When the song ended he didn’t let her go. He knew he should be circulating, working the room and making sure that his guests were enjoying themselves. But he needed this time with her for himself.
He held her in his arms as the band played romantic covers of songs made popular by Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald, classics that spoke of heartbreak and love.
He tried to push the conversation he’d had with Dave out of his mind but it wouldn’t budge. All he could think was that every time he thought he was getting closer to Annie he was really drifting from her.
When the evening ended he accepted an invitation from the Jenner men to join them in the morning for an early round of golf. Annie didn’t say anything but he hoped that it was the right thing to do. He would integrate himself into her family and maybe that would somehow make her see how much he wanted her.
DAVE WON IN Fort Worth and then they all traveled to Phoenix for the second to last race of the season. Annie was tired of the traveling, but at the same time she’d miss all the moving around they did. And she had no idea what was going to happen between her and Jared after the race in Homestead.
Though they’d decided to revisit living together in Florida at the end of the NASCAR season, he’d said little else about it and had in fact been more reserved since the race in Fort Worth. She’d done everything she could to show him that she was interested in a relationship with him that would last beyond November.
Annie wondered if that was part of the problem. She honestly tried not to filter everything that happened between her and Jared through the lens of what had happened with Malcolm. But it was really hard. Especially when she felt like she was holding on too tightly to Jared. She was too afraid to let loose in case he left her and didn’t come back.
Annie spent a lot of time photographing Dave and his team near Dave’s garage because she didn’t want to unintentionally pass along anything she saw in Tucker’s garage or vice versa. She still couldn’t believe she’d done that.
There was a major gathering of officials around Tucker’s car after the qualifying laps were run and they were inspecting the cars. Annie drifted over that way but couldn’t get close enough to see what was going on.
She saw Donovan Allen come out of Dave’s hauler. “What’s going on over there?”
“I don’t know. The squawk on the radio was just that they’d found something they shouldn’t have.”
“Not with his tires, right? Didn’t they send them off to be analyzed and find nothing wrong with them?”
“Yes. It’s not the tires. Those were fine.”
“Have you seen Jared?”
“No. But I bet he’ll be in over there in that knot of spectators.”
When Jared came out of the garage she’d never seen him look so angry before. She was actually a little afraid to approach him, not knowing what had happened with the officials. But as soon as he noticed her, he walked over to her.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I can’t talk about it out here,” he said, taking her arm and leading her over to one of the conference trailers. He rapped on the door and found it empty. “Let’s go in here.”
She climbed inside the small conference room and took a seat on one of the leather chairs. Jared followed her in, closing the door behind him. He opened the door that led into a second conference area and made sure that it was empty before he turned to her.
There were two televisions mounted on the walls. Two separate network reporters were live and speculating on what was going on with Tucker and his Number 186 car.
“This looks pretty serious. What’s going on?”
“He was running with an illegal carburetor. That’s why he broke the track record.”
Annie was shocked. This was way more serious than just changing tire pressure or possibly treating tires with some kind of substance. “Are you sure? What did Tucker say?”
“He’s denying the entire thing. Billy says that the carburetor they removed isn’t the one he and his team installed before the qualifying laps.”
She didn’t know what to say. She had as many questions as Jared did. A big part of her wanted to find some way to calm him down. But she didn’t understand cheating.
It was something that Malcolm had done, too. Thinking that if he did something unobserved he could just deny it and no one would be wiser.
The Tucker she’d come to know wasn’t the kind of man who’d cheat.
“Well, of course, he’d deny it. And with all the scrutiny that was on his team earlier this year I can’t see Billy or Tucker taking a chance on doing something illegal,” Annie said, wishing now that she’d gone to Tucker’s garage and maybe she could have prevented this. He would never have done anything illegal if she’d been in there with her camera.