Legends and Lies (5 page)

DAVE SAW HIS SISTER talking to Jared MacNeil and told himself it was none of his damned business who she dated.

“Get your head in the game,” Vinnie said, coming up behind him.

He and Vinnie had been together almost from the start of Dave’s racing career. He respected his crew chief and together they were damn near unstoppable when they were at the top. “It is in the game.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, but glaring at MacNeil isn’t what you need to be doing right now.”

“What do you know about the guy?”

“Same stuff everyone else does—his team is small but pretty powerful. They win a lot of races with only two drivers.”

“I meant personally.”

“Not much,” Vinnie said.

Dave put his helmet on and got in his car to drive his test laps. When he came in he checked his speed against the other drivers and saw that Aldridge was faster than he was after the first few laps.

“The balance feels a little off, Vinnie.”

“Where?”

“The left rear feels like it’s sticking to the track,” Dave said.

The team made the adjustments to the car. Balance was handled by adding or removing chunks of lead within the frame rails to redistribute weight in the four corners.

When Dave’s car was ready again he backed out of the garage just as Aldridge drove past his bay. The other driver gave him a snarky thumbs-up.

Dave knew it wasn’t exactly charitable but he wanted a piece of Aldridge. He wanted to beat Aldridge so badly he could taste it. That upstart had pushed his buttons from the very beginning. Always nipping at his heels and trying to…Dave didn’t know.

Dave pulled down his driver’s netting and saw Annie moving around his car, snapping photos. He didn’t like the fact that she was dating someone from Tucker’s team, much less the team owner. In the back of his mind was the thought that if he won this weekend maybe she’d lose interest in MacNeil.

“Go get some speed, Dave,” Vinnie said though the headphones.

Dave knew he had to let the thing with Tucker go, but he’d never been able to. There were several drivers that he sparred with on the track, but off-track they were buds.

Not Tucker. The man was a loner and he liked to play by his own rules. That was it, Dave thought. He’d been brought up in this world. And he expected the rules of fair play to be observed by everyone.

The next few laps were better. The car was running smoothly and his times were faster. He pulled into the garage. Vinnie and the rest of the team went over the car one more time.

Annie was still moving around the garage snapping photos. Dave climbed out of the car as Vinnie came over to him.

“Great time on that last lap. I think we’re good for now. I’m going to tape off the grille,” Vinnie said.

“Are you going back out for any more laps?” Annie asked, coming up behind him.

“No, I’m done for now. Why?”

“I wanted to get a few shots of you on Turn One from the other side of the track, but I’ll catch you during qualifying.”

Annie followed him out of the bay and across the alleyway toward his hauler. Jared MacNeil saw the two of them and waved. Annie waved back and then she blushed a little.

“What’s up with you two?”

“You know we went out.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m asking. Are you going to go out with him again?”

“Yes.”

“Annie—”

“Stop it. I don’t want to hear anything else from you about who I date.”

“Fine. Stevie Taylor is going to be stopping by later today to check out the car. I think some pictures with him would be good for the book.” Stevie was the lead singer of a hard-rock supergroup and over the years he and Dave had become good friends and poker buddies. They often played in high-stakes games in Vegas together. A lot of celebrities attended the race in California since the track was only forty minutes from Los Angeles.

“Dave, I didn’t mean to sound rude about Jared. I just don’t need you doing the protective brother thing.”

He nodded. “I can’t help myself, Annie. Something about that guy still rubs me the wrong way.”

“What?”

“I wish I could put my finger on it,” he said.

THE OWNER’S SUITE high above the track was luxurious and had a great view. Annie stood at the window. The NASCAR Busch Series drivers were qualifying now so the track wasn’t quiet, but the skybox was soundproofed and there was music playing in the room.

Jared had escorted her here and then left to take a call. A table had been set in front of the window. A small present sat in front of the chairs. She felt a little weird thinking that he might have bought her something.

“Sorry about that,” Jared said as he entered the room. “Are you ready for lunch?”

She shook her head. She needed a few answers from him. She was almost afraid to ask but she had to. “Why are you going to all this trouble? Is this what you normally do?”

He pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants and leaned back on his heels. “What brought this on?”

“Well, for one thing, my brother isn’t too keen on me dating you and I don’t want to upset him if this is just some kind of game to you.”

“What makes you think this is a game?” he asked.

She gestured to the table. “This feels like a setup.”

He arched one eyebrow at her. “How do you mean?”

“Like this is something you’ve done before.”

“It is. A lot of women like to come down to the track and have a private lunch while the NASCAR Busch Series qualifying is going on.”

A lot of women, she thought. Well, that told her exactly how he felt about her. She was one of many. Not one of a kind. “I’ve been in owner’s suites before.”

“I’m making a mess of this,” he said, crossing the room to stand in front of her.

“Yes, you are,” she said, unwilling to cut him any slack.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “This is the world you grew up in…I think I wanted to show you that I was part of it.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Annie,” he said, cupping her face in his hands, “I don’t do this for every woman I date.”

“Then why me?” she asked.

“I can’t explain it. Why are you here with me? I’m not your normal kind of guy.”

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“I read a few articles on you, too.”

That made her feel so much more his equal. He was into her, she thought. Then his words sunk in and she realized he’d have read about her marriage.

“Uh…that stuff that Malcolm said… Our marriage didn’t really end well. We wanted different things.”

“What did you want?” he asked.

She hesitated to say it. What she wanted was a little too deeply personal for this early in a relationship, but if she had any chance at something real with Jared then she wasn’t going to lie about things that were important to her. She’d compromised herself too often for Malcolm and that had made them both miserable.

“I wanted a family.”

“And Malcolm didn’t?”

She shrugged. No way was she going to admit to Jared that Malcolm had a very European attitude toward marriage and wives. He’d wanted a family with her, but only if she would look the other way when he had his affairs—something she simply couldn’t do.

“When you’re ready to tell me about it, we can talk.”

“I think I
am
ready for lunch,” she said.

“Good. But first I have a little present for you.”

He handed her the long slim box.

She took it from him but made no move to open it. “What’s this for?”

“To celebrate the start of our relationship,” he said and there was a confidence in him that made her want to believe that their relationship would be a good one.

JARED HAD PURCHASED gifts for women before and had all kinds of reactions to them. But this was the first time anyone had seemed almost embarrassed by the gift. And she hadn’t even opened the wrapping yet and seen the distinctive Tiffany blue box.

A part of him knew that it was too early in a relationship for a gift, but he’d been unable to resist the bracelet when he’d seen it in the window of Tiffany’s on Rodeo Drive. He had the image of it on her wrist.

She eased the gold foil gift wrap from the box and folded it neatly into a square, hardly even glancing at the box. She had to know it was jewelry but she wasn’t grasping at the box or hurrying to open it up.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” she said carefully, rubbing her finger over the raised imprint of the Tiffany name. She didn’t look down at the box but only stared at him.

“I wanted to. Open it.”

She did and just stared into the box without removing the bracelet. The longer she stared at it the more unsure he became of the gift. He couldn’t read her reaction at all.

“Annie?”

“Thank you, Jared,” she said at last, lifting her eyes to his. Her pretty brown eyes were wide and her emotions hard to discern. She lifted the bracelet from the box and held it in her long fingers.

“I’ll put it on you.”

She held the bracelet out to him. Her arm suspended between them as he took the platinum piece from her. He fastened it around her wrist and then bent to leave a small kiss under the clasp.

Her hand turned under his grasp, her long cool fingers brushing over his jaw. He stood back up and met her gaze. She kept her hand on his face. “Thank you, Jared. Really thank you.”

Before he could say anything to her, he got a call on his BlackBerry. It was Tucker. Jared decided the call could wait and instead went to the refrigerator, where he’d left a bottle of San Pellegrino chilling.

“Would you like a glass of sparkling water?”

“Yes, please.”

“I saw a magazine article about you with the photo of Dave and your father that won the photojournalism award. When did you take the photo?”

“About four years ago. It was the first time Dave made it into the chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup. He was so jazzed standing there in Victory Lane and, well, you can see from the look on my dad’s face how proud he was.”

“It was easy to see. Tucker’s first time in the Chase was like that, too.”

“You two are that close?”

“He’s like the brother I never had.”

His BlackBerry started ringing again.

“I don’t mind if you get that,” she said.

“I do. I want to enjoy my lunch with you.”

He glanced at the caller ID display. Tucker—again. He let it go to voice mail and then heard the phone twitter. He glanced down and saw the text message on the screen.

Call me. Now!

Clearly there was an emergency. He simply couldn’t ignore him at this time.

“Will you excuse me? I have to take this call.”

“Go ahead. I’m going to sit here and watch the track. I love it from up here.”

He exited the suite and called Tucker.

“What so important that it couldn’t wait?” he asked without preliminaries.

“Where are you?” Tucker asked. In the background Jared heard Jay-Z being played loudly and guessed that Tucker was in his hauler. He liked to listen to rap music while he got ready to qualify.

“In my suite, why?”

“We’ve got a problem and I need to talk to you. Can you get down here now?”

“What kind of problem?” Jared asked, starting to get concerned by the tone of Tucker’s voice. It was small and tight, which meant that Tucker was ticked off.

“Someone tampered with my car.”

“What do you mean
tampered?
” he asked.

“Removed the tape off the front of the car,” Tucker said. Though the drivers weren’t allowed to use taping during the actual race they were allowed to do it during qualifying. Taping off prevented air flow from cooling the engine and enabled the driver to reach higher speeds.

“Who would do that?”

“Your girlfriend springs to mind.”

“Annie? Why would she do that?”

“Qualifying in a top position is important, Jared. Who else would want me to not get the pole?”

“I can think of a number of other drivers.”

“Yeah, but they weren’t hanging around my garage this morning, were they?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t know who’d tampered with Tucker’s car, but he’d bet all of his money that it wasn’t Annie.

“I’ll ask her if she did anything to your car.”

“Do you honestly think she’ll tell you?”

He thought of the way she’d reacted to the bracelet, and in his gut, he knew the truth. Annie wasn’t going to lie to him about anything. That wasn’t the way she was wired. She reacted to things, good or bad, with honest emotion.

“Yes, I do.”

“Hell, you’re a fool.”

“Maybe you’re the one who is.”

Tucker hung up and Jared glanced at the closed door to the suite.