“New strategy?” she asked.
“Yes. We’re going to surprise everyone this weekend in Daytona.”
“Dave’s going to be hard to beat. He’s really got his groove going now.”
“That’s true, but I’m confident that Tucker can take him.”
“How confident?”
“Pretty damn sure,” he said.
Since Richmond, Annie had treaded carefully around her brother and Jared’s best friend. Tucker had stopped answering questions about her when the media mentioned her relationship. She and Jared had been keeping a low profile. Mainly, she admitted, because Jared had been working a lot of hours either on the racing team or at the corporate offices for JM’s Coffee House.
“Care to make a little wager on the outcome?” she asked, as she made the last turn onto her uncle Steve’s property. There was a large wrought-iron gate with a sign that warned trespassers off.
“On the race?”
She nodded.
“Okay. What are the terms?”
“If Dave wins you tell me one thing about your past that you’ve never shared with anyone else.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be the person who knows you best,” she said, putting all her cards on the table.
“I think you are,” he said quietly.
“Oh, Jared, I hope not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you haven’t let me know you at all.”
“We’re intimate,” he said.
She realized that this conversation wasn’t the one she’d intended, but now was as good a time as any to have it. “That’s physical. You only let me so close.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. It was a habit he had when he stalled for time. “I’m trying.”
“Good. So if Dave wins, we’ll learn something new about each other?”
“Sure. But I’m going to ask about your marriage,” he said, warned.
“Deal,” she said. And it was.
She reached over for the intercom button.
But Jared stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Will you do something for me?”
“What?” she asked, then realized how that sounded. “You mean in addition to the bet?”
He nodded.
“Yes, I will.”
“I’m not ready to ask you right now.”
And that seemed to sum up the complex dance that was their relationship. For every inch he gave in the intimacy department, he inserted two more inches of space. She pushed her sunglasses up on the top of her head and leveled a stare across the seat at him.
“When will you be ready?” she asked.
He leaned across the bucket seat and gave her a hard kiss. “Soon.”
She tried not to let it bother her, but she felt vulnerable where he was concerned and she wanted, needed, some reassurance.
JARED WAS STARTING to really dislike the men in Annie’s family. They were loud and extremely large in numbers and totally shutting him down. Jared told himself it didn’t matter to him if the Jenner men liked him, but he knew that was a lie.
Though Annie thought he was keeping her at arm’s length, he wasn’t. He watched her with her cousins, laughing and talking, and he wanted…wanted to be the one next to her.
Annie moved around the fringes of her family gathering, snapping pictures of every event and every person. She talked and laughed with her family. But it didn’t take Jared long to realize that she was avoiding him. The tension that had developed in the car just as they’d arrived hung over them like a storm cloud.
She brought that Nikon up to her eye, shooting pictures of him. He wondered what she saw through the lens of her camera. He tried to relax but was too conscious of the fact that she might not find what she hoped to in his face.
He waved her over to him, crooking one finger at her. The camera dropped and she put her hands on her hips as she approached. “Tell me you didn’t just do that.”
“Hey, it worked,” he said. “What do you see through the lens of your camera?”
“I don’t know that I can really explain it,” she said. “The camera doesn’t lie so I think I’m looking for truth.”
Truth, he thought. “What do you see when you photograph me?”
She tipped her head to the side and he caught a glimpse of that vulnerability that she did a good job of hiding. “I’m not sure yet. That’s why I keep shooting, hoping I can find some answers.”
She leaned forward, resting her cheek against his chest. Her arms snaked around his waist. For a moment it didn’t matter what she was searching for when she looked at him. It didn’t matter if she didn’t find it or if he didn’t have it in him to be what she needed.