by Wylde, J. D.
“No.”
“You’re with him?” His questions were rapid fire. “He’s your man?”
“No. No!”
“You were though, weren’t you?” And she heard the accusation his voice.
Lauren fought the tears. “Yes,” she fired back, needing to hurt him like he was hurting her. “Yes, I slept with Jeremy, but I didn’t marry him. Not like you did with Barbara Jean. And I surely didn’t bring him to our house and sleep with him in our bedroom!” God! That still hurt.
“But you did sleep with him.”
The air crackled with accusation. And hurt. And dreams being crushed, being ground to dust at their feet.
“Well?” his voice rose. “Did you? Did you?” he yelled.
“Yes!” And she was never more embarrassed and ashamed in her life. And hurt. Devastated.
His face turned to stone.
“We were divorced,” she rushed on. “You were remarried and I— I—” The words jammed up into her throat. She had been lonely. Broken-hearted, hurt beyond anything she could have ever imagined. The man she loved had moved on without a thought or care about her… and she’d tried to do the same.
His lips pressed into a thin, hard line and Lauren fought the fear she’d pushed beyond what she should have. Said more than she should have. And was going to lose more than she could bear.
“Bobby Wayne, please.”
“I’m outta here.” He pushed by her.
“Bobby Wayne!” She grabbed his arm, but he shrugged her off. With quick strides he walked through the house to gather his keys. The click of his boot heels on the stone floor sounded a death knell for their future.
“Bobby Wayne,” she cried out, running after him as he quickly gathered what he needed and headed toward the front door. “Let me explain. It’s not like Jeremy said. I—”
“I don’t care,” he shouted. He spun around. His face was a mask of fury. “I refuse to accept second-place anywhere. Especially here. You want out? You got it.”
“I don’t want out!” she cried. She wanted Bobby Wayne and what they had here. This second chance at love.
“Don’t do this! Please.” Her heart was breaking. Tears were flooding her eyes. The darkness of despair was encroaching on her vision, threatening to smother her.
“Do whatever you want with the place. I no longer care,” he told her before walking out the front door, slamming it in his wake.
“Bobby Wayne, please!” Lauren cried out as she opened the door, running after him. “Please!” she cried out.
But he was in his car. The engine revving. Crushed seashells spewing out from the back tires as he spun around and down the drive out of sight.
He was gone.
And this time she was the one left behind with a heart broken beyond repair.
Chapter 10
Jeremy Altmeyer was an arrogant asshole. A pompous prick who’d hijacked a ride on Lauren’s rising star. Who the hell did he think he was? Coming into Bobby Wayne’s house, pissing all over Bobby Wayne’s hopes and dreams? Lauren was his, dammit! His.
But she wasn’t. Not really.
And certainly not after the way he’d stupidly walked away from her.
It appeared Jeremy Altmeyer wasn’t the only pompous prick.
Bobby Wayne paced the confines of his motor coach. Stabbed his fingers into his hair. He had no claim on Lauren, not after their divorce. If she wanted to have a relationship with the asshole prick, there was no ring, no vows to stop her. And it wasn’t like Bobby Wayne had holed up, hopelessly pining away for her after their divorce.
She’d passed on all the offers from the roadies and groupies, and she was a beautiful, sexy superstar; there would have been a lot of men. But Jeremy “the asshole” Altmeyer was the one she’d chosen.
Well, that just bit. Hard.
Her sleeping with every man who’d come onto her in every town she stopped in would have been easier to take. Bobby Wayne could understand that. After all, it was what he’d done.
“Shit.” That bit, too. Right in his conscience.
He had no right to judge her. And certainly no damn right to have walked away from her without letting her explain. Even more, he had no right to even think she owed him any explanation. She didn’t.
He’d blown it. He’d taken what they’d had and just drove it into the wall. “Shit. You’re a fuckin’ asshole,” he muttered for only about the hundredth time.
There was a knock on the motor coach’s door.
“What?” he growled.
Steve LeClaire, Bobby Wayne’s crew chief pushed his way inside. Looked at Bobby Wayne and frowned. “Why aren’t you in the garage?”
“I’ve got some things on my mind.”
“There shouldn’t be anything on your mind, but gettin’ back in the car and winnin’.” And while Steve lectured him, Bobby Wayne’s mind wandered right back to the problem at hand.
Sadistic had begrudgingly okayed him to drive yesterday. It had been more like, your tests say you’re okay, but in my opinion, you’re an idiot. And if you don’t care if you live or die, why should I?
Bobby Wayne’s greatest fear was gone. He could race again.
And when he should be submerging himself into the sport, burying himself in everything going on around the garage, immersing himself with the media and his sponsors, he was sitting in his coach. Thinking about Lauren and the mess he’d made of things. He hadn’t even called Toby, his substitute driver, to inform him he wouldn’t be driving in next week’s race.
Maybe he really was the dumb jock who could only make left-hand turns like Asshole Altmeyer thought he was. But Bobby Wayne knew better.
His mind, which had lived and breathed racing since he’d been six-years old, was no longer in it.
And his heart, well it was with a headstrong, vulnerable, misguided woman who hadn’t had the best of teachers where love was concerned. Bottom line: she meant more to him than racing for the cup. More than racing for the unprecedented title of winningest driver ever.
She meant everything.
“It’s her again, isn’t it?”
Bobby Wayne didn’t pretend to not know what Steve was talking about. Or who.
“She’s fuckin’ with your mind again.”
“Lauren isn’t fucking with my mind.” Bobby Wayne was. No matter how he replayed the events of three days ago, he’d been the fucker.
“Oh, hell, yeah, she is. We have a championship to win,” Steve told him, pointing a finger at Bobby Wayne’s chest to drive home his point. “We have two legends to surpass. We have a mountain to sit on top of, man. An undisputed title to hold high.”
Bobby Wayne looked at his crew chief. He heard all the words. Hell, he’d said them himself time and time again to his crew.
Funny how that goal didn’t seem to matter much anymore.
* * *
Harrington House was the home Lauren had craved all her life. It was more than what she’d dreamed of as a lonely child, she thought, as she slowly walked through the many rooms which made up the mansion. Each one lovingly renovated to their former glory, beautifully decorated with period pieces. The generations of Harrington’s who’d lived in this home – the family she’d unofficially adopted as her own – would be proud of her dedication. It had graced the cover of a lot of magazines, was envied by celebrities and politicians, but to Lauren it was really nothing but a big, old, empty house. She dropped her suitcase by the front door and looked around.
It was four walls. And a roof. And it hadn’t taken a room-by-room walk-thru to know what was missing. All she had to do was look to the broken heart still somehow beating in her chest. It was the same thing that had been missing from every home she’d ever lived in.
Love.
The promise that no matter what tomorrow brought, it was faced together. Too late she realized she could have been happy in any of the run-down homes her parents had dragged her through if she’d been living there with Bobby. It wouldn’t have mattered if
it had wheels and had just rolled onto the lot, or if it was steeped in history like his house. With Bobby Wayne at her side, she would have been happy.
It was their love that had made this house a home. It was the same with every generation of Harrington’s who had lived here. Would have been the same for her and Bobby Wayne, too.
She needed to find him.
She needed to explain Jeremy. And herself. And she needed to ask – beg if necessary – for another chance. One she wouldn’t walk away from. Or destroy. One she’d cherish for the rest of her life.
And she needed to do it before he did something crazy.
Like get behind the wheel and get himself killed.
* * *
The race track was bustling with activity. Air wrenches screeched from the open garage doors. Drivers and their crews were bent over their race cars like ants on a disturbed ant hill. Black cable snaked along the pavement and walkways from studio trucks and news vans to the reporters and the crew who were doing sound checks. Fans lucky enough to get garage passes were flocking to the bays of their favorite drivers.
Lauren adjusted her own track pass around her neck. She’d begged, Tanya, ex-wife number two, for the honor and had only received it after enduring a half-hour-long interrogation about her intentions.
It appeared at Forsythe Racing, loyalty and love and devotion weren’t as easily tossed aside as marriage vows. Either that, or Bobby Wayne paid his employees well.
Walking beyond the garage area, she wound her way around to the back of the track and into the area set aside for one-on-one interviews. There she found Bobby Wayne dressed in his fire suit, sponsor patches dotting his chest and his arms, being interviewed by one of the sport’s former greats now turned announcer.
Keeping out of the way of the camera crew, she edged closer to where nine huge screens were bundled together to broadcast Bobby Wayne’s face over all of them at the same time.
“You’ve had quite a year,” the announcer/reporter said, glancing down at the note cards he was holding out of camera range. “A season for the record books. Until Talladega.” The screens flipped to pre-recorded footage of Bobby Wayne’s Chevrolet at the infamous racetrack in Alabama. Of a car that slid into another and another until the track was a churning sea of wreckage and Bobby Wayne’s car was airborne, end over end, fenders and sheet metal ripping away as he flew into the wall at a speed that was only slightly faster than the beat of her thundering heart.
“You were airlifted from that wreckage,” the reporter went on as footage of the accident and rescue played on behind him. “Life-flighted,” he added. “Revived twice in the air.”
Lauren gasped as pain exploded in her heart and distress rocked her soul. Tears filled her eyes as she listened to the reporter list Bobby Wayne’s injuries like it was a checklist. He could have been killed! And she hadn’t known.
Her gasp was heard across the set. Bobby Wayne’s brows drew together as he looked over the reporter’s shoulder. His eyes connected with hers and none of the love she’d hoped to see was there shining in those bright blue depths.
And she held her breath and stared back with all the longing and love she felt for him shining in hers.
A frowning producer carrying a clipboard headed toward her.
Not waiting to be physically removed from the set, Lauren did what she and generations of Foster’s did best.
She ran.
A hastened short end to his interview and an eternity later Bobby Wayne found Lauren not far from the media room. Arms wrapped around her bent knees, she was balanced on her haunches, her back pressed into the wall. Her face buried. “Lauren?” He bent down beside her.
She lifted her head. Her beautiful gold eyes were swimming in tears that trailed down her cheeks. Her face was pale. Like she’d been delivered a shock. He supposed the sensationalized footage the network had chosen was shocking since that was their forte. “I never knew,” she whispered, as her head slowly shook from side to side. “You were life-flighted,” the words fell from her trembling lips. “You almost died.”
“There was a reason for that.”
“For what?” She pressed her back against the wall. “For dying? God! I hate this sport.”
He touched her cheek. Pushed a curly lock of hair back from it. “For living, sugar. There was a reason for me to live.”
Her dark brows drew down.
“You. You were the reason. You and me.” He wrapped his arms around her and dragged them both to their feet. Although he was cleared to drive, his leg still bothered him. “Together,” he added. “Finding out what’s beyond the checkered flag.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I retired.”
“What?”
“I retired. That’s what the interview was for. Not me making my triumphant return behind the wheel, but me officially retiring from the sport.”
“But, Bobby Wayne, you love racing.”
“Not as much as I love you.”
“But— But— I don’t understand. Why?” she whispered.
He lifted one shoulder. “My heart no longer belongs to NASCAR. It belongs to a beautiful woman who sings like an angel and sets me on fire with just a look. And I love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her.
“And I’m sorry. You had every right to have a life – a relationship. I was wrong to have said the things I said. To have acted like I did. My only defense is that I love you, Lauren. And I was insanely jealous.”
“Oh, Bobby Wayne,” she whispered as her eyes went soft as velvet. Her hand gently touched his hair and his cheek and shoulder. Like she was checking him to make sure he was okay.
“You obviously cared about that man. And enough,” he quickly went on when she opened her mouth. “Enough to have built a relationship with him. And I was jealous,” he told her. “Because I wanted that with you.”
“You have that.” Her hand slid across his chest, the palm resting right over his racing heart. She breathed deep, her perfect tea-cup breasts pushing out. And then she looked up at him and all the love he could ever want was illuminated in her eyes. “I never loved Jeremy,” she softly told him. “Not like I loved you. And I knew when I came back home and you kissed me, I knew with one kiss that I could never continue to see him. That he and I were through. Because it has always been you, Bobby Wayne. Always you. And it will always be you.”
“So,” he pulled her close. Wrapped his arms low around her back until they were touching from lips to knees and all the good places in between, their breaths mingling and their hearts beating against each other. “I guess I found out what’s beyond the checkered flag.”
Chapter 11
One year later…
The infamous picture of one of racing’s best kissing one of country music’s finest was framed and hanging on the wall in the living room of the new home Bobby Wayne and Lauren Forsythe now owned on the Virginia/North Carolina border. Size wise, their new home was a far cry from the grandeur of Harrington House, but in Bobby Wayne’s opinion perfect since he could now have his wife on the kitchen counter whenever he got the urge. At least until she escaped his advances and he had to chase her to one of the five bedrooms.
She was good at running. But he was better at catching.
And the chase in between was more exciting than racing for the cup.
“Bobby Wayne?” The front door opened and closed. His love was home. “When did you get back from Bristol?”
“A while ago,” he called out. He still owned Forsythe Racing, although Donna, ex-wife number one ran the day-to-day operations. The daughter of one of NASCAR’s great drivers, and a respected driver herself, she was well qualified. And their arrangement gave him more time here at home with Lauren.
His angel in question walked into the kitchen looking beautifully windblown and smelling of fresh air.
“Top down on the ride home?” He’d finally convinced her to buy American. Well, actually, he’d gifted her with a Chevy Camaro ZL1 as a wed
ding present. And the 6.2 liter supercharged stock engine packing 580 horses was rarely stabled.
She eyed him up leaning barefoot against his favorite counter. “What are you doin’?” she warily asked.
They were still working on Lauren’s trust issues. He wanted to work on a couple other things, too. But they had the rest of their lives together. “Waitin’ for you, sugar,” he casually replied, waggling his eyebrows. “It has been three days, ya’ know.” The maximum time allowed without them seeing each other.
“Oh, no.” She put up a hand, palm out. Like that would stop him.
“Sugar, it’s been three days,” he reminded her.
“I don’t know what your obsession is with that counter top, but I’m not falling for it.”
He grinned. “You’re my obsession,” he told her as his grin grew bigger.
Her eyes dipped down to his groin where his dick was happily growing bigger, too.
“I’m not having sex with you on that counter.”
“Okay,” he easily replied, pushing away from it. He walked toward her. “How about on the table then?” he asked, caging her between his body and the table.
She rolled her eyes. “How about you look at these announcements for the house? I need to pick one.”
They’d gifted Harrington House to the Harrington Historical Society and since announcing her own retirement from country music, Lauren now ran the Friends of Harrington Foundation. She oversaw the house, the grounds, and the staff who gave the tours. Next month she was kicking off their official grand opening with a Bliss benefit concert.
He picked up the glossy cards. Gave them a cursory glance before tossing them down on the table, opting instead to nibble on her neck. “You smell good enough to eat, sugar.”
“Bobby Wayne.” She wiggled against him, playing right into his hands.
“There you go, sugar. Now you’re gettin’ into it.” Still kissing her neck, he nimbly unbuttoned her shirt. Pushed it down off her shoulders, leaving it to hang from the waistband of her skirt – a very short one showing off some pretty kick-ass legs in some fantasy hooker boots.