A Very NASCAR Holiday: An Anthology (Harlequin Nascar) - Softcover

Warren, Nancy; Webb, Debra; Wilkins, Gina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373774117 ISBN 13: 9780373774111

Verlag: HQN, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

All I Want for Christmas by Nancy Warren

Darren Littlejohn may be only ten, but he knows what he wants—to meet his hero, NASCAR driver Jason Bane. Of course, that means his mom will be there, too. And she sure does seem anxious about seeing her childhood friend. Maybe there's more to those old high school stories than she's been willing to share….

Christmas Past by Debra Webb

After a tragic mountain-climbing accident changed his life forever, NASCAR driver Jason Fewell hasn't been himself, on or off the track. So he heads into the wilderness to face his worst fears—and miraculously finds the one woman who can make him whole again. If only she didn't have secrets of her own.

Secret Santa by Gina Wilkins

Shhh… Don't tell! Under Santa's beard it's famous NASCAR driver R. J. Sanger! All he wants this year is to spread holiday cheer, away from the crowds. Until he meets Mrs. Claus. She says she's an average single mom. But to R.J., she might be all he needs to make his Christmas—and his life—complete.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

USA TODAY bestselling author Nancy Warren lives in the Pacific Northwest where her hobbies include skiing, hiking and snow shoeing. She's an author of more than thirty novels and novellas for Harlequin and has won numerous awards. Visit her website at www.nancywarren.net.

DEBRA WEBB is the award winning, USA Today bestselling author of more than 170 novels, including reader favorites the Finley O'Sullivan series, the Colby Agency, and the Lookout Mountain Mystery series. With more than four million books sold in numerous languages and countries, Debra's love of storytelling goes back to her childhood on a farm in Alabama. Visit Debra at www.DebraWebb.com.

Author of more than 100 novels, Gina Wilkins loves exploring complex interpersonal relationships and the universal search for "a safe place to call home." Her books have appeared on numerous bestseller lists, and she was a nominee for a lifetime achievement award from Romantic Times magazine. A lifelong resident of Arkansas, she credits her writing career to a nagging imagination, a book-loving mother, an encouraging husband and three "extraordinary" offspring.

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The wild cry splitting the silence caused Emily Littlejohn to drop the papier-mâché elephant currently making a sloppy mess of her kitchen table and cock her head. In the range of ten-year-old boy yells—of which she considered herself an expert— the current holler was closer to the ecstatic cry of a kid who'd whipped some computer foe than the dreaded cry that indicated Hospital. Now!

Still, she waited and sure enough soon heard, "Mom, come quick." Excitement bubbled through the words like oil from a gusher.

Since she and Darren were a family of two, Emily played the roles of mother, father and often best friend to her ten-year-old son. She knew that wouldn't last, so she did her best to treasure this time when Darren still wanted to be with her.

"Coming." She wiped her hands on the damp cloth. The elephant in progress tipped onto its trunk, hovered there for a second then keeled over. Looked as though she'd have to default to the pig the students in her second-grade art class had been making for ten years. That elephant was clearly too complicated.

She tended to forget to move when she was working and as she rose, her back reminded her that she'd been trying to turn a couple of balloons, some shredded newspapers and wallpaper glue into an elephant since she and Darren had eaten their after-school snack, two hours ago.

Jogging up the stairs got her blood moving again, but even at her top speed, she was still met on the upstairs landing by a bouncing dynamo. "Come on, Mom. You gotta see this. You'll never guess."

His face was lit with excitement, his eyes blazing blue with happiness. Something much more thrilling than reaching a new level in one of his computer games had to be the cause.

"You got an A in Math?"

"Funny, Mom."

Darn. He was too young for girls, and it had been a while since the infrequent visits or calls from his dad had lit him up. Stumped, she followed him into his room.

He raced to his computer and displayed the screen proudly. Even from the doorway she could see the NASCAR logo. Of course.

Darren's greatest enthusiasm in life was stock car racing, and his hero was Jason Bane, the local boy from their own small town in Minnesota who had taken the racing world by storm over the past five years.

Bane was prominently featured in her son's room. He grinned down from glossy posters at a replica of his ride that held pride of place on Darren's bedside table. Emily had personally painted the racing border on Darren's bedroom wall, repeating the motif on the bedspread she'd also created. Maybe they didn't have much in the way of money, but Emily used every one of her arts and crafts skills to raise their lives above the mundane.

"What is it?" She drew closer to Jason Bane's handsome face grinning out at her from the computer screen and wondered if he might be coming home for a visit. Something he hadn't done in twelve years. That would account for Darren's excitement. If the prodigal driver returned, would she have the courage to remind Jason Bane that they'd gone to school together?

Even if fate, or more likely Darren, threw Jason inher path, she knew she wouldn't. She'd had a major crush on the guy back in high school and he hadn't noticed her then. Now that he was a rich, famous driver, he'd never remember a girl he'd shared a couple of classes with back in Hammersfield High.

"It's a contest," Darren yelled in her ear. "And I'm going to win." He was so excited he couldn't stand still, hopping on one foot, then both. "We get to see a race, and you get a shopping spree. How cool is that? Jason Bane's sponsor is Bailey's Department Stores."

"What kind of contest is it?" Emily asked, finding it impossible to read the details on the screen with Darren jumping, squirming and yelling all at the same time.

"An essay contest. I have to tell what NASCAR means to me in five hundred words." He made a Pfflffi noise through pursed lips. "Easy."

He shook her shoulder. "We are going to Hollywood!"

It wasn't Hollywood, of course. The prize was an all-expenses-paid trip to the race in Homestead, Florida, in November, for the final race of the season. The prize included a thousand-dollar shopping spree at Bailey's.

"A thousand bucks, Mom. You could buy yourself a nice Christmas present. And I get to spend time with Jason Bane and go to a race, and hang out with the pit crew. Everything!" His emotions so overtook him that he tossed himself backward onto his bed and bounced to his feet again.

Emily almost hated to hear the excitement in his young voice. She'd never been able to afford to take him to a live race. And now he thought he was going to win his way there?

"Honey," she said, in that tone she hated hearing come out of her own mouth, "There are going to be a lot of kids who enter this contest. I don't want you getting your hopes up too high."

He looked dumbstruck. "But who writes the greatest essays in the world? Mr. Donaldson said I'm real creative." He patted her on the back. "Mom, I can ace this."

"I know you can, Dar. You just have to remember that life isn't always fair."

No one knew that better than Emily. Who'd once had her head filled with the same kind of naive belief in life that she recognized in her son. Amazing how a bad marriage and nasty divorce could cure a person of believing in happy outcomes.

Well, she'd let him write his essay, encourage him as much as she could and then be there when his young world fell apart. Again.

Jason Bane was suffering writer's cramp from signing his name so many times, but at last the two-hour publicity event was almost over. The main level of Bailey's flagship department store was bustling, and lots of folks were hanging around to watch him and the very pretty young starlet beside him, also signing pictures of herself.

He still hadn't quite gotten over the fact that because he could drive fast, people wanted him to do other things he had no natural talent for.

Like acting.

The cameo appearance in a family comedy movie had been fun, but Jason had never been so bored in his life. All that sitting around waiting for someone to call "Action" wasn't his style. He preferred remaining in action until someone yelled at him to stop.

Even now, after sitting at a table for two hours, his feet were tapping and twitching. He needed to go for a run or shoot some baskets or something, just to get rid of the excess energy. The workout would have to wait, however. He had another appearance right after this one.

At last he'd signed the final photo, grinned his last grin, and could thankfully shake out the stiffness from his signing hand.

He rose, then remembering his manners, turned to his signing partner.

"Thanks. It was great meeting you."

His "winning grin" as the press people liked to call it, was threatening to crack from overuse, but he pulled it out one more time.

"Her name's Sydney," his assistant, Paige, whispered in his ear.

The starlet also rose from her seat and stretched. It was the kind of stretch you couldn't help watching if you wanted to call yourself a red-blooded man.

"I'm parched," she said, running the tip of her tongue over luscious pink lips. "Going to slip off for a quiet drink. Care to join me?"

"Thanks, Sydney," he said with a regret he was far from feeling, "but I've got to run to another event right after this one."

She shrugged. "Maybe next time."

"You got it." Where he would have shaken hands goodbye, Sydney was more a kiss-on-the-mouth type. She pulled away slowly and slipped a card into his breast pocket. "Call me."

The young woman left with her own handlers and he turned to Paige Summer, his personal assistant and Randy Oldham, Bailey's marketing guy. "I cannot believe you turned down heaven." Randy sighed.

"Not my type," he said. Paige handed him a tissue and he wiped away the sticky lip gunk Sydney had left on his mouth.

"I don't envy you the money, and I...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HQN
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0373774117
• ISBN 13: 9780373774111
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar