Race With a Heart
Chapter 182: We Will Finally Meet!

Chapter 182: We Will Finally Meet!

"You did everything right except the last sentence," Paxton shook his head. Where did this last guess come from in Martin? "Idiot, Fergus’s stable is ambitious. They will not hire a third driver who has no potential to win."

Did Steve really have to explain such basic things to Martin? Looking at him, probably yes, because for some reason the boy really didn’t believe in his strength.

"I myself started third" Paxton continued. "You can count the stars that immediately jumped into the first driver’s seat on the fingers of one hand. Everyone gains experience, learns and waits for their chance. Fergus’ stable doesn’t need a safe backup. We need a potential champion. And you have that potential."

"I’m not good enough. I don’t have this talent ... "

"What are you doing at the Fergus Stables?" Steve asked mockingly. He didn’t know how it could get into Martin’s head. I guess the boy really heard one too many times that he wasn’t good enough. "It was my idea to bring you to our stable and I immediately indicated that I want you to be our regular third driver ..."

"What?!" Martin exclaimed in surprise, drawing attention to himself, so he immediately lowered his voice. "I was just supposed to be a replacement while you were convalescing!"

"Karl hesitated," Steve continued ignoring his younger colleague’s outburst, "because he didn’t know how you were driving, he never saw you on the track, so he asked Jack and Abe for advice. Have you heard anything about that?"

"Yes," admitted Martin. "Karl told me that he consulted the two of them before he offered me a job."

"Exactly. All three were aware that they were hiring you with the option of leaving you in the stable for next season as the third driver."

"So they already thought that Don would not stay for another season ..."

"We suspected that Alston wasn’t clean. We wanted the stable to have good prospects for the next year. All four agreed that you are a very good prospect. You have a lot of shortcomings, but you have excellent potential. That’s why we want to make you a driver."

"But I ..."

Martin looked surprised, so stunned by the information he had just received. Steve wasn’t surprised at all. He so suddenly received such shocking information.

"I don’t know," admitted Martin, resigned. "When I was little, I dreamed of becoming a driver. But as I got older, I was more interested in engines than starts. Now that I got behind the wheel of the car it’s really great, I’d like to race again, but I’m really not convinced ..."

Steve smiled warmly at him. He really loved this young guy.

"I will not force you to be our driver. Nobody will," he explained. "We know you chose to work as a mechanic yourself, and we know you’re great at it. By being the third driver of the Fergus Stable at this point, you are doing us a great favor and Karl is ready to give you a chance to perform on the track. However, if you decide that this is not the way for you, that you want to continue to be a mechanic, nothing big will happen. We still have time to find someone for the new season. It will be your decision if you want to try the real race."

"I want to," Martin announced suddenly, determinedly. "I want to try and see if I am fit to be a professional driver."

"And that’s it!" smiled Steve, completely convinced that if Martin tried the emotions of the real race for once, he would never want to give up on their taste again.

***

Kevin Moore grinned and held out his hand to the manager of the Fergus Stables, Karl Walton.

"Thank you, Karl, for letting us have a look at training today."

"You’re welcome, really, if someone named Moore asks for it, I can’t make any difficulties, and anyway" at this point Karl’s smile turned from hearty but official to a radiant "if we have such a happy occasion."

Walton turned to Paul now and held out his hand to him.

"So you are the reason why Jack is as cheerful as a lark this morning? Karl Walton."

"Nice to meet you, Paul Denning," the young policeman introduced himself, although he found it hard to concentrate on being polite because he was distracted by the sound of the racing cars on the track. He knew that one of them contained his older brother, whom he barely remembered from his childhood. Paul was going to see him for the first time in this capacity today.

Karl Walton was either the default or he just didn’t like wasting time.

"So, are we going?" suggested.

Paul nodded eagerly.

The idea for Paul and Jack to meet today came from Kevin. If they are preparing a special occasion, for example a festive dinner, they will only stress unnecessarily when they should rather get it all behind them and start living a normal life. Anyway, due to the nature of his work, Jack was not able to find time for the ceremony at the moment, and he was very anxious to meet his younger brother, so why not just do it?

It was Kevin who also came up with the proposal that Paul see Jack on the track. The good old theory was that you can really know a person in his work environment. If Denning wanted to see what kind of man his older brother was, he should at least once see him on the track. There should be no difficulty with this, since the Moore and Fergus families have had excellent relationships, now also business.

In fact, Karl Walton agreed immediately and Kevin put Paul in his car and drove him to the Fergus Stables. Denning was here before, but on a purely professional basis, and he had never even come close to the track, but now he was going to do just that.

Paul was not a fan of motor racing. He had never been interested in them and had little idea about them. When he found out that his older brother was a professional racing driver, he and his wife watched the recordings of Jack available on the Internet yesterday. They were excerpts from races, awards ceremony, short interviews with Lambert. Sandra found her brother-in-law to be very handsome and Paul very much like him. Both men had very similar, gentle and beautiful eyes. As Denning looked at his brother’s photos longer, he began to realize that their eyes were indeed very similar. How had he not seen it before?

How? Because he wasn’t even sure if he had an older brother at all, or if it was just an orphan’s dream as a child. Even if he saw a similarity between them, he would consider them pure coincidence. Could he really have ever thought that fate would so direct his life that he would find his brother so easily?

But isn’t that why he came to this city to find his roots? It wasn’t a big city, so sooner or later he might meet someone on the street or in the shop who turned out to be his uncle or aunt or distant cousin.

Today Paul was finally going to meet his brother as brother. He knew from Kevin that Jack was excited about the family reunion as well. However, Lambert did not know that Moore would bring Paul onto the track. Kevin told a colleague that Fergus’ Stables was in trouble because of the third driver and Paxton’s indisposition to work, so now in fact all responsibility for the results rested with Lambert. To avoid the additional stress of waiting for him, Kevin decided that the sudden meeting would be more beneficial for Lambert. Paul agreed with that.

He himself could not quite understand that he really has a brother. His early childhood memory of his older brother hugging him and telling Paul not to be afraid was so warm that the grown-up Paul, who remembered being abandoned in the mall, genuinely doubted it was true. Why, despite the warmth of his childhood, did Paul suddenly find himself alone? So this warmth, ergo his brother as well, were only the production of his mind. But in the corner of his mind and heart there was a hope that maybe it wasn’t a dream, that something had happened that had separated the brothers. After all, there should be parents somewhere else. And if there were no parents, they were both only children. Thousands of things could have happened that separated the brothers. The adult Paul understood and accepted this. Even if it was his older brother who dumped him in the mall, he was not much older than he was, so Paul wasn’t cruel enough to blame him. Especially since Paul had a really beautiful childhood with his adoptive parents who really loved him.

His older brother was on the track now. Together with Walton and Moore they entered the stands. Walton pointed him out to one of the two cars that were three length apart. Walton pointed to the one in the back.