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 WHIPLASH

A Racy Collection of Driven World Prequels

SUSAN PIERCE LOGAN CHANCE ELIZABETH MILLER

C. RENEE HEATHER GUIMOND

 Contents

Foreword
Speed by Elizabeth Miller

1. “The 1” 3:31
2. “Sparks Fly” 4:22
3. Superstar “4:23”
4. “The Best Day” 4:07
5. “You Belong With Me” 3:53
About Elizabeth Miller

Pregame by Susan Pierce

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
About Susan Pierce
Grind by Heather Guimond
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About Heather Guimond
Mandarin by Logan Chance
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
About Logan Chance
Precaution by C. Renee
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
About C. Renee
Thank you
 Foreword

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Driven World!

I’m so excited you’ve picked up this book! WHIPLASH is a book

based on the world I created in my New York Times bestselling
Driven Series. While I may be finished writing this series (for now),
various authors have signed on to keep them going. They will be
bringing you all-new stories in the world you know while allowing
you to revisit the characters you love.

This book is entirely the work of the authors who wrote each story in
it. While I allowed them to use the world I created and may have
assisted in some of the plotting, I took no part in the writing or
editing of the story. All praise can be directed their way.

I truly hope you enjoy WHIPLASH. If you’re interested in finding

more authors who have written in the KB Worlds, you can visit
www.kbworlds.com.
Thank you for supporting the writers in this project and me.
Happy Reading,
K. Bromberg
 Speed by Elizabeth Miller

Copyright © 2021 Elizabeth Miller

All rights reserved. The moral rights of the author have been
asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information
storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the
publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a
review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Dani Kavanagh wants one man—a Norse god with blond hair and a
body chiseled in all the right places. His dark eyes speak of a past
but twinkle in the present. He’s the best driver in NASCAR and the
racer she’s lusted after for years—all from afar. She has no problem
with the speed in which he captured her heart. Trouble is, Finn
Savage is taken. So what’s a girl to do but dream of all the hot ways
they could fit together?
 1

“The 1” 3:31

THE FIRST DAY I spent as a contracted NASCAR driver was

everything I dreamed, and nothing like what I expected. I was
exhausted. Twenty-four hours prior, a rare family reunion saw all six
of my cousins return to our hometown just to see me off to
Nashville. There were many laughs and way too much whiskey. The
lingering ache in my frontal lobe was a testament to that. Following
what felt like a million hugs, Mom and I had hopped in my car, and a
night of driving later, we walked into my teeny-tiny flat.
Thirty minutes ago, Rae had turned in a circle. The scene was
reminiscent of Dorothy when she twirled in her ruby slippers and
declared, “I’m not in Kansas anymore.” In our case, we weren’t in
New York, and even though my mom wore sparkles, she was not
staring in awe at her new surroundings. Not even for a second. Her
nose had scrunched as her finger ran over the dingy white counter,
which said a lot. Rae loved vintage, so her reaction was not about
the décor but the sanitation. She started scrubbing even though she
was only in town for minutes and not days.
“This is the best you could do?” Her question was quickly
followed by a spray of cleaner and a frantic rub with the rough edge
of a sponge.
 I shrugged and set the last of the moving boxes on the bed,
which already had my ancient grumpy bear nestled between two
pillows. The full size mattress sat directly next to the couch that was
sidled up to the mini kitchen that Rae scoured with gusto.
“I’ll be on the road for half of the year. Besides, the rent’s cheap.”
“You’re under contract with Everride, the biggest motorsports
company in NASCAR.”
“Yes, but”—I stopped the frantic rubbing by placing my hand
over hers. The 1970’s Formica couldn’t get cleaner than it already
was—“I’m a new driver. Unproven. My salary isn’t much, and what I
do have, I don’t want to waste on an apartment. If things work out,
I’ll buy a place.”
Rae’s tsk could’ve been heard back in Hamilton. “You shame
yourself. There is no failure, only growth.”
I rolled my eyes, and when they settled, my vision was full of the
streaks in her hair. Rae was a chameleon. That day she’d been blue,
probably because her only daughter had finally left the nest. By
Tuesday she’d be back to pink, proud that her little chick had wings
of her own. “Your Korean proverbs won’t work on me. I’m immune.”
“Doelseongbureun namuneun tteogipbuteo arabonda.”
“English please.”
“You can know a promising tree from when it’s a baby tree.”
I laughed and wrapped my arms around her shoulders even as
my chest rumbled. I’d miss her. I’d miss my dad and every single
insane Kavanagh that called themselves family. The organ behind my
rib cage felt the first crack of separation. “Stop. What does that even
mean?”
Her grip tightened as if she knew my heart needed this hug as
much as my psyche. “Genius shows itself from an early age. I’ve
known since you were born you would be something and that this
day would come. This moment when I would have to set you free.”
Squeezing my lids didn’t contain the leak, but I couldn’t pause to
wallow and cling to Rae. She had to go home to the people I loved,
and I had to go to the track to meet my team—a team I didn’t know.
We were all strangers in a new town with different encounters and
unproven possibilities. Yet I was here. That had to mean something.
“Well begun is half done,” I whispered in her ear with one last
squish.
It was her turn to laugh as she broke away, patting my cheek.
“It’s nice to know you’ve listened, daughter. Just by being in this
position, you are accomplished. Remember that always.”
“Right. Come on, I’ve got to get you to the airport.” I tugged her
hand, but even though I was inches taller and fifteen pounds
heavier, I couldn’t budge Rae. She was a mighty force when she
wanted to be.
“I have something for you.”
She broke free from my grip and rummaged around her purse,
which was about the size of her torso. From it, she withdrew a bag—
white, nondescript, no markings but for a note that was attached to
the top.

Wear it well, Dani. –JG

My mind searched through file after file. That’s how I thought of

my brain, this big index of information. Rae was the same. Like
mother, like daughter. We remembered everything. But who was JG?
My best guess made my eyes water as I pulled out the black leather.
It was a racer’s jacket with a slight collar and a lot of attitude, soft
and broken in, worn in the best way.
 “Rae.” My voice wobbled; my fingers did too as I slipped first one
arm in, then the other followed. A perfect fit. “Is this from Janet
Guthrie?” A woman who I admired, worshipped maybe, for her skill
and her groundbreaking foray into stock car. She was the first
woman to drive in Daytona and Indianapolis, paving the way for me
to be in this position. A lump formed in my throat, and I didn’t know
how to get past it.
Rae nodded, her eyes welling in a mirror of mine. “She came to
your last street stock.”
“So she donated her jacket?”
“A gift, so you would know that you were meant to be right
where you are, making your own name important.”
I nodded, then nodded again and brought Rae in for another
squish. Minutes passed without words, just clinging to my mom and
my dreams. This was the moment I had waited a lifetime for. This
chance, a rare opportunity that was mine to own and mold into the
best of intentions. It was now or never.
“I’m ready,” I said into her blue highlights.
She squeezed back. “You are.”
With two shaky smiles, hand in hand, we trudged out of the
studio apartment above a garage on Tenth Avenue and into my
future.

I WAS LATE. It was all Rae’s fault. I couldn’t let go of her under the
departure sign, even with a security guard urging quick goodbyes.
That farewell was the hardest yet. I’d had to focus not on the past
but on Joe Russo and the chance he’d given me on the best team in
NASCAR. So I finally let her go with a kiss to the cheek and a
promise to call.
 With my new-to-me leather on, the sun shining high and
warming the mid-April Sunday to a balmy sixty-eight, I broke
through the gates without a minute to spare, not that I was taking
the track. It wasn’t my day to race. Not yet. I was a spectator with a
pit pass, which was fine by me. I wanted to watch and soak up the
details.
The first thing that grabbed my interest was the noise—the
rumble of eager engines. Fans, and the pitch of their excited chatter.
Thousands of bodies filled the stadium, and I wove between them as
I worked my way to the Everride team. The smell of speed filled the
air—burnt oil, smoked tire, and the aroma of a day at the speedway.
I was instantly at home, yet nerves pricked at my arms.
I wasn’t ignorant to my position as the only woman in a male-
dominated sport. By the number of glances that came my way, I
wasn’t invisible, standing out even when all I wanted was to fit in. It
couldn’t be helped. I was a racer. A racer with ovaries and tits and
dark hair that met the middle of my back. Those facts made my
spine straight and my vision straighter. I wasn’t apologizing for
biology, and I’d prove my place on the team the first chance I got.
But it wasn’t that day.
That day I was meant to observe. As the cars lined up, I
positioned myself behind the crew and stared on in awe. Engines
revved. Hearts raced. Fans cheered. The flag dropped, and my
whole world narrowed in on one of the blue and green vehicles
vying for the best spot amongst the pack. Number eleven had my
attention. He’d had it for years, but always from afar. Now he was
my teammate. Watching him, my pulse kicked up a notch or two.
He sped in for the first refuel and new tires. The crew went to
work—practiced, calculated, and quick. Yet I had eyes for only one
person. I had watched him for years, seen him a hundred times, but
never up close and never in person. So I had shifted to snag a
glimpse of his helmet, the face beneath it, and the man I knew to be
behind the wheel. He was gone faster than my eyes could catch him.
Around he flew until my throat was hoarse and two drivers, including
my favorite, took the final turn neck and neck. I held my breath. As
seconds ticked from the clock, he inched forward. Somehow he
coaxed a little more from his engine, and with a final burst of speed,
he soared over the line. The checkered flag dropped. A winner was
declared, and I jumped and screamed my joy to the sky.
Finn Savage raced down the backstretch a final time with his fist
pumping from the opening where there should have been a window.
A smile split my cheeks until they hurt, but I never took my eyes
from his vehicle. I was shuffled closer to the winner’s circle as fans
forced their way onto the turf for a better view of the car and the
driver inside.
Somehow my feet never stopped. Someone would move to block
my view, and I maneuvered around. Like the rule of magnetic
attraction, I was drawn to him. There was some kind of inner pull
that couldn’t be stopped. It was from the front of the pack that I
watched him slip from the vehicle. Graceful, that’s what I remember.
Like a move he’d made a million times, his body twisted and bent
with ease. Then his helmet was off, and he combed his fingers
through his sweat-drenched hair to push it past his forehead.
I couldn’t look away. He was blond and chiseled in all the right
places, with dark eyes that spoke of a past but twinkled in the
present. Tall enough he made my five-eight frame feel small, he was
sculpted to points of exactness that would mold to my lean edges. I
knew he would. I knew he was a perfect fit.
Finnegan Savage was magic, and I was entranced.
 That’s the exact moment his eyes landed on me. Dani Kavanagh.
Only ten feet of separation as I stood staring with my mouth gaping,
taking in his winner’s grin. It wobbled for just a second. A second
where his brow crumbled as if to question who the lunatic before
him was. But still I couldn’t glance away from this Norse god who
owned the track—and what I imagined was my heart. It pounded
against my ribs, pumped and throbbed in a moment so entirely
beautiful I took a step forward and then another. He was the one.
My person. Years of watching him on TV told me so.
His gaze never left mine as I experienced a brief moment of
tunnel vision, where all I could see was Finn and my future. I missed
everything, including the crew and their intentions. Putting one foot
in front of the other, I meant to congratulate him. I meant to offer
my sincere gratitude that he spoke to Joe Russo, owner of Everride
and my new boss, on my behalf. I wanted to thank him for his vote
that brought me here, but the words lodged in my throat as the
throng surrounding me got anxious and pushed forward. Pushed so
hard, I flew rather than walked. Flew so fast I knocked him out of
the way of the Gatorade shower the crew had meant for Finn,
drenching me.
The new girl. The silly, eager rookie.
Laughter broke out around my sodden frame. I shook off and
looked up. Finn smiled, and I decided right then and there that I
gave my heart to the right guy. There wasn’t an ounce of mocking in
the depth of his dark blue eyes, only the glimmer of joy as he tipped
my chin.
“You’re up, Kavanagh. Next time, that bath will be meant for
you.”
With those words, he turned and climbed the steps to the stage
to accept his trophy and the accolades of one hundred thousand
screaming devotees, including his pretty, blonde fiancée who raced
to his side and wouldn’t let go.
I can’t tell you what happened to my insides. They liquefied,
maybe. Burned up as hot as my face heating from the sun, and a
blistering torch of jealously consumed me. But none of it mattered. I
knew that what I felt was real. I also knew that any feelings were
my own and always would be.
I wanted Finnegan Savage, but he had already promised his
future to another woman.
No worries. I slicked my hair from my forehead and stood up
straight. I was always up for a challenge.
 2

“Sparks Fly” 4:22

THAT FIRST WEEK flew by in a blur of people and names. Mac and
Dewy, crew chief and mechanic. Clint and Tyler, drivers and
teammates. Julia and Isla, Tyler’s wife and the fiancée of my
nightmares. And then there was Finnegan himself. I spent a lot of
time not looking at him and then finding myself staring from afar.
My brain was overloaded, and I hadn’t slept in days. We were on
the road, traveling in a caravan of buses with bunks and trailers
hiding racecars inside. One was shiny and new with a splashy
number nineteen displayed on both door panels. At a stop in Atlanta,
I approached her, running a finger along a curved fender. Her icy
touch made my pulse race just like Finn did. She was mine, and I
was about to take her for a ride.
The track was cold for an April morning, as cool as my attitude as
I slipped into a fire suit, hoping no one could see my heart pounding
from my chest. Because all eyes were on me. The controversial
rookie. A young racer at twenty-one, unproven but for the slew of
wins at the junior level. A female at that. I was a chance taken, and
everyone at the speedway watched to see if I would prove the
cynics wrong or right.
 I couldn’t think about the stakes. I had my car and she was a
gem. I didn’t know her well, but she was one hundred percent a
woman with sleek curves and a sassy disposition. I appreciated her
personality while sliding into my helmet. A growl broke from her
hood when I tapped the starter, and I smiled at her snarl. She had a
bark I could relate to. I knew then we would be best friends forever,
but we still hadn’t fully connected, and that relationship would take
time. The fit behind the wheel was tight and molded to my body.
She tested me around the turns, goaded me on the backstretch, and
by the third lap, I laughed into my headset. We were a perfect
match. Yet, she didn’t have a name.
The missing moniker was a bone of contention in my mind.
Before we could really be partners, I had to know who I was
working with. So I thought about my car and how she made me feel
every spare minute, which wasn’t as often as I would have liked.
Race day mornings were busy during the season. Every set of hands
were on site caring for vehicles. Huddles took place to discuss
strategy. The drivers met with the owners and the media, but I still
didn’t have a place in the fray.
I had a car and the drive to win, but without a competitive
qualifying time, I had nothing. So I watched and learned, and during
practice, I drove my girl and tried to fit in. The second week came
and went with nods but no invitations to eat or drink or converse
with anyone, anywhere. I missed Rae, Dad, my cousins and their
constant conversation, and my real-life best friends who were a
thousand miles away. But I couldn’t call and bewail my longing. I’d
never fail, and if I did, I couldn’t admit it to anyone. Days turned
into the third week. Three races under my belt with nothing more
than a few good turns on the track. The team arrived in Nashville on
a Monday morning at 3:00 a.m., and at 4:00 a.m., I was lying in the
strange bed on 10th Avenue, praying sleep would find me. No such
luck.
Coffee became my fuel. Loads of it. Black and strong, powerful
enough to get me to the garage by eight. It was a warehouse: tall
ceilings, an echo when I walked, and loads of cars. One was mine.
In the far corner, she sat as silent as the entire ten thousand square
feet garage. Apparently I was the only one crazy enough to arrive
early after we rolled in so late. Whatever. If I didn’t do something
now, I’d never make anything happen. I was determined to find my
place, and I thought it was best to do it here.
First thing first, I stared at myself in the grubby mirror hanging
on the wall next to a work bench. I hardly recognized myself with
the smudges beneath my eyes and the downturn of my lips. I
practiced a smile but gave up on the second fake try. I turned away
and stared at my car. At some point, I pushed aside a pile of tools on
the table and hefted my ass on top so I had a place to sit. That’s all
I did, sit and stare and think about what to do to make this work.
Foolishly, I had thought just by signing on the bottom line my
dreams had come true. I was a racer. I was going to be on the track
and win. Trophy’s would be mine, bragging rights to go along with
them.
The sun came through the wall of windows at the front of the
building. Shadows filled the showroom as people came and went.
One was Finn. Ours eyes met for the briefest moment, yet I
remained alone. Sadness like I’d never known settled behind my
ribs, and I knew I had to do something when my chin wobbled.
Hopping down, I pulled a scraper over and slid beneath my car’s
undercarriage. It was a familiar sight. Growing up, I’d spent enough
time at Kavanagh’s Body Shop to know the makings of a vehicle.
Thinking about my dad’s garage clouded the shapes in front of me,
and a breath hitched and stuck in my throat. I tried to swallow it
down, especially when a pair of boots slid over to reside next to my
own.
A minute passed. My heartbeat sped as if I was at the starting
line waiting for the flag to drop. Seconds later, the feet moved and
another scraper rasped across the cement floor. A fine ass landed on
top, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t so lonely.
I bit my lip as he nudged himself in next to me. Shoulder to
shoulder, I lay with Finnegan Savage. Allowing my lids to fall, I
breathed in the forest, the scent of fresh cut pine. My head turned
to find his in the same position, his dark gaze stuck on mine. A spark
ignited in my chest. A flicker. A burst flame. Fire seared through my
veins, heating my insides until my lungs burned. My mouth parted,
and he blinked down to watch my tongue trace the outline. It took a
moment, a long moment, for either of us to find words. Finally he
broke the spell with a sigh and more eye contact.
“How’s it goin’, Kavanagh?” His accent was long vowels and
southern, as relaxed as he looked in jeans and a loose T-shirt that
clung to him in the best places. The hardest places. Like his pecs.
His eight-pack abs. Looking at him did funny things to me, things I
had never felt before.
“Jesus Christ.” I don’t know why I said it. Maybe I did. Maybe it
was because all the air had evacuated the building. When he
chuckled, I could only swallow and stare like the lunatic I was
proving to be.
My suffocation became worse when he smiled. All those perfect
white teeth. His perfect mouth, except for the little scar that sliced
through his upper lip—a faint line, like he took a hit in a fight and it
split open. I fought the urge to kiss it better. For the love of all that’s
holy, he was already healed, and I had no place thinking about
touching him. But my body didn’t care. My imagination ran wild, and
I felt his hands on me. How his nails would scrape along my skin,
how his fingers would dig in. I knew the pressure; it was building
between my legs, and I had to do something before I exploded
beneath my car.
“I mean, great.” I blinked away from his smirk and looked at the
sway bar. “I’m the best I’ve ever been.”
He nodded, and I thought I’d gotten away with my melancholy
until he said with a hint of sarcasm, “I can tell.”
There wasn’t much room to turn on him to give a piece of my
mind. He didn’t know anything, especially me. I tried anyway. The
slight move only pressed my side to his, and I hissed through a zing
shooting down my arm.
“You don’t know anything.”
“Then tell me.”
“Why should I?”
His shrug brushed along my skin, and my heart stopped. It
screeched to a halt. All I wanted to do was grab his hand and hold
on. “Because I’m here for it. Five years ago, I was you. I was the
rookie with a point to prove and a place to find. I get where you’re
at, that’s all.”
I let my head loll to the side. My vision scraped from his hard
thighs, past his stomach and the knot of his Adam’s apple, to his
eyes. They were dark, the darkest, most caring blue, and the words
just tumbled from my mouth.
“I’m not sure how to be a part of this team. No one wants me
here. I wasn’t expecting a welcome wagon with a party piñata for
God’s sake, but I didn’t think I’d get a bus full of dicks.”
His full-blown smile caught me off guard and prompted a twist of
my own. That little joy reminded me of my parents and Hamilton,
my cousins and home, and my lids felt a rush of tears I’d never
shed.
“I want you here.”
“Why?” The question came from nowhere other than a need to
know.
He shrugged, a little tug still kicked up at the corner of his
mouth. “What’s that saying? Surround yourself with the best and
you’ll be the best.”
I groaned, and an unwarranted chuckle tickled against my ribs.
“Now you sound like my mother. She has a proverb for every
occasion.”
“Smart woman. And if I’m right, her daughter follows in her
footsteps. Just think of it like this: you don’t need to figure your
entire life out to move forward. Just show up, Kavanagh, get in
there, and everything will fall into place. I promise you.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him, but still, he was here and he was
trying, this driver I respected more than any other racer, the man I
secretly wanted but would never tell. Instead of speaking, I reached
over to trace the line of a pristine ball joint, and his fingers followed.
Not to touch mine—God, I wish—but to point out how it connected
to the control arm and then the strut rod. He didn’t say anything
about my mood or the glaze I had to blink away. He walked me
through the undercarriage part by part until my pulse was steady
and my future was a bit clearer.
“So that’s it.” He moved to push his scraper into the silent
garage, and I feared the next moment I would be alone again.
“You’ve got this, Kavanagh.”
I knew he was talking about more than the car. And suddenly I
also knew that it was the truth. Pity wasn’t a party I liked to attend,
so I followed him out and accepted his outstretched hand, popping
to my feet.
He nodded to the door, blinked his way back to my eyes, and
smirked. “Now how about a beer. There’s this new brewery down the
street I’ve been meaning to check out.”
Somehow I found the smile that had been missing for the last
three weeks. At the same time, I realized I’d found a friend, and I
thought he just might prove to be the best one I’d ever had.
Time would tell.
 3

Superstar “4:23”

DRINKING WITH FINN was dangerous, but only for me and only
because I couldn’t stop staring. That was my issue though. Finn, on
the other hand, had plenty to look at. Everyone knew him. It may
have been a new bar, but he was not new to the scene. He was
famous after all, a superstar in NASCAR and beyond. The man had
so many sponsors, he was on a commercial every third minute. Who
wouldn’t want his good-looking mug spreading cheer in households
everywhere?
I did. I wanted him, and I couldn’t have him here, at Woody’s, or
on the track. I had to share him with millions and a fiancée. That
was okay. I liked looking at his square jaw and the way his full lips
molded around words and curved into an easy smile. The one he
wore now was for the bartender, and it wasn’t sleazy or leering or
full of hidden meaning, even though she was a bombshell with big
boobs and a low tank. Nope, Finnegan Savage’s eyes never strayed
to her chest. I was sure of it, again, because I couldn’t look away.
The joint had wood beams and lots of corrugated metal on the
ceiling and walls. It was country posh and packed, but we had
snagged a couple of stools at the counter in the corner. The service
was great. I suspected that was because of my companion and the
attention he attracted. Finn ordered us another pint and a plate of
fries and a hot chicken sandwich.
“Ever have it?” he asked, his grin growing.
“Nope.”
He groaned, and my stomach fluttered. Other places did too, but
I ignored the constant ache. Friends. The mantra was on repeat in
the back of my mind. If I said it enough, my brain would eventually
compute.
“It’s fucking phenomenal. You’re in for a treat.”
“Pretty sure this is the best night of my life, so it can’t possibly
get better.”
Turning, the full force of his gaze landed on me, and my breath
was lost somewhere in Nashville. “The best?”
I tore my eyes from his and glanced at his jacket—a leather like
mine. Jeans too, a shade lighter than the fit I wore. I knew they
bunched at the top of his construction boots that were loosened, like
he couldn’t take the time to lace them, when I always did. I
preferred the combat variety. They held as much attitude as my
Janet Guthrie original. I was a far cry from a fashion statement, and
I wondered if Finn minded. Then I reminded myself: Friends. He
didn’t care what I wore or that I didn’t like makeup. I was who I
was, and I was really in to him. But again, I had to stay focused.
I cleared my throat, hoping he couldn’t hear my heartbeat, which
matched the country tempo pounding from the speakers. “I mean,
I’m here, in Nashville, with the best driver in the history of the sport,
and I’m on the verge of racing. I have a pretty car and a new friend.
Finn”—I spanned my arms out to my sides, almost knocking the
beautiful bartender in the nose with the stretch of my hand. He
laughed—“all of my dreams are about to come true. I can feel it. I
just love my job, you know?”
 Nodding, he brought his glass to his mouth for a long drag. “I do.
It’s not an easy life, but racing is the best feeling.”
I wasn’t sure that was the truth. I thought about a few other
things I could do with Finn that would’ve felt mighty fine. But I held
the comment back and took a sip of my own. “Did you always want
to drive?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “For a while I
just wanted to do anything that would get my family out of White
Bluff.”
“Where’s that?”
“An hour or so from here. Small mining town that kills dreams
one pickax at a time. I didn’t care what I did, as long as we didn’t
have to worry about food on the table or clothes on our back.”
I bit my bottom lip and stuffed my hands into my pockets for fear
I would reach for his hand. His fingers caressed the condensation on
his glass, and my eyes traced the line of his clean, trimmed nails,
trying desperately not to think about what they would feel like on
my naked skin. I was pleased he shared this tidbit about himself and
his family. Showing me that vulnerability made me want to give him
some of my own, but he beat me to the punch.
“My dad kept telling me to do what I loved and, if I did,
everything would be right in the end.” His mouth turned up,
spreading into a smile that nearly knocked me from my stool. “So I
drove karts for fun and stole a car at twelve.”
“What?” I screamed, laughing that this clean-cut man had a bad
streak I could commiserate with. “Tell me more.”
His head hung low, and he grabbed his neck, but a low chuckle
emanated from his chest. “I guess I just wanted more. Faster.
Something I couldn’t name. Anyway, the car was a junker from the
yard I worked at after school. I got it running and called it mine.
Never thought old man Grimsley would take offense to a ride. The
furor could’ve been because I tore through his fence on the way out.
Or the cops chasing after me as I raced through a stop sign on 70.”
“Luke Duke over here.” I congratulated him with a tap to his
beer.
Laughing, he nodded. “Anyway, the law went easy on me. Dad
was another story. Couldn’t sit for a week after that stunt, but I
found my passion. Didn’t think it would be a career though. I worked
the counter at the hardware store to pay Grimsley back and then to
race on the weekends. One thing led to another. What about you?”
I shrugged, feeling as if my story was lame in comparison. “I just
always wanted to drive.”
Leaning in, his features straightened into an intensity I felt
behind my ribs. “That’s good, Dani. That’s exactly what you need to
remember on the days that aren’t perfect. When your car is giving
you shit and piece by piece everything seems to fall apart. You felt it
the last couple of weeks.”
I nodded, swallowed, and nodded again, wide-eyed and listening
as the noise in the bar became secondary to his voice.
“We all go through it. Some days are a struggle, but I’m telling
you if you remember that passion and what brought you here, you’ll
do just fine.”
“One day at a time.”
He thought about that a minute, a long one, where our gazes
were stuck together, and my breath hid inside my lungs. Then his
levity changed and he tipped his chin. “That’s exactly right. And I
think tomorrow is yours to own, Kavanagh.”
We leaned back. The music returned, or maybe I heard it again
when it had only been silenced with Finn so close. Our food arrived,
and he swiveled to place his napkin on his lap, a manner I had been
too occupied to remember but followed his lead a second later. He
lifted his sandwich and waited for me to do the same so he could
clink mine to his. A toast.
“Welcome to the team, Dani. I’m glad you’re here.”
He’d said it before, and I knew he meant it. My insides warmed
at the thought, but I hid it behind a huge bite and the rush of sweet
warmth that burst around my tongue. “Damn,” I said when I had the
opportunity.
“Told you.” He smiled and then shoved a corner in his mouth.
“You’re going to love it here. Everything about Nashville is good.”
I followed suit again, gobbling food in my mouth like I’d never
eaten before. I was hungry, but for more than chicken and racing.
Finn would never have to steal my heart—that was something I
would give freely. But I’d never have the chance. Of that I was
certain when Isla bound up behind him before sneaking between us
to place a smacking kiss on his cheek.
“Hi, honey.” Her accent was thick; her frame was not. She was
petite and prettier than anyone I had seen before, except Rylee and
Ash, who was a superstar in her own right. The pair of them were
my best friends forever, but they were both in L.A., and this girl was
here and hanging on Finn.
“Hey. I thought you were with the girls tonight?” Finn wiped his
mouth and then pressed it against hers. I looked at my plate, my
stomach suddenly churning. Then I’d glanced back, forcing myself to
come to terms with his relationship status. Taken. Affianced.
Unavailable. Engaged. Gah, my dense skull had a hard time with
that. My heart was another story altogether.
“Yeah, but you’re here and I couldn’t stay away.” She turned
then, and the happy ease with which she greeted Finn hardened
beneath her features. It was subtle, and it was meant for me. Her
arrival was a message. Just as the wiggle of her hips and how she
had pushed her way onto his lap to face me and squeeze him closer
was full of meaning: Mine. Like I needed a reminder.
I held my hand between us as an offering, and she let it hover
for a second too long to be comfortable. Swallowing a mouthful of
awkward sauce, I grabbed my beer and chased it down. She smiled
through the slight, brushing her hair over her shoulder.
“So you’re Denni.”
“Dani.”
“Right. Good for you, a girl trying to drive an’ all.”
Finn pinched her side and hissed her name, but I just nodded
like the toddler she was trying to humor. I didn’t miss the
condescension, and I also knew she was placing dibs on her man. I
couldn’t blame her for that. I also couldn’t keep my mouth shut
when I was pushed in a direction I didn’t appreciate. My tone turned
mocking, a good match to hers.
“My mama tol’ me I could be anything I wanted when I grew up
to a big girl.” I batted my lashes and gave her a false smile, even as
my eyes dragged over her skintight leggings and cropped sweater.
She was fit and cute and a complete bitch. But so was I. “And I
decided then and there that I was gonna be more than a pretty face
with a snarky attitude and biting comments. Finn”—I dug in my
wallet for a couple of bills, completely ignoring the fight I saw
building in her eyes—“thanks for the talk and the drinks. See you at
the track.” I stood, shoulders back, spine straight, and gaze trained
on Isla. “Tomorrow is going to be my best day.”
As I walked out of Woody’s and into the cool evening breeze, I
promised myself the words were true. I was there for one thing and
one thing only. I was a hell of a driver, and for better or worse, the
world was about to meet Dani Kavanagh.
 4

“The Best Day” 4:07

THE PROBLEM WITH tomorrow was that it came after little sleep
and with a drive to Georgia. I didn’t see Finn before we left the
garage. And I only saw Isla’s swaying backside as she jogged up the
steps and into his camper, where she belonged. I, on the other
hand, was stuffed on a bus with a few teammates who shuffled
cards and threw me a side-eye every other minute. That was before
I’d about had enough of their silence.
Show up, Finn had said. Just get in there.
“What are ya playin’, fellas?” I stood from my bunk and walked to
the built-in dinette where they sat.
Clint’s brow rose, just the left one, and when I looked at him,
really looked, I found he wasn’t hard on the eyes. Not at all. He was
older than me, I’d guessed by about ten years. A little rough and on
the darker side, but kind of cute.
“Poker.” He turned away, sliding a card to Mac and then another
to Dewy. Names were getting easier as the weeks passed; now I
needed them to remember mine. I tapped the table.
“What’s the buy-in?” I dug in my wallet as he waited, his hand
suspended as a mile rolled under the tires. Then his lips twisted at
the corner. “Fifty bucks.”
 I threw the bill toward Mac, and I was in. I was also good. I grew
up with six cousins who played with higher stakes and less
expression. This crew was easy to best, and I claimed the final draw
as we pulled into the Hampton speedway.
“Jesus, Kavanagh.” Mac groaned and threw in his hand.
Laughing, I raked in my winnings. “Thanks for the added cash,
gentlemen.”
Clint sat back, eyeing me over the tip of his can as he finished a
cola. “You can buy lunch this week, rookie.”
“You can buy the drinks.” I winked when I said it and stood,
staring down at the guys and what I thought was a new appreciation
painting their countenance in a more favorable light.
I felt pretty good about that turn of events and also the warmth
as it washed over me when I opened the door. Today was a good
day to race. It didn’t take long before the trailers were emptied and
the cars rolled to the track. Seventeen other teams took hold of pit
row as we geared up for a qualifying run. My shot came just in time
for nerves to tumble in my stomach. I walked to my car, patted her
hood, and laid my forehead to her warm frame. “What do you say,
girl?” I knew my whisper wouldn’t be answered, yet somehow it
was.
“I’ve got a feeling, Kavanagh.”
I was straight in a second, twisting to look over my shoulder and
into Finn’s eyes. My smile was instantaneous, and not at all because
he was stuffed into a fire suit and hotter than the sun.
“What’s that, Savage?”
He stepped closer, and I refrained from finding his fiancée. Isla
could suck a lemon and get as twisted as the sourpuss she was. Finn
was my friend, and I was happy to see his smirk and the twinkle in
his eyes.
 “This is your race.”
“It is,” I agreed.
“The corners are key.” He went on to walk me through the track,
where to find the best line and when to apply power to navigate the
turns. I soaked up every word, nodded, and ran through what he’d
told me in my mind. “This is your race.”
“You said that before,” I teased and shoved the helmet over my
head. That and Finn were a comfort to any remaining nerves, and I
was relaxed as I sat my hip on the window ledge. “You’re pretty
good at the pep talk, Finnegan.”
“And you’re a good driver. No one is you, Kavanagh, and that’s
what makes you a powerhouse.” He tapped my helmet and turned.
Pausing a step into his retreat, he pivoted and walked backward. He
patted his chest where his heart beat and then pointed to the sky.
I’d seen him do it at all of his races and just before he slid into his
car. But this time it was for me, and I thought he had sent up a
prayer. I wasn’t sure, and maybe one day I’d ask, but at this
moment I only felt warmth spread through my gut and into my
limbs. Finn Savage was one of the good guys, and he was on my
team, on my side. “See you at the finish line, Dani.”
Damn straight he would. He was running in the second heat of
the day, but I would look for him at the end of mine. I sank behind
the wheel with some kind of confidence I had never felt. The crew
strapped me in. Mac was in my ear testing the phonics, but all I
heard was Finn. This is your race. He was right. It was mine. Each
foot of that track would belong to me.
The engine rumbled. She snarled when I tapped the gas,
vibrating every inch that Finn had just warmed.
Ten vehicles.
One-point-eight miles.
 Twenty laps.
The flag fell.
My car screamed, and we flew. We soared as free as a bird.
I knew how to drive, and to Finn’s point, I was good. Couple that
with his knowledge of the track, and I was great. I was also a
surprise. No one thought I’d be anywhere but last. So when I took
the final turn an eighth of a second ahead of any other racer, I heard
the disbelief of every person at the track echo in Mac’s voice. “Jesus
Christ, Kavanagh.”
I laughed. Hollering, I used the force I’d gained from Finn’s
advice to catapult past the checkered flag.
Emotion clogged my throat, but I swallowed it down and blinked
past a rush of tears. There was no place for them in NASCAR, and I
had just qualified to drive in my first race.
I’d had the best day, the best ride of my career.
I was really and truly in.

THAT NIGHT WAS full of high fives and highball glasses. I preferred
whiskey, but who was I to turn away a gin and tonic. Not me. Not
when Finn was the buyer, much to Isla’s chagrin. The entire team
stuffed itself into Perkins, a dive across from the speedway. It wasn’t
really a bar. It was a patio with a pergola lit by string lights and as
many picnic tables that would fit underneath. But the drinks were
plentiful, so was the food.
Good Lord, the south knew how to eat. I stuffed myself on short
ribs and hush puppies. I’d thought I might just roll myself out of
there and find a good night’s sleep for the first time in ages, but I
was interrupted before I could make an escape.
 “Oh my God.” I held my stomach and leaned on the fence that
thankfully stood not too far from my bench. “This is heaven.”
“Wait till we get over to Talladega.” I watched with heavy lids as
someone new sat in the spot vacated by Clint minutes ago. “You
haven’t clogged an artery until you’ve eaten at Dots.”
The speaker was pretty. Her heart-shaped face made me think of
Reese Witherspoon but with brown hair and eyes. It was the
southern accent that made her as sweet as her smile.
“Julia.” She held out her hand and actually waited for me to take
it and then pointed to a laughing racer standing next to Finn. “I
belong to that one.”
“Tyler, right?”
“That’s him.” Her cheeks turned pink, and she couldn’t drag her
gaze from her man. By the looks of the shining rock on her left ring
finger and the band beneath it, I’d guessed they’d spoken vows not
too long before.
Julia couldn’t stop staring, so I did too. It was the perfect
opportunity to check out Finn in what I learned was his formal wear
—jeans and a tee. Trouble was Isla caught me. They were a table
away, but I swore I could hear her growl in the ten feet that
separated us.
My new companion laughed. “Don’t worry about Isla.”
“I’m not.” Focusing on the woman across from me, I turned and
leaned in so I wouldn’t be tempted to find Finn again.
“Her bark is worse than her bite,” Julia continued.
“I get it. I mean, look at her fiancé. Every woman does, but she’s
got nothing to worry about from me. I’m just a fan turned teammate
appreciating his pep talks.” And a lot more, but I wasn’t a home-
wrecker, and my hidden lust didn’t need to be vocalized to anyone in
this group. I’d saved that news for Ash and Rylee. They’d supported
me through a long list of failed relationship attempts. Neither one
were surprised I’d fallen down the well for a Norse god who already
had a goddess. That was all just par for my course.
Julia and I pivoted when the night burst into a loud guffaw, but
I’d kept my eyes directed at Tyler. He was a couple of inches shorter
than Finn but made up for the height difference in the width of his
shoulders and his exuberant laugh. Tyler and Finn were full of hand
gestures and punchlines. The group around them was buying into
whatever story they had told.
“Have they been together a long time?”
“Isla and Finn? Since middle school.”
“Sorry, I meant Finn and Tyler.”
“Oh, about the same time. Peas in a pod, those two. Can’t break
’em apart unless you’re dragging one of ’em off to bed.”
At that exact moment, a new crew walked onto the patio from
the break in the fence. Silence sliced through the night like a DJ
cutting power in the middle a techno frenzy. All eyes swung to the
weenie who’d led three others to a bench near Tyler. For some
unknown reason, my pulse had sprinted, getting a head start on the
danger that tingled my senses.
“What’s this about?” I asked Julia, whose pink cheeks were now
as white as a ghost.
I swore I could hear her swallow. “Brandon Kessel,” she
whispered. “He’s a dick. End of last season, he clipped Ty on
purpose. Bragged about it after Ty took to the wall. They ran in the
same qualifier today, and he got up on Ty. Too cozy for anyone’s
liking.”
I’d heard about him. I’d seen his prick move too. No one needed
to get close to another car in a heat. You’re just trying to drive fast
and score the best time. I’d also watched the races and the news
clips when he got mouthy, but I didn’t know how much hatred had
boiled over to affect the teams outside of the track.
“Ty looks like he wants to kill him.”
And she looked like she wanted to stop him. “You’re right about
that.”
Standing, she had just taken a step in her husband’s direction
when he faced off with Brandon. Finn stood behind his friend, but
his stance was loose, hand shoved in his back pocket. The
peacemaker. He nodded a greeting before lifting a drink to his mouth
to finish it. He’d just set the glass down when Ty spoke.
“Place is closed to assholes this time of night.”
“Funny that.” Brandon stopped in front of Ty, chin up. He wasn’t
in any way a good-looking guy. Too skinny for my liking, he had a
mouth too big for his narrow face and eyes that were more Sad Sam
than Sam Heughan. “They must have a soft spot for pussies.” The
dick flicked his eyes from Tyler to me, and then he laughed.
“Everride seems to be full of them this season.”
I was up in a flash. A shot in the dark, I rushed forward until I
felt Julia’s hand on my arm. I’d heard it all before. No one had a
unique insult, but I wouldn’t be the butt of the joke. I’d learned a
thing or two from my cousins, and I was itching to show the team I
could fend for myself. I never got the chance.
Finn was faster. He was always the fastest. Brandon tapped Ty on
the shoulder. Shoved was more accurate, but tap or shove, it was
enough for Finn to intervene. Ty was moved aside in one second,
and Finn’s fist sliced against Brandon’s nose in the next. He had a
boxing stance and a mean left hook. Brandon got in a gut shot and a
second to Finn’s kidney. Then Finn had him in a headlock, and he
pummeled his big, fat mouth with a few uppercuts. Ty ripped his
friend from the fray, and I was not at all surprised to find that Finn
smiled through his huffing breath. Seemed like he enjoyed a good
fight as much as I did.
Adrenaline burst through my veins and into my balled fists. I
wasn’t opposed to physical altercation when it was needed, but I
didn’t like to see Finn wrapped up in one without me. I longed to
lend a hand, and almost did when Brandon spat at Ty’s feet. Finn
lunged to sock him again even as I stepped forward. Before he could
rip him a new one, Brandon was dragged off the patio by his
teammates.
It was over as quickly as it had begun. The gathering dispersed
so the waitstaff didn’t have to intervene. The entire Everride crew
headed back to the buses and the bunks waiting for them.
Finn blinked my way for a second. That’s all it was, a moment in
time. No one else would’ve noticed our eyes and how they
connected. It was nothing. Nothing other than a friend saying he’d
have my back. But it meant something to me.
Finn’s friendship meant everything to me.
Even though I wanted it to be so much more.
My heart thumped against my ribs. My pulse pumped lava
through my veins. I was hot and turned on, even as Isla was tucked
under his arm. They walked out with Ty and Julia laughing by their
sides, and I was alone.
I’d stood there for minutes, long enough to catch my breath and
make a decision. I couldn’t go back to the team. Not like that. I had
too much on my mind and an energy I couldn’t shake while sharing
a bunkhouse with three snoring guys. I needed a friend, and the
only one I had was with his fiancée nursing sore knuckles and
probably getting a winner’s blow job.
There was only one place I could think to go.
 5

“You Belong With Me” 3:53

THE GARAGE WAS dark and silent. Hot too. No one was around. No
one would be until tomorrow morning. My car gleamed under the
red exit sign as I broke through the door. She was my only girlfriend
on the team, and I needed someone to talk to. I breathed a sigh of
relief for what felt like the first time in weeks. I was at home there.
With all the tools and hydraulic equipment, it reminded me of Dad’s
shop. So I untied my boots and slid them off. My jeans followed. It
made the warm air bearable, and so did the cool metal of her hood
as I laid back with bent elbows to rest my head on my hands.
Staring at the ceiling, I opened the flood gates, spewing every
thought in my head. Was I crazy? One hundred percent. Finn made
me crazy, but somehow I had to expel the wild burst of excitement
that had flooded my veins since he threw that first punch. And she
had to listen. Besides, we needed to know each other if we were
going to be partners. So I chatted about my parents, my cousins,
and Aunt Margaret who died years ago but had still visited me in my
dreams. I told her about Hamilton and growing up a Kavanagh. We
had purpose and sometimes too much pride, but it was the best
family. One I wanted to impress. Show them that I could make it in
this business.
 The conversation moved to Finn. How could it not? She didn’t
judge. She paid close attention as I listed his stats, professional and
personal. I slowed down when I confessed how I wanted him, how I
wanted him to take me. Use me and my body. Strip my clothes.
Spread me open with his hands and the breadth of his shoulders. I’d
watch as his lids would blink over dark eyes and his tongue would
scrape over his bottom lip. His fingers would dig into my thighs. It
would hurt with the most beautiful pain, before he licked me into
exquisite pleasure.
And then I remembered that he wasn’t mine.
My heart stuttered as I stared at the open rafters. “It’s one of
those things, you know? I want to shake him and scream ‘You
belong with me!’”
“Is that right?”
I twisted up in a second, my pulse a frantic beat in my neck.
“Finn?”
He was wrapped in shadow. The red glare from the sign above
his head couldn’t reach him, which meant I couldn’t make out his
face or his reaction. A million questions spun through my mind. The
most important: how long had he been there?
I only had to wait a minute before I had the answer. “Tell me
again how you want me to use you, Kavanagh?”
The husky turn to his voice had to have been my imagination. He
always had a rasp, but this was a new low, and I had to rub my
thighs together to alleviate the pressure. That’s when I recalled they
were bare. He took that moment to step into the limited light. A god
sculpted to perfection, he was hard angles and long lines. I
squirmed from my perch, but he held out a hand to stop me.
“Stay.”
 I did. I didn’t move a muscle, finding it easy to listen and obey
his command. I also found I liked it and wanted another one. He
moved to face me; his jaw was tight as his gaze dragged over my
heaving chest. My nipples pebbled into knots beneath my tank from
his slow perusal.
“We shouldn’t be here.” I don’t know where the thought came
from. I mean, I did. I really and truly wasn’t a cheater, and I knew
the way he looked at me was wrong. It was so wrong it was also
right. Finn Savage was my gladiator. He’d fought for me. He’d do it
again, and I was his prize. Together we had no limits. I’d never fit
with anyone like I did with him. But we both knew something,
someone, stood between us. “Isla.”
Her name was a hiss breaking through the steam. He stopped his
sordid gaze at my bikini line and swung it up to find mine. “I just
came from her.” He didn’t look at all contrite from the admission.
“We’re done.”
“How?”
A twist took his mouth then. A devilish tilt at the corner. “Would
you like the exact words I used? The details, Dani, will they help?
Will it free your soul to know I told her she wasn’t who I thought she
was? Or that my feelings weren’t strong enough for marriage. Or
that what we had isn’t what either of us deserves. It was all of those
things and more.”
“Oh.” His hand was on me. My breath caught as his thumb ran
over my Achilles heel and then the other, suddenly gripping both my
ankles to yank me down to straddle his thighs. “Finn.”
I arched to keep an eye on him and the tug of his smile. “Do you
want me here?” The words were murmured as he tilted his head and
twisted a piece of my wayward hair around a finger. He looked at it,
at me. His eyes were so hot I burned inside, the heat a velvet
embrace that wrapped around my entire body.
“I don’t want you to ever leave.” My truth hung just beyond my
lips, never to be returned.
“Never?”
“I wasn’t lying—”
His hand dropped to squeeze my breast through the thin fabric of
my tank. I hissed and pushed into his palm. “About?”
“What I wanted.”
“From?”
“You.” I squirmed, wiggling closer. So close I could feel the hard
outline of his cock pressed against his zipper and now against the
pulsing heat between my legs. “I want you, Finn. Please… I’ll do
whatever….” I stopped when he twisted my nipple and nearly came
from that alone.
“Tell me.”
“Whatever you want.”
He growled and bent over me, his hands now spread on either
side of the hood next to my shoulders that were pressed down by
his sheer size. “Not good enough. What do you want, Dani? Tonight
is about your needs.”
I whimpered, stared at his mouth, then the flames lapping in the
color of his eyes. He was hot for me—for Dani Kavanagh. And before
I could list the long litany of things I’d needed from him for so long,
I demanded the only thing I’d thought about for years.
“Kiss me.”
His gaze softened for a swift moment, and the lips I’d longed for
were on mine. They were soft, so warm, a firm presence until he
parted my mouth with his own and slid his tongue inside. My fingers
found his hair, and I pulled him closer. My legs shook but made their
way around his waist. I rubbed against him, against his dick that I
was eager to free. And so I did. I only fumbled with his belt for a
second. His zipper for another. I shoved my hand into his briefs and
tugged his shaft free. His groan told me he liked that. That my fist
around him felt good. He fucked into it. His hips exploded forward,
thrusting as if he was inside of me, and I couldn’t wait for him to be
exactly there.
I tried to break from his mouth, to beg him to take me, but Finn,
he had other plans. He deepened our kiss. He kissed me until I
couldn’t breathe or think or remember where we were. Then he was
gone, bent to clip my tit between his teeth for a moment while his
fingers slid beneath my underwear to rip them away. And then he
moved down and really kissed me. He kissed my clit softly at first,
tenderly, before his eyes rolled up and he closed them while he lost
himself in my cunt.
I gasped and spread my legs wider, grabbing his hair and
unabashedly holding him to me. His tongue. His teeth. He rubbed
and scraped, licked and sucked while I demanded more with
incoherent mumbling. It was his fingers though, first one and then
another, that had my head thrown back and a scream burning in my
lungs.
“Oh God, Finnegan.”
He smiled before pressing his glistening mouth to my inner thigh.
“Does it feel as good as you taste?”
“Better.” He pumped his hand at the praise. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Make me come. I need to.”
“With my mouth on you or you around my cock?”
“Both.”
 The twinkle in his eyes dimmed, he lost his grin, and he went to
work. He sucked and teased, licked and made me into a wildcat
beneath him. Oh, I begged. I pleaded and whimpered, swore and
demanded he finish me off with a roar. And when his fingers rubbed
the sweet spot that made my toes curl and his mouth clamped over
my clit, I stopped watching his head sway between my legs. I closed
my eyes and let the tension burst into contractions that started in
my core and shook my limbs all the way to my fingertips.
There was no time to recover. Not a second to appreciate his
swollen lips or panted breath. He was above me, shoving his pants
just beyond his ass, and then he was there. The fat head of his cock
pressed against my heat, pushing into me as he hissed and bit into
the round swell of my breast. God, I wanted this. I wanted him. I
had for so long it seemed, and yet it was really no time at all.
“Do it, Finnegan,” I goaded and swiveled forward, dragging my
nails against his neck and across his T-shirt covered shoulders. “Do
it, please. Fuck me so hard I’ll feel you next week. I need to
remember this for a lifetime.”
He looked up, his hair falling over his forehead, hindering my
view. I moved the lock, held his eye contact, and cupped his cheek
as he pushed forward. As he filled me. As I felt for the first time
what it meant to be whole, yet to still want more. To need it. But
Finn, Lord help me, he knew. He knew exactly what to do. After a
minute, a moment where he let my body adjust to his size, he pulled
back and drove inside. He rammed and thrust, pounding in a
cadence with my scrambling heart.
I clutched him to me, but through the wild fucking, our eyes
never wavered. His vision clung to mine, just as my fingers found his
nape and held him a breath away. So close, he could do nothing but
pant into my mouth and move his wicked hips. I didn’t know what to
say, how I could let him know that he was prefect. We were perfect.
That this night, this wild, crazy, fucking night meant more to me
than any other day in my whole life. So I just stared, kissed him
when I could, and groaned when his pelvis rubbed my clit in the
best way, in a way that forced my body to seize around his cock. It
squeezed and clenched him as I cried out and clutched him tighter.
He rode me through the waves, pumping into me until I thought I’d
die from the sheer pleasure. When the last tremor passed, he pulled
out.
“Lift your shirt.”
I did as he asked. His cock glistened in the dim light. He had his
fist around it, pumping, all while he watched me raise my tank.
“I want to see your tits.”
God, it was so hot. He was so hot, and I raced to comply, eager
to feel his searing heat brand my skin. A tug and then a pull, he
exploded with long spurts of come lacing across my chest. He
pumped again, milking his shaft as he groaned through a final
shudder. We both watched him handle his cock, rub it again, and
press it against my wet cunt. His fat crown teased my clit. He did it
again and didn’t stop until I squirmed beneath his pressure.
His head tilted up, that crazy smirk taking over his mouth.
“Again, Dani?”
“God, yes.”
“What’s that, Dani? Hey….”
The rumble I felt came from somewhere out of this world. It
shook me in a way Finn wasn’t. It crumbled my vision and took Finn
with it. I blinked my eyes open and quickly shielded them with a
hand. “What the fuck?” The question wasn’t for anyone but myself,
yet it gained a chuckle.
 I shot up, looking around in a frantic search of my surroundings.
The garage. My car. The cool metal of her hood was under my ass.
“Holy shit.”
The laugh again, stronger this time. I turned, pressing my crazy
hair away from my face as I did. A smile split Clint Bower’s cheeks,
even as he had enough sense to look toward the exit sign—the
entrance that housed a mechanic and a crew chief, each waiting to
enter.
“Hey, ugh….”
“Oh my God. I fell asleep.”
“I think you did more than that.” Clint’s cheeks burned brighter
than the sun streaming through the door, and I knew he was witness
to the orgasm Finn beat out of me with the pounding of his amazing
hips. His amazing dream-fueled hips.
I hung my head and laughed then. Really laughed. I’d had my
best day and then the best night of my life. Even if it was all make
believe. I didn’t mind. And I also didn’t mind if there was a witness
to my joy. Nothing could detract from that memory. But I was in my
underwear, and I did have a race today.
“I’ll be right out.”
“Yeah sure. But, Dani…” I caught his eyes as I hopped down and
grabbed my jeans. I had one leg shoved inside and one out when he
continued. “Let me know if you want some help.” He winked and
then chuckled again. “It can be even better with a partner.”
He walked away, taking the team with him. I couldn’t hold in my
smile as I leaned against my car and thought about everything,
about Finn and what brought me to this moment. I had no problem
with the speed in which I fell for that man. I also knew he wasn’t
leaving Isla. Somewhere, post-orgasmic dream, I’d come to terms
with his relationship status. It also might have been time to do
something about mine. I stared at the door Clint had used and
thought a little about his offer. Maybe. I nodded and then turned to
stare at the gleaming number nineteen painted boldly on the driver’s
side door.
“What do you say, girl?”
I didn’t expect an answer. She’d stuck with me through all my
practice runs and yesterday’s heat. She’d held on strong during my
confession and through the virtual pounding from Finn.
Birds of a feather… Rae’s proverb split my brain for a second as I
caressed a fender.
“Bird,” I said out loud, and something snapped into place.
“Birdie.”
I fell on top of Birdie, this time hugging her hood with another
laugh. I knew who she was, just as I knew who I was. A daughter. A
cousin and a niece. A friend. And a race car driver with my whole
career expanding before my eyes.
I lifted my cheek onto my hand and remembered my dream. Finn
was a part of me. I would have to wait to find out just how much.

FIND OUT HOW THIS FRIENDS-TO-LOVERS, extra-steamy, edge of

your seat romance ends — Heat is LIVE and FREE with KU!

Sparks fly—on and off the track!

✔Fiery, stubborn, determined female lead

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✔Intense chemistry & witty banter
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doubt not but she will soon get over it, for she is quite accustomed to
these sorts of disappointments.” A week later the topic was again
referred to. “‘The winds and the waves,’ says the sagacious Mr. Puff,
‘are the established receptacles of the sighs and tears of unhappy
lovers.’ Now, my dear mamma, as there is little wind in this heated
atmosphere, and as the muddy waters of the Thames would scarcely
be purified by the crystal tears of all the gentle lovers in the
metropolis, it would almost seem that my evil destiny has fixed on
me to supply their place; for, from the staid and prudent lover of fifty,
to the poor languishing maiden of twenty-five, I am the general
confidante, and sighs and blushes, hopes and fears, are ‘all poured
into my faithful bosom.’ It is inconceivable how that mischievous little
urchin deadens all the faculties. Mary Mitford [her cousin] was bad
enough, but even she was more rational than Victoire at this
moment.” Thus Miss Mitford on the love-affairs of others.
This London visit, which resulted, we are told, in “a total
destruction of gloves and shoes, and no great good to my lilac
gown,” was brought to an end in a perfect whirl of festivities and
sight-seeing. “As you and I do not deal in generalities,” wrote Miss
Mitford to her mother, “I will give you my account in detail.... On
Friday evening I dined at the St. Quintin’s, and we proceeded [to the
Opera House] to take possession of our very excellent situation, a pit
box near to the stage and next the Prince’s.... Young is an admirable
actor; I greatly prefer him to Kemble, whom I had before seen in the
same character (Zanga in The Revenge). His acting, indeed, is more
in the style of our favourite Cooke, and he went through the whole of
his most fatiguing character with a spirit which surprised every one.
A curious circumstance happened—not one of the party was
provided with that article, so essential to tragedy, yclept a
handkerchief; and had not papa supplied the weeping beauties with
this necessary appendage, they would have borne some
resemblance to a collection of blurred schoolboys. To me, you know,
this was of no consequence, for I never cry at a play; though few
people, I believe, enter more warmly into its beauties.... The dancing
of Vestris is indeed perfection. The ‘poetry of motion’ is exemplified
in every movement, and his Apollo-like form excels any idea I had
ever formed of manly grace. Angiolini is a very fine dancer, but her
figure by no means equals Vestris’s, and I had no eyes for her while
he remained upon the stage.... It was one o’clock before we
returned; and at ten the next morning Fanny and I set out to make
our round of visits in a very handsome landau barouche.” These
visits are then described, and the hope expressed that she will meet
Cobbett, a meeting to which she was looking forward. Continuing,
she writes:—“To-morrow we go first to Bedlam; then to St. James’
Street to see the Court people; and then I think I shall have had
more than enough of sights and dissipation. You cannot imagine, my
dearest mamma, how much I long to return home, and to tell you all
the anecdotes I have picked up, and pet my poor deserted darlings. I
would have given up any pleasure I have partaken here to have
seen the dear bullfinches eat their first strawberries. Did I tell you
that the high and mighty Countess D’Oyerhauser called on me
immediately after her return from Bath? She sets up for a femme
savante, attends the blue-stocking meetings at Lady Cork’s, and all
the literary societies where she can find or make an entrance. She
is, therefore, in raptures at finding a fresh poetess, and we are going
there this evening. I must tell you a good trait of this literary lady,
who can scarcely speak a word of English. She was to meet Scott on
Tuesday, and wanted to borrow a Marmion, that she might have two
or three lines to quote in the course of the evening.”
Upon her return home Miss Mitford devoted herself assiduously to
her literary work, polishing many of her earlier poems in preparation
for a volume which it was proposed should be published early in the
following year. Many of these had politics for their theme and were
written in honour of the political friends of her father, such as Colonel
Wardle, Cobbett and Fox, while others were devoted to portraying
her love for flowers and animals. To her father, still in London, and
now to be found at the Bath Hotel in Arlington Street, was given the
duty of arranging the volume for publication, and, taken altogether
the little volume put both father and daughter in a great flurry. It was
decided to call the volume Miscellaneous Poems, which settled, a
discussion arose as to whom it should be dedicated. Various names
were suggested to be at last discarded in favour of the Hon. William
Herbert, the third son of the first Earl of Carnarvon, and afterwards
Dean of Manchester. He was himself an author of distinction with a
leaning to the poetry of Danish and Icelandic authors, some of
whose works he had translated. At first the Doctor objected to certain
adulatory poems addressed to himself, but the objections were
promptly met with an entreaty that nothing should be curtailed or
omitted. “I speak not only with the fondness of a daughter, but with
the sensibility (call it irritability, if you like it better) of a poet, when I
assure you that it will be impossible to omit any of the lines without
destroying the effect of the whole, and there is no reason, none
whatever, excepting your extreme modesty, why any part of them
should be suppressed.”
A few days later the poet wrote off in a frenzy of “excitement”
because she could not compose the “advertisement” which it was
usual to prefix to works of this kind—a sort of apology which most
people skipped and which might therefore be omitted without hurt to
the volume. “It is usual,” she urged, “for people to give some reasons
for publishing, but I cannot, you know, for the best of all possible
reasons—because I have none to give.” The matter was eventually
settled, to be followed by disputes as to the “quantity of verses”
which the Doctor thought necessary to a proper sized volume. He
was for asking the opinion of literary friends such as Campbell, but to
this his daughter strongly objected. “If you had known your own mind
respecting the quantity of poetry necessary for the volume, I should
never have thought of writing this immoral production. As, however, I
am by no means desirous of having it hawked about among your
canting friends, I shall be much obliged to you to put your copy into
the fire. You need not fear my destroying my own, for I think too well
of it.... I am not angry with you, though extremely provoked at those
canting Scotchmen. If any of my things are worth reading, I am sure
that poor tale is; and who reads a volume of poems to glean moral
axioms? So that there is nothing offensive to delicacy, or good taste,
it is sufficient; and I never should think of writing a poem with a
sermon tacked to its tail.”
At length the volume was printed, at a cost of £59 for 500 copies.
This work was entrusted to A. J. Valpy, the nephew of Dr. Valpy, who
had just set up as a printer in London and required immediate
payment for the job. Both the author and her father thought the sum
excessive, especially as it included an item of £4 for alterations
which the printer called “Errata,” much to Miss Mitford’s annoyance,
she claiming that they were misprints and not, therefore, chargeable
to her. Much bickering ensued, and the young printer was separately
threatened with a horsewhipping from the Doctor and with boxed
ears from Miss Mitford.
The publication of this book afforded the Doctor a very good
excuse for prolonging his stay in the metropolis, for he could now
plead that his daughter’s welfare as an author demanded it. That he
did exert himself in her behalf is certain, for we find her sending him
“ten thousand thanks for the management of the Reviews,” although
“I am sadly afraid of not being noticed in the Edinburgh, the volume
is so trifling.” This was followed by a further “ten thousand thanks for
your attention to my commissions, and, above all, for the books,” in
which was included Crabbe’s poem, The Borough, just published,
and which drew from Miss Mitford the exuberant statement “it is a
rich treat ... with all the finish and accuracy of the Dutch painters,”
while, “in the midst of my delight, I feel a sort of unspeakable
humiliation, much like what a farthing candle (if it could feel) would
experience when the sun rises in all his glory and extinguishes its
feeble rays.” Miss Mitford was an impulsive creature, and in three
days’ time, after she had had an opportunity of thoroughly digesting
The Borough, she wrote:—“Crabbe’s poem is too long and contains
too gloomy a picture of the world. This is real life, perhaps; but a little
poetical fairyland, something to love and admire, is absolutely
necessary as a relief to the feelings, among his long list of follies and
crimes. Excepting one poor girl weeping over the grave of her lover,
there is not one chaste female through the whole book. This is
shocking, is it not, my darling? I dare say he is some crabbed old
bachelor, and deserves to be tossed in a blanket for his contempt of
the sex.” It was shocking of the critic too, for, ignoring her atrocious
pun on the poet’s name, she made a very bad guess in quoting him
as a bachelor, seeing that, as was well known, he was not only a
happy father, but very fond of the society of the ladies.
It is pleasant to note that the Hon. William Herbert accepted the
Dedication of the volume, which drew from him an appreciation in
verse composed of most flattering sentiments, in which he paid a
tribute to not only Miss Mitford’s ability as a poet, but to her political
leanings, in describing which he contrived to include a compliment to
her father. He also hinted that the fair writer would find a worthy
subject for her pen in the recent British Expedition to Copenhagen, a
subject about which much controversy raged. These verses were
dated March 29, 1810, inscribed “To Miss Mitford,” and began:—

“Fair nymph, my Arctic harp unstrung,

Mute on the favourite pine is hung;
No beam awakes the airy soul
Which o’er its chords wild warbling stole.”

After much more in this strain, he concluded

“Thou tuneful maid, thy ardent song

Shall tell of Hafnia’s bitter wrong:
My pen has force with magic word
To blast the fierce-consuming sword.
For not poetic fire alone
Is thine to warm a breast of stone;
But thou hast quaffed the purest rays
That round the patriot’s forehead blaze.”

This, of course, inspired a reply by return. It is dated March 31,

1810, and, after paying homage to “the gifted bard,” Miss Mitford
concluded with the modest lines:—

“For me—unskilful to prolong

The finely modulated song—
Whose simple lay spontaneous flows
As Nature charms, or feeling glows,
Wild, broken, artless as the strains
Of linnets on my native plains,
And timid as the startled dove,
Scared at each breeze that waves the grove;
 Still may that trembling verse have power
To cheer the solitary hour,
Of Spring’s life-giving beauties tell,
Or wake at friendship’s call the spell.
Enough to bless my simple lays,
That music-loved Herbert deigned to praise.”

In a letter to her father she confesses that although Mr. Herbert did
her great honour in thinking her adequate to deal with the
Copenhagen subject, she had no faith in her powers to do so,
adding, “And to tell you the truth (which I beg you will not tell him), I
do not think I would write upon it even if I could. Cobbett would never
forgive me for such an atrocious offence; and I would not offend him
to please all the poets in the world.”
The little volume was greeted very cordially by the reviewers and
secured its author a good deal of compliment from her father’s
political friends when she occasionally ran up to town at this time to
give her father the chance of showing her off. But while grateful to
the reviewers, she took exception to some of the conclusions they
drew from the political verses in the book. “How totally reviewers
have mistaken matters,” she wrote to her father, “in attributing my
political fancies to you! They would have been more correct if they
had asserted a directly contrary opinion; for Cobbett is your favourite
because he is mine,”—a doubtful compliment to the father but quite
characteristic of the daughter.
It was well that Miss Mitford had so much that was congenial and
engrossing wherewith to occupy her at this time, for the shadow was
again hovering over the home at Bertram House, and creditors were
beginning to be unpleasant in their demands and threats. Hints of
the existing state of things were conveyed to the Doctor from time to
time and must have caused great anxiety to Mrs. Mitford, who did
not share her husband’s and her daughter’s optimism.
“Do not forget that, if the tax money be not paid early this week,
you will be reported as a defaulter; and your friends the ministers
would take great delight in popping you up.” This was contained in a
letter of March 17, 1810. A week later a letter addressed to the
Doctor at the Mount Coffee House, states:—“A letter came from
Thompson Martin this morning which, knowing the hand, mamma
opened. It was to request you would let him take the choice of your
pictures [in payment of taxes]. I wrote a note to say, generally, that
you had been in town for the last two months, and were still there;
but that you would probably return next week to attend the Grand
Jury, and would undoubtedly take an early opportunity of calling
upon him. Was not this right? You will collect from this that we have
received a summons from the under-sheriff, which was given over
the pale to William this morning.” There is also, in a letter of May 10,
1810, a suggestion of further trouble of a pecuniary nature, although
it is difficult to say to what it refers. “And now let me give you a little
serious advice, my dear son and heir. If those people do not give you
a secure indemnity, stir not a finger in this business. Let them ‘go to
the devil and shake themselves,’ for I would not trust one of them
with a basket of biscuits to feed my dogs. They have no more honour
between them all than you ‘might put on the point of a knife, and not
choke a daw withal,’ so comfort yourself accordingly; treat them as
you would lawyers or the king’s ministers, or any other fraternity of
known rogues and robbers.”
No matter how optimistic Miss Mitford may have been, we cannot
bring ourselves to believe that she was not harassed by the
importunate creditors, or that her work did not suffer in consequence.
One effect of it all was, of course, to make her re-double her efforts
to write something which would bring money into the family coffers.

FOOTNOTES:
[16] Writing in 1818 to her friend, Mrs. Hofland, she jokingly refers
to an American—“a sort of lover of mine some seven or eight
years ago—and who, by the way, had the good luck to be
drowned instead of married”; but in this she is scarcely to be
taken seriously.
 CHAPTER X

A YEAR OF ANXIETY

While her first book was passing through the press, Miss Mitford paid
a series of hurried visits to London, and it was during the course of
one of these visits that she was introduced to a gentleman of wide
sympathy and of great culture and ability. This was Sir William
Elford, one of her father’s friends, although the friendship was not of
that character which would blind the one to the other’s faults and
failings. He was a Fellow of the Royal and Linnæan Societies, an
exhibitor in the Royal Academy, and Recorder of Plymouth, for which
borough he was representative in Parliament for a number of years.
At the time of this introduction he was well over sixty, a man of an
age therefore with whom Miss Mitford was not so likely to be
reserved as with one of fewer years. As a result of this meeting a
correspondence was started which continued for many years, during
which time Sir William encouraged his young friend to write freely to
him on any and every topic which interested her. It is a remarkable
and interesting correspondence, as the occasional extracts we
propose to give will prove, although, when he came to bear his share
in editing these letters, the Rev. William Harness spoke of them as
possessing “hardly any merit but high, cold polish, all freshness of
thought being lost in care about the expression”; and again, “I like all
the letters to Sir W. Elford, which (except when she forgets whom
she is writing to and is herself again) are in conventional English and
almost vulgar in their endeavour to be something particularly good.”
Nevertheless, he confessed later “the letters improve as I go on.
Even those to Sir W. Elford get easier and better, as she became
less upon punctilio and more familiar with him; in fact, as—with all
her asserted deference—she felt herself more and more his superior
in intellect and information.”
The first letter was dated London, May 26, 1810, and was
addressed to Sir William Elford, Bart., Bickham, Plymouth.
“My dear Sir,—
“Your most kind but too flattering letter followed me here
two days ago, and I gladly avail myself of your permission
to express my heartfelt gratitude for the indulgence with
which you have received the trifling volume I had the
honour to send you.
“For the distinguished favour you mean to confer on me”
[a present of a landscape painted by himself], “I cannot
sufficiently thank you. Highly valuable it will doubtless be in
itself, and I shall consider it inestimable as a proof of your
good opinion. Indeed, Sir William, your praise has made
me very vain. It is impossible not to be elated by such
approbation, however little I may have deserved it.
“Will you not think me an encroacher if, even while
acknowledging one favour, I sue for another? Much as I
have heard of your charming poetical talent, I have never
seen any of your verses, and, if it be not too much to ask, I
would implore you to send me at least a specimen. Forgive
this request if you do not comply with it, and believe me,
dear Sir, with great respect,
“Your obliged and grateful
“Mary Russell Mitford.”
This was not a bad beginning, although the “high, cold polish” is
unmistakable. Her request was at once complied with, and
emboldened by her success Miss Mitford plunged forthwith into a
series of literary discussions which ran, more or less steadily,
throughout the whole of this lengthy correspondence. The second
letter—a characteristic one—is particularly interesting because it
touches on her taste and predilection for country sights and sounds
and which found the fullest expression in the one notable work by
which she is remembered.
“You are quite right in believing my fondness for rural scenery to
be sincere; and yet one is apt to fall into the prevailing cant upon
those subjects. And I am generally so happy everywhere, that I was
never quite sure of it myself, till, during the latter part of my stay in
town, the sight of a rose, the fragrance of a honeysuckle, and even
the trees in Kensington Gardens excited nothing but fruitless wishes
for our own flowers and our own peaceful woodlands. Having
ascertained the fact, I am unwilling to examine the motives; for I fear
that indolence of mind and body would find a conspicuous place
amongst them. There is no trouble or exertion in admiring a beautiful
view, listening to a murmuring stream, or reading poetry under the
shade of an old oak; and I am afraid that is why I love them so well.
“It is impossible to mention poetry without thinking of Walter Scott.
It would be equally presumptuous in me either to praise or blame
The Lady of the Lake; but I should like to have your opinion of that
splendid and interesting production. Have you read a poem which is
said to have excited the jealousy of our great modern minstrel, The
Fight of Falkirk?” [by Miss Holford.] “I was delighted with the fire and
genius which it displays, and was the more readily charmed,
perhaps, as the author is a lady; which is, I hear, what most
displeases Mr. Scott.
“I enclose you Robert Jeffery’s Lament, altered according to your
suggestions.... This little poem is not inscribed to you, because I am
presumptuous enough to hope that at some future period you will
allow me to usher a book into the world under your auspices. A long
poem is to me so formidable a task that I fear it will scarcely be
completed by next year (it is now indeed hardly begun)—but when
finished, I shall make a new demand upon your kindness, by
submitting it to your criticism and correction. I am quite ashamed of
this letter. A lady’s pen, like her tongue, runs at a terrible rate when
once set a-going.”
Having inveigled Sir William into a discussion of Scott versus Miss
Holford, the attack was renewed in a subsequent letter wherein the
“extraordinary circumstance” is noted that “the dénouement of
Marmion and that of The Lay of the Last Minstrel both turn on the
same discovery, a repetition which is wonderful in a man of so much
genius, and the more so as the incident is, in itself, so stale, so like
the foolish trick of a pantomime, that to have used it once was too
often.”
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the correspondents found
themselves agreed as to the respective merits of Miss Edgeworth,
Miss Baillie and Mrs. Opie, “three such women as have seldom
adorned one age and one country” ... although with regard to Miss
Edgeworth “perhaps you will think that I betray a strange want of
taste when I confess that, much as I admire the polished satire and
nice discrimination of character in the Tales of Fashionable Life, I
prefer the homely pathos and plain morality of her Popular Tales to
any part of her last publication.”
At her father’s suggestion Miss Mitford was now—the beginning of
the year 1811—devoting herself to the production of the long poem
which she mentioned in her second letter to Sir William Elford. Its
subject was the incidents on Pitcairn Island following the Mutiny of
the Bounty, which had been revealed in 1808 by Captain Folger.
During the progress of its composition the Dedication to Sir William
Elford was submitted to that gentleman for his approval, drawing
from him the very kind and flattering request that it should be
couched in less formal language; “he says that he perfectly
comprehends the honour I have done him by my description; but that
he wishes the insertion of some words to show that we are friends;
for to be considered the friend of the writer of that poem appears to
him a higher honour than any he could derive from the superiority of
station implied in my mode of dedication.” The matter was eventually
settled to the satisfaction of all. Meanwhile as each canto of the work
was completed it was submitted first to Sir William and then to
Coleridge, both of whom took great pains in giving it a final touch of
polish, especially the latter, who prepared it for the press.
The Doctor, still in London and now at 17, Great Russell Street,
Covent Garden, concerned himself with arranging for a publisher. He
had decided that Longmans should have the first refusal of the
honour, but Miss Mitford rather favoured Mr. Murray because “he is
reckoned a very liberal man, and a more respectable publisher we
cannot have. I do not think Longman will purchase it; so, even if you
have taken it there, it is probable Murray may buy it at last.” Messrs.
Rivington produced it eventually under the title of Christina: or the
Maid of the South Seas, but not before there had been an angry
outburst at Coleridge for deleting an Invocation to Walter Scott. Mrs.
Mitford was particularly angry and attributed the action to “a mean,
pitiful spirit of resentment to Mr. Scott” on Coleridge’s part. “Were the
poem mine,” she continued with a vehemence quite unusual with
her, “I would have braved any censure as to what he terms ‘bad
lines,’ being convinced he would have thought them beautiful had
they not contained a compliment to Walter Scott. If our treasure
follows my advice, whenever she prints another poem she will suffer
no one to correct the press but herself: it will save you infinite
trouble, and be eventually of great advantage to her works. It is
certainly a most extraordinary liberty Mr. C. has taken, and will, I
hope, be the last he will attempt.” Miss Mitford did not share her
mother’s indignation, although, as she wrote in a postscript to the
above letter, “mamma has played her part well. I did not think it had
been in her. We seem to have changed characters: she abuses Mr.
Coleridge, I defend him, though I must acknowledge I do not think he
would have found so many bad lines in the Invocation had not the
compliment to Walter Scott grated upon his mind. My only reason for
lamenting the omission is that it makes the poem look like a pig with
one ear; but it does not at all signify,” which was quite true, for
Christina enjoyed a considerable popularity both here and in
America, where a call was made for several editions.
This success must have been very gratifying, although any
pecuniary advantage it brought was immediately swallowed up in
trying to discharge the family’s obligations and to provide for present
dire needs. The situation was indeed pitiful, especially for the two
women, who were forced to appear before their friends with a smile
at a time when their hearts were heavy and desolation and ruin
seemed inevitable. A number of letters from Bertram House to Dr.
Mitford in London, during the year 1811, give sufficient indication of
the suffering they were enduring, and this at a time when Miss
Mitford was exercising her mind in the production of a work the
failure of which would have been a disaster. Under date January 21,
1811, she wrote: “Mr. Clissold and Thompson Martin came here
yesterday, my own darling, and both of them declared that you had
allowed Thompson Martin to choose what he would of the pictures,
excepting about a dozen which you had named to them; and I really
believe they were right, though I did not tell them so. Nothing on
earth could be more perfectly civil than they were; and Martin, to my
great pleasure and astonishment, but to the great consternation of
Clissold, fixed upon the landscape in the corner of the drawing-room,
with a great tree and an ass, painted by Corbould, 1803. It had taken
his fancy, he said; and, though less valuable than some of those you
offered to him, yet, as he did not mean to sell it, he should prefer it to
any other. I told him I would write you word what he said, and lauded
the gods for the man’s foolishness. I have heard you say fifty times
that the piece was of no consequence; and, indeed, as it is by a
living artist of no great repute, it is impossible that it should be of
much value. Of course you will let him have it; and I wish you would
write to inquire how it should be sent.”
These pictures were being taken in liquidation of debts, an incident
sufficient of itself to wound the pride of a woman like Mrs. Mitford.
But, in addition to this, she found herself faced with the problem of
dismissing servants and no money wherewith to settle up their
arrears of wages. It was one of the few occasions on which her too
gentle spirit rose in revolt. Accompanying her daughter’s letter she
sent a note to her husband stating: “I shall depend on a little supply
of cash to-morrow, to settle with Frank and Henry, as the few
shillings I have left will not more than suffice for letters, and such
trifles. As to the cause of our present difficulties, it avails not how
they originated. The only question is, how they can be most speedily
and effectually put an end to. I ask for no details, which you do not
voluntarily choose to make. A forced confidence my whole soul
would revolt at; and the pain it would give you to offer it would be far
short of what I should suffer in receiving it.” A dignified, yet tender
rebuke, showing a remarkable forbearance in a woman so greatly
wronged.
 Still worse was to follow, for at the beginning of March Dr. Mitford
was imprisoned for debt and only secured his release by means of
the proceeds of a hastily-arranged sale in town of more of his
pictures, augmented by a loan from St. Quintin. At the same time he
was involved with Nathaniel Ogle, “more hurt at your silence than at
your non-payment,” and was experiencing difficulties in regard to
certain land adjoining Bertram House for which he had long been
negotiating—having paid a deposit—but a transaction which Lord
Shrewsbury, the owner, hesitated to complete in view of the Doctor’s
unreliable position.
At length the anxiety became greater than Mrs. Mitford could bear,
and for a time she was prostrated.
“I am happy,” wrote Miss Mitford, “that the speedy disposal of the
pictures will enable you, as I hope it will, to settle this unpleasant
affair. Once out of debt and settled in some quiet cottage, we shall all
be well and happy again. But it must not be long delayed; for my
dear mother must be spared a repetition of such shocks.”
Even so, the Doctor gave the waiting women no information
regarding the sale of the pictures or the condition of affairs until Mrs.
Mitford reproved him for his neglect; but the reproof was softened in
her next letter, for she says: “I know you were disappointed in the
sale of the pictures. But, my love, if we have less wealth than we
hoped, we shall not have the less affection; these clouds may blow
over more happily than we have expected. We must not look for an
exemption from all the ills incident to humanity, and we have many
blessings still left us, the greatest of which is that darling child to
whom our fondest hopes are directed.”
Moved at last to desperate action, Dr. Mitford made an endeavour
to sell Bertram House, with the intention of removing to some less
pretentious dwelling, possibly in London. The property, described as
an “Elegant Freehold Mansion and 42 Acres of Rich Land (with
possession),” was put up for sale by auction at Messrs. Robins’, The
Piazza, Covent Garden, on June 22, 1811, but apparently the
reserve was not reached, and no sale was effected. Miss Mitford did
her best to straighten out matters, and indeed showed uncommon
aptitude for business in one whose whole education had been
classical. To her father, then staying at “New Slaughter’s Coffee
House,” she wrote on July 5, “The distressing intelligence conveyed
in your letter, my best-beloved darling, was not totally unexpected.
From the unpleasant reports respecting your affairs, I was prepared
to fear it. When did a ruined man (and the belief is as bad as the
reality) ever get half the value of the property which he is obliged to
sell? Would that Monck” [a near neighbour] “had bought this place
last autumn! At present the best we can do seems to me to be, to
relinquish the purchase of Lord Shrewsbury’s land, and (if it will be
sufficient to clear us, mortgage and all) to sell all we have out of the
funds, and with that, and Lord Bolton’s legacy, and the money in
Lord Shrewsbury’s hands, and the sale of the books and furniture,
clear off our debts and endeavour to let this house. If this can be
done, and we can get from three to four hundred a year for it, we
may live very comfortably; not in a public place, indeed, but in a
Welsh or Cumberland cottage, or in small London lodgings. Where is
the place in which, whilst we are all spared to each other, we should
not be happy? For the sale of the money in the funds, or rather for
Dr. Harness’s consent to it, I think I can be answerable. It will not,
four years hence, be worth a guinea, and it would now nearly clear
the mortgage, and we should retain our only real property. If the
thousand pounds of Lord Bolton, the six hundred of Lord
Shrewsbury, the three hundred at Overton, and the sale of stocks,
books, crops and furniture will clear all the other debts, this may still
be done. If not, we must take what we can get and confine ourselves
to still humbler hopes and expectations. This scheme is the result of
my deliberations. Tell me if you approve of it, and tell me, I implore
you, my most beloved father, the full extent of your embarrassments.
This is no time for false delicacy on either side. I dread no evil but
suspense. I hope you know me well enough to be assured that, if I
cannot relieve your sufferings, both pecuniary and mental, I will at
least never add to them. Whatever those embarrassments may be,
of one thing I am certain, that the world does not contain so proud,
so happy, or so fond a daughter. I would not exchange my father,
even though we toiled together for our daily bread, for any man on
earth, though he could pour all the gold of Peru into my lap. Whilst
we are together, we never can be wretched; and when all our debts
are paid, we shall be happy. God bless you, my dearest and most
beloved father. Pray take care of yourself, and do not give way to
depression. I wish I had you here to comfort you.”
The advertisement in the Reading papers, announcing the sale of
Bertram House, was, of course, something in the nature of a surprise
to the County folk, although, doubtless, some of them were
sufficiently well-informed to know that the Mitfords were in trouble.
“There is no news in this neighbourhood,” wrote Miss Mitford to Sir
William Elford, “excepting what we make ourselves by our intended
removal; and truly I think our kind friends and acquaintances ought
to be infinitely obliged to us for affording them a topic of such
inexhaustible fertility. Deaths and marriages are nothing to it. There
is, where they go? and why they go? and when they go? and how
they go? and who will come? and when? and how? and what are
they like? and how many in family? and more questions and
answers, and conjectures, than could be uttered in an hour by three
female tongues, or than I (though a very quick scribbler) could write
in a week.”
There was a very practical side to Miss Mitford’s nature and, for a
woman, a somewhat uncommon disregard for the conventions, a
disregard which developed with her years. Consequently, what
people thought or said affected her very little, and she devoted her
mind rather to solving difficulties than to wringing her hands over
them. That indolence of mind and body, of which she was self-
accused, she conquered, and though domestic troubles were
heaped about her, she set to work on a new poem which was to be
entitled Blanch of Castile.
To her father she wrote: “I wish to heaven anybody would give me
some money! If I get none for Blanch, I shall give up the trade in
despair. I must write Blanch—at least, begin to write it, soon. I wish
you could beg, borrow, or steal (anything but buy) Southey’s
Chronicle of the Cid, and bring it down for me.”... A week or so later
she wrote: “I have now seven hundred lines written; can you sound
any of the booksellers respecting it? I can promise that it shall be a
far superior poem to Christina, and I think I can finish it by
November. We ought to get something by it. It will have the
advantage of a very interesting story, and a much greater variety of
incident and character. I only hope it may be productive.”
Throughout the letters of this period it is rather pathetic to notice
the forced optimism of the writer, especially in those addressed to
her father. Sandwiched between reports of progress with Blanch are
the most insignificant details of home, of Marmion’s prowess with a
rabbit; of the ci-devant dairymaid Harriet, who, at the request of her
admirer, William, had consented to leave her place at Michaelmas to
share his fate and Mrs. Adams’s cottage; of Mia’s puppies, and of
the pretty glow-worms which she would so love to show the errant
one had she the felicity to have him by her side.
More than this, it is astounding to gather from her letters to Sir
William Elford that she was keeping up her reading, expressing
herself most decisively regarding Scott’s new poems, the preference
for which in Edinburgh she deems unlikely to extend southward; and
then falling-to at Anna Seward’s letters—The Swan of Lichfield—just
published in six volumes and which she finds “affected, sentimental,
and lackadaisical to the highest degree; and her taste is even worse
than her execution.... According to my theory, letters should
assimilate to the higher style of conversation, without the snip-snap
of fashionable dialogue, and with more of the simple transcripts of
natural feeling than the usage of good society would authorize.
Playfulness is preferable to wit, and grace infinitely more desirable
than precision. A little egotism, too, must be admitted; without it, a
letter would stiffen into a treatise, and a billet assume the ‘form and
pressure’ of an essay. I have often thought a fictitious
correspondence (not a novel, observe) between two ladies or
gentlemen, consisting of a little character, a little description, a little
narrative, a little criticism, a very little sentiment and a great deal of
playfulness, would be a very pleasing and attractive work: ‘A very
good article, sir’ (to use the booksellers’ language); ‘one that would
go off rapidly—pretty, light summer reading for the watering-places
and the circulating libraries.’ If I had the slightest idea that I could
induce you to undertake such a work by coaxing, by teasing, or by
scolding, you should have no quarter from me till you had promised
or produced it.”
How light-hearted! And, moreover, how strangely prophetic was
this promised success for the book written on the lines suggested,
when we remember the unqualified welcome given to a delightful
novel, a few seasons ago, which surely might have been made up
from this very prescription. Had Mr. E. V. Lucas been delving in
Mitfordiana, we wonder, or was Listeners’ Lure but another instance
of great minds thinking the same thoughts?
 CHAPTER XI

LITERARY CRITICISM AND AN

UNPRECEDENTED COMPLIMENT

“As soon as I have finished Blanch to please myself, I have

undertaken to write a tragedy to please Mr. Coleridge, whilst my
poem goes to him, and to Southey and to Campbell. When it returns
from them I shall, if he will permit me, again trouble my best and
kindest critic to look over it. This will probably not be for some
months, as I have yet two thousand lines to write, and I expect Mr.
Coleridge to keep it six weeks at least before he looks at it.” This
extract is from one of Miss Mitford’s letters to Sir William Elford,
dated August 29, 1811, and it was not until exactly two months later
that she was able to forward the finished poem for Sir William’s
criticism.
It was a production of which her father thought little at first,
declaring that the title alone gave him the vapours. Her mother and
the maid Lucy were half-blinded with tears when it was read to them,
but then, as Miss Mitford remarked: “they are so tender-hearted that
I am afraid it is not a complete trial of my pathetic powers.” In this
case Sir William was the first to scan the lines, an arrangement due
possibly to the stress of work then being engaged in by Coleridge
and Campbell—the former with lectures on Poetry and the latter in
the writing of his famous biographical prefaces to his collection of the
poets. Eventually the book was produced in the December of 1812,
news of which, apart from any other source, we glean from a letter of
its author in which she says: “ Blanch is out—out, and I have not
sent her to you! The truth is, my dear Sir William, that there are
situations in which it is a duty to give up all expensive luxuries, even
the luxury of offering the little tribute of gratitude and friendship; and I
had no means of restraining papa from scattering my worthless book
all about to friends and foes, but by tying up my own hands from
presenting any, except to two or three very near relations. I have told
you all this because I am not ashamed of being poor, and because
perfect frankness is in all cases the most pleasant as well as the
most honourable to both parties.”
It was fortunate that Blanch was finished, for just as it was on the
point of completion, Miss Mitford was greatly excited over the
prospect of collaborating with Fanny Rowden in the translation of a
poem which would have given both a nice sum in return for their
labours. Unfortunately the project came to naught and the work was
entrusted to a man.
From now, on to the close of the year 1815, there is no record of
any work of Miss Mitford’s, unless we except one or two odes and
sonnets of which she said the first were “above her flight, requiring
an eagle’s wing,” while of the latter she “held them in utter
abhorrence.” Her time really seems to have been taken up with an
occasional visit to London and into Hampshire (where she inspected
her old birthplace, Alresford); with short excursions into Oxfordshire
(within an easy drive out and back from home), and largely with a
voluminous correspondence, chiefly on literary topics, with Sir
William Elford. Fortunately this correspondence was not wasted
labour as she was able to embody a very large proportion of it in the
Recollections of a Literary Life. Indeed, had she not specifically
suggested the plan of that work many years later, we should feel
justified in believing that, from the very outset, it was to such an end
that her correspondence and literary criticism were directed.
Now that a century has passed since the letters were written, it is
interesting to peruse her comments on such writers as Byron, Scott,
Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, all of whom were publishing at
that period. “I dislike Childe Harold,” she wrote. “Not but that there
are very many fine stanzas and powerful descriptions; but the
sentiment is so strange, so gloomy, so heartless, that it is impossible
not to feel a mixture of pity and disgust, which all our admiration of