Hard and Fast Read Free

cover.
    The title was How to Marry a Race Car Driver in Six Easy Steps . On the cover was a photograph of a woman kissing a man in a racing uniform with a pair of wedding rings surrounding them.
    “Wow, uh, I don’t know if that is fiction or nonfiction either.” Imogen wasn’t sure if the book was intended to be tongue-in-cheek or if someone really thought there was a formula to garner a proposal from a driver. Or if the publisher and author didn’t necessarily think so, but knew women like Nikki would buy the book to learn the secret. “What does it say?”
    “There are all kinds of tips and rules, plus profiles of the single drivers.”
    “Are you serious?” That completely piqued the interest of the sociologist in Imogen.
    “Yeah. And I broke Rule Seventeen of Step Two by accident. I wasn’t supposed to wear high heels to the track, only I didn’t read that part until after I was here.” Nikki rolled the top of her lettuce bag closed and stuffed it back in her purse. “I hope Ty doesn’t notice.”
    Considering the man was in a car on the track driving at approximately one hundred and eighty-five miles an hour and attempting to pass other cars going an equal speed with only inches of clearance, Imogen highly doubted Ty was concerning himself with Nikki’s trackside footwear. “I’m sure it’s fine. I don’t really see why a driver would care what his girlfriend or wife wears at a race anyway.”
    Nikki looked horrified. “That kind of attitude will never land you a driver. It’s all about image.”
    “Really?” Imogen glanced over at Tamara and Suzanne. They were both normal, attractive women in their early thirties. Tamara was married to a driver; Suzanne was divorced from a driver. Somehow Imogen doubted either one of them had followed a manual to land her husband. In fact, she would bet her trust fund on it. “Can I look at the book?” she asked.
    Nikki clutched the book to her chest for a second, clearly suspicious.
    “Don’t worry,” Imogen said. “I have no interest in following the steps. A stock car driver isn’t really my type.” Which she would do well to remember. Just because she had a strange and mysterious physical attraction to Ty didn’t mean it was anything other than foolish to pursue that. A driver wasn’t her type, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she wasn’t a driver’s type. She was the total antithesis of Nikki.
    “Okay.” Nikki handed the book over begrudgingly.
    Imogen almost laughed. It wasn’t like what was in those pages wasn’t available to anyone who had twenty bucks and a bookstore at their disposal. She opened the book, and it flipped automatically to the section on your first date with a driver. The “Don’ts for First Date Night” included drinking any alcohol, even a single glass of wine, an explanation of why beer-drinking women weren’t at all the thing, and how while a chaste kiss at the door might be deemed acceptable, anything beyond that was wrong, wrong, wrong. Girls men wanted to marry did not, repeat did not, have sex with men on the first date.
    Feeling like she just might have slid back into 1957 when she wasn’t looking, Imogen flipped to a new chapter. It was a list of places to meet drivers, including the stores they might shop at in Charlotte, the bars and restaurants they were known to frequent, and the gym several worked out at.
    The wheels in her head started to turn faster and faster as she scanned through half a dozen more pages.
    “What are you looking at?” Tamara asked her, leaning toward Imogen to read over her shoulder.
    Imogen looked at her friend and sociology professor in satisfaction. “My thesis. I’m looking at my thesis.”
    The book declared itself an instructional manual on how to marry a race car driver. Which led Imogen to the question that would be the basis of her thesis—did dating rules result in success when altered for a specific occupation?
    Imogen was going to follow them and find