скачать книгу бесплатно
Home To Copper Mountain
Rebecca Winters
Wealthy, womanless and temporarily at loose ends, Formula One race-car driver Rick Hawkins finds himself in Texas visiting his newly married father.While he's there, he becomes involved with his stepmother's family - especially her twenty-eight-year-old cousin Audra Jarrett. She's beautiful, talented, loyal and kind - qualities that attract Rick. In fact, she attracts him as no woman ever has. While Audra is drawn to Rick, she's afraid of starting a relationship with him.She's suffered tragic losses in her life. So how could she allow herself to love a man with such a dangerous job? If anything ever happened to him, she's not sure she'd be able to pick up the pieces. Then again, Rick's nickname is Lucky….
What on earth?
Something had happened to her pillow.
Audra turned her head. It felt as if she was lying against someone’s shoulder.
Her eyelids flew open to discover a pair of gray eyes only inches away from hers. They were studying her features intently.
“Don’t scream and spoil the moment. It’s only 11:00 a.m. I’m not ready to get up yet.”
She swallowed hard. They were lying side by side. “I must have had a terrible nightmare.”
“Yes. You asked me not to leave you.”
“I’m sorry you had to come to my rescue again.”
“I’m not. When I told you I’d stay right here, you went back to sleep—and you’ve been peaceful ever since.”
Audra forced herself to sit up and reach for her crutches. Without looking at him, she said, “If I’m hungry, you must be starving.”
“Frankly, food’s the last thing on my mind. It would be nice just to lie here and talk.”
Too nice, Audra’s heart cried. I could make it a habit. A minute-by-minute, by hour, by week, by month, by year, by lifetime habit!
Dear Reader,
I went to school in Switzerland and France between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two. I remember one year in particular, when I returned home for Christmas. I walked into my family house in Salt Lake City, a place of love and familiarity. One of my favorite Christmas songs was playing on the stereo, the smell of cloves and cinnamon wafted through the air and the Christmas tree held the same ornaments I’d loved as a child. Mother looked so beautiful, and Dad so handsome. Everything was perfect.
It suddenly hit me how blessed I was to be able to return home year after year and find everything the same. I was thinking about this when the stories of the Hawkins brothers came to me.
Their dangerous careers have sent them around the world, yet (like me) they take for granted their wonderful, loving parents and their home in Colorado full of cherished memories. They assume that home and those people will always be there waiting. I wondered what would happen to them if tragedy struck at home while they were away. How would they handle it?
I searched my soul to write their stories. Home to Copper Mountain is Rick’s story; you’ll find Nate’s story in Another Man’s Wife, released in February 2003. Get inside their skins as they deal with their grief and find enduring love with the strong women who come into their lives at exactly the right time.
Enjoy!
Rebecca Winters
P.S. If you have access to the Internet, please check out my Web site at http://www.rebeccawinters-author.com.
Home to Copper Mountain
Rebecca Winters
Home to Copper Mountain
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
“SHALL WE GO over to my desk and get the paperwork done so we can put you behind the wheel today?”
Until early this morning, Rick Hawkins hadn’t intended to buy a car. But an unexpected phone call from his father, who knew that Rick was on his way to Arizona to sign some racing contracts, had been the lifeline Rick was looking for. He had grabbed for it with both hands. It was decided—he would visit his father in Texas on his way west.
Loath to suffer through hours of airport lines, security checks, plane changes and rental cars, he decided to do himself a favor and arrive at the Jarrett Ranch outside Austin on his own power.
The black BMW M3 two-door coupe with the eighteen-inch wheels, 350-horsepower engine and six-speed manual transmission sitting in the middle of the showroom floor would do fine.
He turned to the young salesman. “If you can put me behind it in ten minutes, I’ll take it.”
“I think we could manage that. My name’s John Dunn, by the way.”
“John.” Rick shook his hand, then followed him inside his office to answer the inevitable series of questions about his finances.
“Who’s your employer?”
“I’m out of work at the moment, but don’t be alarmed. I plan to pay cash for the car. Check with my bank.”
The salesman blinked before getting up from the desk. He handed him a brochure from a pile sitting next to a desk calendar.
May eighth. Spring had been here for a while. Rick hadn’t noticed its arrival.
“While you’re waiting, you might want to look through it. I’ll be right back.”
Rick didn’t need to see any literature. If he hadn’t felt such a strong loyalty to Mayada for signing him at nineteen, he would have switched to BMW when they’d offered him a racing contract two years later. Their engineering was unequaled.
But his drive to Texas wouldn’t be like circling the track. This trip would be open-ended. And he would be driving his own car.
After another hellish night like last night, he decided to leave immediately and drive the whole distance in one shot. It would be a different race than any he’d run before.
Instead of outdriving the competition, he’d be facing his own worst enemy—an enemy chiseling away at his sense of self, his confidence, his happiness, his virtual raison d’être. Himself.
Many times in his racing career he’d been subjected to near-death experiences that had tested his grit and resilience.
This was different.
His mother, with her eternal spirit of optimism, was dead. The only home he’d ever known was gone. He had no woman to share his life. The thought of going back to racing didn’t set him on fire. For the first time ever, he could see no sure path before him. And this thought terrified him.
Preoccupied by his demons, he hadn’t noticed Mr. Dunn had already returned, accompanied by a smiling middle-aged manager. The manager carried a camera.
“Mr. Hawkins? I’m Lewis Karey. It’s a great honor to meet you, sir.”
“Thank you.” Rick stood up and shook hands with him.
“John didn’t realize he was dealing with the Lucky Hawkins, one of the world’s most famous sports celebrities.”
“Hardly.”
“Wait till I let Munich know the three-time winner of the Laguna Seca purchased an M3 from us.”
“This is a red-letter day for me, too,” Rick murmured. “I’ll tell you a little secret. I’ve never owned anything but a motorcycle to get around. This will be my first car.”
“You? One of the greatest Formula One drivers in racing today and you’ve never owned your own car?” The manager looked and sounded incredulous.
Rick chuckled. “That’s right, but when I decided I needed one, I knew exactly where to come.”
Lewis Karey beamed. “I hope this business of your being out of work is temporary. This is the first I’ve heard you’ve left the racing circuit.”
“Only time will tell what the future holds. Since no one outside of Mayada and my former sponsor knows the situation, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything.”
Mr. Karey looked at John. “Our lips are sealed. Before we move the car out of the showroom to get it ready for you, could I take a couple of pictures of you standing by it?”
He had been through this experience hundreds of times before, why not once more? No one owned him yet. He was still a free property.
“Sure.”
Until his father’s severe depression had caused him to retire early from Formula One racing, his motorcycle had accompanied him on the racing circuit and had been the only transportation he’d needed.
Before returning to his family home in Copper Mountain, Colorado, to help his grieving father run the family ski business, he’d given his bike to the college-age son of his crew chief, Wally Sykes. Rick saw no reason for keeping it when he knew he could rely on the company Blazer or his deceased mother’s car to get around.
But in a shocking turn of events, he’d arrived home to discover his father had overcome his grief enough to be married again. Furthermore, he was selling the ski shop and the Blazer, and was moving to Texas.
Believing his mom’s Nissan would still be available to him while he decided whether to try to get a new sponsor and return to the racing circuit, Rick underwent a second shock.
His older brother, Nate, a former F-16 fighter pilot who’d resigned his commission to fly home and help their father, too, suddenly decided to get married and become a flight instructor for the air force academy.
Nate, Laurel and the baby from her first marriage were now living in the Hawkins family home while they waited to move into their new house in Colorado Springs. Since they needed two cars, it was decided Laurel would keep the Nissan.
Everyone had somewhere to go, someone to be with. Except Rick, who felt totally displaced.
Since Nate’s wedding, Rick had been staying in Denver with Laurel’s sister, Julie, and her husband, Brent, just trying to hold on. But he couldn’t impose on the Marsdens any longer. It was time to go.
The question was, after Arizona, where?
He felt like a man without a country, a man who belonged nowhere. It was a lonely experience, foreign in ways he couldn’t describe. The nights were the worst, when he had no choice but to lie in a cold sweat and tough it out until morning.
“Okay,” the manager said. “Now let’s get a couple of pictures of you sitting in the car. I think we’ll leave the door open for the full effect.”
Rick obliged. Once he slid behind the wheel, he could smell the new tan leather upholstery. Nice.
By now every salesman, lot attendant, receptionist, cashier, mechanic and client in the building had materialized. There was quite a crowd assembled. Mr. Karey wasn’t the only one taking pictures.
Rick ended up signing autographs on brochure after brochure while dozens of questions were fired at him by those who followed the sport.
“Mr. Hawkins is here to buy a car,” the manager spoke above the questions. “He was kind enough to let us take pictures and sign autographs. Let’s not stampede him.”
Rick appreciated the man’s intervention before questions were posed that he couldn’t answer. It was better not to say anything that could be misquoted to the press.
A racing contract with everything he’d asked for and more had been drawn up by the attorneys of Trans T & T Communications. The megacorporation for whom Brent worked had shown a flattering eagerness to sponsor Rick.
Mayada, the Japanese manufacturer that designed the Formula One cars Rick had been driving for eight years, had also drafted a new contract. Both were in the hands of Neal Hasford, Rick’s attorney in Arizona, awaiting his signature.
According to Neal the terms of the contracts looked good, but Rick had yet to put his name on the dotted line.
He shook everyone’s hand, then turned to Mr. Karey. “I have to leave, but I’ll be back within a half hour to sign the papers.”
“Fine. We’ll have everything ready for you.”
After leaving the dealership, Rick headed for Aurora, a suburb of Denver where the Marsdens lived. His suitcases were already packed and waiting in the trunk of Julie’s car. All he had to do was honk and she’d come out of the house to run him back for his new BMW. Then he’d be off.
“It’s a good thing Brent isn’t here to see this!” she exclaimed as they drove into the parking lot of the service department thirty minutes later. The gleaming black car stood waiting. “We’re trying to save up for our dream home.”
Rick turned to the lovely raven-haired mother-to-be. She was kind and generous to a fault, just like his new sister-in-law, Laurel. “In the end it’s just a vehicle for transportation. What you and Brent have together can’t be bought. You’re the lucky ones.” She’d never know how lucky.
