“Of him?”
“No, of—”
“Lexie,” they finished together.
“She’s really something,” his father added. “She told me if I didn’t understand your love of racing it’s because I never come to the races.”
“And the ones you watch from the sky box don’t count.”
He smiled and nodded. “It’s like you were there.”
“I know her well.”
“She’s pretty terrific.”
Kane raised his eyebrows. “She is, huh?”
“Because of her, I might actually get this racing bug. Which is good, because I’m cutting back on my broadcast schedule, so I can come to more races.”
“Dad, you don’t have to.”
“I am. I’ve already told the NFL and the network. I’m going to alternate games with Buddy Romano.”
“Your old center?”
“He’s trying to break into TV, and I wanted some Sundays off. It seemed like the perfect compromise.”
“And this was Lexie’s idea?”
“She said I needed to take time with you and see what NASCAR is all about. I need you to see that I’m serious about my commitment.”
Kane sank onto the sofa. “Yeah, commitment.”
“You don’t want me to come to the races?”
“Yeah, I want you to come. I just—” He rubbed his hands down his face. “You had a good time today?”
His father sat beside him, and for the first time Kane noticed his rumpled, less-than-perfect appearance. “It was great.” He looked off in the distance, as if reliving the day. “The speed, the power, the noise—it was all amazing. The air crackled like it was the Super Bowl.”
“And it’s that way every week.”
“I can’t wait. But what does this have to do with commitments?”
“Lexie.” He said her name on a sigh, like the lovesick goofball he knew he’d become.
“Ah. Not ready to give up on her, are you?”
“No way.”
“You shouldn’t.”
Though he and his father hadn’t always agreed, Kane had always admired his parents’ relationship. The respect and devotion they shared, which he understood even more because of his love for Lexie.
Love had hit him over the head, just as everybody had said it would. Although for him it had been more like a gradual fall, then an extreme plunge. Once, Lexie had said she loved him, too. But after all his uncertainty and indecision, his delaying, hemming and hawing, she’d probably changed her mind.
“Does love always make you crazy?”
His father patted him on the back. “Most of the time, son. Most of the time.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LEXIE MARCHED through the rapidly emptying drivers’ lot, hoping she could still catch Kane.
They’d had a near miss with Lockwood but a great day on the track. She was proud of Kane pulling his punch, though she didn’t want to consider what might have happened if she and Anton hadn’t shown up. Still, the sight of that creep flat on his back had been worth the grilling in the NASCAR official’s office.
Did Kane have the best fans or what?
As she reached his motor coach, she noticed a buxom blonde in a miniskirt standing at the door. Oh, please. She wanted to see Kane, to congratulate him and share the moment. To find a way to apologize for choosing the team over him. For chickening out. Protecting herself.
“Look, honey—” Her jaw dropped as she recognized the woman. “Cheryl?”
She waggled her manicured fingers. “Hi.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been coming to the races the last few weeks.”
“You have?” Cheryl didn’t come to races. She didn’t even like racing. “Why?”
“Kane and I…well, we’ve been working on a project.”
Lexie’s stomach bottomed out. Kane wouldn’t. Cheryl wouldn’t.
As if she realized her thoughts, Cheryl huffed in disgust. “Oh, please. You’re the project.”
“Me?”
“We’ve been trying to work through his feelings for you.”
Despite her effort to be nosy and appropriately car chief concerned, her heart jumped. “Work through his feelings?”
“Well, see…” Cheryl stared at the ground in a very uncharacteristic way. “I thought he should compare the way he feels about you to the way he feels about racing.”
Lexie shook her head to clear it. “Compare me to racing?”
“Yes. He was confused, and it was important that he get in touch with his emotions.”
Good grief, not only was she destined to lose that contest, the woman was playing head games with a race car driver—the most volatile, superstitious, unpredictable species on the planet. “He was working out his feelings in a three-thousand-pound race car?”
“Where else would—”
“With forty-two other drivers also in three-thousand-pound race cars?”
Cheryl cocked one hip. “Men need something tactile to tap into their feelings. They’re not naturally emotional beings like women.”
“He was tactile all right—nearly on another driver’s face. Do you have any idea what would have happened if that punch had landed?”
“It wouldn’t have been good.”
“No. The championship would have been lost.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. NASCAR docks us twenty-five, maybe fifty points, and we’re finished.”
“Well, maybe—”
“Go home, Cheryl. Go back to running the office. Let me handle the team, the driver and the racing. Okay?”
“Jeez. I was just trying to help.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked away.
Shaking her head, Lexie reached for Kane’s motor coach door. She stopped with her fingers curled around the handle and looked over her shoulder at Cheryl. “Did he figure out his feelings about me?”
“He did.”
“And?”
Cheryl nodded toward the door. “Why don’t you go find out?”
Oh, she was just really too much. Why don’t you go find out? Humph.
Comparing his feelings for her to his feelings for racing? How ridiculous. They were two completely separate—
Oh, they are, huh?
She swallowed. Hadn’t she been the one who’d broken up with him years ago because she didn’t want to be second best to his career? Then hadn’t she, just a few weeks ago, broken off their relationship because she wanted racing to be first?
And she’d thought he was the volatile one.
Racing wasn’t the problem. It was their hearts.
She’d let fears and insecurities convince her he didn’t really love her. He’d focused so completely on proving himself to his father that his heart didn’t have room to give her the devotion she needed.
They wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past. The bruising her heart had taken had healed, and she wasn’t afraid to hand it over to the man she loved.
She flung open the door to the coach. “I l—” She ground to a halt when she saw the other two men with Kane. “Hi, Dad, Anton.”
While the two older men rose to their feet, the love of her life looked a little green around the gills as he stared silently up at her from his position on the sofa. “Are you okay?” she asked him.
“I’m—”
“On your feet, son,” Anton said, grabbing Kane by his arm. “There’s a lady in the room.”
“Don’t nag the boy, Jackson,” her father said.
Anton narrowed his eyes. “So only the crew chief can nag him, is that right?”
Her father poked out his chest, which was no match for the size and breadth of the former NFL great. “That’s right.”
“He’s my son.”
“At the track he belongs to me.”
“Hey, guys,” Lexie said.
“Dad, please,” Kane said at the same time.
The two men separated, leaving Kane and Lexie standing between them. Well, at least they weren’t standing on opposite sides anymore.
“I came to apologize to Kane, and he—” her father jerked his thumb at Anton “—had the nerve to tell me all the problems I caused by not supporting you two.”
Lexie bit her lip to keep from laughing at the haughty expression on Anton’s face. “Ah, Dad, there were some problems—”
“No more than he caused,” her father said, glaring at Anton.
“You both were wrong,” Kane said, sounding tired, as if he’d said that a few times already. “We’ve talked about this. You’ve both apologized. Several times.”
“He can be so pompous,” her father said. “I’m going to make it my mission to stamp it out of my grandkids.”
Kane’s jaw dropped. “Grandkids? Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves?”
“Well, now this whole misunderstanding…” Anton began, though Lexie tuned him out. She was listening to a louder voice, one deep inside her.
Go for it.
Lexie wrapped her arms around Kane’s neck. “You don’t belong to either of them. You belong to me. At the track. Everywhere.”
He hugged her tight against his chest, his eyes glowing with relief. “Lexie, I’ve made such a mess out of things.”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed, right?”