Astonished, she stared at him. “Yes, I do. That’s my job.”
“How about not for tonight? Ignore your father, have some fun and relax.”
“I can’t relax. We have nine races left. The championship—”
“Will still be there in the morning.”
He took her hand and practically dragged her to the bar. “She’ll have a martini.”
“No, she won’t.”
The bartender, who didn’t even look old enough to serve drinks, paused with a silver shaker in his hand and looked to James for direction.
“A cosmo?”
She shook her head.
He sighed. “Wine?”
“I guess.”
The bartender still looked hesitant, but finally set down the shaker and withdrew a wineglass from his cart. He poured the Chardonnay James selected.
“You could be less predictable,” James said to her.
“I will. Tomorrow, when it counts.”
“PIT STOP IN EIGHT LAPS,” Harry said through the headset in Kane’s helmet. “We’ll take a pound out of the rear.”
“That’s too much,” Kane said, roaring into Turn Three of Dover’s Monster Mile.
“And we’ll take two out of the front,” Harry continued as if Kane hadn’t spoken.
Kane ground his teeth. The tension from the night before had gotten worse during the race. Harry spoke to him in clipped, hostile tones and ignored his comments about the car. Despite his attitude, they had been in the top ten most of the day. Kane attributed the success to his ability to keep cool despite the poisonous surroundings.
But he’d been pushed back as far as he could go.
“Half out of the rear and one from the front,” Kane said, his voice tight with strain.
“One and two,” Harry countered.
Well aware anybody at the track with headphones, including the media, plus anybody with an Internet connection, could hear him, Kane tried to stay calm. “I don’t want that big of an adjustment. I don’t need it.”
“We didn’t adjust enough when we were here in June. That’s why we came in twentieth.”
“We don’t need it.”
“You’re getting it.”
Not the conversation to have at 130 miles an hour.
Kane shifted his grip on the steering wheel and did something some people wouldn’t have thought possible a few years ago. He swallowed his pride and said nothing.
“Screw it,” Harry said. “I’m done.”
Then there was silence.
The silence dragged on, somehow drowning out the roar of the forty-three race car engines. Kane’s heart pounded as if he was running around the track instead of driving around it.
Had his crew chief just dumped him in the middle of a race?
The next voice he heard was Lexie’s.
“Kane, we’ve got three laps until the pit stop. We’re taking half a pound out of the rear and one out of the front.”
The directions he’d given. Where was Harry? Why had he stopped talking?
“Harry?” he asked carefully, unsure what was happening.
“Ah…he stepped away for a moment. Didn’t feel well.”
Several emotions rushed through Kane. Disappointment, anger, confusion, more anger.
“I’m here,” Lexie added.
She was calling this, in other words. On her own. Without Harry. He’d stepped away.
Given up.
Lexie’s fears had come true. She was sure they wouldn’t be supported. She’d been afraid their relationship would affect the team.
They weren’t. It had.
He was furious on so many different levels, he didn’t know which one to attack first.
They were without a crew chief. Temporarily or permanently?
Somehow, Lexie held it together. She kept the pit crew motivated and everybody else calm and controlled. They rolled along like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. With the pressure they’d all been under, maybe they thought Harry really had gotten sick.
A delusional person should probably not be driving a race car, but buying into that fantasy was the only way Kane could keep his composure and concentrate on the race.
They finished ninth, and all Kane could think about as he drove into his pit stall was pulling Lexie into his arms. As he climbed out of the car, though, the tension and pressure were evident on her face. She was barely holding on.
He noticed Mike Streetson, whose pit was just a few stalls down, heading toward his hauler. “Hang on,” he said to Lexie, squeezing her elbow, then he jogged over to his friend.
“Mind if Lexie and I tag along for the ride home?” he asked, after congratulating Mike on his seventh-place finish.
“Yeah, sure. You in a hurry?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Streetson slid on his sunglasses and grinned, his white teeth standing out starkly against his deeply tanned face.
“Then you’re in luck. Back here in fifteen?”
“We’ll be here. Thanks, man.”
He hurried back to Lexie, feeling as though he’d cleanly taken another hurdle in a seemingly endless race. While Kane relied on the Hollister Racing plane to get him to races, Streetson owned a personal jet that either he or one of his pilots flew to every event—either sponsor promotion, interview or race. With a guaranteed finish in the top ten this year, Kane had earned a nice bonus and could suddenly see the reasoning behind such a large expense.
“Get your stuff,” he said to Lexie in a low voice when he returned to the pit. “We’re going with Streetson.”
“I have to help load—”
“I bet your father is feeling better and can handle the loading.”
She crammed her hat farther down on her head. Her face was flushed with anger. “It’s my job. I can’t leave.”
Undeterred, Kane glanced around. The team was already breaking down the pit like a smooth ballet. They’d had a good race, but everyone was anxious to get home after a busy weekend. He finally spotted James, standing by the hauler doors. “James!”
James hurried over. “Nice race,” he said, toasting him with a water bottle.
“Thanks. Do you mind watching over things here? Lexie and I are going home with Streetson.”
With his sunglasses on, James’s expression wasn’t clear, but Kane knew his friend had caught on to the need for a quick exit without further explanation. “You bet. But I’m taking Monday off.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“This really isn’t necessary,” Lexie said. “I’ll handle the loading. You guys go with Mike.”
Kane snagged her hand and pulled her against his side. “You’re coming with me.”
She dug in her heels, obviously about to argue.
“Please? For me?”
“You really think I’m that much of a sucker?”
“I hope so.”
She sagged against him. “You’re right.”
“I’m going to shower and change,” he said, feeling his heart lighten for the first time in hours. “I’ll be right back.”
“I need a shower, too, you know.”
“You’ll have one.” He winked. “At my place.”
ON THE FLIGHT HOME, they shared a beer with Mike and didn’t mention Harry once. Mike, as always, was full of great stories that distracted them from the race they’d just run and the crisis they’d have to face Monday morning.
When they reached Kane’s house, he pulled her wordlessly into his arms. He didn’t really want to deconstruct the day, though he doubted she’d let things be until morning. Still, simply grateful for her strength and presence, he absorbed her familiar feel and scent.
“Our team is falling apart,” she said as they stood in the foyer, the moonlight sliding through the front door’s etched glass.
“No, it’s not. We held it together.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“He’ll probably resign in the morning.”
“Then we’ll figure out a way to win without him.”
“We can’t. I—” Her voice hitched. “I can’t.”
He cupped her face and stared intently into her eyes. “I won’t let you give up on this team. Or us.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m just so tired.”
“Come on.” He held her hand and led her up the stairs. “I’ll start a bath for you, then you can get some sleep.”
He felt incredible satisfaction from taking care of her. She, who always thought of everyone else’s needs but her own, let him take the lead and let him coddle her. It was a building block to having her trust him again, to believe in their relationship again. He was determined, somehow, to hold the scattered pieces of his world together.
And the next morning, wearing only his T-shirt as she stood in front of his stove, making a mess of a ham and cheese omelet, he finally coaxed a genuine smile from her face when he told her she might know about race cars, but she definitely needed some pointers with a skillet.
The bliss lasted right up until the moment the doorbell rang.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“KANE? YOU UP, SON?”
Poised with a spatula over an omelet, Lexie froze at the sound of Anton Jackson’s voice echoing down the hall.
“He has a key?” she whispered incredulously to Kane, her heart leaping to her throat.
“My mom likes to bring casseroles to put in my freezer.”
She glanced down at her T-shirt and bare legs. Talk about awkward.