After yesterday, she felt as if she was finally moving forward, and while he’d done so physically, she didn’t think he’d fully come to terms with how much his ex’s betrayal had scarred his heart. Or how much he craved Nicole’s acknowledgment that he was a better man than Chance.
But it had been an emotional couple of days, and they needed to set aside some of the unanswered questions and just enjoy each other.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s start the grill and table everything else—her, him, the past, fainting, all of it.”
“I can make a really great cheeseburger, you know.”
She shrugged. “If you say so. I’m not much of a judge. I haven’t had a cheeseburger in years.”
His jaw dropped. “Years? How do you survive?”
“You’re never really going to completely leave your red-meat-and-potato-loving ways behind, are you?”
“I doubt it.” He rose, pulling her up beside him. “You’ll just have to hang around to make sure I stay on the sort-of straight and narrow.”
The future.
Even the thought of anything beyond the next twenty-four hours used to make her sad. She’d planned a future once, and it had crashed to pieces. Even so, she couldn’t imagine not coming to the track with Bryan each week, working out with him, sharing meals with him, having him around to touch and hold.
And while he meant the comment casually, to her, realizing she could begin to finally think in that direction, was an incredibly bright spot in an otherwise tumultuous weekend.
“As long as you supply me with chocolate, I’m all yours,” she said lightly.
After a quick grin, he kissed her.
While he started the grill, she poked through the fridge for some veggies and fresh fruit to go with the burgers. If the man was determined to eat high-fat, high-calorie, at least she could provide some nutrition.
During the prep work, Cade and Isabel showed up—since their motor home was next door, they’d smelled the grill. Then Parker, Rachel and Mitch arrived. Before long, all the drivers, wives and kids on the row had wandered over, offering Bryan help at the grill, meat, side dishes and drinks to add. In no time, a full-fledged block party was underway.
With the last half of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race still rolling around them, there was a lot of good-natured jeering about who would win, who was doing well and what that meant for the race tomorrow.
Darcy was in her element.
She fed people who were hungry, even making miniburgers for the kids whose eyes widened in fear and awe at the size of the half-pound ones the adults ate. She ran between the kitchen and the tables that had been pulled together outside, offering appetizers, drinks and minimal comments about her and Bryan.
He’d been right. Everybody knew about yesterday.
But there were no snide remarks or leering curiosity. Everyone seemed to have an uplifting story to share about the life of their loved one or friend, shared memories of tributes and families who’d found strength among the racing community whenever they needed support.
It was so similar to the firefighters’ mentality she’d been part of for so long, she had to blink to realize she was in the company of women who’d cheered, supported and practically helped drive the car for their husbands to celebrate multiple racing championships. On a regional and national level. Nearly all their lives.
There were couples who’d just started out in the world of NASCAR racing; there were couples who’d been together thirty years.
“It’s hard to believe that when we come back here in a couple of months, it’ll be the first race for the championship,” Kevin Reiner’s wife, Kim, commented as the kids tossed around a football, and the guys argued the differences between gas and charcoal grills.
“Is it weird to think Kevin won’t be in the running to defend his title?” Rachel asked.
“A little,” Kim said. “But the kids and I like having him home more. He and I have been on the road together for nearly twenty years. It was time.”
“Does he actually sit on the sofa and watch the races on Sunday?” Darcy asked. Even after four and a half years of retirement, Bryan never seemed to sit still during a TV broadcast.
“Oh, yeah.” Kim smiled. “The neighbors come over and we have cookouts like this. Of course Kevin spends half his time shouting at the TV. Either the commentators say something he doesn’t agree with, or a driver he likes or doesn’t like is doing something smart or dumb, depending.”
To Darcy, Kevin was always charming and teasing, but she knew he had to have an intense side, as all drivers seemed to.
“Hey, Darcy,” Kevin called out, as if he knew they’d been talking about him. “You’re a master chef. Isn’t a charcoal grill better?”
Apparently they were intense about grills, as well as racing.
She glanced at Bryan, who’d just cooked his burger masterpieces on charcoal. She generally preferred gas because it was easier to use and cooked more evenly. All that lighter fluid and fire must be a guy thing.
“Grilling is all in the seasoning and marinade,” she called back. “The grill just provides the heat.”
They all stared at her for a couple of seconds, then turned to each other and resumed the debate.
“I think you just put fuel on that particular fire,” Rachel said to Darcy.
“Naturally.” Isabel rolled her eyes. “She didn’t agree with one side or the other.”
“You can’t be neutral in this sport,” Kim added.
“What sport?” Darcy asked. “We’re talking about cooking. It’s not rocket science.” Thinking about the guys on the GRI teams, though, the way they hovered and offered advice when she helped cook lunch, she reconsidered. “They do take food very seriously.”
“Didn’t Big Dan make you audition before he’d let you touch his grill?” Rachel asked.
“He did.” But that seemed so long ago. Now, she and Big Dan were a formidable, well-balanced cooking team. She’d become part of GRI. Practically part of the family, according to Rachel.
But she’d only signed on for the season, and Bryan had made his fitness goals. He knew the rehab exercises so well, he really didn’t need her help. Would there come a time when she wouldn’t be part of the team? Would she and Bryan continue to date past the terms of her job? Or would it all be over at the end of the season?
Rachel laid her hand on Darcy’s arm. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine.” She shoved aside her troubled thoughts. This afternoon was supposed to be about relaxing. “Great, actually. I’m going to get another bottle of water,” she said as she rose. “Anybody else?”
When everybody shook their heads, she moved toward the motor home door, then slipped inside. As she grabbed a bottle from the fridge, she thought about the last couple of days and all that she and Bryan had shared and been through.
He’d been amazingly supportive and caring. And while he probably wouldn’t describe himself as patient, he had been—about her crises over the past and her inability to be intimate.
But if they were going to move forward, if she wanted to truly be part of the team, she was going to have to think beyond next week and consider her future. What she wanted, where she wanted to go, who she wanted to be with.
“Hey,” Bryan said as he opened the door. “You okay?”
She sipped her water and took in the long-legged, broad-shouldered length of him in his fitted navy T-shirt and jeans. “Yep.”
And feeling better by the second.
“What’re you doing in here by yourself?”
“Thinking about you,” she said, smiling as she walked toward him. She slid the tips of her fingers up his chest. “This was supposed to be our relaxing evening alone.”
His eyes lighting like blue flames, he wrapped his arm around her waist. “The smell of the grill drew too much attention.”
“Your burgers were great.”
“Yeah? You didn’t miss the tofu and alfalfa sprouts?”
“Not today.” She glared at him with mock sternness. “But it’s back on the program tomorrow. We run at seven.”
“A.M.?”
“Definitely.” She looped her arms around his neck. “Unless…”
He drew her tight against him. “Unless…?”
“Any chance we can have a relaxing evening alone?”
“Hmm.” He brushed his lips across her cheek. “I think we can manage that. But what in the world would we do all by ourselves?”
“We’ll think of something.” She grinned teasingly. “A movie maybe?”
“As long as we share the popcorn bowl with you sitting in my lap.”
“Then we’ll have to watch something we’ve seen before. You always distract me.”
As his eyes turned smoky, he brushed her hair off her face. “Or we could skip the movie and move straight to the fun part.”
She leaned forward, pressing her lips against his. Putting a little effort into the kiss, she found her pulse pounding, her blood heating. His hands, braced at her hips, tightened.
“Maybe we could run a little later,” she said softly when she pulled back, knowing she’d taken another step into her future.
ALMOST BEFORE BRYAN BLINKED, the company plane had touched down in Indianapolis, Indiana, the last weekend in July. One of the most prestigious trophies of the season was on the line in three days.
Everything was heightened for this race. Though it seemed the level of competition could jack no higher, it always did. Worldwide media, teams and fans invaded the town and the track with the fervor of a religious movement. Sponsors and business partners held special events. Drivers smiled for the cameras, while their insides jumped like a pond of frogs.
On Cade’s particular team, Sam was worried about the engine. Bryan was worried about fuel mileage. Cade was simply worried.
While he had three wins for the season so far, and two other drivers had two each—including Chance Baker—Cade had had some bad finishes lately and had fallen to fourth in the championship standings. He was so edgy, no one wanted to be around him—apparently including his wife, since she sat beside Darcy in the pair of seats in front of Bryan.
As he rose to depart the plane, he stepped back so they could slide in front of him.
He touched Darcy’s shoulder, and she turned her head to smile at him. His heart jumped, as always.
She let Isabel out in front of her, then reached back to squeeze his hand.
Moments like these were ones that made him realize how vital she’d become to his life. He wasn’t sure he’d ever shared a bond with anyone like the one he had with Darcy.
And yet everything was also unsettled.
Over the last few weeks, they’d established a pattern. She went to and from the hotels near the track with Parker and Rachel. Parker always made sure Darcy had a room reservation, and Bryan felt better knowing she wasn’t making those trips—on unfamiliar roads and often at night—alone.
The schedule also gave his dates with Darcy a deadline. When Parker and Rachel were ready to leave the track, Darcy went with them. And while he’d taken more cold showers over the summer than he’d had in his life, he’d nearly convinced himself that his ability to maintain a platonic relationship with a woman he wanted more than he needed to take his next breath was a test of his yoga skills.
He focused as often as possible on work, which he at least understood. Except when she smiled at him. Or touched him. Or breathed in his vicinity.
Hell, he was in a world of trouble.
But on Friday afternoon following practice, he smiled as he walked through the garage area.
The expression was a rare occurrence pretty much anytime, but when his teams were running lousy, a good mood was usually nonexistent. But today he was going home to Darcy.
He hadn’t thought about home in a long time. He had a house; he had a motor home. They’d both been professionally decorated, and he’d added little. His ex-wife had influenced his surroundings way more than he had, and he hadn’t bothered to change much since she’d left.
He had a home he’d grown up in, but that wasn’t the same since his parents’ breakup.
His stagnant position stemmed back to his accident.
His very identity had changed in a moment of screeching tires and crashing metal on the highway. He was a race car driver, then suddenly he wasn’t. He’d lost his career, his wife, his fire, his ambition, his physique, his confidence…everything.
Darcy had brought it all back. And though things would never be exactly the way they were before, he’d regained much of what had been missing in his life.
He could handle anything that came his way. He could face a practice session where his teams were running eighteenth, twenty-second and twenty-fifth for one of the biggest races of the year.
Wincing, he turned down the row of motor homes where his was parked. Well, the idea could still be painful, even if he was confident about being able to deal with the situation.
He opened his door and lifted his credential lanyard over his head, tossing it on the kitchen counter to his left. “Hey, what’s—”
“Hi, Bryan.”
He blinked, but his ex-wife was still sitting on his sofa.
Leggy, glossy and blond, she smiled at him as she stood. “How are you?”
He was…He seemed to have lost his voice. As well as the anger he usually associated with her. “Fine,” he finally managed to say.
She moved toward him, her long, tanned legs closing the distance in two strides. “You certainly look good.” Brushing her fingertips down the front of his T-shirt, her gaze connected with his. “Really good.”
Glaring at her, he stepped back. “I’m busy. Do you need something?”
She moved toward him. “Just you.”
What?
He barely stopped short of asking the question out loud. What the devil was going on with her? The desire in her eyes, the longing in her voice, was something he’d dreamed about for a long time. Suddenly she was delivering his wish?
When he’d needed her the most, she’d run. Bolted to his family’s greatest rival and crippled his recovery from the accident. She’d only wanted a driver, not him. For better or for worse be damned.
And yet, the guy he thought he’d buried in the last few months, the angry, selfish man who’d started out on a fitness quest purely for revenge, looked at her and wondered. What did she want from him? Why was she here? Did she now regret leaving him? If so, how much?
“Do you really?” he asked, his tone cynical. “What happened to Chance?”
Her eyes brimming with tears, she looked away. “He’s gone. I’m not sure he ever cared about me at all.”
“No kidding.”
She dragged her gaze back to his. “He’s not like you.”
Finally, something he could agree with. “No, he’s not. Look, Nicole, if you came here to—”
She pressed herself against him, backing him against the wall. Her perfume, an exotic, musky blend of flowers, washed over him, teasing his memory with times when he’d desired her with a fever.
“What do you say, Bryan?” she whispered, her lips nearly touching his. “Wanna take a walk down memory lane?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DARCY PAUSED with her hand on the door latch of Bryan’s motor home.
“I love him,” she whispered, hoping when she said the words aloud for the first time they’d sound wrong.
They didn’t.
Crap.
Darkness had settled over the track, but the heat hadn’t abated. She’d give up chocolate for a month for a cool breeze.
On second thought, that was a rash promise. She might need a truckload of it before the night was over.
Deciding she’d been a chicken long enough, she flipped the latch and opened the door. Cool air washed over her as she peered into the darkness. Confused, she started to call Bryan’s name when she saw him, pacing near the front of the motor home. He had a bottle in his hand
.
He stopped and turned toward her. “Where’ve you been?”
She closed the door behind her. “Hi, to you, too.”
“I was getting worried,” he said, though he didn’t move toward her. No welcoming kiss, no hug or teasing smile.
“Is that why you’re alone in the dark, drinking?” she asked, heading toward the fridge for a bottle of water. She needed something to ease the dry panic in her throat. Gulping, she noticed two empty beer bottles sitting on the kitchen counter.
“I felt like having a beer,” he said defensively, aggressively.
“Looks like more than a beer to me.”
“So you’re my mother now?”
Ignoring her pulse’s bump of irritation and worry, she flipped on the track lighting over the sofa. “What’s wrong?”
He looked away from her and resumed pacing. “Nothing.”
“Are you concerned about the practice session?”
“No.”
“Is everything okay with your family?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in pain?”
Pausing briefly in his restless movement, he shook his head. “No.”
“Then it must be about Nicole.”
He ground to a halt, then drank from the bottle. “I…How did you—”
“I saw her leave.”
“But she left hours ago.”
“I know. I walked around a while before I came back. I couldn’t—” She cleared her throat as images of what might have gone on between Bryan and his ex danced cruelly through her mind.
Oh, but isn’t that moment the reason you realized you loved him?
Sure. Yippee.
Since that was also the moment she realized how much he could hurt her, how much of him obviously still belonged to Nicole, she couldn’t find the hope to be positive.
“I needed to get my thoughts together before I came back,” she managed to say.
“Yeah, I can understand that.” Suddenly looking depressed instead of angry, he sank onto the sofa and pushed his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”
Winning It All Page 18
