Legends and Lies (4 page)

JARED WASN’T SURE how he’d be welcomed by the Jenner clan. Her brother had warned her off him and this really wasn’t the time to try and make new friends. But Annie was asking him to go with her. And he found that he didn’t want to deny her.

He nodded.

He turned the car off and got out. She hesitated in front of the Aston Martin. Just stood there staring at the hospital, saying nothing.

He could clearly remember his own father’s heart attack. He’d gotten a call in the early morning hours from his mother. By the time they’d arrived at the hospital his father had passed.

He knew exactly what held Annie in that spot in front of his car. He’d blithely entered the hospital. He had tucked his mother’s small hand under his arm, confident that his father was going to be okay. Because his father had always been bigger than life and the MacNeil clan was always unstoppable. In business they were un-rivaled and in life his father had always been invincible.

But that early morning Benjamin MacNeil had lost his super powers. And Jared had realized how human his father had been, how unpredictable life could be. He’d started moving on that day. Always staying busy so that he wouldn’t have to slow down and feel the grief. He didn’t want to feel anything really—he’d watched his mother shatter and knew he’d never wanted to end up that way.

He didn’t think that Annie was ready for that lesson. Ready to learn that the legend who was her father, the legend who’d escaped several serious crashes on the track, might be laid low by a heart attack.

Jared came up next to Annie and waited. They weren’t a couple, not really. They’d tentatively agreed to start dating but that still left him unsure of what to do here.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and he thought that maybe she was frozen in that moment where if you didn’t move forward nothing worse could happen.

If she had been his, he’d wrap his arms around her and hold her tight. But she wasn’t.

“Let’s go in,” he said.

In the lobby they walked right by the media, who were all asking questions.

Jared held up his hand, stopping to talk to them while Annie kept going to the information desk.

Carl Winnly approached as Annie disappeared down the hall.

“Why are you here?” the reporter asked.

“To give my support to the Jenner family,” Jared replied, hoping that Carl would take his words at face value. NASCAR was a tight community and when something like this happened to one of their own, they would all rally around the Jenner family.

“Will you excuse me, Carl?” Jared needed to call Tucker and let him know he was going to be later to the after-party than he’d originally expected.

“Sure. Do you know who the family spokesperson will be?”

“No. I’ll try to find out for you.”

Jared stepped back outside into the Florida night. It was turning cold and the air sank through his clothes, chilling him to the bone. There was a glow from the security lights in the parking lot.

He hit the speed dial for Tucker’s number.

“Yo, Jared. Where are you, man?” Tucker asked.

“My date is running longer than I expected.”

Tucker chuckled. “That’s not a bad thing.”

“No, it’s not,” he said. Though he and Tucker were close Jared didn’t really like to talk about the women he dated.

“We can catch up tomorrow. I want to talk to you about next week’s race.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be back in the motor home lot tonight if you want to stop by.”

“Will you be alone?”

“More than likely,” he said. He thought that even if there hadn’t been a Jenner family emergency, Annie wasn’t the kind of girl to go back to his place on the night of their first date.

He started back to the hospital, wondering if he should stay despite the fact that she wanted him to. He wasn’t really good at being a part of something. His parents deaths a mere six months apart had insulated him. He allowed himself to care for Tucker, but even that was filtered through the distance he liked to keep between himself and other people.

Part of it he knew harkened back to those years he’d spent alone at boarding school and the behaviors he’d learned then. But another part of it was simply that life was easier when he didn’t form deep bonds with others. And if he stayed…well, he was already more into Annie than he was comfortable with.

He shivered in the cold, feeling like the kind of man his father would have sneered at in disdain. For the first time in his thirty-five years he didn’t feel like he was a MacNeil. How had he come to this?

He felt like shallow shell of a man who was more comfortable being charming to strangers than caring for people he knew. And the answer was very clear.

He walked back into the hospital. She’d asked him to stay and he’d said he would. MacNeils honored their promises—he heard his father’s words echoing in his mind in his father’s deep voice. He’d always been careful about the promises he made. Careful not to make too many or to give them too lightly.

The one he’d made tonight hadn’t been given easily or lightly. He wanted to be there for Annie. Be there
with
her. He strode down the hallway to the waiting area. And when he stepped inside he didn’t go back to his corner, but met Annie’s gaze head-on, and there was something there that he was almost afraid to believe was real. A kind of welcome that had always eluded him before. She held her hand out to him and he went to her side, sitting down next to her and just holding her hand.

Dave glanced over at him, but there was no malice or anger in her brother’s gaze. Instead there was the same kind of panic he’d glimpsed in Annie’s eyes earlier. Jared had no words to reassure the family but he found them all the same. He started talking about the kinds of breakthroughs that had been made in the past few years.

Drawing on his photographic memory he recited the statistics he’d read recently. Out of habit he read everything he could get his hands on and he was glad of that. As he was able to use facts to reassure the Jenner family.

THE NIGHT SEEMED to go on forever and Jared left shortly after midnight. Uncle Steve and Dave spoke to the doctors twice during the long night.

“Dad’s out of surgery and they’re moving him to ICU,” Dave said as he came hours.

“Did they say anything about his recovery?” Annie asked.

“Yes. They are optimistic that he’ll pull through.”

“Thank God,” Annie said.

“When can we see him?” her mom, Carol, asked.

“The doctors want to talk to you, Mom.”

“Right now?”

“Yes,” Dave said. “Annie and I will go with you unless you want Uncle Steve to.”

“You and Annie.”

Dave nodded and the three of them were led to a nice sitting area in a private room. Dave paced around the small room while Annie sat on the couch holding her mom’s hand. Finally the doctor came in and explained the surgery he’d done on her father.

The doctor left them a few minutes later.

“What are we going to do about Daddy?”

“Well, as soon as he’s recovered I’m going to lay down the law as far as his health is concerned.”

She heard the relief in her mom’s voice and felt as if her family was going to be okay, like they’d weathered a storm.

“You two okay?” Dave asked.

“Yes,” her mother said. “How about you? It’s been one crazy day.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Annie?”

“I feel strung out. I’m almost afraid to believe the doctor.”

Dave rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Yeah, me too. Listen, I’ve got to take a break.”

Annie stood and walked her brother out into the hall. “Go ahead. I’ll stay here with Mom.”

There were lines of strain around Dave’s eyes and he kept rubbing the back of his neck as if he had a lot of tension there. She worried about her brother. Worried about the stress of the new season, the crash and now this.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, Annie,” he said and walked away.

DAVE WAS STILL RUBBING the back of his neck as he walked outside. He reached in his pocket for the pack of cigarettes that he wasn’t supposed to be carrying around anymore. But he needed one. The night had been endless.

He palmed his lighter and lit the cigarette sinking deeper into the shadows, hoping that the nicotine would help him numb out a little, but knowing it wouldn’t be enough.

He wished like hell he could do this day over. Go back to the race and win the sucker instead of crashing so quickly. Then he could have won Daytona and maybe his dad wouldn’t have been so stressed that he’d had a heart attack.

He took another long drag on the cigarette. He wanted the NASCAR championship more than ever. He wanted it this year so that his dad could see him win. And he needed to get his head in the game. Start thinking about winning instead of letting Tucker Aldridge distract him.

“Can I get a light?” Carl Winnly asked as he approached him.

Dave tossed the lighter to the reporter and leaned back against the cold stone wall of the hospital.

“What a day,” Carl said.

“Off the record?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s been a bitch.”

Carl laughed. “A lot of owners and drivers stopped by the waiting room tonight.”

Dave knew that. He’d been out to talk with them at different times. One of the things he liked best about NASCAR was the close-knit community. To be fair it was also one of the things he didn’t like about the community—there were no secrets in NASCAR.

“I was surprised to see someone from MacNeil Racing here,” Carl said.

Dave knew the reporter was fishing for something he could print. And tonight Dave was tempted to say something he’d live to regret. Instead he shrugged.

“Jared’s an okay guy,” Dave said, even though he doubted it. God, that man was…hell, he had no idea, he just hoped that his sister knew what she was doing.

He dropped the cigarette on the ground, stubbed it out with the toe of his boot and walked back into the hospital. His relatives were starting to disperse and he hugged everyone and told them he’d call as soon as they heard anything else. Uncle Steve was going home for a few hours’ rest and would be back later in the morning. Soon it was just Annie, Mom and him.

He sat down between the two of them, putting his arms around their shoulder.

“Finally, some quiet,” Annie said.

The Jenners were a big crowd. His dad was one of four boys. Dave had fifteen first cousins on his dad’s side. And since they were in Daytona, his mom’s cousins, the Daltrys, had come as well. They lived in Deltona, only an hour away. All totaled Dave thought they’d had close to twenty people in the waiting room.

“It was nice to have them here. To have their support,” his mother said.

“Yes, it was,” Dave agreed.

Silence fell between them. He could only guess at what was going on in his sister’s and mother’s heads. His own was filled with endless regrets and possibilities. The things he hadn’t said to his father that he wanted to say.

He didn’t like the ache that was still near his heart. Couldn’t close his eyes and rest despite the fact that Annie did and his mom pretended to.

He wanted his father out of that bed and wrapping all of them in his arms. Brandon Jenner was a legend. Bigger than life and invincible, he thought. And he wanted his dad to wake up and cast that long shadow he always had. The one that Dave knew he was lost in.

But tonight had made all those feelings seem insignificant. He was almost ashamed of how many times he wished that he wasn’t his father’s son, thinking stupidly that life would somehow be easier.

Tonight he’d realized that life wouldn’t be easier without Brandon Jenner as his father. Life would be stark without his father there. And he thought maybe he needed this to happen to make him understand that wanting the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Championship and needing to be his own legend weren’t the same thing.

Annie curled closer to him. And he was so glad that she was there. So glad that she’d finally put Malcolm and the life she’d lived in Europe behind her and returned to the world that she belonged in.

He tipped his head back, feeling the weight he’d been carrying around for too long—the worry for his twin. That anxious fear that she’d never be the smiling girl he’d once known. But tonight with Jared MacNeil, of all men, he’d caught a glimpse of the girl he remembered.

And that was a good thing because he’d almost forgotten the boy he’d been. He’d gotten lost somewhere between his dreams of becoming a NASCAR driver and his quest to get out of his father’s shadow.

He didn’t like the man he was becoming. He’d always prided himself on being a gentleman, on being the kind of man that would live up to the Jenner name. And in the last few years—hell, last year—he’d started to realize that he wasn’t that man anymore. He’d changed and gotten lost somewhere. But sitting here in the waiting room with his father recovering, he found the path back to himself.

ANNIE HAD ALWAYS liked Southern California. For the first time since Sunday night she was thinking not about her father and his recovery, but about the race coming up and her job. And there was something about a track lined with palm trees and VIP boxes filled with Hollywood’s biggest stars. As a teenager she’d been able to meet some of her favorite Hollywood hunks thanks to her dad’s popularity as a driver.

It was nice to be back to work instead of sitting at her parents’ house watching her dad looking too pale in bed.

Fontana was a driver favorite. The track was a regular oval and not an odd shape, as some of the others were. The surface of the track was smooth, which made for good driving.

Walking through the infield, Annie told herself she wasn’t looking for Jared. He hadn’t called her during the week, but she hadn’t expected him to. Their date had ended a little strangely.

It was Friday and qualifying would happen later this morning. Her brother and the other drivers were getting ready to run a few test laps. She had her camera in her hands and snapped photos of her brother’s team as they worked on the car.

She took a few photos of the other bays and spotted Jared talking to Tucker.

She stopped a few feet away next to Tucker’s car, waiting for Jared to acknowledge her. She stroked her hand over the JM’s Coffee House logo. Tucker waved her over.

“Hey, Annie,” Tucker said. “How’s your dad doing?”

“Good. He’s home recovering.” They were all relieved to have him home. She knew it was silly to think that nothing could happen to him when he was home, but she just felt better knowing he wasn’t in the hospital. She suspected her mother did, too.

“Glad to hear that,” Tucker said. “I like your dad, wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.”

“He thinks you’re a maverick,” Annie said, recalling her father’s words about Tucker after last week’s race.

“Yeah, well he might be right,” Tucker said with a grin. Annie wished she had captured it with her camera. There was a certain reckless joy in Tucker’s face.

“He usually is,” Annie replied. Why wasn’t Jared saying anything? He was quietly standing to the side just looking at her. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Tucker cleared his throat and she glanced back at him. “Sorry I was an ass last week.”

“Apology accepted,” she said. Tucker’s crew chief, Billy Toughton, called him over and he left her alone with Jared.

“Your dad is really okay?” Jared asked when they were alone.

“He’s doing better. He’s recovering. The doctors want him to take it easy for a while, which is hard on him. Thanks for going into the hospital with me.”

“No problem.”

“You seemed to know a lot about heart attacks,” she said, not wanting to pry into his past but curious about it all the same.

“My dad collapsed while jogging. When he got to the hospital they ruled it a heart attack. So I read everything I could get my hands on about it.”

“You remember everything you read, too, right?”

“Yes. Did I tell you that?”

She flushed realizing that he hadn’t mentioned it. She’d read it on the Internet when she’d done a search on him. “I think you must have.”

He arched one eyebrow at her and she felt her face get even hotter.

“I don’t think I did. I was trying not to sound arrogant.”

“But we’d already established I like arrogant men,” she said, hoping to change the subject, but really having no idea what to change it to.

“That’s right…we had. Are you sticking to your story?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I guess not. I read an article about you.”

“Which one?”

She’d actually read seven articles on him and two on his father.

“A couple. I Googled you and then read the articles on the Internet.”

“You Googled me?”

“Yup. You had lots of links.”

He shook his head. “What’d you find out?”

“Stuff you already know,” she said, embarrassed that she’d told him that. Annie had planned to keep her snooping into his past a secret, although it hadn’t felt like snooping. She’d just wanted to know everything she could about him. She’d needed to know more about the man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.

And Annie liked what she’d found in those articles. The man she’d read about was exactly like the man she’d met.

“Do you still think I’m arrogant?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Why do you care about that?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I think I want to impress you.”

She thought about that for a minute. Who wouldn’t be impressed by him? “Well, at the risk of giving you a swelled head…you should know that you’re very impressive on paper.”

He leaned closer to her, his face inches from hers. “Only on paper?”

She shivered a little as she felt the warmth of his breath against her cheek.

“Maybe.”

“What can I do to change your answer?”

“I’m not sure. If you try too hard, I’ll see through your actions. And then you’ll just be arrogant again.”

“I’m going to have to work harder to improve my image.”

She glanced around Tucker’s garage area as his team moved the car around, getting it ready for the test laps. Their movements were a familiar dance to her. They pushed the car out of the garage and then maneuvered it around to push it back in, nose facing out.

“You can do that later. I have to get back to work,” she said.

In a few minutes the crews would start testing the engines and she needed to get back to Dave’s garage to take some more photos.

Jared took her elbow and led her out of the garage into the alleyway between the bays and the haulers. There were many people in the area.

“Will you have lunch with me in my owner’s suite?”

She didn’t even have to think about it, she responded immediately. “Yes.”