Racing Hearts

By B.B. Irvine

Racing Hearts / In the sequel to Silk In A Firesuit, ex-deputy sheriff Caitlin Shea is kidnapped as part of a plan by a man obsessed with killing race car driver Anna Korsova. Caitlin hasn't heard from Anna for several months, and although the death threat brings them together again, she isn't ready to just take Anna back. Caitlin doesn't want anyone to kill her ex-girlfriend either, so after she escapes, she makes sure Anna is safe while on the road, and race team co-owner Theo Alexander makes sure Caitlin stays in a high security apartment complex in Winston-Salem while she's going to physician assistant classes. He also pays for Robert Kinross, an ex-SAS soldier working "the private side" to pay expenses. Caitlin joins Anna when their schedules match, but it's not easy. Life settles down without any attacks for the rest of the racing season... then Caitlin's deepest concerns prove true, and she must fight one more time to save the life of the woman she loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.B. Irvine
• Release date: May 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476151007

B.B. Irvine

B.B. Irvine was born in New York City in 1959. He graduated from the High School of Music and Art N.Y. (1976 music), New York State University at Stony Brook (1980 B.A. liberal arts), and in 1982 received a certificate as a Physician Assistant from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in North Carolina. He has worked in settings including emergency medicine, AIDS research, and addiction treatment in New York City where he lives. In 1994 he earned a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Grandmaster Richard Chun. His novels and screenplays evidence his knowledge of people and frequently weave medicine, science, history, romance, and martial arts into the action.

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Racing Hearts

Anna and Caitlin Adventures: Book 02

by B. B. Irvine

Copyright 2014 B. B. Irvine

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Chapter 01 - DAYTONA TO OPEN – Sat, 13 February

Caitlin Shea felt her whole insides vibrate as she saw Anna Korsova shoot around the curve and down the front straight at Daytona.

It was a warm wave, starting low, then rattling up through her chest and whole body as the Southernview Circuit stock car Anna drove screamed past the team’s pit box, then the wave settled back into Caitlin’s belly – and lower.

Caitlin was wearing a Wingfeather team ball cap over her ear length honey blond hair, wearing her ear protectors, her comms headset, a pair of wide safety sunglasses over her calm brown eyes, wearing her firesuit and fieldboots, her medic belt – all of her work gear and protective gear, and yet nothing could stop the way the roaring engine vibrated right through her.

Can stop the way Anna turns me on.

Cheering helped, and everybody was doing that.

As the new season’s opening race at Daytona came down to the last few laps, Caitlin tried to figure out when Anna might be done at work here today. Anna was in eleventh at the moment, so she could not win, barring a ten car crash ahead of her, but for the first woman to ever win a Southernview Circuit race (last season), there would still be a lot of extra first race of the new season interviews.

Two hours, maybe three?

Caitlin didn’t care. Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day; they would sleep late and get back home to Mill Hollow, North Carolina in plenty of time for a lovely dinner together. And they would sleep late at home there on Monday too, if they wanted; but they would have to get ready for the race next Saturday in California, and fly out either late Monday or more likely Tuesday. They would be staying on the West Coast for two weeks, since Las Vegas was the week after California.

A small part of her fretted about that, but in several tiny ways.

Being away on a trip was exciting for her, but when Caitlin thought about how far she was from her family, it was then scary. Her family was large and had several members on either end of the age spectrum who could get in trouble any moment, from the Wild Young Sheas to the elders, and the West Coast was a long way to travel back from in a hurry.

Caitlin was going of course – she was the Wingfeather car’s pit team medic at the moment, and this was work. It was growth, and she was a professional. Plus, the team co-owner could send her back east on one of his cargo jets if anything critical happened, and he had access to other fast aircraft.

And her whole family was proud of her, especially after everything that happened last year.

So Caitlin was going, and her family and the team were happy with her work, and she was very pleased that so far no one seemed to think she and Anna were anything other than solid friends, and the team co-owner gave her a job with the team because she had saved Anna’s life last year.

That was all true, as far as it went.

Caitlin had several years of EMT and paramedic experience, working to help people hurt on the roads, and in the woods, fields, and houses of Mill Hollow, so she had an authentic job. There was even famous pit camera footage of her helping one of Bobo Shaw’s fallen pit crew members, after a pit crash in Florida at Homestead last year, during the last race of the season.

She had serious credentials no one could challenge, and was comfortable in the public role of team medic and an assistant.

It only made sense Caitlin shared the suite the team booked for Anna Korsova, along with team producer Toby DiSalva, and sometimes crew family or close friends. And seeing her at races and other events made sense – she was an ex-deputy sheriff, after all, so having a personal assistant who might double as a bodyguard was reasonable.

All true, and yet not quite all of the possible truths.

Another truth: Caitlin wished seeing Anna drive didn’t terrify her every bit as much as it excited her.

She had no idea it would be like that, and it was like a terrible drug that wound her up tight with terror that she might actually see something bad happen, and then the exhilaration as it was just more beautiful, flawless driving from the woman she loved. Lap after lap, it left her flushed, hot, and shaking, demanding relief from either fear or the ecstasy.

Anna roared by again, still trying to advance – except for a skittery, rear end sheetmetal denting bump draft from Chip Bowman just after halfway, she had kept the Wingfeather Cosmetics car out of contact, still one of the most aerodynamic cars out there, with a dozen long Daytona laps to go.

Is this our set of magic tires? They still in the pits, or did we put them on last stop? asked Anna on the radio, sounding relaxed, confident; almost playful.

Ray’s gonna check. Why, Anna? What are you wanting to try?

This year, our team gets a top ten in every race we run.

Okay. Ray says the only set left are scuffs, so you got the special set you need for any of your high speed operations, Doc. Drive fast and safe now.

Okay, then. Let’s go!

Caitlin barely felt her hands gripping the railing on the team pit box as she watched Anna shoot out of the turn and onto the front straight, passing the car in tenth at the line as the Southernview crowd roared. As she saw and heard the crowd stand up to cheer good racing, Caitlin gave in and started pumping the air with her fists.

They were all rewarded by Anna neatly low passing the car in ninth as she entered the first turn.

"GO, BABY! GO! GO! GO!" screamed Caitlin – along with most of the crowd.

Caitlin saw the Wingfeather pit crew start nodding their heads and grinning, starting to gain confidence all over again, after being less than thrilled by their own performances here today. Anna had started tenth, there had been one pit stop that had dropped her a half dozen spots and sent her out of the pits in twenty ninth, and she had now made up twenty places.

Anna Korsova passed another car with three laps to go, and finished the opening race of the new season with an eighth place at Daytona.

The Wingfeather Cosmetics Car/Simon-Theobroma Racing Team all cheered, and then everyone congratulated everyone, the pit crew making statements about doing it better next time.

Anna drove up to the pit marks, all grime faced and sore, ready for cold diet sodas and a hot shower, maybe some soak time in a bathtub with a jacuzzi unit. She still smiled and waved as she saw Caitlin on the team pit box (well, Anna smiled and waved to everyone, but she looked at Caitlin first, her green eyes sparkling as they shared this moment of delight together).

Anna took off her helmet and straps. They passed her a Wingfeather baseball cap with a warm, lemon scented washcloth in it, and a diet soda. She drank some soda, wiped her face with the washcloth, put the cap on over her straight, glossy black hair (newly layer cut to earlobe length for racing season), and then climbed out of her stock car.

Diet soda in hand, Anna was prepared for the media already on the track to interview all the drivers, and the media party on the infield area, many clustering around the pit side wall for Anna Korsova in particular.

Caitlin shivered again as she sat in the pit team box, doing statistics or something – anything but watching the confident Anna Korsova give interviews, anything but marveling at her lovely frame, curvy despite the firesuit, or how pretty she looked, her pale northerner skin still smudged with racing grime the washcloth missed, the light in her green eyes, the excitement on her face.

Anna denied it, but she had fallen in love with racing – well, going fast on a track, at least. If there had been a solo time trial competition in car racing, it would have been her perfect sport.

Tearing her eyes away from Anna, Caitlin rather deliberately closed her macTop and slid it into her SiteTackler backpack.

She had some genuine work to do in breaking down her medic station pit box gear, because the team trucks would be getting on the road to North Carolina tonight. They would have one day to restock and reload at the Pilot Mountain Racing shop, just north of Winston-Salem, before heading West for the races in California and Las Vegas. She could adore her high speed goddess later in private, and Caitlin did not want to make Anna uncomfortable or lose a beat because she was staring.

Caitlin was the Wingfeather team medic, the world knew them as friends, and that was working very, very well.

Either of them looking or acting like teenagers in love would not be good.

Anna was in love with Caitlin.

If asked, Anna defined herself as sexually independent now, but her history (college fiancé Chad Steddi, killed in Iraq) meant the media never even asked these days, just continued to assume she was straight. She had never given any indication or cause to raise a brow otherwise, so there was never even speculation in that area (there was in other areas, like whether she would return to Europe to race GP3 or Formula One, but not, is Anna Korsova gay?)

Given Anna’s current very public job as a driver for a Southernview Circuit stock car team, neither of them thought it wise for her to make a public issue of it at the moment.

You are both in love, not running for office, was how good friend Mei-Xing McColl had put it. Certain things were simply no one else’s business.

At the moment, Anna called herself sexually independent, and politics could wait a little while longer for Anna to ever declare herself offically as one way or another.

Caitlin agreed. She did not know what to call herself, actually, except in love with Anna Korsova.

That didn’t bother Caitlin – she thought Anastasia Korsova was the most unique individual she had ever met and then fell in love with. And that was their business alone, including where they slept at night, and what they called themselves.

Caitlin Shea was from Mill Hollow, a small town in the northwestern corner of North Carolina, (near Pilot Mountain, not too far from Winston-Salem). There were strong beliefs and traditions regarding privacy and personal rights in both her family and the local community.

Especially in her family.

They called it The Shea Sparkle and it described that look in the eyes a Shea from Mill Hollow got before they did something that was the right thing to do, but was going to cause a lot of trouble for some powerful people, or for those with a narrower, less free point of view about being an American.

Being the team medic/assistant in Anna Korsova’s entourage worked fine for Caitlin if it meant they could be together when the sun went down.

They had been together on the road during pre-season events, and once the suite door was locked, no one knew just how closely that was at times in private. And modern day race car drivers going to bed early and not living crazy with their bodies – living fit – was not unusual, so there was nothing stirring in the media about Anna (except whether or not Anna and Bobo Shaw were a secret item, since he had been so nice in his thanks for her team at the awards dinner last December in New York).

Pre-season had worked out well, and Daytona Week had been really, really neat.

On their way south they had visited the Amelia Island Racing team shops in Jacksonville and had a barbeque with Wil Diaz and family visiting to see him race. They would all be going to Daytona in a chartered luxury bus, but Caitlin and Anna drove down earlier, full of barbequed beef, salad, slaw, and baked potato – the weekly minimums now satisfied (with barbeque beef biscuits wrapped for the road or later, just in case the Daytona area had run out).

Toby DiSalva had come along in their car, using her macTop to go over the upcoming interviews and product photo or commercial shoots Anna had been booked for in just the next four weeks.

That had been sort of neat, since Caitlin liked the products in question (and had urged Anna to use SiteTackler gear in particular, and accept their request to be one of her more exclusive sponsors). It was always a thrill to see Anna on T.V. or in print, even when she was pretending to be the object of manly desire thanks to her use of Wingfeather Cosmetics, or out hiking with some stud, both fully kitted out in SiteTackler gear.

Every once in a while it was just Anna, and sometimes Anna in a SiteTackler sports bra and climbing shorts – once even wearing her Tae Kwon Do dobok, in class (for a Wingfeather non pore blocking, hypoallergenic deodorant. Anna was teaching students while her voiceover said, When I’m doing Tae Kwon Do, I don’t care if they see me sweat, but I just want to be powerful – not overpowering. That was also the tag line for the product, repeated after some hard sparring that she wins).

The neat part for Caitlin was hearing them go back and forth together.

Toby DiSalva had been Anna’s producer/manager since Anna had joined Dieter Dinkmann’s GP3 racing team in Europe, not quite a year ago. Toby had hung on at Amelia Island Racing after Anna’s hand injury lost her that Southernview stock car ride (and brought Wil Diaz into the seat at A.I.R.) Toby had moved over onto Anna’s new Wingfeather car team the moment it was created in conversation – she had immediately gone right to Theo Alexander and demanded it, she once told Caitlin.

Theo had handed Toby DiSalva a stack of brand new Simon-Theobroma Racing business cards already prepared, with her name and Personal Operations Director as her new title.

Caitlin was glad Toby was willing to do that part of the work, because it was needed and it sounded complicated. Testing, practice, qualifying, and racing were all building blocks of time that had to be worked around, as did Anna’s own preferences to not become a jet-setting driver.

We seem to lose drivers and rock stars to a lot of helicopter and private jet crashes, was Anna’s observation. When busy schedules push weather limits around.

She didn’t mind waiting to hitch a ride on one of the company’s cargo/office jets. Riding in one of those, or in a nice, big, efficient, safe bus, with some of the team cargo and a bed space she could sleep in, would be fine for Anna. It was also a chance to do her correspondence and written assignments.

On this trip, all three had flown from Winston-Salem to Jacksonville and taken a company car for their trip down to Daytona, but would ride back home in the office bus, as the team called it (actually, the Doctor’s Office, but never where Anna might hear it; her public Doctor Smooth nickname was bad enough).

Caitlin had loved driving in the warm Florida sun after winter’s chill in the mountain foothills of North Carolina. She enjoyed their journey, from seeing old friends at Amelia Island Racing, to hearing Anna and Toby dissect things (comments about some of the personalities involved that often managed to shock Caitlin, to her laughing delight), and also tease each other like two best friends forever sisters.

Toby didn’t have to ask, and would never tell, she just made plans that included Caitlin whenever her public character fit naturally, and modified her level of appearance (or even left her out) when it did not.

Caitlin could almost always drive the car for Anna, for example, and attend all general team events, but Caitlin didn’t need (or want) to be seated next to Anna at a charity dinner, like some sort of date. Toby’s planning schedules made it very easy for them to be left alone in private when it counted most, so they almost always followed them.

There would be a lot of filming out west. Wingfeather Cosmetics wanted to take full advantage of Anna’s proximity to Hollywood to start work on a possible Superbowl commercial, using the latest digital capture and greenscreen techniques that could just not be found in North Carolina yet.

Caitlin was curious about all of that, and thought it might be fun to see (she would also be Anna’s personal consultant and safety advisor for wire or line rigging shots, or any stunts, which Anna was really hoping she would get to do some of herself).

The Florida weather was fun, visits were fun, the driving was fun.

Even the pre-race party last night had been a lot of fun, especially when Bobo Shaw asked Anna to dance, and she did. She didn’t do anything sexy, yet Anna was too pretty to look anything but.

In the gloom of the party lighting, it was easy to catch Caitlin’s eyes and dance for her a little.

Caitlin knew better than to start dancing herself – they would synchronize so quickly it would look like they were both magnetized with each other. So she just watched