This Time, Forever (9 page)

Dorien Kelly

S
USIE
E
DMONDS
found it a little scary that she was beginning to feel an emotional bond with her daughter's hamster. Both she and the hamster ran in endless circles, ultimately getting nowhere—the hamster on his wheel and Susie on her daily after-school route. The hamster, however, remained blessedly oblivious to the fact that his owner, fourteen-year-old Camille, had taken the hormonal plunge into adolescence. As a non-English speaker, the hamster couldn't discern between the standard sweet, agreeable Cammie or the diva-in-training who was taking over her body with increasing frequency. Sadly, Susie could.

“Mom, we need to pick up my new riding boots before Matt's soccer practice. If you drop him off first, there won't be time to get them and my life will be totally ruined,” Cammie announced from her seat beside Susie in the family's SUV.

Susie did her best to hide a smile at her daughter's dire tone. The diva was most definitely in the house…or at least the vehicle. But it was a lovely early October Monday afternoon, with just a bit of cool to the North Carolina air, and Susie wasn't going to allow Cammie's mood to dim the sunshine.

“Sweetheart, I fail to see how getting Matt to practice on time is going to ruin your life,” she said.

Susie glanced in the rearview mirror to see how ten-year-old Matt was holding up. Wise boy that he was, he'd tucked his earbuds in and was rocking away to the beat of his favorite band. He was so much his father's son, from the cleft in his chin right down to that wonderful “go with the flow” personality that Susie adored.

Cammie gave a drama queen sigh to accompany a toss of her brown ponytail. “I need to get those boots broken in before the show next Saturday. If I don't, it's going to be a disaster!”

“You can wear your old boots for the show.”

“I'd die first!”

Susie gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and reminded herself that patience was key when dealing with a teen. Well, patience and perhaps an adults-only beach vacation. She'd have to talk to Ben and see if they could steal a few days. As the wife of a NASCAR driver, Susie knew that finding time during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season was going to be a challenge, but they both needed it.

“Death seems a little extreme,” she said to her daughter. “I'm doing all I can to make sure everything is covered. There's only one of me. What do you expect me to do?”

“You could have picked them up before you got us from school.”

Susie didn't feel compelled to explain her busy daily schedule to a fourteen-year-old. Instead, she focused on finding a parking spot by Matt's soccer field.

“Okay, buddy,” she said to her son once he'd left the land of music and rejoined the family Edmonds. “I'll be back here just as soon as I've dropped Cammie at
the stable. Take your water bottle and leave your music, and don't forget to—”

“I know, Mom. Have fun,” Matt said before opening his door and slipping out to join his friends.

Have fun.

While her advice had been automatic, Susie found the thought a little bittersweet. When she and Ben had married, they'd decided that the one never-to-be broken rule was to find fun in everything they did. Even back in the early days, when they didn't know how they were going to scrape together the money for utility bills, let alone rent, they had always found a way to have fun. Usually it had been something as simple as a picnic lunch at their favorite park outside Mooresville.

Now they could scarcely find time for a family moment that wasn't centered on Cammie's show jumping or Matt's soccer or hockey activities. And as for couples' time? Forget it. With Ben on the road virtually every weekend during the season, and the loss of relative freedom since Susie was no longer home-schooling the children, they couldn't seem to get it in synch. She missed Ben as surely as though she hadn't seen him in months.

Cammie shifted restlessly in her seat. “Mom, if we don't leave now, how are we going to get my boots?”

“I'll pick them up tomorrow,” Susie replied before pulling her cell phone from its nook in the SUV's console.

“But—”

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Susie said firmly. “Right now I want to call Daddy.”

“Why does it always have to be about you?” Cammie asked.

Susie had done her reading and knew the adolescent brain didn't yet fire properly, so she would cut her daughter a small amount of slack.

“Don't be rude,” she said.

Cammie made the wise choice of silence.

This time, pick up the phone
, Susie thought as she hit Ben's top spot on her autodial list.
Please be there.

 

M
ID-DISCUSSION
, Ben Edmonds looked down at his phone, which sat before him on the mahogany conference room table at Double S Racing. His wife's name flashed on the phone's screen, signaling her incoming call. Ben was pretty sure he'd told Susie that he'd be with his team owner and crew chief all afternoon, and probably not home for dinner, either. Pretty sure, but not positive. Life had been a little crazy lately.

“Are we distracting you from something more important, Ben?” asked Chris Sampson, who was, as far as Ben was concerned, the crew chief from hell.

“No,” Ben said as he tapped his phone's Ignore feature and sent Susie off to voice mail.

“Good,” the younger man flatly replied. “Now, I think we can all agree that yesterday's finish in Kansas was unacceptable.”

“It goes without saying that nineteenth place is not what we're shooting for,” Ben said.

“Does it?” Sampson asked.

Ben had thought he was becoming numb to the guy's barely-below-the-surface antagonism, but apparently not.

“I don't know how you got it into your head that I don't care or that I have found anything about this season acceptable,” he said.

Topping the list of unacceptable events was Gil Sizemore, team owner and current silent observer at the head of the table, firing Ben's longtime crew chief and hiring Chris Sampson. Sampson was blunt to the point of rude, confrontational and nowhere near the sort of personality Ben found to be conducive to good teamwork. Beyond that, Ben was just generally ticked to have this guy shoved down his gullet.

“It's good to hear that you care because I've had my doubts,” Chris replied.

Ben didn't believe in violence, but a man also had his limits. He shoved away from the table and stood, knowing he would have to walk from this room before he did something damaging. Still, he had to finish saying his piece.

“Just because I'm out of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup this season doesn't mean I don't hold myself to high standards,” he said. “NASCAR was my life before you had any damn idea what a stock car might be. Sure, I don't doubt that you have your skills. Your record prior to this year has proven that. But what I can't tolerate is the lack of respect toward me. I'm putting you on notice now that the next time you make some crack about my dedication, you're going to find yourself on a whole new level of getting to know me…right down to my fist. You understand that?”

Chris rose. “I understand more than you're able to see.”

“You think so?” Ben asked in a voice as distinctly unfriendly as Chris's had been.

Suddenly, though, he saw the humor in the situation. Yes, he was ticked, but he wasn't about to take on a guy probably ten years younger and definitely a whole lot
meaner. Especially one who he had to find some way to work with, or a lot of people might well lose their jobs—himself included.

Gil, who had about five inches on Ben's five feet ten inches stood, too.

“Gentlemen,” he said in an “I'm the boss and we'd best not be forgetting that” tone. “Why don't we all sit down and talk about what we've learned from this season? We have seven races yet to go, and I can guarantee that no progress is going to be made with you two at each other's throats.”

Gil was, of course, correct…so far as his statement went. After Ben traded apologies with Chris, he took his seat but felt no better about his future. Truth was, Chris Sampson was nearly the least of Ben's issues this season. He was just the easiest to face down.

 

S
USIE LOVED THE NIGHTTIME
. She loved the song of the crickets drifting into the bedroom through the screen door to her reading porch. And she loved the time she had alone with Ben. Or, at least Ben and the television as he sat on the sofa at the far end of their large room, watching yesterday's race with the sound muted. The only thing she didn't like was the stress that rolled off him like a storm coming in over the mountains.

“Today was a long day for you,” she said as she finished off some trim on a sweater she was making for the boutique in Charlottesville. While knitting had started as a hobby—something to do with her hands because she never liked being perfectly still—it had grown into a business for her.

“I told you this morning I'd probably miss dinner,
didn't I?” Ben asked absently, gaze still fixed on the screen as he replayed a segment of race footage.

“Yes, you did. I only meant that you must be tired. I haven't seen you take a real day off in weeks,” she said.

“It's the wrong time of year.”

“I know, but we used to have our Mondays,” she replied. Because of the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule, Monday nights had always been their date night.

“I'd like my Mondays back, too,” he replied. Still, he didn't look her way.

She wouldn't have felt so slighted except she knew that he'd be watching this same recording with his team tomorrow and had likely already looked at it earlier in the day. She wanted something of more value to her than the jewelry he'd given her over the years; she wanted his undivided attention.

Susie set aside her knitting and rose from the bed. She was aware that after sixteen years of marriage she wasn't exactly a novelty and that her long cotton nightgown was hardly alluring. Still, she also knew that Ben loved her. She crossed the room and positioned herself in front of the television.

“Babe,” he said with a shake of his head. “You have to move. I can't see.”

“The race will be there later.”

“So will you,” he replied after a brief pause.

It felt as though his words had pushed the air from her. Susie wanted to leave the bedroom…the house….

Ben stood. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.” He rubbed his hand over his short-cut hair, making it stand even more upright than usual. “The pressure at Double S is pretty bad right now. I don't know what all I need to fix
between myself, the car and the crew, but it's a lot. One hell of a lot.”

The tension she'd been feeling was replaced by a different kind, but one no less difficult to hide.

“I know things haven't been good,” she said. “Even if we don't talk as much as we used to, I see things, Ben. I see you. I see how frustrated you've been.” She'd never been one to offer unsolicited advice, but she couldn't help herself. “Maybe you need to be a little kinder to yourself…allow yourself time to breathe.”

“No. You just don't get it. I'm not a rookie. I'm not even in my prime. This is it, Susie. I'm forty-one and it's not going to get any easier.”

Susie sought the right words, the right cheerful tone. “Forty-one? That's nothing, honey. Everyone says that forty is the new twenty.”

He snorted. “Maybe if you're a desk jockey, but if you're a race car driver? Forty might as well be seventy in terms of reflexes. I have to be better studied and in better shape than anyone else out there. How am I going to pull that off if I don't spend more time training?”

Hello?
How did she do all she did?

Even though she'd stopped homeschooling Cammie and Matt this year when they'd asked to try the local schools, between helping them keep in touch with their homeschooled friends and accommodating all the new additions to their schedules, she'd gained very little time. It seemed that work was demanding more, too. She'd hired a couple of women to do piecework for her. But Ben never asked about that part of her life, and she didn't want to burden him with more information when he was already distracted, so she kept it to herself.

“Multitask,” Susie said. “It won't buy you a full day back, but it will help.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “Multitask, how?”

It had sounded like a good idea in the abstract, but she struggled for an actual application.

“Well, you could put your race on the television downstairs in the exercise room and spend some time on the treadmill or even just the hot tub while you watch.”

Ben's hazel eyes narrowed. “If you wanted me to watch the race in another room, all you had to do was ask.”

So much for helping. Ben stalked from the room, and Susie watched the cars silently circle the track.

I
N SIXTEEN YEARS OF MARRIAGE,
Ben had never slept apart from Susie while they were under the same roof. Last night, he'd come close—too close—and it was all on him, not Susie. He was the one who'd spoken without thinking and then snarled when, in his heart, he'd known she was trying her hardest to keep peace between them. He'd joined her in bed after he'd run off some of his stress on the treadmill and then showered. She'd been sound asleep, or at least faking it. He couldn't blame her if she had. He'd barely been able to tolerate himself. And early this morning, she'd already been downstairs having breakfast with Cammie and Matt when he'd risen, so they'd had no chance to talk.

Now, as he drove past the stone pillars marking the entry to Havenhurst Country Club, Ben didn't feel a whole lot better. Even though he was a couple of minutes overdue for a breakfast meeting with his agent, he bypassed the valet parking and pulled into the lot. Once parked, he reached for his cell phone and debated calling Susie. She'd be on the road, he knew. Doing what, he didn't.

Though Ben hadn't argued the point too strenuously, he hadn't wanted her to stop home-schooling the kids. That had always given them the flexibility to be on the road with him. Since late August, he'd been traveling
without them. Although he remained surrounded by the dozens of people involved in keeping a NASCAR team up and running, the nights alone were tough.

Ben was just getting ready to call Susie when his screen flashed with the notice of an incoming text message. He smiled when he saw it was from his wife; she detested texting and said she'd do it only with those she really,
really
loved. Despite his stupid behavior last night, he must still be on that list. Ben opened the message.

Usually her texts ended with ILY—short for I love you. Thanks fell far short of that.

“My fault,” he reminded himself.

He'd make up for last night. Ripples in his professional life shouldn't affect her or the kids. Ben closed Susie's text and exited the car. He was looking forward to his meeting with Kane Ledger. The guy was a straight shooter and a good source for business advice, too. Ben needed him for both attributes this morning.

As Ben made his way through the club's nearly imposing front door and to the dining room, he returned greetings from the many friends he'd made in his years belonging here. It blew his mind to think that a Tennessee farm boy had grown up to become a NASCAR driver and golf lover, but here he was.

The maître d' showed Ben to a windowside table where Kane already waited. Ben's agent stood and shook his hand. Ben believed in vibes and instinct, and both were already telling him that this would not be an upbeat
meeting. He'd let Kane take the lead, though. No sense in inviting trouble when it seemed to be appearing at his doorstep daily already.

After ordering eggs, bacon and wheat toast, and getting a little caffeine into his system by way of coffee, Ben eased into conversation with Kane. They had moved on to shop talk about the weekend's upcoming race in California when the food arrived. Ben was two bites into his eggs when Kane spoke.

“I've got some news for you, and it's not good,” he said. “Hometeam Insurance has been in contact with Gil Sizemore and me. At this point, they won't be renewing their sponsorship for next season.”

Appetite gone, Ben pushed aside his plate.

This wasn't just a small sponsorship with a sticker on the car's B-post; this was Ben's primary sponsorship. His car had been painted the Hometeam colors of navy blue with red and gold accents, and covered with its logos for almost a decade. The company had paid millions of dollars annually for the privilege, too. Teams folded and drivers lost rides over a departing main sponsor. In this case, Gil Sizemore would be fine. He had other drivers, with other sponsors. Ben stood at much greater risk.

“Did they say why?” he asked.

Kane hesitated before speaking, something Ben had seldom seen him do.

“I think it's a number of things. Money is tighter in the insurance business, and everyone is looking for ways to reduce expenses.”

“So we'll just cut a new deal with them. I can do more promo work and attend more corporate events, too.”

“I've already offered that,” Kane replied. “It was a no go.”

The problem with a straight shooter as an agent was taking those blows straight to the gut.

A nod was pretty much all Ben could work up in response. He followed that with a coffee chaser to see if he could lose some of the numbness that seemed to be working its way from the inside out.

“This is rough, but it could be worse,” Kane said.

“There won't be a public announcement by Hometeam unless they settle on someone else to sponsor, and I'm going to do all I can to keep the lines of communication open. The real issue is a loss of confidence that you're going to get them the exposure they want for that kind of money.”

Ben couldn't help but defend himself.

“Exposure comes in a lot of forms. Even if my finishes have been down the past couple of years, my website still has one of the most active forums out there. I get more discussion and more hits than just about anyone but Kent Grosso, and Hometeam's color and logos are all over the site.”

“I agree your fans are active, but I'm also beginning to read some unhappiness,” Kane replied after a bite of his breakfast. “They're losing faith in your ability on the track. They still respect the way you mentor other drivers and they applaud your volunteer work. But even then, I've seen some concern that your activities are affecting your driving, too.”

“You're sure sifting a lot from a pack of one-sentence posts,” Ben said.

“It's my job to know what's going on with you,” Kane
replied. “And I do…at least on the surface. Do you have anything else you think I need to know?”

Ben didn't want to talk about any of this. If Kane had been keeping an eye on the fan forum, he had also seen the idle chat about when Ben might be retiring. The whole damn topic had him rattled.

“No,” he said to his agent. “At least not now, with this Hometeam thing to absorb. I've got a lot of thinking to do.”

“Okay,” Kane said. “And in the meantime, I've already talked to the team about putting out quiet feelers to your secondary sponsors to see if anyone is interested in a bigger investment. We've had some curiosity. If you stay in at least the top quarter of finishers for the rest of the season, we might get something going.”

Time was, Ben might have felt hungry and ready to grab at success when faced with a challenge like that. Now the prospect of cold scrambled eggs seemed more attractive. Ben returned to his breakfast knowing it was going to be a helluva long day.

 

W
HEN SHE COULD WRANGLE
the time, Susie always loved going to Maudie's Down Home Diner to meet with the group of women who affectionately referred to themselves as the Tuesday Tarts. Tonight, she almost hadn't made it. Even though Ben had sent her a text saying he'd be home to watch the kids, he hadn't shown up. At first, she'd resigned herself to staying home. Cammie had pointed out, though, that if she was old enough to babysit for other families, she could watch Matt for a few hours. And so Susie had come to the one location where all those connected to NASCAR could relax
and be themselves. Yet tonight she felt restless, sad and strangely out of place.

It wasn't the company. Sheila Trueblood, the diner's owner, was her same hospitable, sharp and funny self. The women present were also as they had always been…laughing and talking about everything from last weekend's race in Kansas to their favorite authors. Right now, Susie's dear friend Patsy Grosso, co-owner of Cargill-Grosso Racing, was listing off-site places to visit if anyone had a few spare minutes at this weekend's upcoming race outside of Los Angeles. Happiness fairly glowed in the small yet comfortable seating area that occupied part of the diner's storage room.

Because it would be rude to just walk out, Susie checked her cell phone and gave a shake of her head, as though she'd just received a text message that was a bit of a bother. Then she did as she'd been yearning and rose to step out of the confines of the back room.

“Is everything okay, Susie?” asked Patsy.

Susie worked up a smile. “Fine…I just need to call home. Cammie has a question for me.”

Patsy laughed. “It's funny how critical it is for our families to hunt us down during our ‘me' time, isn't it?”

“We become indispensable the moment we step away,” said fellow Tart Cara Stallworth, a mother of three.

Keeping her expression bright, Susie waggled her phone in her hand and said, “Let me take care of this, and I'll be right back in.”

Susie slipped from the back room and into the diner, which had only a few customers at this time of the night. She was thankful for both the relative quiet and the fact
that she needn't keep that cheerful expression pinned on when she was away from her friends. Her face was beginning to ache.

Susie settled into a booth far from the other customers, closed her eyes, tipped back her head and let calm wash over her. She felt a little guilty for scamming her friends in the other room, but not enough so that she was about to go back in there. She needed this moment to collect herself. She had relaxed just about to the tips of her toes when a sound from behind her jolted her back to full awareness. She swung around so that she was able to peer over the back of the booth.

Mellie Donovan, Maudie's waitress and occasional Tuesday Tart, had just set down refilled salt and pepper shakers at the table. It was no great commotion, but it didn't take much to rattle Susie these days.

“Mellie, you nearly scared me to death!” she said, lightening the drama of her words with a shaky laugh.

“I'm sorry,” the younger woman replied quietly. “Everybody's served and happy, so I'm trying to get some side work done while I can. It seems like I don't have enough hours in the day.”

Susie could relate. “Isn't that the truth? I feel as though lately I've had a chain of endlessly long days.”

Mellie hefted a second set of salt and pepper shakers that she still held in her left hand. “I keep looking for the upside to schedules like ours. The best I've come up with is that I'd rather be wildly busy than bored.”

Susie could scarcely recall Mellie ever standing still—or talking this much. With her short-cropped black hair and delicate features, she hardly looked old enough to hold a job let alone have a three-year-old daughter, yet Susie knew she did. Mellie and her daughter, Lily, lived
in an apartment above the diner. And because Maudie's was truly a big family, Louise Jordan, wife to cook Al, was Lily's daycare provider while Mellie worked. But based by the baby monitor that Mellie carried, tonight Lily must have been sound asleep upstairs.

“Somehow, I doubt you're ever bored,” Susie said.

“I have no time for bored, though someday I'd like to try it out,” the waitress replied.

Susie hesitated before asking, “Would it be okay if you sat with me for a couple of minutes?”

She liked the quiet younger woman and felt right now as though they were kindred spirits. Susie was as emotionally restless as Mellie was tense.

The waitress looked around the diner, then without so much as a nod, sat.

Faint purplish shadows showed beneath Mellie's brown eyes, and Susie felt a stab of remorse for complaining about long days when this girl worked them just to survive.

“I know it's none of my business, but you seem kind of sad. If you'd like someone to talk to…” Mellie trailed off, then shook her head. “I'm sorry. That sounded silly. You've got a roomful of friends back there.”

Susie did, indeed. But those friends were all intimately connected with NASCAR, whether as a team owner, team employee or wife of a driver. All of them had known Ben for years. Susie could never get past a feeling of disloyalty if she were to tell them how worried she was about her husband, both because of his self-confidence issues on the track and because of the disconnect that had popped up in their marriage. She didn't feel comfortable giving Mellie the particulars, either, but she could talk in generalities.

“Have you ever felt as though things are spinning out of control?” she asked Mellie.

The girl nodded. “Lily just turned three. Things are always spinning out of control.”

“Good point. It's been a while for me, but I remember those days.”

Susie tilted her head as she recalled how much busier, yet simpler, life had been for her family even seven years ago, when Matt had been three. Ben had been doing well and was fairly consistently in the Chase. She'd been totally in love with homeschooling Cammie and Matt, and their course in life had seemed so clear. Not so much, these days.

“So, does it get less busy as children get older?” Mellie asked, breaking into Susie's reverie.

“It's busy, but a different kind of busy. You don't have to worry so much about those toddler-proofing issues, but that gained time is taken up by being sure they're doing what they should at school and by getting them where they need to be. It's just as tough keeping up, but exciting to see them grow and change.”

“The changes I see in Lily just over a week or so are amazing,” the younger woman said. “She learns new words almost every day and gets a little bolder about trying to boss me around, too.”

Thinking of Cammie, Susie laughed. “Trust me, that won't change.”

“My life is a lot to handle between work and Lily, but I'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe and loved,” she said with a fierceness that Susie had never before heard from her. She was sure there was something else going on, but Mellie didn't continue.