Once her eye stopped watering, she took a deep breath and surveyed the damage. Yuck. Bloodshot was not the look she was going for. Served her right for waiting until the last minute to present crew chief Judd Timmons with the new-and-improved Roni Kenway. In the two years she'd worked with Judd, he'd never indicated that he thought of her as anything other than one of the guys.

That was a compliment, in a way, because female mechanics weren't that thick on the ground in NASCAR, and she'd done her level best to fit in. But there was a huge difference between fitting in and becoming invisible. And it was time Judd's intense blue gaze registered on her when he looked her way. The man flipped all her switches. She knew when he approached by the scent of him—tangy aftershave that made her think of how he'd look in front of a bathroom mirror, a razor in one hand and nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips.

This demonstrated how far gone she was. She'd pictured him in the shower after the workday, water sluicing down his chest and over… well, everything.

She'd had endless debates with herself about the color and texture of his chest hair. She imagined it was the same chocolate brown as the hair on his head, and he'd have just enough to look manly, just enough to brush against a woman's bare skin when they… Confession time, she'd imagined making love with Judd Timmons.

Unfortunately, she had l