One in a Million

by Abby Gaines

  “What do you say?” Dixon asked.

  Eli took a deep breath and let go of one dream in the interest of holding on to another he was only just realizing he held. The dream of being a man who could make a relationship last. “I’m honored to be asked, but Gil and Double S are home for me.”

  And contrary to what Eli had told Jen when she’d visited his house, home wasn’t overrated.

  “Dixon, you haven’t seen Jen, have you?” he asked, interrupting Dixon’s expression of regret.

  “Matter of fact I ran into her a few minutes ago,” Dixon said. “She was on her way out, said she wanted to get to the taxi line ahead of the rush.”

  Jen was leaving? Just when he’d found something worth sticking around for? Something worth fighting for?

  “I gotta go,” Eli said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JEN CLIMBED INTO THE taxi feeling as bereft as Cinderella must have leaving the ball. She would see Eli again if she took the job Gil had offered her, but tonight felt like the severing of their personal ties. He’d made the Chase, and now he would go on without her.

  When she’d kissed him before the race she’d seen in his eyes that he cared about her. But she no longer believed he had it in him to get over the hurts of his past. Out on the race track, he was fearless, but in his heart…

  As she reached for her seat belt she saw Eli crossing the pavement, looking right at her. Her heart leaped. Then a woman, a gorgeous blonde, stepped in front of him. She appeared to be gushing about his race. Two other women waited their turn behind the blonde.

  It was like a replay of that first time they met, in the garage at Bristol. This was the way it would always be for him.

  She clicked her seat belt. “The airport,” she told the driver.

  As the cab pulled out, she didn’t look back.

  Which was why the sudden wrenching open of the door startled her so badly. She shrieked as Eli threw himself into the car.

  “You idiot. You could have been killed,” she yelled.

  “Not me, chickadee.” He had the nerve to wink at her. “Stop the car,” he told the driver. He grabbed Jen’s hand. “We have some celebrating to do.”

  “There are a thousand other women out there who’d love to celebrate your result.” She freed her hand from his. “Drive on,” she ordered.

  “It’s not my race I want to celebrate,” he said cryptically. “But you’re right, we need somewhere special. Take us to the fanciest restaurant in town,” he instructed the driver.

  The guy flipped his turn signal from left to right.

  “The airport,” Jen told him firmly. “That’s where I’m going.”

  With a sigh, the driver turned left onto the expressway.

  “There’s a NASCAR museum around here somewhere,” Eli said. “Maybe I can convince them to open specially for us.”

  Jen would bet he could. He radiated excitement, and it made him even more compelling than usual. She realized with a pang of regret that he must have accepted the ride with Fulcrum Racing. He was moving on from Double S, just like he was moving on from her.

  The driver slowed, clearly expecting another redirection.

  “I’m going to the airport,” Jen snapped. “If you want to celebrate, go back to those women you were flirting with back there.”

  Eli started to laugh. “Dammit, Jen, I’m trying to find somewhere special so I can tell you I love you!”

  The world spun around her. The taxi swerved in sympathy, the driver obviously equally shocked.

  “What did you say?” she whispered.

  “I love you, Jen.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles with a tenderness that melted her heart. “I know you might take some convincing after the jerk I’ve been, but in my defense, I’m only just figuring what it’s all about.”

  “What what’s all about?” she asked, unable to believe he could love her the same way she loved him. Did he mean he wanted a fling with her?

  “Commitment,” he said. “I’ve made a start, but I’ve got a long way to go.” Then he told her Fulcrum Racing had made him an incredible offer, but he’d turned it down to stay with Gil.

  “I realized some things are meant to last,” Eli said. “Like you and me. You’re so deep inside me, like nothing else has ever has been, this is forever.”

  A glorious hope suffused her, left her speechless.

  He froze. “That is, if you still love me. If I haven’t screwed this up completely. Have I?” he asked, the words an agonized groan.

  Jen couldn’t stand to see him lonely or vulnerable for another moment…but she checked her impulse to throw her arms around him and declare her love. Because Eli might think he loved her now and for always. But what if he changed his mind?

  Terror engulfed her…a flood of fear. Suddenly she knew exactly how he’d been feeling.

  “Jen?” Eli shook her hands. “Sweetheart, please, talk to me.”

  “I love you, Eli—” he reached for her, but she put up a warning hand “—but we have a lot of things to work out.”

  “What things?” he demanded.

  She didn’t want to tell him she was worried he’d change his mind. “My grandfather, for one. He won’t be happy about me rushing into this. Maybe we should take it slowly.”

  ELI HADN’T COME SO FAR, so fast to put the brakes on now.

  “Chickadee, no way am I giving you time to figure out you could do much better than a guy like me.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Watch this.” A moment later he was talking to her grandfather. “Mr. Ashby, this is Eli Ward.”

  “What time do you call this?” the old man barked.

  Damn. “Uh, yes, it is late, sir, and I’m sorry about that, but this can’t wait. I’m in love with Jen and I want to marry her.”

  Jen gaped—had he forgotten to mention the part about marrying her? He flashed her a cocky grin.

  “We’d like your blessing,” he said to her grandfather.

  There was a pause.

  “I didn’t raise my granddaughter to have her head turned by some hotshot NASCAR driver who’ll break her heart,” Carlton snapped.

  “Mr. Ashby, I won’t—”

  “So you can damn well keep your hands off her!”

  No fair. Eli hadn’t even had his hands on her yet!

  “Sir, I promise I’ll do everything I can to make her happy.”

  It was no use. Carlton had worked up a head of steam and he ranted down the phone without pause, making it clear that if he had his way, Eli would never, ever marry Jen.

  Then Jen took the phone from him. “Granddad? I love Eli, and I always will,” she said, soft enough that her grandfather would have to stop blustering so he could hear. “He’s a good man, a forever kind of man.”

  Words that should have made Eli want to run. Instead he was proud, prouder than he’d ever been at the end of a race. Jen saw him as a forever kind of guy!

  “Yes, I know it’s a risk,” she told Carlton. “But it’s a tiny one, and the reward is so much greater. I plan to marry Eli.”

  Eli’s heart started thumping.

  “I plan to have children with him eventually.” She shot Eli a querying look and he gave her a thumbs-up. He’d never thought about kids, but now he wanted them with Jen—not right away, but one day. Right now, he’d settle for getting his hands on her and making slow, passionate love to her. “So I’d very much like the blessing of those children’s great-grandfather,” she told Carlton.

  He could still hear her grandfather sputtering, though less aggressively, when she ended the call. She collapsed into laughter.

  “I just about had a heart attack!” Eli complained. “What’s so funny?”

  She wiped her eyes. “You, so convinced that your incredible charm could sway my grandfather.”

  “It swayed you,” he pointed out, then started laughing, too. He loved laughing with her. He swept her into his arms and vowed to himself they would always laugh. Then he kissed her.

&
nbsp; When he lifted his head, the taxi was pulling up outside the airport terminal, seething with departing NASCAR fans and media. They got out, and Eli paid the driver.

  “Where shall we go?” he asked Jen. “I want to propose to you properly.”

  “The best place for me is wherever you are.”

  His heart swelled. “You’re right, as always.” He dropped to one knee, right there in front of the crowd.

  “Eli!” she squawked.

  He took her hands in his, looked up at the sweet, beautiful face he would never tire of. “Jennifer Ashby, you’re a woman in a million. The only woman for me. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” she said, and drew him to his feet for what just became the best kiss of his life.

  Daisy Chain

  Marisa Carroll

  To Marsha Zinberg, Tina Colombo and Stacy Boyd—thanks for inviting us along for a great ride!

  An excerpt from Hilton Branch’s prison journal…

  I managed to get word to my children, but they refuse to see me. I shouldn’t be surprised, I know. They’ve made their contempt clear.

  Damn it, they hurt me. I know, I know—I hurt them first.

  But they don’t understand. This isn’t about my pride or asking them to love me again. I don’t want to dig up the past, and I’ve already asked for the forgiveness they refuse to grant me. This is about survival. About family they don’t know they have.

  Lily, sweet, angelic Lily with that rosebud mouth always ready to grin at me, her chubby little arms reaching for me, closing around my neck and laying her head on my shoulders.

  She makes me feel ten feet tall. How delighted she is to see me, how she cuddles into me, listens raptly to my silliest story as though I were spouting pearls of wisdom.

  Why did I never have time for my first four when they were small?

  I was making a living for them, I told myself. Meeting the standards Maeve’s family expected for her, Texas royalty that she is. Her father made it clear to me that the price of gaining access to their privileged world was that Maeve should never be disappointed, never have to emerge from that ivory tower in which he’d placed his little girl.

  I took that bank of his, and I made it more than he ever dreamed it could be. I created an empire, and I had the respect and admiration of high rollers all over this country.

  But there was a price, and I never knew it. Not until Rose.

  They’ll take the news hard, my first family, and it’s not fair. She’s the innocent—they can’t hate her, though they will want to. Even if they do, they have to help me save her. Amelia, too, even though she isn’t mine. Doesn’t matter—she belongs to Rose, and Rose is special. And Lily, little Lily…

  I want to rage, to howl. Hit something. I can’t stand sitting here, rotting here with no money, no power, no way to fight back while those thugs at Biscayne Bay threaten everything I love.

  Maeve. She’s the answer. She forgave me already—said she was done with me, but she’ll fight like a tiger for her children. She always did. Penny and Will have children of their own now—surely they’ll understand that nothing else matters.

  Begging sticks in my throat, but pride is not the issue anymore. My pride has cost all of us too much already.

  I can bear my children’s contempt—I’ve earned it.

  What I can’t bear is to lose a single one of them.

  I have to make them listen.

  CHAPTER ONE

  DAISY BROOKSHIRE HELD the faded, rainbow-striped umbrella above her head and walked slowly uphill toward the line of granite markers at the top of the gentle slope. Her grandmother, a stickler for etiquette, would have frowned on the frivolous choice of rainbow stripes to visit a gravesite, but it was the only umbrella Daisy owned and she wasn’t about to spend any of her small savings on a black one.

  Her baby’s father lay beneath the largest of those monuments. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest as she drew close enough to read the name and dates chiseled into the ebony stone. She hadn’t gone to Brendan Carlyle’s funeral, or even his wake. She wouldn’t have been welcomed there. She probably shouldn’t even have come here today. What if she ran into Brendan’s father or stepmother? She had successfully avoided the wealthy couple for the past few months but she didn’t delude herself that they had given up trying to coerce her into giving up her child—Brendan’s baby. But she couldn’t stay away. She had to risk this one short visit, some small, still-grieving part of her needed to see his tombstone, needed to face the awful finality of his death.

  Oakhill Cemetery was a beautiful place to spend eternity, she supposed, but not when you came to your small portion of it six months shy of your twenty-fifth birthday.

  Daisy halted, taking a moment to catch her breath. It was an unusually cool August afternoon in Concord, North Carolina, still and quiet all around her, the sound of raindrops hitting the leaves of the live oaks that gave the cemetery its name, muting the rumble of distant traffic on the busy highway beyond the stone and wrought-iron fence. The hillside wasn’t particularly steep, but when you were eight and a half months pregnant even getting out of bed in the morning could cause you to lose your breath. She stared down at the wet ground beyond her swollen belly—her feet had disappeared from view weeks ago—and contemplated turning around and going back to Cut ’N’ Chat, the Mooresville, North Carolina, beauty salon where she felt most at home.

  Instead she began climbing again, still looking at the ground. Turning tail and running back to the familiarity of Rue Larrabee’s salon was out of the question. She needed to say her goodbyes to the handsome, high-spirited, selfish young man she had thought was the love of her life—until he told her, while he cared for her, he wasn’t about to marry her and more than likely be disinherited by his wealthy father—even if she was carrying his child. He’d support their baby financially, but he wasn’t ready to settle down. They would work something out later, after he’d broken the news to his parents. Then he’d jetted off to Bermuda with his father and stepmother, leaving Daisy brokenhearted and three months pregnant. Six days later he was dead, the victim of a freak paragliding accident.

  She had gone to ground since Brendan’s death, working quietly at the salon that catered to a number of NASCAR drivers’ and team members’ wives and sisters and daughters, but her conscience—and her heart—insisted she seek out his resting place and say her last goodbye. He had betrayed her trust and broken her heart but he was still her baby’s father. She squared her shoulders and lifted her eyes to the granite marker the lady at the old-fashioned gatehouse office had given her directions to and found she was not the only mourner at Brendan Carlyle’s grave. A tall, dark-haired man in a gray suit, head bowed, blocked her path.

  Expensive suit. Italian shoes. Money. One of August Carlyle’s minions? A lawyer, possibly. One of the high-priced, high-powered attorneys that kept sending her letters demanding she give Brendan’s father access to her child or suffer the consequences—consequences never spelled out and all the more terrifying for their vagueness. She wondered if she could somehow turn and hurry back down the hill without being seen, but she knew that wasn’t possible. The moment he looked up he would see her standing there staring at him, look at her pregnant belly and know who she was. And of course that was exactly what happened. He raised his head. His hair was the color of midnight, his skin bronzed by the sun, but his eyes when they met hers were a clear and startling blue. There was a bump on his nose from a long-ago injury and a scar at the corner of his left eye.

  She knew, suddenly, how he’d come by those injuries—and a broken collarbone, as well—falling out of a tree trying to rescue his little brother, Brendan, who had climbed high into the branches to try to touch a cloud.

  “Daisy?” he asked, a frown pulling his dark eyebrows together over those startling blue eyes.

  She responded with a question of her own. “Are you Brendan’s brother?” She was shaking so hard she had to clutch the umbrella handle with both hands to keep it from
shaking, too. Brendan had idolized Quinn Parrish. He had talked about him constantly during the time they were together, even though Quinn had had little or nothing to do with the Carlyle family since he’d left home when Brendan was thirteen.

  “Stepbrother,” he clarified and his voice was hard when he spoke the word. Quinn, who was in his early thirties, was the owner and CEO of Parrish Commodities, the makers of Rev Energy Drinks and sponsor of Double S Racing’s No. 502 car in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “You’re Daisy Brookshire, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question, more like a command to respond.

  “I’m Daisy.” Daisy was her nickname. Her father had given it to her when she was small. Her real name was Deidre. She never used it. No one did—except August Carlyle’s lawyers.

  “You weren’t at the funeral,” he said straightforwardly. “I would have remembered you.” He wasn’t wearing a hat. Raindrops beaded in his dark hair like diamonds but he seemed oblivious to the weather.

  “I didn’t think I would be welcome.” Her voice broke despite her best efforts to keep it even and steady. The baby moved restlessly inside her and it took all her willpower not to cup her hand protectively over her swollen stomach.

  “I know the feeling.” He turned his head and looked at the monument again. His stance was easy, relaxed, but Daisy saw him swallow hard and knew he was far more moved than he appeared to be. “He was a good kid.”

  She nodded. It was all she could manage. Brendan hadn’t been good to her, not at the end. Quinn continued to stare down at his brother’s grave and she continued to watch him, her wariness of the living much stronger than her grief for the dead and gone. But she had to be careful what more she said. Just because Quinn Parrish was estranged from the older Carlyle didn’t mean he still didn’t pose a threat to her and her baby.