Go Your Own Way

Chapter 1-2

The track was paved for as far as she could see, and there was nothing around the roadway except for miles of flat land, a dustbowl with the odd bush here or there. Scarlett now found herself back in the driver’s seat after thirty minutes during which a man who broke every rule about what a driving instructor was supposed to be had driven in pensive silence through the crazy Buffalo traffic. He was fast, skilled, moving in a way that said he had no time to waste. She still didn’t know his name.

“What is this place?” she asked as her leg started trembling again.

“An old airfield.” He gestured to the seatbelt she still hadn’t pulled on. She heard him click his in as she focused everything on fitting hers in place.

Then she tapped her fingers on the wheel, wondering what idiotic reasoning had pushed her back to Ace’s to try once again for that coveted license. Oh yeah, freedom.

“Stalling isn’t going to work,” he said, sitting back. “Start the damn car.”

She glanced to him again, seeing her image reflected back in his shades, wondering and zeroing in on her fear of everything. “Since we’re here and expect to spend…oh, I don’t know, another hour together, I should at least know your name. In case I need help, I kind of need to know what to call you—and you should know mine, Scarlett Parker.” She pulled her hand from the key in the ignition she still hadn’t started and held it out to him.

His lips twitched as if he was fighting the urge to laugh. “Emmett Bloodstone,” he said, “and I know exactly who you are. You’re Scarlett Parker, eighteen, and in the last fifteen months you’ve attempted and failed your driver’s test five times. You’ve spent over twenty-six hours under the instruction of three different driving instructors, and you’ve managed to total one car, cause five thousand dollars in damage to another, put one instructor in a neck brace for two months, end the driving career of a sixty-year-old before she even turned the ignition, drive over the foot of your second instructor, cause a three-car collision the first time you left the lot, and put the insurance of the driving school in jeopardy. Every instructor I employ has sworn they will never get in a car with you, so yes, Scarlett, I know exactly who you are.” He gestured with his chin. “Put your hand on the key and turn it.”

“So you own this driving school?” She was racking her brain, digging into the conversation, and at the same time cringing at the squeak in her voice. What the hell was wrong with her? She was usually better at hiding everything that scared her.

“Yes. Now stop stalling and start the car.”

She moved her hand to the key, touched it, and then turned her head to Emmett again, about to ask him why he owned a driving school.

“Stop,” he said, cutting her off just as she took a breath to ask. He held his hand up and put it over hers to turn the ignition. The car purred to life. Then he pulled her hand away and rested it on the gear shift. “No more stalling. You’re driving, and right now that pretty little head of yours is overthinking. I can see you freaking out as you worry about, as you said already, everything. No more thinking. Just do what I tell you, everything I tell you…”

She tried to interrupt, but he held his hand up.

“Uh-uh, stop,” he said. “No talking, not one word from you. Just put the car in drive, give it some gas, and let’s go.” He gestured forward.

She turned her head back to the road ahead of her as her leg, which was hovering over the gas pedal, started trembling big time, all the way down to her foot. “Well, here goes,” she said as she moved the gear to drive and felt the give. She put both hands on the wheel and her foot on the gas.

“Give it a little more,” he said.

She felt his hand on her seat back, and then he put his foot over hers and pressed down on the gas hard. The car jolted forward, the tires squealing as she shrieked, squeezing the wheel, feeling pinned and unable to move as if she’d been tossed out of a moving plane. It was horrible as the road before her flashed like a tunnel and the car went faster and faster. There was noise and screaming and yelling, freaking out. Whatever he was saying beside her, she couldn’t hear it, couldn’t make it out. Something happened inside her that had her taking her other foot and slamming it on the brake.

The engine roared, the tires squealed. “Get your foot off the brake!” Emmett yelled at her, his hand on the wheel, yanking when she came a little close to the ditch.

“I need to slow down, please!” she cried out, the panic rising. She didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or pass out as she pounded the brake harder. That was when two things happened: Emmett took his foot off hers on the gas pedal, and the car jerked to a stop. Scarlett acted on pure instinct as she shoved the car in park, freed herself from the seatbelt, and jumped out.

Her heart was pounding as she raked her hands through her hair, staring wide eyed at Emmett Bloodstone, her driving instructor, who was now out of the car. In that moment, she honed in on every detail of him, how much taller and bigger he appeared than she’d first thought. “You’re crazy! What the hell kind of driving teacher are you? You could have killed me!”

He pulled his dark sunglasses off again, and his eyes danced with a mischief that fired up every emotion in her. She wanted to race around the car and kick him. Instead, she felt everything inside of her, her breath, her heartbeat, and her anger, taking over as he rested his arm on the top of the car, leaning, appearing cocky as hell as he shrugged.

“I’m not a driving instructor,” he said, so matter of fact, as if it were a given. For the first time, Scarlett found herself with not a thing to say, and the smug bastard then flashed her a roguelike smile and winked as he said, “I’m a racecar driver.”