring up at the bleachers to make sure his brothers didn’t try anything with Heather.
He trusted her, of course. It was Smith and Ryan he was going to kill if he saw even one picture come out with their hands anywhere on her.
Zach slammed his helmet on and pushed through the other drivers to get into his car. He’d worked with this crew enough to skip the pre-race speech. He hadn’t wanted to do this damn race, but he was a man of his word and had to make good on it.
The race started and he drove like a man possessed. Not just to win, but because he wanted to get the race done, then take Heather back to bed, where it was just the two of them. Where nothing mattered but her laughter, her sweet little sounds of pleasure.
The sound of metal against metal came first, a split second before it slammed through his body.
Damn it, he thought as the car started spinning, he’d known his luck was going to run out one day, but he hadn’t thought it’d be this soon. Or that it would end like this. He’d always figured on having an aneurism like his father, had believed every headache was one step closer to the inevitable.
Zach’s brain and body went into the autopilot that any racer worth his shit immediately shot to in a crash. His hands worked the wheel. His feet worked the brakes and clutch. But as the colors all around him spun together, and his brain and body followed the do-or-die instructions his crew were yelling at him through his earpiece, his heart remained with Heather.
A dozen quick flashes of beauty, of pleasure, swelled behind his breastbone, pushing even deeper, all the way into his soul.
Heather with scratches on her knees, her shirt ripped, dirt smudged across her cheek as she clutched Cuddles to her chest and glared at him.
The feel of her soft curves beneath him as he rolled them out of the way of the skateboarder, and then her fingers slipping into his as they stared up at the blue sky together.
Her mouth warm beneath his at the ballpark as he stole that first kiss, the desperation that had flared to life between them and only grown hotter every time they touched.
Running after her on the sidewalk to tell her he loved her, and loving her even more for the way she’d yelled at him, for how hard she’d tried to insist their love wasn’t real.
And then, later, the taste of her tears on his lips as she’d cried in his arms, the dogs there with them, all of them comforting her.
People had always joked that nothing could touch Zach and his charmed life, but as the wall finally won the battle he was waging to control the car and the heat of the engine’s flames burned through metal and leather, he knew better.
He’d always known better.
After all, his father had died young, and everyone always said that Zach was exactly like Jack Sullivan.
Jack Sullivan’s life had been perfect. He’d had a beautiful wife he loved and eight great kids. He’d been the definition of charmed.
But he’d still died.
And left them all behind.
* * *
Heather blindly pushed through the people on the bleachers to get to Zach. She was at the entry gate to the race track when Ryan’s arms came around her.
“You can’t go out there.”
She fought Ryan’s hold with every ounce of strength she had, but Smith was there, too, and the brothers’ muscles were like steel clamped around her.
“Let go of me!” she screamed at the two superstars while a dozen photographers spun back and forth to film the crash and her and Smith and Ryan.
But his brothers just held her tighter as she watched flames engulf Zach’s car.
He was supposed to be indestructible...and hers forever.
She’d known he wasn’t, that nobody was bulletproof. But it had been easier to lull herself into a false sense of security than to have to face the utter loss of control that came from sitting helpless in the stands while he raced a car at dizzying speeds.
