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The nightmare threatened to become a delusion, a hallucination. A waking hell she couldn’t escape.
“Zoey . . . ?” It was her sister’s voice, filled with an edge of fear that had Zoey pushing those visions back, fighting to escape them.
“This has nothing to do with Natches.” She forced herself to control her breathing, to push back the fear. Natches wouldn’t hurt her. He would never hurt her. But he didn’t need to know about this.
“Okay,” Lyrica agreed hastily. “That’s fine. We’ll figure it out another way. I promise.”
She promised. Her sisters never broke their promises to her. It was going to be okay, because they’d find another way to locate Harvey. Natches didn’t have to know . . .
Zoey stepped into the garage area quietly several hours later, her gaze finding Doogan hunched next to the bike as he finished tightening something inside the motor.
He was tall, powerful, but without the bulky muscle most powerful men possessed. Doogan’s muscle was lean, appeared more natural, denser, and harder than that of his bulkier counterparts. He was at least six three, his dark hair a bit long.
“Eli has strangled the power in a variety of ways,” he told her as she continued to watch the muscles of his back flex as he worked. “If one weren’t aware of his particular genius, then the entire bike would have had to be stripped and everything replaced.”
A costly project, Zoey thought, thinking of the amount of money she now had in the motor, electronics, and various running parts.
“It’s fixable, then?” she asked.
“Fixable,” he assured her. “It shouldn’t take long either. A week, maybe. I’ll have it ready in plenty of time to win that race next month.”
She had at least a week. At least six or seven nights with him.
“You’re sure I’ll have a chance of winning?” she questioned, tilting her head to watch his profile.
“If you can control the power, which I believe you can.” He shrugged. “Once I balance the bike sufficiently, there shouldn’t be a question of winning. I’ll find a proper area where you can test it before the race, though.”
Her brows lifted. Eli fought her tooth and nail whenever she attempted to test the bike before the races. And without his truck, she had no way of testing it without Billy learning exactly how the bike performed.
Eli had helped her keep the bike running since she’d begun riding in the private races Billy Ray and his friends put together every month. She knew Eli had deliberately cut back the power the motor was capable of, though, and once Billy had informed her of it a few months ago, it had done nothing but piss her off.
She’d suspected it before Billy had come to the garage and confirmed it. Billy had even offered several times to help her. But he’d use his knowledge to win each race as well. There was no fairness in that any more than there was any fairness in what Eli had done.
“I need to get a few parts,” Doogan stated as she stood watching him. “Nothing too expensive. And I have a few ideas to fix your weight-to-balance ratio. The items I’ll need for that I’ll have to run a search for. I checked a few places in Louisville just before you came in. I may have to get them out of state, though.”
Straightening, he moved to the toolbox, replaced the ratchet he was using, then moved to the small sink to wash his hands. Drying them, he turned back to her, his gaze curious as it settled on her.
“Figures. I keep losing it in that curve as I hit higher speeds,” she told him, leaning against the back of his pickup and tucking her hands in the pockets of the cutoff shorts she wore. “Never matters how I balance it, it wipes out there.”
“You’re too light to balance and make up for the impetus you need to get around it, even with the speeds you can actually attain.” Facing her, he nodded to the cycle. “It’s fixable, though.” Then a little grin tipped his lips. One of those wry, almost amused curves. “So did your sister lecture you properly about me?”
Lecture her? She and her sisters tried hard to never lecture each other; they heard far too much of it from their other family members. Especially their brother and cousins.
“Lyrica and Eli say all your agents live in fear of working with you,” she admitted. “You get them shot at.”
He leveled a look of superior mockery in her direction.
“Eli?” His brow arched with a hint of inborn arrogance. “He forgets his job description includes such things. Working with Graham has made him squeamish.”
Squeamish wasn’t the description she would have used. Eli wasn’t a coward.
“Eli isn’t the gung-ho sort,” she pointed out. “He’s more cautious and methodical.”
“Young.” Doogan nodded. “Eli doesn’t always understand that often a sudden strike versus slipping in is the only effective way to act. A strike team strikes. It doesn’t tippy-toe.”
“And you’re a strike team?” she asked.
“I normally head a strike team,” he amended. “Eli’s been assigned to those teams a time or two. He dislikes bullets more than most agents, though.”
