In High Gear

by Gina Wilkins

  This feeling of doom that had been hanging over him for the past week was ridiculous, he decided. Probably a sign of preseason jitters. He’d heard that winning a championship caused a new sort of stress, creating a feeling of needing to do well again to prove the first time wasn’t a fluke. That must be part of what he was dealing with now.

  Glancing back into the motor home that had symbolized so much for him when he’d placed the order, he vowed to allow himself to enjoy it again. He deserved it, he reminded himself. He had worked very hard for it. With the exception of one youthful indiscretion, he had achieved his career goals without shortcuts or cheating, and this motor home was proof that he hadn’t needed either to rise to the top.

  He couldn’t wait to show it to Tanya. He only hoped he could make her understand the significance of all he had accomplished since he’d turned his life around—and how big a part she had played in making the last two years the happiest of his life thus far.

  “IT’S BEAUTIFUL,” TANYA said, standing in the front salon of the elegant motor home Monday morning and looking around her. “Exactly as I thought it would look from the photos and color swatches we went through.”

  “A lot of the credit goes to you,” Kent assured her, hovering nearby with an almost anxious expression in his eyes. “You helped me decide on the decorating details, and it looks really great. I never would have thought of some of the stuff you suggested.”

  “I loved working with you on this,” she assured him. “It was fun.”

  “I wanted you to feel comfortable in this motor home. I wanted you to have a part in decorating it so you would feel that it belongs to you, too.”

  She had already moved to examine every inch of the kitchen. “It’s so perfect.” She touched the built-in coffeemaker. “They didn’t overlook a thing, did they?”

  “It’s perfect because you’re in it.”

  She gave an unladylike snort. “Keep that up and I’ll have to get a shovel.”

  He slipped his arms around her waist, nuzzling the back of her neck. “I think I should show you the bedroom now.”

  Smiling, she turned to wrap her arms around his neck. “You and your one-track mind.”

  “And which track would that be?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “You should be concentrating on the track at Daytona,” she retorted with a laugh.

  He brushed his lips across the end of her nose. “How can I think about racing when you’re standing here all fresh and pretty in my motor home?”

  She gave him an exaggerated frown. “Now you’re really starting to worry me. All this sweet talk and flattery makes me think you’re buttering me up for a reason. Have you done something bad, Kent Grosso?”

  She was teasing, of course. She didn’t really think his blarney was prompted by a guilty conscience. But his smile faded, and there was something in his eyes that made her nervous when he muttered, “I, uh…”

  “Kent? Is something wrong?” she asked as his voice trailed away.

  He cleared his throat. “There’s something I—”

  He sighed when his cell phone rang. He looked frustrated by the interruption. “It’s Amy,” he said, glancing at the ID screen on his cell phone to see his PR rep’s number displayed there. “I’m expecting her call. It could take a few minutes.”

  “Go ahead. You can talk to her in the bedroom, and I’ll keep exploring out here.”

  Nodding, he moved into the other room, leaving Tanya to look worriedly after him. Something was definitely going on, she thought grimly. The last time she’d cornered him, she’d allowed him to distract her with a story about being concerned with his friend’s troubled son. She found it hard to believe that was all that was on his mind now.

  So what was going on with him? And why was he having such a hard time talking to her?

  They had always talked so easily until now.

  Restless, she paced through the front salon, knowing Kent’s call with Amy could take a while. She spotted his laptop computer sitting on the small, built-in desk. He must have been checking his e-mail while he waited for her to arrive, since she’d been running a few minutes later than they’d agreed on.

  Thinking of e-mail reminded her that she needed to check her own. She was expecting an answer to a question she’d sent a client, and she needed to know by later that afternoon. Kent had never minded if she used his computer, so she doubted that he would care now, while he was tied up on business. She sat in the clever little desk chair and opened the lid.

  He hadn’t closed the page he’d been studying before her arrival. It filled the screen as soon as she tapped the touch pad. She started to minimize the page so that he could come back to it when she was finished, but before she could do so, her attention was caught by a couple of words on the screen. Though she had never snooped into Kent’s affairs, either personal or professional, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from reading those few shocking lines.

  Suddenly she was finding it very hard to breathe.

  HAVING MADE SEVERAL important decisions with Amy, Kent finally closed his cell phone and slid it into the holder on his belt. He hated that he’d had to leave Tanya alone for so long—twenty minutes, he realized with a glance at his watch—but, unfortunately, she was accustomed to this sort of thing. Being a successful businesswoman, herself, she understood the demands of a job, and she’d always been remarkably patient with his.

  They still needed to talk. He had to tell her about the e-mail he received, about the shameful incident in his past that he’d been hiding for so long. He was ashamed of himself for taking so long to work up the courage to do so. For a man who had never let fear hold him back, this had been a humbling experience. But it was time to “man up,” as his dad would say, and face the consequences. Tanya deserved to know the truth.

  Opening the bedroom door, he walked through the kitchen and then came to an abrupt stop as he saw her sitting in front of his computer, the anonymous e-mail open on the screen.

  He remembered now that he’d been looking at that e-mail just before she arrived, trying futilely to find any clue as to who had sent it, or what had been meant by it. He hadn’t closed the file, just lowered the lid on the computer when Tanya had arrived. He hadn’t expected that she would have any reason to open the computer, though he didn’t blame her for trying to fill the time while she’d waited for his return.

  He only wished that she’d wanted to watch TV, instead.

  “Tanya—”

  She pushed herself away from the desk, her face pale. “You were the boy you told me about? The one who was kicked out of State U?”

  He nodded grimly. “It happened a long time ago. Eleven years. It’s something I’ve tried to forget.”

  She lifted a hand to her forehead, her expression stricken. “I don’t—”

  Kent wished he had a decent explanation for his actions—then or more recently. “I’m certainly not proud of what happened. All I can say is that I was young. I liked to party. I guess I went a little wild my first time away from home. I drank too much beer, spent too much time hanging out with my fraternity brothers when I should have been studying. My grades were terrible. I realized that if I failed algebra, I was going to be put on academic probation, and I knew my parents would come down hard on me. So…well, I cheated. And I got caught.”

  “You cheated.” She said the word as if she couldn’t even conceive of it being applied to him.

  “It involved a friend with a stolen answer key—and an exchange of money,” he confessed in a mutter. He had told her some of these things before—but she’d thought then that he was talking about someone else. “The details don’t really matter, but there were three of us involved, all from the same fraternity. We were all expelled. The university had a zero tolerance policy on cheating.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe you never told me about this.”

  “Nobody knows. Except Uncle Larry. It was only because he was a respected member of the faculty th
at we were able to keep it all quiet. He agreed with me that the rest of the family didn’t need to know, and he promised me he would never tell anyone. The administrator who kicked us out died a couple of years ago, and the other two students involved certainly didn’t want to publicize what happened.”

  “So you never told anyone? Not even your parents? You just changed schools and lied about the reason why? And you kept lying for the past—what? Eleven years?”

  He swallowed, not liking what he was seeing in her eyes now. “I haven’t exactly lied. I just didn’t tell the whole story.”

  She planted her hands on her hips, her expression making it clear she wasn’t buying that prevarication. Anger was replacing shock in her expression, and while he was glad to see the color coming back into her cheeks, he had to admit he was a little unnerved by the temper building in her voice. “You and I have discussed your college days several times. I asked you the first time we talked about it why you transferred, and you flat out told me it was because you changed your mind about the career you wanted to pursue. You said you realized the technical college had a better program than State U to prepare you for racing.”

  He remembered the conversation. It had been after one of their first meals together with his family. His mother had brought up his briefly considered plan to become a doctor, and had teased him about what a disappointment it had been to her when he’d decided to become a racing champion, instead. Later, Tanya had asked him a few questions about his college years, but he’d kept his answers deliberately vague, changing the subject as quickly as possible, which had always been his way of avoiding discussing his reasons for leaving State U.

  “The technical college did have a better program,” he muttered, knowing he was wasting his breath.

  “You lied,” she summed up flatly. “By omission and misdirection, if not in so many words.”

  He grimaced. “Yeah. I guess I did. I’m sorry.”

  “And then you lied again last weekend. Telling me you were concerned about the son of a friend.” She shook her head in disgust, looking at him almost as if she’d never really seen him before. “All this time we’ve been together, and you never told me the truth.”

  Now he was starting to feel defensive. “It happened a long time ago. I was just a stupid, scared kid. Believe me, I learned my lesson. I buckled down and studied hard at NCCT and I earned my degree, with better-than-average grades. I’ve never cheated in any aspect of my life since.”

  She shook her head furiously. “I certainly don’t approve of what you did when you were nineteen, but that’s not what concerns me most right now. I can’t believe you lied to me. All those talks we’ve had, all the things I’ve told you that I never told anyone else, and this is the first time you’ve even mentioned this. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  He had nothing to say to that.

  She turned slowly to stare at the computer, on which the e-mail was still displayed. “When did you get this?”

  “Friday.”

  “Friday,” she repeated flatly.

  “I tried to tell you. I just—well, Sophia interrupted us.” He knew it was a lame excuse, and the fact that she didn’t even acknowledge it proved she felt the same way.

  “Do you know who sent it?”

  “No. I’ve tried everything I know to trace it, which admittedly isn’t much, but I’ve gotten nowhere. When I tried to reply, it just bounced back.”

  “You haven’t heard any more from the sender? No demands for money or anything else to keep him quiet?”

  “Not a word. I’m hoping it was just a prank.”

  “Not a very funny one,” she muttered.

  “No. Not funny at all.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, and then Tanya asked, “Did you tell your parents?”

  His throat closed. “No.”

  “Don’t you think you should? I mean, the information is out there, Kent. Whether your e-mailer is going to broadcast it or not, someone else could come across the truth. You’re a famous public figure. That’s the sort of juicy tidbit the gossips would just love to spread around, regardless of how long ago it happened.”

  “I’m aware of that. That’s why my uncle and I worked so hard to keep it a secret. Especially from my parents.” He swallowed hard. “Mom’s going to be pretty disappointed. And as for Dad…”

  He could hardly think about his father’s reaction. “Ever since Dad was accused of cheating in that big race when he was a rookie, he’s been obsessive about honesty and integrity. I can’t tell you how many lectures I heard about the importance of a man’s reputation and the value of his honor.”

  “I heard those same lectures,” she reminded him. “From my dad, the D.A.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” he muttered grimly. “And I listened, Tanya. I followed Dad’s advice—most of the time. With one pretty big exception.”

  “You were a kid,” she conceded somewhat grudgingly. “Kids do stupid things.”

  “Yeah. But I wasn’t just any kid. I was Dean Grosso’s son. Milo Grosso’s great-grandson. And I didn’t have the nerve to let anyone know just how stupid I’d been.”

  “I know it would have been a hard thing for you to face—”

  “Hard?” He snorted, no humor in the sharp sound. “That’s putting it mildly. Milo would have exploded. My mother would have cried. My dad would have yelled and then looked disappointed in me—which was always even worse than his yelling. He was having a bad season that year, lots of problems in the garages and the pits, and Uncle Larry and I decided he just didn’t need the extra stress. So, we agreed to keep it quiet. Larry pulled a few strings, helped me get into the community college, made me promise to clean up my act—which I did. And I thought it was all behind me.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “You keep saying that. It makes me think you would never have told me what happened if it hadn’t been for the e-mail you received.”

  He grimaced, but didn’t say anything.

  She searched his face, as if trying to read his thoughts. “Kent? Would you have ever told me the truth? Or would you have always given me that story about changing schools because you’d changed your mind about careers?”

  “I don’t know,” he said after a long pause. “Maybe someday…I just don’t know. I never wanted to tell anyone.”

  “Not even me?” she whispered, looking heartsick.

  “Especially you,” he admitted with a helpless gesture. “You were the one person whose opinion meant the most to me. I couldn’t bear to have you look at me and see a cheater.”

  “It isn’t the cheating that’s bothering me so badly now,” she murmured after a moment. “That was between you and the university—and your parents, had you told them. But you lied to me. Much more recently. And I’m having a lot of trouble getting past that.”

  He flinched, feeling almost as if she had struck him. “I’m sorry, Tanya. I just…never thought it would become an issue. It’s the only thing I’ve ever deceived you about, I swear. You know you can trust me.”

  She bit her lip without answering.

  His eyes narrowed. “Look, I’ll admit I’m not perfect. You said that yourself, when we talked at my folk’s house. I’ve made mistakes in the past, and I will make more in the future. You might even make a few, yourself. We’re both only human.”

  “I didn’t say I never make mistakes,” she replied defensively. “But I have never lied to you.”

  “And we keep coming back to that,” he muttered.

  “I guess we do.”

  They stared at each other for several long, tense moments. Kent opened his mouth to say something—though he had no clue what it would have been—but his cell phone rang again before he could speak, a jarring interruption.

  Exhaling impatiently, he flipped the device open and held it to his ear. “What?…Can it wait, I’m…Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  He closed the phone with a loud snap. “Tanya, I—”

  She was already t
urning toward the door. “You have to go.”

  “There’s a problem at the shop. Neil’s on a tear again, and Tobey thinks I can calm him down.”

  “Then you should go. I have a client meeting later this evening, anyway.”

  “When will I see you again?”

  She didn’t meet his eyes as she answered, “I don’t know. Call me when you’re free and we’ll talk about it.”

  He reached out to touch the back of her neck, a rush of fear clutching his throat. “Are you really going to let it all fall apart between us over something this insignificant?”

  “You didn’t think it was insignificant when you spent the last eleven years trying to cover it up,” she snapped.

  His fingers tightened spasmodically. “I said I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry you lied to me? Or sorry you ever had to tell me at all?”

  He didn’t know how to answer that.

  He had intended to kiss her when he’d reached for her. But as the moments ticked awkwardly by without either of them saying anything more, he realized that the opportunity had passed.

  “I’ll call you,” he said, and stepped back, letting his hand fall away. His fingertips brushed her arm on the way down, and she tried without success to hide her shiver of reaction.

  Despite the turmoil of their emotions, he wished he had kissed her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AS COULD BE EXPECTED a week before the season opener, the Maximus Motor Sports shops were a hive of activity when Kent arrived a short while after parting awkwardly from Tanya outside his motor home. Bypassing the front entrance, where a VIP group waited for a guided tour of the fabrication shops and other work areas, followed by a look into a hauler, conveniently ending up in the souvenir shop, he drove directly around to the private entrance for employees, parking in his reserved spot. He climbed out of his sleek black sports car and slammed the door behind him, bracing himself for the confrontation to come.