Gambling It All

Chapter Eight

"How was your day, dear?" Cade asked sweetly as Dixie knocked, then entered, his motor coach. She laughed at his overly solicitous tone as she closed the door behind her, noting the added presence of Nicky and the chief mechanic for the number 76 team, an even-keeled Midwesterner by the name of Pete.

"Hey guys," Dixie said, flopping down on the nearby couch next to Cade. "Other than playing eeeny, meeny, miney, moe trying to figure out which of these zillion dollar coaches was yours, it's been a good day. You need to put signs on these doors. I nearly walked into Lorenzo's hauler. Are all the teams here?"

Cade nodded. "Most of them. Who's missing, Nicky? Just Edwards and Dovi, right?"

"They should be here by week's end, but yeah, I think everyone else is here testing, and most teams just stay put into the inaugural season race," Nicky replied, noting the flushed cheeks and happy smile of his trainer.

"I can't believe I'm here," Dixie said, grinning. "Who would have thought?"

"Bringing back memories?" Cade prodded, and Dixie nodded.

"I'd forgotten how much I missed being on the road with the brothers," Dixie admitted. "I had a lot of good times with the circus."

"And now you're in the big boy circus," Cade teased. "'Bout time you stepped it up."

Dixie merely stuck her tongue out at him. "It's similar in a lot of ways, but man, it's just... it's just so much bigger. I mean, motor coaches instead of roach motels; catered meals instead of a McDonald's value meal, Qatar instead of Iowa...ooh! And golf carts!"

Nicky, Cade and Pete all laughed at that, making Dixie blush. "What?" she demanded. "I used to hate having to haul ass from one of end of a track to another twenty times a day, fighting the crowds. Here, you can zip around in a golf cart, happily mowing people down who stand in your way, and no one is going to yell at you!"

Nicky cleared his throat, glancing at her. "If you... um, if you want, we could hop in the cart and I could give you the nickel tour of the infield, see who's around, maybe introduce you to a few folks, make sure you know which coaches not to walk into. Testing is done for the day, so now everyone's just hanging around, catching up..."

Dixie's eyes lit up. "You'd do that? I'd love that. I mean, I've been around racing, but not this level, and so I'll try not to geek out and embarrass you, but some of these guys are kind of rock stars, you know."

"I'm not?" Nicky asked, his tone serious, though he eyes danced mischievously.

"You're a cowboy from Wyoming. I want to meet the Latin lovers, the Italian stallions, the Frenchman who walks around without his shirt on, because wow, his pecs..."

Nicky put up a hand to silence her. "Ew. Yeah. No... don't introduce yourself to them that way."

"'Hi, I'm Dixie and I want to ride your Italian Stallion', wouldn't be appropriate as an opening gambit?" Dixie teased, and all three men laughed.

Nicky laughed hardest of all, though he was tinged with jealousy just at the thought of Dixie flirting with someone else.

"No," Nicky said. "That would be definite grounds for firing you from the team."

"On what charge?"

"Gross embarrassment. Or just gross, period."

Dixie laughed. "C'mon... let's take the tour, slick."

**

Just a few minutes later, Dixie laughed as they practically two wheeled around a corner in the team golf cart, her hair flying around her face and into her mouth. "We're aren't racing, dude, slow down! This thing has four wheels, let's keep them all on the ground!" she shouted, gripping the dashboard to keep herself inside the cart as he screeched around another corner.