Revved Up Hearts

by Kilgore, Kristy D

“I didn’t think about that,” Dawn said and took that money he offered. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  It took longer than expected because the restaurant was so busy. Everyone who was at the race must have been there. Dawn picked up a bacon double cheeseburger with the works and onion rings for Jeremiah. For herself, she got a grilled chicken sandwich. She went across the street to get the ice cream, but they were out of mint chocolate chip, so she got a half gallon of death by chocolate instead. Dawn’s hands were full as she walked back to the motor coach. She couldn’t open the door. She knocked, but Jeremiah didn’t answer. She kicked and that didn’t work either. Finally, she put the bags down and opened the door to the motor coach. She held it open with one foot while she picked up the bags and entered the coach. “Jeremiah,” she called as she put the bags on the table. “Jeremiah,” she called again but he still didn’t answer. She walked down the hall to the bathroom door. It was open and the shower wasn’t running. She took a few more steps to peek inside his bedroom door. There on the bed was Jeremiah, sound asleep and snoring like a chainsaw.

  Dawn didn’t sleep well that night. She couldn’t remember what she dreamed but knew that she had several bad dreams. She also knew that she had done a lot of tossing and turning. Finally, around 5:00 a.m., Dawn gave up on trying to sleep. She flipped on the lamp beside the bed and picked up her Bible. She turned to Galatians. Dawn enjoyed reading these letters by Paul to the early church where he explained God’s grace and freedom. This book of the New Testament always made Dawn think about her salvation and what Jesus did for her. It made her take a moment to be thankful for everything. She would have to share this with Jeremiah.

  Dawn marked her place so that she could continue later. Then she got out of bed, took a shower, and got ready to go to the track. She checked out of the hotel around 7:00 a.m. After stopping at the hauler to store her stuff, she walked over to Bryan’s garage stall.

  “Dawn. Dawn!” She looked around to see who was calling her name. Jeremiah was jogging toward her and waving. She stopped and waited for him to catch up. “Sorry about last night. I got out of the shower and sat on my bed to put on my shoes. I woke up around three and ate my cheeseburger and ice cream.”

  “It’s okay. I know it takes a lot out of you when you race.”

  “But I hated doing it. I sent you for food, and then I didn’t get to enjoy it with you.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  “It’s a date. So, are you headed to Richardson’s stall?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll walk with you.” It was still early, and not all of the crew members had gotten there yet, but Bryan was there. The three of them sat around eating doughnuts and drinking coffee. When Dawn arrived in Daytona a few weeks ago, she was told that Jeremiah and Bryan didn’t like each other. It turns out that that wasn’t true. The truth was that the two men had never gotten to know each other. So when the wreck happened and the two men didn’t speak to each other, the media and the fans assumed that there was a big feud. But since Dawn had come along and started dating Jeremiah, the two men had become friends. It turns out they had more in common than just racing. Both were avid outdoorsmen who loved to fish and deer hunt. Both also wanted to go into broadcasting after their racing careers were over. Now the three of them sat there talking, telling jokes, and planning a weekly Bible study.

  The rest of the crew started arriving, and the chaos of race morning began. The car was started, and it was running fine, so it was sent to prerace inspection. Bryan, Dawn, and Jeremiah went to chapel. Ironically, that morning’s scripture was in Galatians. She could tell that Jeremiah was interested. That was a good sign. Dawn didn’t stay for the drivers’ meeting. She had to make sure everything was ready so that they could leave right after the race. She was finished and had just sat down to take a short break when Bryan came back into the garage.

  “Jeremiah wants you to walk through driver introductions with him before you do prerace ceremonies with me. I told him that I’d send you over.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a little while.” Dawn walked over to Jeremiah’s garage stall. As soon as she got there, he gave her a kiss then handed her his helmet. She held it with one hand and his hand with her other while they walked down pit road. Dawn waited while he was introduced to the crowd, and they cheered. Some drivers got booed during driver introductions, but Dawn didn’t hear a single boo when Jeremiah’s name was called. From there, they walked to Jeremiah’s car. They said a quick prayer, and Dawn handed him his helmet. Then she gave him a quick peek on the cheek before going to Bryan’s car.

  The race went off without a hitch. Bryan finished fifth, and Jeremiah got another third-place finish. Dawn got home late on Sunday night and went straight to bed. She forgot to check her cell phone before going to sleep and was surprised to have over thirty missed calls, voicemails, and text messages. Something must have happened back home, she thought. She hoped her dad was okay. She called home to check in.

  “Hey. What’s going on? Did I miss something?” she asked when her mom answered. “Is Dad okay?”

  “Your dad is fine. He’s still asleep,” her mom answered. “No. You didn’t miss anything. You’re it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t watch the NASCAR races, but everybody I know who does has been calling since yesterday afternoon.”

  “Why?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “All I know is that I have all these calls on my phone. I never get this many calls. What’s going on?”

  “Apparently, the TV people were interviewing James Fowler Jr. before the race yesterday. At the end of the interview, the cameraman zoomed out to show both James Fowler Jr. and the reporter. When they did, you were seen in the background giving Jeremiah Jones a kiss.” Dawn was speechless as her mom continued. “You’re the biggest news to hit this little town in a long time.”

  “Is it good news or bad news?” Dawn asked.

  “Mostly good. Everybody is so excited. They want to know when you are bringing him here. The only bad thing is that people want to know why we kept it a secret.”

  “We’ve only been dating a week!”

  “I know, but no one else did.”

  “What are you telling them?”

  “That you just started dating and that’s it.”

  “This is bad,” Dawn said.

  “Why?” her mom asked. “People are happy for you.”

  “I was the subject of gossip when I broke up with Kevin. I don’t want to go through that again.”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “What am I going to tell Jeremiah?”

  “I don’t know.” Her mom laughed. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Mom, I got to go. I need to get ready for work. Thanks for the info. Tell everybody that I said hi and that I love them. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay. Bye. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Dawn told her and then hung up the phone.

  Later, Dawn told Bryan the whole story on the ride to work. Bryan laughed until he cried. “It’s not that funny,” she said.

  “It’s hilarious!” Bryan exclaimed as he wiped a tear from his eye. “I can’t wait to tell Valerie.”

  “Stop it!”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “What will Jeremiah think?”

  “I think he’ll laugh harder than I did.”

  “You don’t think he’ll be mad?”

  “No,” Bryan said. “Can I be there when you tell him?”

  Dawn called Jeremiah as soon as she got to the office. He did laugh and told her that he was glad that everyone knew about the two of them. He promised to come by the shop later and take her to lunch.

  Dawn was sitting at her desk a few hours later when the secretary’s
voice came over the loudspeaker. “Dawn, you have a visitor in the lobby.” It was too early for Jeremiah. She wondered who it could be as she walked to the lobby. She turned the last corner and started through the door that separated the shop from the lobby. She saw who the visitor was and froze. It was Kevin.

  What was he doing here? She thought for a moment about what to do. She could run out the backdoor. No. That’s what heartbroken Dawn would’ve done. After all, hadn’t she run all the way to North Carolina from Arkansas? But Dawn wasn’t that heartbroken person anymore. The last time she had seen him, she couldn’t even look at him without crying. She looked at him now. He couldn’t see her through the tinted glass door, but she could see him. She could honestly say that she felt nothing for him. But how would she feel when she talked to him? There is only one way to find out, she thought as she pushed open the door.

  He saw her and smiled. No reaction to that smile, she thought. That’s good. As she got closer, she realized that he wasn’t that handsome. Another good sign. “Hello, Kevin,” she greeted him when she finally got to where he was standing. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Good morning, Dawn,” he said, but he didn’t seem very happy. “How are you this morning?”

  “Fine. What brings you all the way to Charlotte?” Dawn hated all this small talk. There had to be a reason he was here. The sooner she found out what it was and he left, the better.

  “I need to talk to you,” he answered. “Is there someplace private we can go?”

  The thought of being alone with Kevin was not an appealing one, but she wanted to get this over with. “Sure,” Dawn said as she led him back out to the shop area to a vacant office. She left the door open so that she wouldn’t have to be totally alone with him. There was also a big window that looked out toward the shop. Anyone who was in the shop could see what was going on in the office. I need this office, she thought as she offered Kevin a seat. He didn’t take one. She offered him something to drink, but he refused that as well. She sat down in the chair behind the desk and waited. He turned his back on her to look out the window. She wasn’t sure if he was watching what was going on out there or just stalling. When he finally turned to look at her, there was anger on his face. “I think you have made your point. So when is this charade going to end?”

  “What charade are you talking about?”

  “When you stopped talking to me and put off the wedding, I was willing to give you some time to be mad. I played along when your dad and brothers threatened me. I also played along when you changed your cell phone number and refused my calls to your house. It started to get old when your parents told me that you didn’t live with them anymore. But that had been going on for about a month now. So imagine my surprise when I turned the race on yesterday and saw my fiancée kissing another guy. As I’ve said before, you’ve made your point. It’s time for you to come home and marry me. You got your revenge. You’ve embarrassed me enough.”

  The nerve of this guy. Dawn was shaking with anger. “I have embarrassed you!” she replied through clenched teeth. “Everything was always about you, wasn’t it?” she asked. Don’t let this guy get to you, she thought. He’s not worth it.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Lord, help me, Dawn thought as a calm came over her. “You think the last few months have been all about you? Let me explain to you that they were not,” she said, took a deep breath, and then continued. “I am no longer your fiancée. I didn’t put off the wedding. I cancelled it because I am not going to marry you. You think you have been embarrassed, but how do you think I felt?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Goodness gracious but this guy is dense. And I always thought he was so smart. The words strike three came from somewhere in the back of her mind. The thought made her smile. “How embarrassing do you think it was for me to cancel my wedding? To call all those people: the caterer, the florist, my pastor, and tell them that I wasn’t going to marry a no-good, cheating, snake in the grass. I had to call all my out-of-town relatives to tell them to cancel their trip.”

  “Dawn, we discussed this before,” he yelled. “What happened was an accident.”

  “No, Kevin, it wasn’t. An accident is a car crash or a broken bone. When you break the trust between two people who supposedly love each other that is not an accident,” she yelled back. “You made a choice and destroyed what we had.” She was no longer sitting. She was standing behind the desk with her hands on it, leaning in his direction as she screamed.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Had this guy always been so cocky and possessive? Had he always been so arrogant? “I quit a good job that I had held for almost ten years. I trained new employees. I was very respected there. I sold a car that I loved and moved halfway across the country. I left my parents’ house. They are both in their sixties now. They needed me to help with things around the house that are getting harder for them to do. That hurt my parents so bad, leaving like that.” Despite her earlier vow to stay calm, she was furious. “If that isn’t serious, Kevin, I don’t know what is.”

  In two steps, Kevin was behind the desk with Dawn. He drew back and slapped her hard in the face. “I am tired of your mouth. Now you are going to listen to me—”

  Before Kevin could finish, Bryan grabbed him from behind and dragged him away from Dawn. The absolute fury on his face was frightening. Good thing it wasn’t directed at her. “No! You are going to listen to me,” Bryan said as he spun Kevin around to face him. “A real man never, never hits a woman. You are a bully and a coward.”

  “Let go of me!” Kevin screamed. “This is none of your business.”

  “Yes, it is,” Bryan assured him. “Not only does Dawn work for me, she’s my friend.”

  “This is my property,” Edward said from behind Bryan. “And you are leaving.”

  “No, I’m not. Not without Dawn.”

  “The cops are on the way,” Edward calmly told him. “If you are here when they get here, you will be hauled off this property and arrested. So you can leave by yourself or with help, but either way, you are leaving!”

  “This isn’t over,” Kevin said as he continued to struggle with Bryan. It was no match. Bryan was four inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. He released Kevin with a shove. Kevin stepped toward Dawn again, but Bryan stayed between them.

  “Try something,” Bryan said with his hands in fists at his side. “I’d love to finish this.”

  Kevin finally figured it out and stepped toward the door. “This isn’t over,” he repeated. “We’ll finish this sometime,” he said as he pointed at Dawn.

  “Not here,” Edward said. “If you ever step on my property again, you will be arrested for trespassing.”

  “The restraining order I get will make sure that you are never again close enough to me to finish anything,” Dawn told him.

  Kevin took a long look around the room. Not only were Bryan and Edward there, so were Travis and the rest of the crew. After taking one last look at Dawn, he pushed through the crowd and left. Travis told a couple of guys to follow Kevin to make sure he left while Edward went to get an ice pack for Dawn’s face.

  Bryan made Dawn sit back down while he knelt beside her to examine her cheek. “We saw him come into the office with you. We called the secretary to find out who it was. When she told us it was Kevin, we kept an eye on him. When he hit you—”

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry about that. Had he ever hit you before?”

  “No. He had always been a perfect gentleman who treated me like I was made of glass. It wasn’t until I broke up with him that he started acting weird. That’s one of the reasons I left. I suspected that he was capable of something like this.”

  “Why didn’t you get a restraining order?”

  “He never did anything to warrant that. He just acted strange.
The first chance I get, I’ll get one.”

  “You’ll go this afternoon. I’ll go with you if you want.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Dawn said.

  “Yes, it is. We don’t know where he went or what he might try if he catches you alone.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I don’t think anything is broken, but you’re going to have a nasty bruise.”

  “What’s going on? Did you hurt yourself?” came Jeremiah’s voice from the door. In all the excitement, Dawn had forgotten that Jeremiah was coming to take her to lunch. What would he do when he found out what had just happened? Only one way to find out. Dawn opened her mouth to tell him, but Bryan spoke first.

  “Kevin was here,” he told Jeremiah as Edward arrived with the ice pack. Dawn winced as the coldness hit her face.

  Fury spread over Jeremiah’s face as he realized what they were trying to tell him “Did he hit you?” he asked Dawn. She only nodded because she couldn’t find her voice to speak. “Where is he? I’ll kill him!”

  “He’s gone. I threw him out,” Edward answered.

  “Why didn’t you keep him here so that I could…” Jeremiah’s voice trailed off. Instead of finishing, he strode over to the chair, picked Dawn up, and put her in his lap as he sat down in the chair. “Are you okay?” he asked her quietly as he tucked her head under his chin.

  “Yes, just mad.”

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Bryan said and walked out the door. Dawn and Jeremiah just sat there, saying nothing, for a long time.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Dawn started to tell him, but Bryan returned just then with a couple of uniformed police officers. Instead, Jeremiah listened as Dawn told the cops what had taken place. They issued charges against Kevin as well as giving Dawn a temporary restraining order against him. All she had to do was take the paper down to the courthouse and make it permanent. Jeremiah assured the police that he would escort Dawn there this afternoon. Assured that the danger was over, the police left. Jeremiah wanted Dawn to go to the courthouse right then, but there was something that Dawn needed to do first.