Thunderstruck Read Online Free Page A

opportunity to talk to you and make you see the benefits I could bring to your team.”
    “You’ll love him, Shel,” Ernie interjected.
    “I doubt that,” she shot back, then leveled her gaze at Mick. “And I appreciate your interest in our operation, but we are less than a month from the biggest race of the season. That would be Daytona, in case you don’t know, and this really isn’t a good time. Maybe…next year?”
    “Look, you’re right about one thing.” He leaned forward and looked hard at her. “I don’t know jack about racing. I’ve never been to a stock-car race. I’ve never driven over a hundred and sixty kilometers. And, until the guys out in the shop told me differently, I thought ‘getting tight’ meant you had a pint too many.”
    “And this is supposed to get me all excited about sharing the pit cart with you?”
    “What should get you excited is that I know everything a bloke needs to know about how to win a game. Any game.”
    “And the press loves him.”
    At Ernie’s second interjection, she pushed herself away from her desk. “Good for you, Mick.” She stood up and indicated the door with one hand. “We’re done here. I have a busy day.”
    “Shel—”
    She ignored her grandfather, her fiery gaze still on Mick. “I’m glad you know everything there is to know about winning and playing and kicking and whatever it is you do on a soccer field, but this job—” she pointed down to her desk, “—has nothing to do with running around the grass in shorts and sneakers.”
    “Cleats.”
    Her eyes sparked. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go see what’s happening with our dyno, because you probably don’t realize this, but overrevving the dyno can ruin a forty-thousand-dollar engine, and we don’t have too many of those laying around.”
    “You’re right, I don’t realize that. Because I don’t know what a dyno is.”
    “It measures horsepower. And, frankly, knowing what it does and why we have one is part of team ownership, Mr. Churchill. Just like worrying about equipment and people and sponsors and rules and sanctioning bodies and speed, speed, speed. You couldn’t be farther from where you belong.”
    The only sound was a tiny squeak from the chair as she pushed it under her desk with a solid shove. He didn’t stand.
    Instead he swept her with one long look, fighting a smile of approval. A gorgeous face, a dynamite body, a steel-trap mind and, best of all, she thought a power struggle was a blood sport. Oh, he could like this woman. Really like her.
    “I’m a quick study,” he said. “I assure you of that.”
    A young woman tapped on the doorjamb and beckoned Ernie with two fingers. “There’s a call for you.”
    The older man pushed himself out of his chair, grinning from one ear to the other. “Since you two are gettin’ on so good, you can excuse me for a minute.”
    Shelby watched him go, then silently crossed the office and closed the door. She faced Mick, her arms behind her, still on the doorknob. “Let me ask you something.”
    “Anything.”
    “Why are you doing this?” she asked, her voice softening. “Did your career hit the wall or something and now you need to go find the Next Big Thing? Is the popularity of soccer waning? Have you been deported from England? Is this a game to you? What’s the deal?”
    He answered the easiest one first. “Soccer is not waning.”
    “But maybe you are.”
    Maybe he was.
    “I mean, if you’re so damn famous and fabulous, why are you leaving your sport and coming to mine?”
    “I’m thirty-five,” he said simply. “I’m on hiatus. I can do anything I want and I like racing.” All that was true. The rest of the story…well, it could wait. He had enough strikes against him with this woman without muddying the waters with his personal problems. Besides, Ernie knew the truth from the beginning.
    “How do you know you like racing?” she asked, obviously not satisfied with his explanation. “You