In High Gear

by Gina Wilkins

  “Long. And pretty dull. Neil was in one of his moods, and everyone was tiptoeing around him to keep him from getting mad. Is the water still hot?”

  “Yes. There’s some in the insulated carafe that should still be hot enough for a cup of tea, if you want one.”

  “Yeah, sounds good.” Kent had never been much of a hot tea drinker before he’d met Tanya, but she was crazy about the stuff. Somehow she had managed to get him into it, as well, so that now he drank a cup almost every night to relax before bed. “Did you eat?”

  “Yes.” She had declined to join him for the dinner and strategy session with his team members, claiming to be tired from her traveling that day. “I made an omelet and ate it with one of Jesse’s whole-grain muffins. It was delicious. That man certainly can bake.”

  “He says baking gives him something to do between his driving shifts. Always has seemed sort of strange to me, but I’m not complaining, since he keeps me supplied with muffins, cookies and pies.”

  Tanya had teased him once of basically having the same job as Jesse. Both of them spent many solitary hours behind a wheel, she’d said, but the difference was that Jesse ended up somewhere different when he finished, whereas Kent always came back to where he had started.

  Thinking about how easily they had once teased and laughed, he carried his mug of tea to the sofa, settling into the cushions with a slightly regretful sigh. “It’s good to have you here, Tanya,” he said, struck by how nice it had felt to walk in and find her waiting for him.

  “It’s good to be here,” she answered softly.

  He searched her face. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”

  Her smile wavered just a bit before she replied, “I hope so.”

  “I know you were disappointed with me for the cheating thing,” he said somberly, “but I really have changed a lot since then. I’d never do anything like that now.”

  A slight frown appeared between her eyebrows. She set her mug down very deliberately. “Surely you know that I wasn’t upset only because you once cheated on a test.”

  He cleared his throat, sensing that he’d said something wrong. Again. “Well, I mean, I know you were ticked off because I didn’t tell you about it. But—”

  “Ticked off?” she broke in to repeat. “You think I was ticked off because you didn’t tell me?”

  He wondered why she was parroting him. Was that supposed to mean something he wasn’t catching? “Um…yeah?”

  “And you didn’t think I was at all perturbed by the fact that you blatantly lied to me?” Her voice was as smooth as silk, yet had an edge that threatened to slice him.

  “I said I was sorry about that,” he muttered. “You said you understood.”

  “I never said I understood the lying,” she denied immediately. “I said only that I would try.”

  He huffed out an impatient breath. “So maybe we’ve got a way to go before we’re okay again.”

  “Maybe we do,” she said stiffly.

  “Is there anything I can do to make sure that happens?”

  She looked at him without expression, her eyes impossible for him to read. “There is one thing that would be a step in the right direction.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You can tell your parents the real story of why you had to leave State University.”

  “But what does that have to do with us?”

  “I spent an hour with your mother this afternoon while you were busy at that autograph session after the second qualifying race.”

  He nodded.

  “It was after I left her that I started thinking about this. All these years, you’ve been carrying this secret. Feeling guilty and ashamed of what happened. You might not have realized it, but those feelings were so painful that you put up a wall around them, so that there was a part of yourself you didn’t share with anyone. Not with me. And not even with your family.”

  “I’ll admit I should have told them the truth at the time,” he conceded. “And I’ve apologized for not coming clean with you when I had the chance. But what good would it really do to tell them now?”

  “For one thing, it would keep them from finding out from someone else. Like whoever sent you that e-mail,” she pointed out. “Can you imagine how much it would hurt your mother to hear the truth from someone who only wants to hurt you or humiliate you?”

  He could almost feel himself go pale. “I’d already thought of that, of course. Whoever sent that e-mail—well, I guess there’s nothing to stop him from sending one just like it to my parents.”

  “No. The truth comes out, Kent. Almost always. No matter how hard we might try to keep it hidden. That’s something I learned a long time ago from my dad.”

  He scowled at her. “This is a test, isn’t it? You’re trying to see if I can be trusted to tell the truth. It wasn’t enough that I told you, now I have to tell my parents.”

  “It isn’t a test,” she said with an impatient shake of her head. “I just think it’s something you need to do. For their sake. For yours. And for ours.”

  “How does my telling my parents affect us?” he asked again.

  “I just think it’s important for you to own up to your past. You said, yourself, that it wasn’t such a terrible transgression. Just a foolish teenage mistake. Yet you’ve made it into so much more by hiding it for so long. And until you get it out in the open, at least to the people who care about you the most, I don’t think you’ll ever be able to truly put it behind you. You’ve let it become a part of who you are, rather than a painful incident from your past. And that makes a big difference to us.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KENT DIDN’T LOOK FULLY convinced, and Tanya supposed she couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t done a very good job of explaining her rationale. But it was the best she could seem to do for now.

  “I’ve been thinking about that e-mail,” he said. “I have an idea who sent it. If I’m right, I don’t think I have to worry about my folks getting a copy.”

  “You figured out who sent it?” She was surprised, since this was the first time he’d mentioned it.

  He shrugged. “I said I have an idea. It sounds like something he would do to try to rattle me before the season begins.”

  Because she knew the way Kent’s mind worked, Tanya frowned. “Surely you don’t mean Justin Murphy.”

  He looked at her almost defensively. “You have to admit it makes sense.”

  “Not to me, it doesn’t. Why would Justin waste time before his own new season snooping into your background and then sending you an anonymous e-mail? Don’t you think he would have better things to do?”

  “I told you, he would think it was a great way to mess with my mind. Those Murphys will do anything to win.”

  It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. “Now you sound like Milo.”

  “Milo sounds that way for a reason. He’s been dealing with the Murphys for fifty years.”

  He was going off on a tangent again—the same way he was convinced that she was angry because he had cheated eleven years ago, and not because he’d lied about it only days ago. “Kent, you have no proof at all that Justin had anything to do with this. Besides, how would he know?”

  “You’re the one who said things come out when you least expect them to. There were other people involved. Maybe someone did talk. Maybe Justin heard the rumors and decided to take advantage of them.”

  “Or maybe you’re just latching onto the devil you know so you don’t have to face the possibility that it’s someone altogether different,” she suggested.

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “In which case, there’s still a chance your parents could get a similar e-mail.”

  He released a gusty breath and stood, carrying his barely touched tea to the sink, where he dumped it down the drain. “I’ll tell them,” he said abruptly. “After the race. Dad doesn’t need to be distracted by stuff like this beforehand.”

  “I’m sure you know best about that
.” Or was he only telling her what she wanted to hear now? Could she really believe that he would keep his word?

  It broke her heart that she was haunted by those doubts now, even though she wanted so desperately to trust him as implicitly as she had before.

  “I’m going to tell them,” he repeated, turning to look at her with narrowed eyes, as if he’d sensed something of what she was thinking, “because you’re right about one thing. I don’t want Mom to hear this from anyone but me. As for the rest of your rationale about why I should bare my soul to them—because you think it would somehow be good for our relationship—well, I’m having trouble buying that.”

  She spread her hands. “I’m sorry. I just think it’s a start toward working things out.”

  “There shouldn’t be all that much to work out,” he snapped, his patience sounding frayed. “If you would even try to understand…”

  She winced, remembering her brother’s accusations that she was sometimes too judgmental. Kent was obviously thinking the same things about her now. Couldn’t he see that she was pushing this as much for his sake as for hers? That she was only trying to lay to rest a nagging ghost that had stood between them, unseen but ominous, from the very beginning?

  “I’ll get ready for bed, and then you can have the bedroom,” he said, turning away from her.

  “There’s no need for you to give up your bed. I’ll sleep on the—”

  The look he shot over his shoulder made the words dissolve in her mouth. “I won’t be long,” he said, sounding as though he had almost reached the end of his rope.

  She winced when he shut the door a bit too firmly behind him.

  IT DIDN’T HELP KENT’S mood that Neil was obviously hung over at the team meeting Friday morning. The crew chief’s eyes were red and puffy, the muscles slack around his unsmiling mouth. Even his hair seemed limp and dull, slicked back with a profusion of product and an unsteady hand. Kent would bet that Neil had a garage-sized headache to go along with those more visible symptoms.

  “Any clue what he was up to last night?” he asked Tobey in a low voice, nodding toward Neil from across the room.

  “I’d say it’s pretty obvious. He’s still not exactly what I would call sober.”

  “Great.” Kent blew out an impatient breath. “Get some coffee and food into him. We’ve got a TV interview at one o’clock this afternoon. I need him looking pulled-together and on top of his game by then.”

  Tobey shrugged. “I’ll do my best,” he promised as he moved purposefully toward the crew chief.

  Tobey would probably get fired again for trying, Kent thought glumly. Then Kent would have to step in and do that whole tired routine again to get Tobey rehired and smooth everyone’s feathers.

  Damn, but this situation was growing old. And the season was just getting underway.

  Something was going to have to be done about Neil, whether it was a stern talking-to from the boss, a plea from his friends, or a full-blown intervention. Whatever it took, it was going to have to be soon—before the problems spilled onto the track.

  As for Kent’s own personal problems…

  He grimaced when he thought of the chilly good-nights he and Tanya had exchanged after their discussion last night. She had still been asleep when he’d slipped out at just after dawn this morning, so he had yet to face her today. But he knew he couldn’t put it off indefinitely. He didn’t even want to, really. As contradictory as it seemed, he still wanted to be with Tanya as badly as he was tempted to avoid another awkward confrontation with her.

  It was almost enough to drive a man to drink, he thought with a momentary wave of sympathy for his unlucky-in-love crew chief.

  DETERMINED TO DO her part to make the opening weekend a success for Kent’s team, Tanya threw herself into the obligations expected of a driver’s significant other. She smiled, posed, answered questions, fielded jealous glares, and gazed adoringly at Kent whenever the media scrutiny was focused on them.

  Though she had never considered herself much of an actor, she felt confident that no one outside Kent’s immediate family, perhaps, could tell that she and Kent were having problems of any sort. Kent was just as convincing in his own behavior.

  “You two are so great together,” one of his fans said to her at a meet-and-greet event for sponsor employees Friday afternoon. “You’re, like, the perfect couple, aren’t you?”

  Uncertain how to respond to that awkward question, Tanya merely smiled. But the young woman’s words stayed with her for some time after the encounter.

  The perfect couple. It wasn’t the first time she and Kent had been referred to that way. “The Sweethearts of the Race Tracks,” one reporter had dubbed them in a celebrity magazine article at the end of last season.

  Maybe she had gotten into the habit of thinking of them that way, herself. Maybe that was why it had shaken her so badly to discover that their solid-looking relationship had a few cracks in its foundation.

  She and Kent were invited for dinner Friday evening with Dawson Ritter and his wife, Anna, along with Neil Sanchez and his latest girlfriend, Erica Hester. This, too, was a race-weekend tradition—dinner with the driver, the owner and the crew chief. Kent’s team had lots of traditions, many of them maintained through little more than superstition.

  She had met her dinner companions before, of course. Dawson Ritter, the sixty-two-year-old multimillionaire owner of a nationwide trucking firm, was stern-faced but kind-hearted. Tall and thin, he had sharp blue eyes behind bifocal glasses, a balding head and rather prominent ears. He looked more like a school principal or a loan officer than a Fortune 500 CEO and race-team owner, but his mild appearance was deceptive. He was very much in control of his team, despite his impressive skill at delegating.

  Sixty-year-old Anna Ritter had a broad smile, a slender build and an unapologetic taste for glitter. Rhinestones glinted from the frames of her red plastic glasses and were scattered liberally over the fitted black jacket she wore with black slacks and sparkly gold shoes. Diamonds twinkled in her ears, on almost all of her fingers and around both wrists. Her hair was a gleaming bottle-gold that was almost metallic, her eyes brown and as sparkling as the jewels she loved. She liked to call her personal style “nouveau tacky.” Tanya was very fond of her.

  Erica Hester, on the other hand, was the genuine article when it came to tacky, Tanya thought with a secret cattiness that rather embarrassed her. The reluctantly aging lingerie model was blond—fake—buxom—also fake—blue eyed—probably contacts—and smooth-faced—definitely surgically enhanced. She was probably very close to forty, if not already there, though her efforts made her look somewhat younger. She dressed in a manner designed to best emphasize her charms, both natural and artificial, usually displaying a great deal of spray-tanned flesh.

  Tanya had met Erica several times. They got along well enough, though she would hardly call them friends. Erica didn’t seem the type to have many friends, actually—male or female. She was entirely too self-absorbed to form close relationships with others. Which was probably why the lovely-but-fading model had been married and divorced twice, as far as Tanya knew. Her relationship with Neil Sanchez had lasted almost six months now, but had been volatile from the start. Tanya couldn’t imagine what was holding the couple together.

  It wasn’t the jolliest meal the group had ever shared. Though Anna did her best to keep the banter lively, everyone else seemed a bit more subdued than usual. As far as Tanya could tell, most of the tension seemed to have something to do with Neil. Kent hadn’t told her much about what was going on with the crew chief, but it wasn’t hard to see that Neil was on edge, his eyes shadowed, his skin rather sallow. He looked like a man who’d been on an all-night drunk. And neither Kent nor Dawson seemed particularly pleased with him.

  Erica, of course, had never been a scintillating conversationalist. She sat very quietly, sipping one cosmopolitan after another, saying little unless spoken to.

  As for Tanya, herself, she tried to take an active
part in the dinner discussions, but she was dealing with her own personal problems. She worked very hard to make everyone believe that absolutely nothing had changed between her and Kent, and she thought she succeeded well enough, but the effort was almost exhausting.

  She excused herself after the meal to go reapply her lipstick. It was a relief to have a moment to herself in the ridiculously elegant marble, crystal and chintz lounge attached to the ladies’ room. She stood in front of a massive, flatteringly lit mirror and drew a tube of tinted lip gloss out of her bag.

  The door opened just as she lifted the applicator to her mouth. She glanced that way, hoping to see a stranger enter. No such luck.

  “Could it be any duller out there?” Erica asked, digging a dark red lipstick out of her designer bag. “I just about fell asleep over my dinner.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. Anna’s a sweetheart.”

  “Really? She’s a little too much for me. Too glittery and giggly, you know?”

  Applying her lip gloss, Tanya shrugged. “I like her.”

  “Well, you pretty much like everyone, don’t you?”

  Tanya cleared her throat. “Pretty much.”

  Too oblivious to read any undertones into that reply, Erica recapped her lipstick and drew a powder compact from her purse. “You sure are lucky. It’s easy to tell Kent can do no wrong when it comes to Dawson Ritter.”

  “How does that make me lucky?”

  “Oh, you know. It looks like Kent doesn’t have to worry about job security any time soon. As long as he keeps driving like he did in qualifying and keeps kissing up to Dawson, he’s pretty much guaranteed to remain Maximus Motor Sports’ star driver.”

  “Which makes Kent the fortunate one, doesn’t it?”

  Erica lifted a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Are you deliberately trying to sound naive? We both know why it’s to your advantage for Kent to stay on top of his profession. Surely you know there’s a long line of women who would love to take your place with him if the two of you should break up. Heck, there are plenty who would do everything in their power to cause that breakup, if Kent gave them even a little encouragement.”