One-Click Buy: March 2009 Harlequin Blaze

by Alison Kent

  “I may have to shop upstairs,” Pammy said, looking sad. “I’m a little short on cash right now.”

  “I’m right there with you. I’ve cut my hours so I’ll have more time to spend with Trey. But you know Miz Beverly. The secondhand clothes in Beverly’s Attic are better than a lot of things on the racks in department stores.” Cardin gave her girlfriend her biggest grin ever. “We’ll knock the socks off Trey and Tater both.”

  22

  LATER THAT EVENING found Trey in Headlights sitting across the table from Tater. He held a longneck in one hand, and a basket of fresh roasted peanuts sat half empty in front of them; the hulls of those they’d eaten lay scattered on the floor at their feet.

  If Trey hadn’t already arranged to meet his friend for their long overdue boy’s night out to catch up, he would’ve skipped dinner and headed home, busying himself in the barn, or in the house, or even in the fields. Anything to keep from having to socialize. It had been a bitch of a long day, and he was not in the mood.

  White Lightning had made the helluva showing he’d expected this afternoon. He loved the racing, he missed the racing. He could’ve stayed at the Dahlia Speedway all day. He just didn’t want to stay there with Jeb Worth for company. The Moonshine Run was over a week away, and if he didn’t see Cardin’s grandfather again until that night, well, even then it would be too soon.

  “For a man who just got engaged to the hottest chick around, you’re not looking so good, bro.” Tater hunkered forward, leaning into his arms where he’d braced them on the table and giving Trey the eye.

  Trey shook his head. “My not looking so good doesn’t have anything to do with Cardin or the engagement.” Though that wasn’t exactly true. With what he’d learned this afternoon, there might be no engagement, which meant there would be no Cardin. And the thought of giving her up…“I just think I need another beer.”

  “Not to poop on your party, but if you’re planning to drive home from here, you’d better get some food in you first.”

  They’d placed their order with Sandy who’d clocked in early as Headlights was seeing an unusual weeknight rush. Trey hadn’t done more than wave at Cardin, catching her eye as she scurried between tables, aching with the need to hold her close.

  Since he was all clogged up with the things he’d learned this afternoon from her grandfather, he figured their not talking right now was for the best. He didn’t know what he’d say—though he did know that keeping his discovery a secret was tantamount to telling her a lie.

  Not exactly the open communication they’d swore would be a part of their relationship, even before their relationship was real. “I’ll be fine,” he finally told Tater, realizing his friend was staring. “I just need to work out some kinks in my head.”

  “Ones Cardin can’t work out for you?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “In that case, what can a bro do?”

  Trey felt the stirrings of a smile. He had missed this man. Tater’s common sense, his no bullshit way of looking at life. His ability to laugh in the face of things that just weren’t that funny.

  Talking specifics was out of the question, but Trey was of a mind to seek his friend’s advice. “If I ask you something straight up will you answer me?”

  “If I can.”

  A swallow of beer, a deep breath, a quick backhanding of the moisture from his mouth and Trey was ready. “The other day, you told me your being with Sandy was a man doing what a man had to do.”

  Tater, who’d been slumped forward slowly sat up. “You’re not going to try and tell me that you being out of sorts is related to what I have going on with Sandy, are you?”

  “No. There’s just something I might have to do.”

  “Something you don’t want to do?”

  “Something I’d rather cut off my left nut than do.”

  Tater reached for his beer. “Sounds pretty serious.”

  A massive understatement. “I have a feeling it’s going to be the most important decision I make in my life, and I don’t want to screw it up.”

  “It’s not about you and Cardin.”

  Trey shook his head. “Not directly, no.”

  Tater sat nodding, a delay that gave Sandy time to deliver their food.

  “Here ya go, boys. Got your hot wings and corn on the cob. I had Albert throw in an extra half order of both while Eddie wasn’t looking. You two looked like you were ready for some chow time.”

  “What a gal, eh, Whip?” Tater grabbed Sandy by the waist and pulled her close. “Always got her eye on her man’s needs.”

  “Keeping appetites satisfied is just one of my many talents,” she said, draping her arm around Tater and patting his shoulder. “You boys enjoy.”

  Once she was gone, Trey grabbed for a wing and tugged most of the meat off in one bite. He gestured with the bone. “If you tell me your relationship with her is all about sex, I’m going to be really disappointed.”

  “I told you. A man’s gotta do—”

  “—what a man’s gotta do. I know.” Trey’s frustration was mounting fast. “But a man doesn’t need a commitment to have sex.”

  Tater gnawed his way through half an ear of corn before he answered. “This-is-sworn-to-secrecy stuff, so you’d damn well better keep your trap shut.”

  “Not even an open sesame will pry it out.”

  Tater rolled his eyes. “That was lame, bro.”

  “Yeah, well.” Trey grabbed another wing. He needed Tater to tell the story before Cardin clocked out and joined them. “You know me. I’m a vault.”

  “Too much of one, I’d say. You don’t even call to shoot the shit.”

  Trey couldn’t say why he hadn’t kept in touch, though he’d likely been putting distance between his past and his present, until the past hit home with his father’s death. “It’s not going to happen again. Trust me on that.”

  Tater nodded, finished off his corn, and grabbed a wing with each hand. “It’s not that big of a deal, really. Sandy got into some trouble with a guy in Nashville. A stalker type. He wouldn’t leave her alone. And Sandy, well, you know her. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.”

  For a good reason, Trey thought to himself,

  “She had her car in the shop one day, and we got to talking. Seems this guy liked to mess with it, make sure she got stranded, then conveniently be there to pick her up. And by picking her up, I mean taking her back to his place and not letting her go until he was ready to.”

  Jesus. “Did she report him to Buell? Or the cops in Nashville?” Trey added, when Tater cursed loudly at the mention of the local law.

  “A restraining order’s really not much of a threat. It’s just a piece of paper. By the time the cops respond to a violation, it’s too late.”

  “So you’re her flesh and blood restraining order.”

  “More or less.”

  “With perks.”

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  “But it’s not a long-term deal with you two.”

  “Nah. We’re pretty much wrapping things up. No one’s seen or heard from the guy in six months. Figure he’s moved on to someone else, in another town, maybe even another state.” Tater stopped to butter more corn. “Does any of that help you?”

  What it did was remind Trey what a good man his friend was. But as far as the situation he found himself in…“You did the right thing. My right and wrong choices aren’t so clear cut.”

  “You know, I’ve kinda come to believe that those shades of gray between the black and the white are more about what we can live with, maybe even what we’re comfortable with. And I don’t mean comfortable like a recliner and a big screen TV, but like being comfortable with what our actions mean to others, to our conscience.” He shrugged. “Maybe even to society. Kinda depends on how big the picture is.”

  Trey took a deep breath, then blew it out. “This one’s big enough.”

  “And you’re trying to decide what to do about it.”

  Trey
gave his friend a nod.

  “Then I’d say you’ve gotta look at whether what you do is gonna bring more good than it causes harm.”

  “If I do what I’m thinking is right, it’s gonna cause a whole lotta harm.”

  Tater studied him closely. “And the good?”

  That was what Trey didn’t know. He polished off the rest of his beer, raised the bottle overhead and waved at Sandy to bring him another. When he looked back at Tater, the other man was shaking his head. “My last one. I swear.”

  “This thing. Does it have anything to do with your dad?”

  Trey’s stomach lurched. “What makes you ask that?”

  “I talked to Cardin when I came in earlier. She told me you’d spent the day going through his papers. That you had some meetings with his lawyer and the bank coming up.”

  “It was in a box of his paperwork, yeah. I found something that can mess up some people I like in a really big way. I don’t want that to happen. But I’m not sure I can just let it go.”

  “Why not? What would happen if you did?”

  “Nothing would happen if I did. Things would go on as they have been for everyone involved.” An everyone that since his father’s death had numbered one.

  “Then unless you’re talking about a crime or something…”

  “I am.”

  “Hmm. That puts a spin on things, doesn’t it?”

  It did. A spin that had been making Trey dizzy all day. “I’ve come at it from every angle I can think of, and every time I wind up at the same place.”

  “Which is?”

  “That well enough is probably best left alone.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I’m not so sure well enough is enough for me.”

  “Do you want justice? Or do you want revenge?”

  Leave it to Tater to hit the head of the nail Trey had been avoiding. Jeb Worth had lived with what he had done all his life. He would take it to his grave. A seventy-year sentence of carrying that burden…

  Was that punishment enough? If Trey sought more, would it be about revenge? The circumstances being what they were, it was unlikely Jeb would suffer anything beyond the humiliation of having his private deeds publicly known.

  Yes, Trey wanted justice. But he didn’t want that. He shook his head, ran his hands down his thighs, left them braced there. “I don’t want revenge.”

  “Then that should make things easier for you.”

  Or not, Trey mused silently. He grabbed for the beer Sandy left on the table on her way to deliver an order. “You’ve given me a lot to think about at least.”

  “I can give you a whole lot more. Sandy says she’s never known anyone to talk as much as I do about absolutely nothing.”

  “And you’re surprised that I never called,” Trey said.

  The two men were blotting spilled beer off the table and laughing like goats when Cardin walked up.

  “Is it safe to sit?” she asked, and the only answer Trey could give was to pat the bench beside him. Tater patted the bench beside him, too, and Trey reached across the table to sock him in the shoulder.

  Instead of sitting next to either of them, Cardin grabbed a chair from one of the patio tables, brought it in and sat at the head of theirs. She looked from Trey to Tater to what was left of the food and back to Trey. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “You’re here because this party needs some class,” Trey said.

  “Class. Is that like a division of racing?” Tater shot back.

  “I think you two have been hitting the juice a little too hard.”

  Tater looked aghast. “We’ve got a lot of years to catch up on. Don’t be keeping your man down.”

  “Yeah, don’t be keeping your man down,” Trey said, realizing as he did that he had no business driving home. Home. Cardin’s home. Cardin’s bed. A place he’d never sleep again if he took her grandfather down.

  He got to his feet. “C’mon. We’ll get your food to go. I need you to take me home before I do something really stupid. And end up regretting every beer I just drank.”

  23

  AT 12:00 A.M. ON THE NIGHT of the Moonshine Run, Cardin sat beneath the Dahlia Speedway’s blinding stadium lights wishing she hadn’t forgotten her earplugs. Her whole body vibrated as the cars roared to life.

  In years past, she’d sat here with Delta because Eddie had been the one in Jeb’s car. Tonight, both of her parents sat on the bench behind her because it was Trey behind the wheel.

  Trey, who loved her, who was going to make her his wife…unless his behavior of late meant he was getting cold feet.

  She’d hardly spent any time with him this last week. In fact, since the night they’d eaten dinner with Tater, Trey hadn’t been himself. And all she could think was that he regretted making their engagement real.

  Another part of her, the part that was more sensible, knew he’d had a lot on his mind. He’d been going through his father’s things, his family’s things. That had to bring back years’ worth of memories—of his childhood, his mother’s abandonment, his father’s death.

  It couldn’t be easy, and she hadn’t exactly been sympathetic. No, she’d been a selfish brat, focused on wedding cakes, party dresses and living plans. That was no way to support the man she loved at a time when he needed her to be his rock.

  She thought of all the things he’d told her that she should know as his fiancée. He hadn’t said anything about needing time to himself. She supposed for communication’s sake, the smart thing to do would be to ask if that’s all that his silence meant.

  She wouldn’t have time before the race, and really, she wasn’t stupid enough to bother him now with her fears that things weren’t as fairy-tale perfect as she’d thought. But she wanted to see him, to wish him good luck. To tell him how much she loved him. That she could do, that she would do.

  She got to her feet, only to have her mother grab at her hand, and shout, “Where are you going?”

  “I want to wish Trey good luck,” she shouted back.

  “Didn’t you do that already?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t find him in the pits. I came straight up here.”

  “That’s strange.” Her mother frowned.

  Her father frowned, too. “Did you see Jeb?”

  Cardin nodded. “Yeah, he was talking to Beau Stillwell and Tater.”

  “But no Whip?” Eddie asked, both his voice and his expression taut.

  Now Cardin was worried. “I’m sure he’s around somewhere. He is driving, right?”

  Eddie stood. “I’ll walk on down to the pits with you. Make sure nothing’s gone wrong with the car.”

  “Hey, you guys seen Whip?”

  Cardin and Eddie both turned to see Tater climbing the stands toward them. Delta stood, too. “He’s not with Jeb?”

  “Jeb hasn’t seen him. He’s staged and ready to go.” Tater gestured with one thumb over his shoulder. “But he’s out a driver.”

  “No, he’s not,” Eddie said, pushing by Tater before Cardin or Delta could stop him.

  “Eddie Worth! You are not driving that car,” Cardin’s mother called after him, scrambling to follow and offering apologies when she stepped on the feet of other seated fans.

  Oh, God. Where could he be? What was wrong? Had something happened? Her heart pounding, Cardin shoved at Tater to hurry, and the two of them crawled over the gathering crowd, following her parents to the pits.

  They found Jeb on his four-wheeler, White Lightning tethered behind him, queued up in the staging lanes, waiting his turn to race. Cardin, Tater, Eddie and Delta converged on him in a rush.

  Jeb scowled from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. “What the hell are you all doing down here?”

  “You’re missing something, Dad,” Eddie said, walking along the side of the ATV. “Where’s Whip?”

  Jeb shrugged. “I haven’t seen him, but he said he’ll be here, and I take that to mean that he will.”

  “I�
�m going to grab my gear,” Eddie said, and turned.

  Delta reached for his arm. “Eddie, no. You can’t race. Your leg. What if you wreck and can’t get out of the car?”

  “If the boy wants to race, let him race,” Jeb said, climbing off the four-wheeler and stepping into the fray. “He knows his own limits.”

  But Delta wasn’t having it. “I swear to you, Eddie Worth. If you get behind the wheel of that car, that’s it.”

  “Mom!” Cardin yelled. “What are you saying?”

  Delta crossed her arms, her posture defensive. “Your father’s trying to prove to his father than he’s worthy of being a Worth.”

  Jeb and Eddie both turned on Delta, Eddie striking out first. “I’m not trying to prove anything, D. I’m only doing what I have to do.”

  “And that right there proves my son is a better man than I’ll ever be,” Jeb said, his hand coming down hard on Eddie’s shoulder in a squeeze. “He’s the best Worth there’s ever been.”

  As Eddie stood dumbstruck and Delta stood shaking her head, Cardin took a step away, looking off toward the cars and the crowd in the pits, and ignoring the drama her family seemed bent on stirring. Her stomach was a knot of emotion and nerves.

  She should’ve known nothing she could do would get her parents back together; just look at them! They were only making progress if arguing counted as talking things out. Why Trey would ever want to marry into this madhouse was beyond her comprehension.

  He’d be smart to run far far away. She turned to go, tears of sadness threatening to spill—and ran smack into Trey’s solid chest.

  The relief overwhelmed her. She jumped up, yelped, then wrapped her arms around his neck. “Where have you been? Everybody’s been worried about you. I came to wish you good luck, and you weren’t here and my family’s going insane.”

  Trey glanced over her head to where her family was still gesturing wildly. “You want to cut out of here and let your father drive?”

  “You don’t know how much I want that. But, even more so, I don’t want him behind the wheel of Jeb’s car. Not going a hundred and fifty miles an hour and being unable to get out fast should he need to.”