Legends and Lies (11 page)

ANNIE LOVED THE RACE at Richmond and had since she was a child. To be honest all the nighttime races had always been her favorites. There was something magical about watching a race at night, seeing the darkened track lit up by the lights of the cars and watching the sparks that the cars sometimes threw into the air.

It was a short track, only three-quarters of a mile long, the kind that her brother was really good on. Some drivers were better on the longer tracks but Dave worked the shorter ones like a dream.

This was the race they’d come back to in the fall and it would lock the drivers in to the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup. But tonight it was all about this one race. Driving and winning.

It was early May and there was a bit of a chill in the air.

“Hey, girl.” Darla Festa was the wife of Dave’s crew chief, Vinnie.

“Hey, Darla. I didn’t realize you were here.”

“Good. I’ve been trying to get Vinnie to spend a little more one-on-one time with me. So we’ve been keeping a low profile.”

She smiled at the other woman. Darla was tall, almost five-nine and model slim. She had a wealth of strawberry-blond hair that was always perfectly styled and her makeup was flawless. She was easily one of the most beautiful women that Annie had ever seen, but she was also one of the sweetest.

“Did you work things out with Dave?”

“Yes. How did you know…?”

“Vinnie tells me everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, so I know about that hot guy you’re dating.”

She flushed. “It’s not because he’s hot.”

Darla threw her arm around Annie’s shoulder and hugged her close for a second. “It doesn’t matter to me if it is. I’m just happy to see you back at the track and smiling.”

“Thanks, Darla. I’m feeling more like my old self.”

“It’s about time. I missed you the last few years.”

“Me, too.”

“Was Europe fun?” Darla asked. “Vinnie hates flying but he promised a trip to Italy if they win the championship this year.”

The first six months she’d been married to Malcolm Europe had been a lot of fun. They’d traveled every week like the NASCAR racers did and she’d enjoyed seeing some of her favorite cities as well as new ones. “Yeah, it was pretty cool. Kind of the same as this.”

“That always amazes me…how similar people are no matter where you go.”

Darla had been a model before she married Vinnie and she often said the pressure and the crowds at fashion shows was very similar to race weekends.

“Did you make any good friends over there?” Darla asked.

Annie fiddled with her camera. This was the conversation she’d been dreading since she returned to her NASCAR family. “A few. But it turned out I didn’t fit in that well with them.”

“Give me a break, you fit in with everyone,” Darla said.

“Trust me, D.”

“What was so different?”

“Um…they were very open about having affairs with different drivers.”

“Oh, hon.”

Annie shrugged. “I think it worked out for the best. Instead of hanging out I started to take more freelance photo assignments, which helped me win some awards and get more work.”

“It still had to sting.”

“It did. Oh, I’ve got to run,” she said, turning away as the announcer got the race started.

Annie moved down the pit road, taking pictures of Dave and his team throughout the evening. There were a few minor wrecks and Lance Maxwell got caught in one of them. But the damage wasn’t too bad and his team was able to fix it and get him back on the track. And then Tucker got caught in a little bump but he didn’t lose his position.

When Tucker pitted for the last time there was a lot of chatter about what he was doing. Anne turned her camera onto Tucker’s crew and snapped a few photos hoping that she’d be able to get something on film that would put Dave’s suspicions to rest.

Annie was surprised to see a new guy that she recognized, Rob Mandelay. He’d gone to school with her and Dave. She hadn’t seen him in years. She’d have to catch up with him later.

Dave won the race setting a track record and Annie forgot about Rob and the photos she’d taken of Aldridge’s pit as she made her way to Victory Lane.

JARED STOOD ON the fringes of the circle at Victory Lane watching Annie do her job.

“Come to congratulate the winner?” Alan Jenner asked, coming up behind Jared.

“Yes,” he said. Dave had run a good race. Jared wasn’t surprised since he’d seen the driver twice since he’d arrived in Richmond and Dave had been very focused, as if he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from winning. Jared suspected that Dave was trying to prove something to him by beating Tucker on the track.

“Then why are you staring at Annie?” Alan stated.

“Leave it alone,” Jared said, getting a little sick of the Jenner men always hounding him. He was willing to cut them a little slack because he cared for Annie, too, but enough was enough.

“Hello, Jared. Wasn’t it an exciting race today?” Carol Jenner asked. Annie’s mom had on a Jenner Racing jacket and a big smile that reminded him of Annie’s.

“Yes, it was, Mrs. Jenner.”

“Alan, get up there so Annie can get your picture,” she ordered, taking her nephew by the arm and nudging him toward the group from Jenner Racing.

Alan moved to do what he was told.

“I wanted to thank you again for taking us to dinner in Talladega, we really enjoyed ourselves.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I enjoyed it, too.”

“Brandon and I would like to invite you to be our guest for dinner next week in Darlington.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Jenner—”

“Please call me Carol,” she said. “I have a feeling you’re going to be hanging around our family for a long time.”

He felt pressure deep inside at her words but shrugged it off and fell back on the politeness that had been ingrained since birth. “Thank you, Carol.”

Carol turned away when another woman Jared didn’t know came up behind her and gave her a hug. Jared knew he shouldn’t read too much into Carol’s support of him.

He made his way through the crowd to Annie’s side. She put her camera down and smiled over at him. “What a great race!”

“It was exciting.” But more exhilarating was the smile on Annie’s face. He could see the joy she had in the moment and he was happy to share it with her. He leaned over to tug her into his arms.

He rubbed his hands down her back, reveling in the feel of her. It had been too long, he thought, too long since he’d let someone be his home. And he wasn’t sure that he was going to get used to the feelings swamping him now.

He didn’t like them. They made him weak and he’d never been able to abide any kind of weakness in himself.

“When will you be free?”

“Late tonight. I can meet you back at the hotel.”

“I’ll be around. Text me when you’re ready to go and I’ll come and find you.”

Jared left Annie to find Tucker, who was being interviewed by one of the twenty-four-hour sports channels. Tucker had finished third in the unofficial standings. He was grinning and saying the right things to the reporters who were questioning him, but Jared had known him long enough to see past his smiling facade.

When they were finally alone in Tucker’s motor home, Jared asked, “You okay, man?”

“I should have won today.”

Tucker always thought he should win. And Jared knew that his friend was going to spend the next few days going over every move he’d made on the track and trying to figure out where he’d lost.

“You ran a good race.”

“Yeah. And I changed my damned tires on the last pit so no one would say anything, but I’m not doing it again. I’ve got to run my races my way.”

“I agree. I’ve already lodged a complaint that Jenner brought up the tire thing again. I think this will be the end of it.”

“It better be.”

“Or else what?”

“Nothing. I’m just talking trash because I’m pissed off. I hate losing.”

“Everyone does.”

“True,” Tucker said. “You gonna hang at the post-race party or you rushing off to your girl?”

“I’ll hang for a while.”

“Until she calls you?” Tucker said with a shrewd look.

He shrugged, not willing to cop to what he felt about Annie. He didn’t share his feelings with her, so he certainly wasn’t going to discuss it with Tucker.

“You’ve got it bad,” Tucker said.

Maybe Tucker was right. The closer Annie got to him the harder he tried to preserve the distance he usually kept between everyone and himself. But she had a way of getting around his barriers.

“It doesn’t feel bad,” he said, at last.

Tucker stared at him for a minute. “You couldn’t pick a girl from our team to fall for?”

Jared wished it were that easy. But he hadn’t been looking for a woman. “That would have made life much simpler.”

“No kidding.”

Tucker went to shower and Jared left to talk to the other members of their team, but in the back of his mind was the fact that Annie had come into his life when he hadn’t expected her to.

He tried to keep his mind on racing but instead, as he caught a glimpse of Annie hugging her brother, Jared was filled with a sense of awe that she was his. A sense of rightness…a sense of completeness that he noticed was lacking when she was out of his company.

THE RETURN TO Daytona felt like a milestone to Annie in her relationship with Jared. They’d been together for almost five months.

They’d weathered a few storms, spurred by the fact that they were affiliated with different racing teams, but she thought each one had brought them closer. Or as close as Jared would allow them to be before his cool reserve came back into play.

She didn’t know what to believe when it came to Jared, but he held her so close sometimes that she had to believe they were building something lasting.

“Are you sure there’s a house out here?” Jared asked as they turned off the main highway onto a smaller, roughly paved road.

This was old Florida at its finest. Scrub pine and swamp grass were on either side of the road.

“Very funny.” She smiled over at Jared.

“This is nice,” he said.

“Driving?”

“You and me together and away from the track instead of both of us so busy,” he answered.

“You’re not stressed that your driver is down in the points?”

“Nah. Tucker has come back from worse places before. We’ve got a plan for this weekend.”

“New strategy?” she asked.

“Yes. We’re going to surprise everyone this weekend in Daytona.”

“Dave’s going to be hard to beat. He’s really got his groove going now.”

“That’s true, but I’m confident that Tucker can take him.”

“How confident?”

“Pretty damn sure,” he said.

Since Richmond, Annie had treaded carefully around her brother and Jared’s best friend. Tucker had stopped answering questions about her when the media mentioned her relationship. She and Jared had been keeping a low profile. Mainly, she admitted, because Jared had been working a lot of hours either on the racing team or at the corporate offices for JM’s Coffee House.

“Care to make a little wager on the outcome?” she asked, as she made the last turn onto her uncle Steve’s property. There was a large wrought-iron gate with a sign that warned trespassers off.

“On the race?”

She nodded.

“Okay. What are the terms?”

“If Dave wins you tell me one thing about your past that you’ve never shared with anyone else.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be the person who knows you best,” she said, putting all her cards on the table.

“I think you are,” he said quietly.

“Oh, Jared, I hope not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you haven’t let me know you at all.”

“We’re intimate,” he said.

She realized that this conversation wasn’t the one she’d intended, but now was as good a time as any to have it. “That’s physical. You only let me so close.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. It was a habit he had when he stalled for time. “I’m trying.”

“Good. So if Dave wins, we’ll learn something new about each other?”

“Sure. But I’m going to ask about your marriage,” he said, warned.

“Deal,” she said. And it was.

She reached over for the intercom button.

But Jared stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Will you do something for me?”

“What?” she asked, then realized how that sounded. “You mean in addition to the bet?”

He nodded.

“Yes, I will.”

“I’m not ready to ask you right now.”

And that seemed to sum up the complex dance that was their relationship. For every inch he gave in the intimacy department, he inserted two more inches of space. She pushed her sunglasses up on the top of her head and leveled a stare across the seat at him.

“When will you be ready?” she asked.

He leaned across the bucket seat and gave her a hard kiss. “Soon.”

She tried not to let it bother her, but she felt vulnerable where he was concerned and she wanted, needed, some reassurance.