"Hi. Will you sign my program?"
"It would be my pleasure." Elec took her little hand and kissed the back of it, amazed at how smooth her skin felt, and how much she looked like a miniversion of Tamara. "You're as pretty as your mother."
Hunter's eyes went wide, than she gave him a grin, complete with two missing front teeth.
She turned to Tamara. "Mom, he's sexy."
Elec choked back a laugh.
"Hunter!" Tamara looked at her daughter in horror. "How do you know what sexy is?"
"That's what Suzanne says whenever a man kisses her hand."
"Well . . ." Tamara looked like she was struggling with how to address the subject, but Hunter was pushing the blanket off herself.
"I have to go get my program and my Sharpie."
"I'll get it, baby," Tamara said. "Elec can take Petey out on the porch to put the ants in and I'll find your program. You stay put and rest."
"Sounds good," Elec said. "Come on, Petey. Let's get these ants settled in their new home."
"I'll put the food in the kitchen," Tamara said, giving him a look that gave her opinion yet again on his putting dinner and ants in the same sack.
Elec just gave her a sheepish smile.
Since Petey was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt as pajamas, he didn't seem to care about going out on the front porch, and while he had scabs all over his arms and face, he didn't look to Elec like he felt sick at all. Petey ran to the door and bounded through it, skidding to a halt on his knees and looking back at Elec.
"Are there directions?" he asked. "I'll read them to you."
"Okay." Elec got everything settled on the porch floor and handed the direction sheet to Petey. It didn't look complicated, but he could appreciate a kid who wanted to follow the rules and didn't want to skimp on details. He'd been that kind of kid himself, unlike his siblings, who had just dove in without looking.
While Petey studied the directions, Elec glanced around at Tamara's property. Her house was a raised-roof cottage with a big sweeping front porch, which she had filled with wicker chairs and a sofa, hanging ferns, and colorful pillows. There were pots of red and yellow flowers spilling down the front stairs.
It wasn't a huge house, but it was very comfortable, and everywhere Elec turned, it exuded a sense of home. This was a great place for these kids to be growing up, giving them stability and comfort.
Elec wasn't surprised Tamara had provided this for her children, but at the same time, it did funny things to his innards again. He was starting to ache for things he couldn't have, at a time when he should be thrilled with the way his life was going. He was driving in the cup series, he was doing damn well, he'd taken third at the Six Hundred, and yet he was suddenly pining for the babies he'd never have.
His phone beeped in his pocket, so he pulled it out and glanced at it. It was yet another text message from Crystal. That girl didn't know when to quit. Not bothering to even read it, he deleted it.
"Okay, so here's what we do," Petey said. "We just open the top and shake the ants in."
"That's it?"
"That's it. This is a self-contained environment. They don't need to be fed and this doesn't need to be cleaned."
"Cool." Thank God it was easy. Tamara was already less than thrilled with his gift. "I'll open the lid and you pour the ants in, okay?"
"Yep."
Petey bit his lip in concentration as he carefully poured the ants into the farm, and Elec could see Tamara in the boy's features, though not as clearly as with Hunter. But Petey did that same furrowing of his brow that his mother did, and he shared her petite nose. Elec enjoyed watching him, and felt sorrow for Petey that he no longer had his father. Elec had a lot of special memories with his own dad, and this boy wouldn't have any more of those.
"Put the lid back on," Petey said anxiously, once the last ant was in.
Elec clicked it into place. "It's on." Then he and Petey lay flat on their stomachs on the porch floor in companionable silence, chins resting on their arms, and watched the ants get busy tunneling their way through the gel. They seemed to have a preplanned architectural strategy and it was fascinating to watch.
"So you like bugs, huh?" Elec asked, ignoring his cell phone beeping again.
"Yep."
"More than car racing?" Elec said it casually, staring straight ahead at the ant farm. He wasn't sure why, but he got the feeling Petey wasn't so into racing and he wanted to let him know that was perfectly acceptable.
"Yeah," Petey said slowly, shooting Elec an anxious look. "More than racing. But don't tell Ryder that. He's my godfather and my dad's best friend, and it might hurt his feelings."
"I won't tell anybody anything if you don't want me to. But you know your mom and Ryder just want you to be happy. It's cool if you're more into bugs than racing.
Everybody's got their own thing."
"Hunter's thing is racing. And she's a girl."
Ah. So Petey was already feeling the pressure of testosterone. "But Hunter's younger than you . . . don't you think maybe some of that love of racing is a way for her to hold on to your daddy?"
"She wasn't even five when he died. She doesn't really remember him much, not him being at home, I mean. She remembers seeing him more on the TV than with us. I remember him better." Petey stared into the plastic of the ant farm and chewed his lip industriously. "He used to throw me up in the air and run around the house with me under his arm like a football. And he used to toss me onto my bed at bedtime, then tuck me in and tell me he'd crossed the finish line in first place when I was born."
There was a lump in Elec's throat as he listened to the matter-of-fact tone in the boy's voice, and he fought to keep his own tone casual. "You're lucky to have those memories.
I'm guessing Hunter doesn't have those."
In his pocket, his phone beeped again. Lord, Crystal had lousy timing. Elec pulled it out to silence it.
"Who keeps calling you?" Petey asked, glancing over curiously.
"It's a girl who likes me."
"Do you like her?"
"Not that way. And I told her we couldn't be anything but friends, and she won't take the hint. She's been calling me every day."
"So she's stalking you?" he asked with the morbid curiosity of a nine-year-old.
"You know, it just might be considered that, Petey."
"Could you call me Pete?" he asked. "I don't like being Petey anymore, but my mom won't stop."
"Sure. No problem." Elec nudged Pete with his elbow, knocking him off balance and making the boy grin. The kid was clearly experiencing some growing pains and Elec wanted to reassure him. "If you promise not to tell your mom I'm being stalked."
"Sure." Pete glanced over at him. "Do you like my mom?"
"Yeah. I like her a lot."
"Like like her, like her?"
They were heading into dicey territory with that question. Elec knew Tamara didn't want her kids to know they were in any way dating. "How would you feel about that?"
"That would be cool." Pete tapped the plastic side of the ant farm. "Geoffrey was gross. I met him at the Christmas thing at my mom's work and he was old and bossy. I know my mom thinks I didn't know she was going on dates with him, but I'm not stupid."
"No, you're clearly not that. So where are you going to keep this ant farm?"
"In my room. Want to see it?"
"Sure." Elec couldn't resist. He reached over and ruffled Pete's short brown hair. "Next time I'll get you a tarantula."
Pete laughed. "My mom would freak out."
"Might be kind of funny, huh?" The image of Tamara's face if he strolled in with a giant fuzzy spider made Elec laugh, too. Probably not the best strategy to convince her they should be spending more time together.
When Elec laughed, Pete laughed harder, and Elec lay on the porch floor and just enjoyed the moment.
CHAPTER I E
TAMARA opened the front door to let Elec know she had Hunter's race program and her daughter was anxiously waiting for him to sign it. What she saw when she put one foot outside and looked down literally ripped the breath right out of her lungs.
Her son was lying on his stomach next to Elec, who was similarly sprawled out on the wooden floorboards, and they were laughing together. The ant farm was set up in front of them and they were watching it as they cracked up to whatever private joke they'd just shared. It was so normal, so masculine, so casual, that damned if she didn't have tears in her eyes.