All the mustangs in mont.., p.1
All the Mustangs in Montana, page 1
Contents
Title Page
Content Notes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Also by Red L. Jameson
About the Author
Copyright
Content Notes
Hello, dear reader!
A few things you might want to know before you start reading: Like usual in my writing, there’s swearing in this novel, including in French! Yippee, right?
Now to the more serious warnings: Charli is the daughter of a woman who went missing when Charli was a toddler. Indigenous women who are missing or murdered is a hard issue to cover, so please take care when reading.
Also discussed is stalking, lack of laws regarding stalking, and how systemic racism and laws intersect in horrific ways, as well as a recent Supreme Court decision regarding criminal laws on reservations.
Luc discovers he was conceived from rape, so there is much discussion about lack of consent, nuances of consent, power dynamics and much more that encompasses sex.
And there are discussions of racism, sexism, and classism.
* * *
As always, take care, lovely reader!
Chapter One
A YEAR AGO IN MONACO…
Downward spiral, meet rock bottom.
“Luc,” Sebastián Rodriguez, the principal for Luc’s Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, said, sounding quieter than usual, “The judges have made a decision about that little collision, er, bump you had a few laps ago.”
Luc Guthier had a hard time hearing Rodriguez over the roar of his car’s engine he was being so quiet, which made Luc’s stomach clench all the more while awaiting the verdict. He’d caused a teeny, tiny crash during the Circuit de Monaco race. The other driver was fine. Hell, he was fine. The other driver’s car…that was another matter. Luc had been in the fight of his life defending his first-place status in one of the more loopy, literally, races. His own teammate, an annoying American at that, Shawn Richardson, was challenging him at every turn, and some idiot in an Alfa Romeo kept pestering Richardson for second place.
Oui, this was the sport, to race toward a spot on the podium, to race toward a win. As a Formula One Champion—actually, Luc had won six championships, he knew this, of course. But today was not his day, despite his current first-place position. This…foutu day was very much not his, the day he’d discovered he came from hate and apathy, a kind of disgusting violence he couldn’t wrap his head around.
“Go ahead,” Luc said into his mic inside his helmet as he kept driving. “What wisdom do the judges bestow?” The sarcasm wasn’t needed, but he couldn’t seem to help himself on this day, this foutu day.
The teeny, tiny crash happened when Luc had pulled out of a pitstop and had scarcely tapped into the fourth place AlphaTauri. The driver was a fellow Frenchman, which Luc usually gave a little more leniency to, but Henri Pottings obviously hadn’t anticipated the tap, overcorrected, and in the process had blown a tire, then skid off course into the water barrels, his car totaled and him shaking a fist at Luc’s backside.
It had felt good, the teeny tiny crash, though it had been an accident. Of course. Luc was always more careful than that, known as The Gentleman in the racing world, a nickname the media had given him for being quiet and usually never knocking another racer into the skids. The impact had jarred his hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders. The painful electricity from the blow had felt like what was going on in his mind, in his heart. He had come from hate was all he could think about on this foutu day.
Luc could tell that Rodriguez was having a hard time telling him what the judges had decided about the crash. That wasn’t good. Richardson had somehow sped up and was looking dangerously close to overcoming Luc, but luckily curve One9 held him back, as well as that Alfa Romeo. Luc charged around One9, faster than he should have, losing a little traction. One of his back tires was holding on by a wing and prayer, so the skid around the curve wasn’t good for the car. It would mean a pitstop soon.
Rodriguez brought that up. “Luc, your left back tire is really bad. You’re going to have to come in right now.”
“It can last,” Luc said, gritting his teeth on the straightway as he sped faster than he ever had before. Someone else from the team came on the headset to tell him he had shaved off three seconds from his personal best on this stretch. That was good. Richardson was being so…American today, too aggressive and hostile for no reason. Gaining more distance from him was very good on this foutu day.
“No,” Rodriguez said. “It can’t. Listen, the judges gave you a ten second penalty.”
“Fuck,” Luc yelled in English, the swear cruder sounding than in French in his opinion. He knew he was being recorded but he still screamed, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He wanted to hit something, just slam into the water barrels, or knock his fists into a wall until he bled.
“It was a small bump.” Luc’s voice warbled, sounding far too emotional, like a petulant boy who wanted to negotiate his punishment. As he said the words, he knew they weren’t true. Henri Pottings was out of the race because of him.
“You have to come in, Luc,” Rodriguez said, his own voice warbling and emotional too.
The team knew what this meant. He failed in Monaco. The team would lose today because Luc’s head hadn’t been in the race. It was lost on this foutu day, this foutu, fucking day.
He inhaled, realizing his mother could probably hear him. She’d come as a surprise, the nearly seventy-year-old spritely soul who had supported him every step of the way. But she’d been needed when the PR team had come to him earlier in the day to inform him that for the documentary they were making about his life, how, when trying to find his biological mother, they had found her. She lived in a small, mainland Chinese village. For whatever reason, Luc had gotten it in his head that his mother would be Taiwanese and would be tall like him and pretty and maybe a lawyer or a politician. But his biological mother was a farmer and short, though she was beautiful—his PR team had given him pictures before being told she wanted nothing to do with him, making him wonder if his PR team had taken the pictures without her consent. She wanted nothing to do with Luc because seeing him would remind her of being raped. He had been conceived out of a kind of apathetic violence he couldn’t wrap his head around.
Now though, his adopted mother, his rock, his everything, could hear him having a tantrum, and she had raised her son better than that.
“I’m so sorry,” Luc said, making sure to speak slowly and in English, the one language everyone on his team understood, even if some couldn’t speak it themselves. “I’m sorry.”
He cleared his throat, the rock in there making speech nearly impossible. “I’m coming in.”
He would sit in the pits for ten seconds and let Richardson win the race. He would be a gentleman, like the media always made him out to be. But really they just didn’t understand introverted people who didn’t like to talk about themselves during interviews.
Luc glanced at one of his rearview mirrors and saw Richardson in the fight of his life with that damned Alfa Romeo. Well, Richardson deserved a win, especially with putting up with the Alfa Romeo that kept nipping at his heels. Richardson deserved to be first on the podium, instead of a solid second.
Luc was gearing down to go into the pits when something caught his attention. He glanced in the rearview mirror again and saw both Richardson’s Mercedes and the damned Alfa Romeo spin out of control. The Alfa Romeo caught on the side of Richardson’s Mercedes and flipped. It was a carnage of bright colors in the air, the smell of burnt rubber filling Luc’s nostrils. Then he couldn’t see anything anymore as he turned into the pits.
“What happened?” he asked Rodriguez.
“We’re going to watch the tapes to see. I’m not sure.”
“Is Richardson okay?” Luc asked.
“I’m not sure, buddy,” Rodriguez said. “Hang on.”
Luc pulled into his spot, the crew already changing his tires before he had time to process what they were doing, and waited.
“Tell me if Richardson is okay!” Luc yelled. Richardson was a prick, oui, but he was a teammate and as much of a friend as a prick can be.
“Yes,” Rodriguez’s voice sounded breathy. “Yeah, but the car’s totaled. Richardson’s out. So is Iverns.”
Iverns was the driver of the damned Alfa Romeo. Luc used to know who his fellow drivers were, but this year, he’d been so foolishly distracted by that documentary, the hunt for his biological mother, he hadn’t done enough research of the other drivers.
“Oh my fucking go
“What? What is it? Is Richardson hurt after all?” Luc yelled, waiting for the seconds to tick away because, although he hated it, he still had a chance at winning with Richardson and Iverns out.
“Sorry,” Rodriguez said, “I didn’t mean to…”
“What the hell is going on?”
“It’s Davenport.”
Luc might not have done this year’s research, but he knew who Davenport was, the only woman to drive in Formula One. There had been another woman who had begun this year’s races in Bahrain but had been dead last and hadn’t qualified for the following races. The media was all over the fact that there had been an unprecedented two women in Formula One this year. But now it was down to one. It didn’t hurt that Charlize Davenport was one of the most beautiful women in the world, which the media ate up too, with her glowing gray eyes and her long dark hair in intricate braids under her helmet.
“Is she okay?” Luc asked on a whisper.
If she had gotten tangled in the crash, Luc would feel horrible. He had been watching her progression this season with a little too much interest. Her racing had been the only thing that kept his attention besides the documentary which wasn’t going to happen now.
“She’s…holy fuck,” Rodriguez said.
The pit team ran back into the garage. The light was green for Luc to finally resume the race, which he did at lightning speed.
“What? What?” Luc yelled as he blew past the pits and onto the straight stretch before the Sainte Devote turn.
He was in the middle of the pack now, rubber against rubber in what usually would be a crazed dog fight but was restrained because of the double yellow flag. There was no passing while they were picking up the pieces of Richardson and Ivern’s crash.
“Luc, um…”
“Just spit it out, Rodriguez. Is she okay?”
Richardson’s crash had happened at curve One9, over Anthony Noghes’ pond. That was a long way ahead, since he was by Sainte Devote, curve 1, and moving onto Beau Rivage, curve 2. Because of the crash, the cars were stuck behind a safety car—a Mercedes, of course—far ahead. Luc couldn’t see if the crash had absorbed Davenport too. He wouldn’t know until Rodriguez told him, which the man was taking forever to do.
“Yes,” Rodriguez finally answered. “She flew past the crash. She’s in first position, Luc.” Rodriguez sounded astounded.
Luc drove with the pack to Beau Rivage, then the surprisingly steep curve 3, Massenet, named so because it looked like a gentle lamb but was a beast to get through. Finally, he and the other cars caught up to the leaders and the safety Mercedes. And there she was in her white and blue Ferrari, the new paint on her car was a cleverly disguised herd of Montana mustangs. Also new to the paint were a few curls of pink, which was to represent her close friendship with a woman who was fighting breast cancer.
Davenport was directly behind the safety car, swerving like the best of them. The safety car detoured away from the course, and before Luc knew it, she was gone like a ghost. She was impossibly fast.
Something odd bubbled up from his chest. Maybe a laugh.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
“I’ll catch Davenport,” Luc said, feeling that bubble grow and warm him from the inside as he drove faster.
Racing had been his life for several years, his obsession, his everything. But since he’d become a champion, Richardson his only rival, the obsession had drained into a career. Which wasn’t a bad thing. Many champion drivers talked about losing their passion. Everything was rote—the training, training, training, then the racing. Nothing was as much fun as it had been when he’d been a boy, on the slopes of Vanoise in a go-cart racing fast enough to crack a tooth from gritting.
There was only seven laps left of the race, and Luc hadn’t had this big of a disadvantage in…well, never. His heart sped, rocking almost painfully against his sternum, his breathing hitched. Of course, he sweated. It was Monaco in May in a car that had enough horsepower to tug a freighter to harbor, and he was in layers and layers of protective gear. But his body slicked with more sweat. It felt fucking fantastic.
This was a fight, which was what he lived for behind the wheel.
Rodriguez talked, other crew members chimed in here or there, trying to figure out how to take Davenport down. She had defended herself against the other Alfa Romeo to such a degree that she was nearly a full minute ahead. And Luc was in fourth, fighting against an Aston Martin. Whoever was in the Aston Martin was no challenger though, as Luc took him at turn 6, the Grand Hotel Hairpin, laughing all the while.
“Are you okay?” Rodriguez asked at one point.
Luc never answered but just drove, what he’d wanted to do since he was a little boy and his mother, Marie, had built him his first go-cart. It was hell to get to second place, but finally he overtook the Alfa Romeo, who was visibly upset to be passed and nearly clipped Luc’s Mercedes. But Luc was faster, chasing after Davenport. Damn, she was good, something the media hadn’t mentioned. They talked about her gender, about the fact that she was Indigenous, Crow, Apsaalooke, growing up on a reservation, and that she employed all her cousins as part of her crew. They talked about how she had been an electric Formula E racer before joining Formula Two and now One, but they not once said that she was possibly the best racer Luc had ever come up against.
She never made any good qualifications, always placing in the teens in the lineup. But she would fight during the race and end in the sixth or fifth place. That should have tipped Luc off to her talent, but he hadn’t been paying enough attention this year.
He would now.
He challenged her around curve One9, notorious now for the crash, but she fought with a fierceness he’d yet to see in any of his contenders. He laughed and kept trying, veering this way or that, getting close enough his Mercedes just kissed her Ferrari. But she fought him at every turn, in complete control of her car, and fought at every straightway, never giving him the space he needed.
The checkered flag waved and he sat shocked as he flew by it, second, right behind Davenport who had defended her place with a kind of tenacity he could only respect. Hell, admire.
He laughed again as he drove past her now parked Ferrari and she popped out, her crew and team surrounding the car. She was tall and thin and jumped into the arms of, presumably, her cousins, helmet still on, but there was no mistaking her feminine form.
Luc parked himself at his garage. He climbed out of his beloved Mercedes, taking his wet helmet off, peeling the cowl protective gear off too, smiling. His crew put the car on the jack and moved it away like it weighed fifteen pounds instead of the near ton it was.
He couldn’t help but ignore his crew and their consolatory slaps to the back, Rodriguez apologizing. Even his lovely and always supportive mother Luc ignored and marched back to Davenport to congratulate her. That was a hell of a race, and he had to thank her for it. He hadn’t had to fight like that in…maybe ever. He couldn’t stop smiling, the bubble in his chest growing, enveloping him whole, making him feel sunshine happy. Damn the news about his conception. Damn the whole world, for all he cared. He just wanted to meet the racer who had made him work harder than he had in years, the racer who got his blood boiling, the racer who made him laugh.
He neared the crowd, everyone talking at once, a few camera people trying to get a good shot of the winner. Davenport was down on the ground now and had taken off her helmet and protective gear too, and was unfastening one of her dark braids, listening to someone talk over the din of the crowd, concentrating on a short balding man, nodding every once in a while. As Luc got closer and she unfastened more of her braids, stroking through her long, straight hair that looked like a lucid waterfall, something about the bubble within him changed. He was hotter now. A liquid heat rolled low in his belly, swiveling down his thighs.
