Make Me Over_ Getting Real - Leslie Kelly [4]
Before he could exit, however, something came flying through the air from the group at the bar. He tried to duck, to no avail. The thing landed right on his head, dangling down to block his vision, and he blinked in response.
It took less than a second to realize exactly what he was looking at: a pair of black-and-red thong underwear.
And suddenly, because the thing rested right against his face with nothing to cover his eyes, Dr. Drew Bennett wished one more thing.
That he’d been wearing his glasses instead of his contacts.
I F SHE LIVED TO BE a hundred, Tori Lyons was never gonna make another deathbed promise. Specially to somebody who up and got better afterward. Seemed to her if you didn’t die, all bets should be off. Promises, too.
Not that she wasn’t happy Daddy had recovered from the heart attack that had about given them all heart attacks last September. She was. She thanked the Lord and all his little angels for his full recovery. Now, just three months later, he was back to his cantankerous self, on and off the track.
But she hadn’t counted on him holding her to her promise: to get some education. Criminy, when she’d made the durn promise, she’d figured he meant for her to take some shop courses at the tech school near home in Sheets Creek, Tennessee.
’Course, at the time, in the exam room of Doc Barnes’s vet clinic—where they’d taken Daddy on account of the closest hospital was forty miles away—she’d figured she might not have to go through with it. In the back of her mind, over the sound of Aunt Teeny wailin’ for Jesus to spare her brother, and Daddy’s girlfriend of fifteen years tellin’ him she’d skin him like a polecat if he died before he got around to marryin’ her, she’d figured it was a long shot. Because what high-tech school like Rudy B’s Garage of Higher Learnin’ would have her, a high-school dropout who’d only taken her GED two years ago ’cause it was the only way she could get her youngest brother to take it?
She’d passed. He hadn’t. Huh. Go figure.
Still, she’d made the promise, which she’da kept, if she’d been able to. Would’ve been a waste of time, of course. Tori’d been learning her trade since the age of five in the pits and garages of drag strips across America. Wasn’t much she couldn’t do with a torque wrench or a transmission. Or an engine that only ran the quarter mile in six seconds at Talladega and needed to be under 5.6 by Music City.
But yessir, she woulda tried to keep her promise to her dear old departed daddy.
Only, the stubborn old cuss hadn’t departed. And to add insult to injury, he’d held her to her promise. Tori’d given in, if only so Daddy’d get some peace of mind knowin’ that when he finally did go to meet Jesus, he could be sure his kin on earth were doin’ what he wanted them to.
Just like they’d always done when he was alive.
She’d been fixin’ to start up in mechanic’s class come January. But noooooo, Daddy’d had some highfalutin educatin’ in mind. It was her bad luck that he’d run into some fella in Kentucky who was lookin’ for girls to be part of a big makeover thingamabob.
Which was how she’d ended up here. On the set of a hoity-toity, high-class reality TV show. When she should be home, not only helpin’ Daddy get back onto the NHRA—National Hot Rod Association—circuit, but also gearin’ up for Christmastime in Sheets Creek.
He’d never’ve asked one of her spoiled rotten brothers to do somethin’ so senseless. Then she scowled, the thought of her middle brother, Luther, makin’ her fingers curl up into fists. She’d like to land one of them on his fat nose.
The phone call she’d had from him last night at the hotel in Albany had repeated in her brain all night long. Stupid Luther and his stupid bettin’. That boy was too poor to pay attention, but he’d been runnin’ with the big dogs out at the track. He’d really done himself in this time and had told Tori she had to win on the show to come up with enough money to