Carol turned away when another woman Jared didn’t know came up behind her and gave her a hug. Jared knew he shouldn’t read too much into Carol’s support of him.
He made his way through the crowd to Annie’s side. She put her camera down and smiled over at him. “What a great race!”
“It was exciting.” But more exhilarating was the smile on Annie’s face. He could see the joy she had in the moment and he was happy to share it with her. He leaned over to tug her into his arms.
He rubbed his hands down her back, reveling in the feel of her. It had been too long, he thought, too long since he’d let someone be his home. And he wasn’t sure that he was going to get used to the feelings swamping him now.
He didn’t like them. They made him weak and he’d never been able to abide any kind of weakness in himself.
“When will you be free?”
“Late tonight. I can meet you back at the hotel.”
“I’ll be around. Text me when you’re ready to go and I’ll come and find you.”
Jared left Annie to find Tucker, who was being interviewed by one of the twenty-four-hour sports channels. Tucker had finished third in the unofficial standings. He was grinning and saying the right things to the reporters who were questioning him, but Jared had known him long enough to see past his smiling facade.
When they were finally alone in Tucker’s motor home, Jared asked, “You okay, man?”
“I should have won today.”
Tucker always thought he should win. And Jared knew that his friend was going to spend the next few days going over every move he’d made on the track and trying to figure out where he’d lost.
“You ran a good race.”
“Yeah. And I changed my damned tires on the last pit so no one would say anything, but I’m not doing it again. I’ve got to run my races my way.”
“I agree. I’ve already lodged a complaint that Jenner brought up the tire thing again. I think this will be the end of it.”
“It better be.”
“Or else what?”
“Nothing. I’m just talking trash because I’m pissed off. I hate losing.”
“Everyone does.”
“True,” Tucker said. “You gonna hang at the post-race party or you rushing off to your girl?”
“I’ll hang for a while.”
“Until she calls you?” Tucker said with a shrewd look.
He shrugged, not willing to cop to what he felt about Annie. He didn’t share his feelings with her, so he certainly wasn’t going to discuss it with Tucker.
“You’ve got it bad,” Tucker said.
Maybe Tucker was right. The closer Annie got to him the harder he tried to preserve the distance he usually kept between everyone and himself. But she had a way of getting around his barriers.
“It doesn’t feel bad,” he said, at last.
Tucker stared at him for a minute. “You couldn’t pick a girl from our team to fall for?”
Jared wished it were that easy. But he hadn’t been looking for a woman. “That would have made life much simpler.”
“No kidding.”
Tucker went to shower and Jared left to talk to the other members of their team, but in the back of his mind was the fact that Annie had come into his life when he hadn’t expected her to.
He tried to keep his mind on racing but instead, as he caught a glimpse of Annie hugging her brother, Jared was filled with a sense of awe that she was his. A sense of rightness…a sense of completeness that he noticed was lacking when she was out of his company.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE RETURN TO Daytona felt like a milestone to Annie in her relationship with Jared. They’d been together for almost five months.
They’d weathered a few storms, spurred by the fact that they were affiliated with different racing teams, but she thought each one had brought them closer. Or as close as Jared would allow them to be before his cool reserve came back into play.
She didn’t know what to believe when it came to Jared, but he held her so close sometimes that she had to believe they were building something lasting.
“Are you sure there’s a house out here?” Jared asked as they turned off the main highway onto a smaller, roughly paved road.
This was old Florida at its finest. Scrub pine and swamp grass were on either side of the road.
“Very funny.” She smiled over at Jared.
“This is nice,” he said.
“Driving?”
“You and me together and away from the track instead of both of us so busy,” he answered.
“You’re not stressed that your driver is down in the points?”
“Nah. Tucker has come back from worse places before. We’ve got a plan for this weekend.”