Almost Famous

by Gina Wilkins

  She was trembling when she pushed against his chest with her hands. He released her instantly, if reluctantly. “Too soon?” he asked huskily.

  “Too…something,” she agreed, her own voice taut.

  He tried to smile, managing a credible semblance of his usual grin. “That’s okay. I can be patient. For a little while longer.”

  Was there a slight note of warning in that addition? She narrowed her eyes.

  He chuckled and ran a fingertip down her nose. “Don’t bite my head off. I said I’d be good. Besides, Scott should be delivering your nephew here shortly. Doesn’t really give us time to get too cozy.”

  Oh, heavens, she had actually forgotten all about Andrew! Her cheeks blazing, she moved a few steps farther away from Jake, thinking there must be some force field around him that caused some sort of static in her mind, keeping her from thinking clearly.

  “I’m sure Andrew’s having a marvelous time,” she said a bit too primly. “You’ve outdone yourself today, between the private plane, the personal tour with his idol and this fancy motor home for us to stay in. Andrew will be your admirer for life.”

  Jake frowned. “You think I’ve been trying to impress you?”

  “I don’t know if you tried, but you certainly succeeded. Your life is a lot different from what we’re used to back home.”

  “It’s a lot different from what I grew up with, too,” he reminded her flatly. “I told you I came from dirt-poor roots. All these trappings are just part of the job I’m in. I have the means now to provide a few luxuries for myself and my friends, but I work damned hard for it.”

  “I never said you didn’t. Nor did I accuse you of showing off your success,” she reminded him. “I just couldn’t help commenting, that’s all.”

  He didn’t seem overly appeased, but he didn’t argue any further. He took her, instead, into the kitchen to show her the supplies that had been stocked for her and Andrew and to give her a few more operating instructions. By the time he finished, a musical doorbell let them know that Scott and Andrew were outside.

  Jake showed her how to check the security screen to make sure who was outside before opening the door. Andrew burst into the motor home as soon as Jake let him in. “Oh, wow, this is so cool. Scott, do you have one of these? Is it as sweet as this one?”

  Eyeing Jake and Stacy as if to see what they’d been up to before the interruption, Scott replied, “I have a motor home. Not quite as fancy as this one, but it serves my purposes. It’s not here at the track this weekend, because I prefer to stay in my own bed when we’re racing at home.”

  “Did you have a good time, Andrew?” Stacy asked, although she already knew the answer.

  His face lit up in a way that proved her right. “It was so cool! Scott took me into the garage and he let me touch his car and meet his crew chief and everything. Then we saw inside his hauler and we saw the infield care center and…and…well, we saw everything. Oh, and I met a lot more drivers. Scott knows everyone.”

  “I’ve been racing them all for the better part of the year now,” Scott reminded him indulgently. “They still treat me like a rookie, just to keep me in my place, but everyone’s pretty friendly in this sport. Off the track, anyway.”

  “Everyone was really nice to me,” Andrew assured his aunt. “I can’t wait to tell all the guys back home who all I shook hands with. They’ll freak out.”

  Scott glanced at his watch. “I had a lot of fun with you, Andy, but I gotta take off now. Practice starts in an hour and I’ve got a lot to do until then.”

  Stacy nudged Andrew, who gave her an impatient look. “I’m going to,” he said in a stage whisper, and then turned to Scott. “Thank you for showing me around, Scott. It was really cool.”

  “I’m glad you liked it. I’ll be seeing you this weekend, okay? And you cheer for me in the race tomorrow—no matter how hard this guy tries to win you over to his side, okay?”

  Andrew cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, making both drivers laugh and assure him that he could cheer for both of them without causing any hard feelings.

  “I’ve got to go, too,” Jake said after Scott let himself out. “Lisa will be waiting for you guys back at the hauler after you’ve freshened up and helped yourself to snacks, if you want them. She likes to work in the hauler office when Wade’s tied up—which he almost always is when we’re at a track—but she usually watches practice.”

  Warning them to keep their passes visible when they were in the restricted areas, he followed Scott out after giving Stacy a long look that made her face go warm again.

  Fortunately, Andrew seemed oblivious to the undercurrents. He threw himself onto the couch and looked around the motor home with a blissful sigh. “Man, I could so get used to living like this.”

  Stacy wasn’t at all sure she could say the same thing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “YOUR NEPHEW SEEMS to be having a great time,” Lisa said to Stacy later that afternoon, raising her voice to be heard over the thunderous roar of the cars rocketing around the track.

  “He’s in heaven,” Stacy shouted back, looking fondly at Andrew, who stood by J.R. on top of the hauler, both wearing headsets to hear everything being said between Jake, his spotter and his crew chief during the practice run. Stacy had worn a headset herself for a while, but she’d pulled it off to better converse with Lisa as practice went on.

  “You want to watch the rest of this, or would you like to go into the hauler for a cup of coffee?”

  “The coffee sounds good to me,” Stacy replied, then added, “unless you’d rather watch?”

  Lisa shook her blond head, and nodded toward her fiancé, who sat beside her father, big, blustery “Woody” Woodrow, on the bright purple pit box, both watching the Number 82 car with intense concentration. “Wade will let me know how it goes.”

  Leaving Andrew in J.R.’s capable hands, they climbed down the ladder to the ground and entered the hauler. The relative quiet in the lounge area was a relief to Stacy’s ears. She would wear the earplugs her brother had recommended to watch the race, she promised herself. Or maybe she would be offered the headset again so she could hear Jake, Arnie and Wade talking during the real event.

  Lisa poured coffee for both of them, and then they settled onto the deep leather sofa. A large flat-screen television was set into the opposite wall, but they didn’t bother to turn it on.

  “So,” Lisa began, “you’re Anastasia Carter.”

  Stacy almost choked on the sip of coffee she had just taken. “Um, yes. Did Jake tell you that?”

  Smiling, Lisa shook her head. “I’m an attorney, remember? We thrive on courthouse drama and gossip. I thought your name sounded familiar when Jake mentioned you, but when I saw you today, I realized why. You took down the guy who had grabbed an officer’s gun and was trying to escape. Your picture was on all the Internet news sites.”

  Self-conscious now, Stacy sipped her coffee again to give herself time to think of something to say. After swallowing, she said, “I acted on instinct and used a couple of moves I’d learned in martial-arts training I take for exercise and recreation. I wasn’t trying to be a hero—and I certainly never expected the media attention that followed.”

  “It must have been disconcerting for you.”

  “To say the least,” she agreed wryly. “I went down to the courthouse to fight a ticket and the next thing I knew, reporters were sticking microphones in my face and calling me to ask for interviews. For someone who lives very quietly and works at home, that was hard to deal with. That’s why I escaped to the river cabin where I met Jake.”

  Lisa laughed softly. “So while you were hiding out from publicity, you met a man whose life is lived in a spotlight.”

  “Exactly.”

  “He hinted that you weren’t exactly thrilled about his career. I think I understand why.”

  “I have nothing against racing, of course,” Stacy explained conscientiously. “I mean, I’m very impressed with what I’ve le
arned about the sport during the past couple of weeks. It’s so hugely popular, and the drivers are such dedicated athletes, who work very hard for the privilege of being at the top. It’s amazing how much Jake has accomplished at such a relatively young age.”

  Lisa looked vaguely amused by her prim little speech, making Stacy feel even more foolish.

  “Okay,” she said with a sigh of resignation, “it freaks me out to think of even being friends with a guy like Jake, much less…anything else. I mean, I barely know him, so it’s not like we’re…well…to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure why he invited us here this weekend.”

  As disjointed and incoherent as that was, Lisa nodded somberly. “I understand completely.”

  “You do?” Stacy shook her head. “I wish I did.”

  “I understand,” Lisa repeated, “because I’ve been where you are, in a way.”

  She set her coffee cup on the table in front of the couch. “I don’t know if Jake told you, but Wade and I were engaged before. Six years ago.”

  Stacy tried to hide her surprise. “No, he didn’t mention that.”

  “I broke it off,” Lisa admitted. “It was the hardest thing I ever did. I was crazy in love with him, but I panicked. I was young and had no career of my own, and Wade was so obsessed with racing that I was afraid of losing myself in his shadow. So, I went to law school, found a career I loved, and when we came back together earlier this year, I realized that I could be with him and still have a life of my own. We won’t have a typical marriage—he’s going to be on the road a lot and I won’t be free to follow him around from track to track the way some of the wives do—but we’ll make the most of the time we can spend together. We can make it work for us.”

  “I’m sure you can.” It would be challenging, though, Stacy thought privately. The time on the road was only one of the sacrifices made by those in the upper echelons of NASCAR racing. And she had already figured out that they did it for love of the sport as much as any monetary compensation.

  “But then again, I grew up in racing,” Lisa added. “My father is a very high-profile team owner. He kept me out of the spotlight as much as he could while I was growing up, but I was still used to the attention. And Wade’s a crew chief, not a driver. He’s still pretty visible, but not like Jake. I can see where you would find that daunting.”

  “Like you, I grew up with a father who lived in the public eye—though he was more notorious than famous. I hated it. All the attention that followed the, um, incident at the courthouse reminded me of my childhood and made me remember how much I disliked meeting people who already knew who I was because of gossip and so-called news reports.”

  “The way I knew who you were before you and I were officially introduced,” Lisa murmured, her expression apologetic.

  Stacy sighed lightly and nodded. “Exactly.”

  “I’m afraid it’s hard to date a driver in secret. Especially one as visible as Jake. He’s extremely popular, you know. He has a huge fan base, made up in large part of women who know he’s unattached and fantasize about his good looks and amazing smile. Any time he even looks twice at a woman, they start sizing her up, trying to figure out who she is and how serious he is about her.”

  “You aren’t helping,” Stacy muttered.

  “Sorry. I figured you already know all of this.”

  “It isn’t hard to guess,” she admitted, thinking of those Internet gossip sites she had discovered.

  “I can see why you’d have reservations about getting involved with a stock car driver,” Lisa conceded after a moment. “But Jake’s pretty special, Stacy. Everyone on the team loves him. You should have seen how they stood by him after his accident. They consider themselves his family, the only family he has.”

  “I can see why everyone is so fond of him. He’s a very nice man. Just look at all he’s done for Andrew this weekend.”

  Lisa smiled. “It isn’t only for Andrew.”

  Stalling again, Stacy took another drink of her coffee. She wasn’t sure she had learned anything new during this little talk with Lisa, but it had been interesting, nonetheless.

  THEY ATE ITALIAN for dinner. Andrew’s choice, since he wasn’t very fond of barbecue. Lisa and Wade joined them, along with Ronnie and Katie Short and Ronnie’s crew chief, Digger Barkley. If Andrew was disappointed that Scott had other plans that evening, he didn’t let it show. To his aunt’s visible relief, Andrew was on his very best behavior that evening.

  Winding spaghetti around a fork, Jake listened to the conversations going on around him with a sense of great satisfaction. He’d spent the afternoon back in his car on the track, getting ready for tomorrow night’s race. Practice had gone well, he felt great, almost back to peak shape again—and Stacy was sitting at the table among his best friends in the world.

  He couldn’t get over how very right she looked there. She and Lisa and Katie were chatting like old pals, talking about Katie’s baby, Olivia, who was due in another eight weeks. As round as a pumpkin, red-haired Katie glowed with happiness and Lisa and Stacy laughed frequently as Katie prattled on about how nervous Ronnie was about the pending delivery.

  Andrew was still asking questions, grilling the crew chiefs about race strategies. They answered patiently, always willing to talk to excited young fans. Ronnie concentrated on eating, putting away the carbs in preparation for the next day’s exhausting schedule.

  “When did people start calling you Ice?” Andrew asked Wade. “Has that always been your nickname?”

  “That started when he called his first race as a fill-in crew chief for a guy who’d had an emergency appendectomy that weekend,” Digger said when Wade hesitated. “The whole race started going to he—er, heck, with all kinds of tire and engine problems cropping up. A record number of cautions. Everybody getting mad at everybody else and yelling and screaming in the headsets. Ol’ Ice here just stayed calm as a Popsicle, took care of the adjustments to the car and brought his driver in third after being two laps down at one point.”

  “He hardly ever gets rattled,” Ronnie agreed, looking up from his plate. “The most I ever saw him get worked up was when Lisa took off from a track to go shopping once without telling him, back when she was having some problems with an escaped con she’d helped convict. Wade was sure something terrible had happened to her, and he really got rattled. We weren’t calling him Ice that day.”

  “I did leave a message,” Lisa murmured, shaking her head. “He just didn’t get it.”

  “Yeah, well, you left it with J.R.,” Wade replied, still looking a bit sick at the memory of how worried he’d been that day, which Jake remembered very well himself.

  “He has to use his ability to stay calm every week with Jake,” Digger said. Grinning at Andrew, he added, “Rumor has it that Jake gets kind of excited during a race, especially when things start going wrong. He starts yelling into his mike, and Ice has to cool him down.”

  Jake’s gaze returned to Stacy, as it did so often. She looked his way and smiled, then turned her attention back to Lisa and Katie. Just that quick exchange left him feeling unusually warm.

  As the conversations continued around him, he glanced at Ronnie and Wade, who were both so visibly content to be with the women they loved, sharing their lives and dreams. Was he letting them influence him too much? Was his envy of their happiness making him unconsciously exaggerate the way he felt about Stacy? Maybe she wasn’t really as special as he’d convinced himself she was. Maybe…

  She laughed at something Katie said, the sound soft and musical. His chest clenched.

  Okay, maybe this was real. It wasn’t as if there hadn’t been plenty of other women he could have focused on. Willing, race-savvy women who were much less likely to break his heart than Stacy.

  That grim thought made him frown. He’d never had his heart broken. Maybe because he’d never entrusted it to anyone who held the power to do so. But he had a feeling that Stacy could hurt him worse than he’d ever been hurt before. Losing her c
ould be a great deal more painful than losing a shot at the championship. There would always be more race seasons. But he didn’t think he would meet anyone else like Stacy.

  Too soon, he reminded himself. It was too soon for him to be feeling this way.

  Wade had subtly warned him earlier, after seeing him with Stacy, that Jake seemed to be getting in over his head. Even Scott had expressed doubts about Stacy’s suitability for Jake. Not in so many words, of course. He’d said simply that Andrew seemed like a great kid, but his aunt was a little reserved for Scott’s taste. Not quite the adjective Scott had used, but basically the same meaning.

  Stacy, herself, had told him he was moving too fast, right after kissing him until he’d had a hard time remembering his own name.

  Too much, too soon. Everyone seemed to believe that—except him. All he knew was that for the first time in his life he’d met a woman he could picture in his future. All of his future.

  “You got a problem, Jake?” Wade asked, claiming his attention. “The way you’re frowning, you look like someone licked the red right off your lollipop.”

  Andrew laughed at the saying, but everyone else looked at Jake curiously. He forced a smile, carefully avoiding Stacy’s gaze.

  “Just thinking about tomorrow,” he lied. “Pam’s going to have me running all day, from daylight until the race starts. I’ve got a sponsor meet-and-greet at eight in the morning—can you believe it?”

  “I can believe it. I’m going to be there with you,” Wade reminded him. His quizzical tone told Jake he didn’t buy the explanation, but he let it go for then, to Jake’s relief.

  A GROUP OF FANS in town for the race recognized Jake and Ronnie as they were leaving the restaurant. They were surrounded in the parking lot, and Jake and Ronnie patiently signed autographs and fielded questions and well-wishes for the race while everyone else hung back out of the way. One of the fans realized that the two crew chiefs were also present and drew them into the impromptu autograph session.