Beyond The Checkered Flag (3 page)

Lauren paced the upstairs bedroom, a room she knew to be
Bobby Wayne’s, even though the other had been decorated solely for him. She
could smell him on the plain white cotton sheets. Could still taste him in her
mouth. She sank down onto the edge of the bed. The one she’d laid in all night,
thinking of him, wondering… imagining. She lifted her head heavenward and shut
her eyes. “God,” she breathed out. She was thirty years old. What had she been
thinking? Kissing him last night? He’d lied to her! She needed to cut all ties
with him;
not
entertain the possibility of a future with the man.

But it had always been like that between them. Intense and
immediate. Combustible and all consuming. Zero to orgasmic bliss in
two-point-five kisses. And nothing had changed. Nothing at all. Except she was
smarter now.

Or she was
supposed
to be.

She picked up her cell phone from the nightstand. Glanced at
the dozen text messages Jeremy had left her. She was in no mood to deal with
him this morning. He’d been furious when she’d made the decision to cancel the
rest of her tour, less than understanding when she’d said she had to go back
home. And while she knew she’d left him holding the bag, smoothing out the mess
she’d walked away from, he wasn’t going to change her mind, no matter how hard
he tried.

She didn’t want the gypsy lifestyle she’d lived all her life.
She wanted a home, one in the same place for more than six months. And she
wanted a man who loved her, one who’d come home to her every night.

And the thought she was even considering it again with Bobby
Wayne after one kiss terrified her. He was a NASCAR driver! Gone thirty-six
weeks a year, and much of the remaining time was spent preparing for the next
season.

He wasn’t the right man for her, no matter how much she loved
him, no matter how much she foolishly still wanted him.

She shut off her phone. Tossed it aside. She’d deal with
Jeremy when he cooled down. And she’d tell him it was over. All of it:  her
career; his job as her business manager. And she’d end their fledgling romance,
especially after one toe-curling kiss with Bobby Wayne. It was wrong to lead
Jeremy on.
 

She turned toward the door. Caught her reflection in the
mirror over the dresser and paused. She looked at the face which was such a
blending of her mother and her father’s features that she couldn’t say for
certain whose nose, or whose eyes she’d inherited. But one thing she did know.
“You’re just like ’em,” she told the haunted reflection staring back at her.
“You’re a running, one-step-ahead-of-disaster Foster, just like them.”

She sucked in a deep breath of courage. “Today that changes,
you hear?”

Today she’d cut the ties with Bobby Wayne. She’d give up her
home. And she’d find a new one. She wiped a tear from her cheek. She’d plant
roots some place where they didn’t know Lauren Foster-Forsythe, country music
starlet. She’d build a life. And eventually she’d find a man who loved her. One
who’d come home to her every night, who’d be happy sinking deep roots in one
spot for the rest of their lives.

Now, if she could just get rid of the image of that man in
her head.

The one who looked exactly like Bobby Wayne.

* * *

There were only two things that kept Bobby Wayne up at night.
A bad race and a hot woman.

And this particularly smokin’ hot woman had kept him up
all
night.

And without benefit of mind blowing, life altering sex. Or
even bangin’, just-to-get-laid sex. There’d been
no
sex of any kind– and
she’d still kept him up all night.

She said she wanted out.

He knew Lauren, and he knew her well. This wasn’t like her.
And why the sudden drop off the country music scene? Yeah, he followed her
career even though she’d walked away from him. He knew the buzz. It was at a feeding-frenzy
level. Her sudden, indefinite cancellation of future shows. The uncertainty of
where she was. Or what she was doing.

And then she shows up here, out of the blue, after no contact
for a year to tell him she wants out. Her asshole of a business manager could
have handled that. She didn’t have to come in person.

Something wasn’t right.

He pushed his coffee cup aside. Scraped his hands down over
his beard-stubbled cheeks. She might have said she wanted out, but that kiss,
that hotter-than-hell kiss they’d shared, the way her body melted into his, the
way she sucked his tongue deep into her mouth, and the stark yearning in her
eyes said different.

Hell, he knew different.

She still wanted him. As much as he still wanted her.

And Bobby Wayne wasn’t above using this old house she loved
to get what he wanted.

She walked into the kitchen.

The only clue she wasn’t as cool and detached as she wanted
him to think was the stutter step when she’d spotted him at the table. And the
nervous gnawing of her bottom lip. The lip he wanted to suck into his mouth and
soothe with his tongue. And the air around them crackled with awareness. It
pierced his skin. Flowed through him like a good shot of bourbon, heating every
cell.

“I want out, Bobby Wayne,” she quietly told him, picking up
right where they’d left off last night.

“You’re in the South, sugar. Have some coffee first.” Bobby
Wayne lifted his own now-cold cup. “Only you Yankees save the world,” or destroy
it, “before breakfast.” 

Home-basing it out of Nashville didn’t make her a Southerner.
He knew where she came from. He knew
everything
about her.

Except why she left him.

She made no move toward him. Or the coffee. “We need to
talk.”

Oh, they needed to talk all right. He jerked his head toward
the high-tech coffeemaker sitting on the granite counter top. “We make nice
first, and then we talk business. It’s the way of the South.” 

She moved with Yankee briskness toward the counter, the
fringe on her shirt doing a little two-step over her breasts as she marched by
him. Her scent, the one he could conjure up in his restless dreams teased his
nostrils, taunting him. She reached up to open the old oak plank cupboard door
and the swiftness stopped. Her palm hovered over the ancient wood before slowly
sliding over it with a loving caress. She’d restored those cupboards. The
master bedroom, bath, the media room, his office and study, and a few other
rooms were a beautiful blending of old with new, an endeavor she’d spearheaded
and for the most part, oversaw when they’d restored the old mansion.

And while he entertained fantasies about her sliding her
hands all over him, she opened the door. Reached inside for a cup. Her shirt
rode up from her hip-hugging jeans and Bobby Wayne’s eyes honed in on the patch
of skin exposed. Skin he’d licked and tasted and wished with all his heart he
could taste again. She sloshed little more than a shot glass’s worth of coffee
into the cup. Up-ended the sugar bowl over it and stirred the mountain of white
until it all dissolved. She sat the spoon aside. Turned. Stiffly leaned against
the counter. She was a terrible example of being at ease. Her eyes connected
with his and so did the arc of awareness that always sizzled between them. She
lifted her cup in mock salute. Arched one elegant dark eyebrow. “You happy
now?”

“As happy as I’ve been since hittin’ the wall,” he honestly
told her. He hadn’t felt this hopeful since Doctor Sadistic told him his life
was over. And didn’t that just about make him pathetic? Him, actually happy
because his ex-wife, and not even his
current
ex-wife, was shooting
dagger eyes at him across the room. He really was a freakin’ loser.

Her brows knit together as she studied him way too close.

He shifted in his chair. 

“What happened?” she softly asked.

“The usual.” He shrugged a shoulder like it was no big deal.
He didn’t want to talk about the accident that might have ended his career.

“It doesn’t look like the usual.” Her eyes did a slow slide down
over him. “You look…”

“Sit down, sugar,” he told her before she made her own
assessment and concurred with Sadistic’s diagnosis. It was bad enough the rumor
mill had already concurred with him. He hooked the chair beside him with his
bare foot. Pulled it away from the table and closer to him. If she was going to
be in the same room with him, it might as well be close since on top of him
didn’t appear to be on the breakfast menu.

She pursed her lips. She obviously didn’t like his abrupt
close of subject.

Too bad.
He didn’t like thinking about a life without racing. Or a life without
her.

She pushed off the counter. Marched toward him and took the
seat directly across from him. At the far end of the table, only about a half-a-mile
away.

He scowled.  “You know, it’s times like this that I really
hate the enormity of this house.”

If they had a small one, instead of this mansion, with an
even smaller kitchen, he could have her corralled, wedged up against the
refrigerator, or better yet, up on top the counter. And she would have her legs
spread wide, wrapped around his waist, her warm wet heat sliding down over his
dick as he filled his hands with her breasts and her mouth with his tongue. He
grew hard at the image.

“Buy me out, Bobby Wayne.”

So much for taking advantage of morning wood.
“No,” he told her, getting down to
business whether he wanted to, or not. And not the business he had in mind. “No
buyouts.”

He could be as tough as she was.

Her shoulders slumped and the fight he’d witnessed last night
was gone. As aggravating as it was, he missed it.
Damn, he’d missed her.
“I need out.” Her voice was so quiet, so full of sadness, it tore at his heart.
“I can’t own this with you anymore.”

“Why not?” He could only think of two reasons. And he didn’t
like either one of them.

He should have gone after her.

Here’s your chance now,
the voice inside his head told him.

Listening to it for once, he got up. Walked the length of the
table and knelt down in front of her. He took her hand. Rubbed his thumb over
her trembling fingers, and with his other hand, he gently pushed back the dark
brown waves of hair that shadowed her face. “Why, sugar?” He looked deep into
her eyes. “Why after a year-and-a-half do you wanna give up your home? You love
this place.” Almost as much as she’d loved him at one time.

She tugged her hand free. Covered her eyes with her hands and
she struggled to breathe. Struggled not to cry. And he wanted to hold her. To
pull her close and never let her go. But he no longer had the right.  And she’d
probably knock him on his sorry ass if he tried.

She dropped her hands to her lap. Slowly lifted her head.
Shook it side to side. Grief filled her eyes. “I can’t own this with you
anymore, Bobby Wayne. I can’t. I just
can’t
.”

“Sugar,” he gently reached for her hands. Squeezed them in
his. “If its money – if you’re in trouble and need to sell, I’ll give you
whatever you need, but don’t give up this house.”
Don’t give up on me
,
he wanted to say, but swallowed the words. “This is your home,” he said instead.
A home that meant everything to her. A home that meant more to her than he did,
considering she’d kept it when she’d let him go.

“We’ve both moved on,” she whispered.

“
You’re
the one who moved on,” he growled as the age-old
anger surged through him.  

“You’re the one who got married before the ink was dry on our
divorce papers!”

“Because you walked away without giving us a chance!” he
yelled. And he’d been too stubborn, too focused on burying his hurt with hard racing
that he’d let her go. And when he’d cooled down, when he’d finally come to his
senses, it had been too late.

“You lied to me, Bobby Wayne!” She banged her palm off the
oak table top.

“I never lied to you.” He hadn’t. How could she even think
such a thing?

“Then what do you call my singing career?”

“Amazing talent and extraordinary good luck,” Bobby Wayne
told her with absolute honesty. She was amazing. And the opportunity that had
unfolded for her was what dreams were made of.

“That’s not what Jeremy said.”

“
Fuck Jeremy!”
The cocky, way-too-sure-of-himself
business manager who’d insinuated himself in Lauren’s life would say
anything
to get her away from Bobby Wayne. Ironic that Bobby Wayne had played right into
the bastard’s hands. Or maybe
moronic
was the better word.

“You won an open-mike contest, fair and square, sugar,” he
reminded her. And the prize had been a chance to sing the National Anthem at
the Coca-Cola 600 race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Bobby Wayne had been captivated by the leggy brunette
standing in front of the crowd that day. And he’d fallen in love with her by
the time the rockets had red glared and the bombs were bursting in air. She had
the voice of an angel that had captured a hundred-and-sixty-thousand race fans.
And one record producer who’d just happened to be mixed into that crowd.

“You
bought
my career! You made me feel like the
biggest fraud.”

So that’s how the bastard had spun it. “I didn’t buy your
career.”

Her brows drew together. She opened her mouth, probably to
rip him a new ass.

“Did Jeremy tell you that, too?
Jee-zus
, Lauren. I’m a
NASCAR driver, not a pimp. I went after you because I wanted
you
.” And
he’d gone after her like he’d been racing for the cup, his pursuit of her that
intense, that public, that all out, petal-to-the-metal driven. “All the record
producer had to do was follow my news feed and he had your name linked with
mine.”

“But—”

“I didn’t buy a career for you.” But his notoriety had surely
helped. “You did that all on your own talent.” And no amount of Bobby Wayne
star-power would have added to that. She’d have been a star with or without
him.

He stared at her, flummoxed by the damn uncertainty still
brimming in her eyes. “Hasn’t the asshole ever told you yet that you’re good?”

“That’s uncalled for.”

“Oh hell yeah, it is. You can choose to believe me, or continue
to believe Jeremy’s bullshit.” The man would do anything to get Lauren from
Bobby Wayne. Even undermine her shaky confidence.
Bastard.
“I got
nothing to lose by tellin’ the truth, Lauren. Can he say the same?”

Bobby Wayne had seen the manager’s name linked with hers.
He’d seen their pictures together. He didn’t like them. And he sure as hell
didn’t trust the man. He’d hitched his sorry-assed self to her rising star when
he didn’t deserve to be even orbiting in the same universe as she did.

 “What happened?”

He scowled at the abrupt switch of subject.

She lifted a finger to his forehead. A jolt of awareness shot
down through him. Gently, she pushed back his hair to reveal his stitches “Why
aren’t you racing?” she softly asked, as her eyes slid down over his face and
body and the heat of awareness rolled though him. “Why aren’t you doin’ what
you love?”

“I would be doin’ what I loved with
who
I loved—”

“Please.” She held up her hand, palm out, stopping him.

And while they stood nose to nose, his eyes did their own
perusal, slowly sliding down over her. And the thoughts of sex evaporated. She
looked more than tired. She looked worn out. Non-stop travel was hard on a
body, but her weariness seemed to go soul deep. And he didn’t know why. And
wished he still had the right to know. Or to ask. He wished he had the right to
make her happy, to take her in his arms, and make all the hurt and bad go away.

“I need out, Bobby Wayne.”

“So we’re back to that?” he snapped. He pushed away from her.
Stood, glaring at her, hating she was walking away from him again.

“You need to buy me out.”

What the hell would he want this place without her? She was
the reason he bought it. She was the reason he called it home. She was the
reason he still lived here when she’d moved on because his foolish heart had
never given up the hope she’d come back to him. That—

He flung an arm out wide in aggravation. “Who’s gonna buy
this place like it is now, huh?” 

Her darks brows drew down over her golden eyes now sparking
with anger. Her chin jutted up. “And whose fault is that?”

His. They both knew it. He’d been the ass to let this place
be destroyed. The ass who should restore it, too – who would restore it – in his
own way – and with his own greedy plan. He was that desperate, that still in
love with her.

“If you wanna unload this place, sugar, it’ll need fixed up.”

Her brows drew down further. Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve
already done that once!”

She had. And she’d done an amazing job.

“Then it looks like you’ll hafta do it again, sugar,” he told
her. “If you want me to agree to sellin’.” And after he threw that demand down,
he quickly turned. Walked through the door and nearly sprinted through the
grand foyer toward the safety of his study.

“What?
What?
” Her voice rose until it ricocheted off
the twelve-foot-high ceilings, bouncing off him. “Wait! Where are you goin’? Bobby
Wayne. Get back here right now!” Her heels clicked on the stone floor as she
ran after him. “I want you back here, standing in front of me when I talk to
you!”

He looked over his shoulder. She’d cleared the kitchen
doorway, her temper gaining momentum as she shifted gears, hell-bent on taking
him out, and every cell in his body revved at the thought of the contact. “I
want this whole damn mess to disappear, you hear me, Bobby Wayne? I want my
life back!”

Bobby Wayne’s heart pounded hard in his chest. Maybe there
was hope. She cared about the house. Maybe there was a kernel of hope she still
cared about him. She was here, wasn’t she? Arguing with him. Twisted as it was,
he took that as a good sign.

“I want racing-striped flags off my front doors. And I want
somebody to stand up and take the blame for all this mess, you hear me?”

“Somebody?” He spun around his own temper pushing into the
red. “Just any ol’ body’ll do?” He’d seen the lovey-dovey pictures of her with
that asshole manager. Maybe the wanting was all on his side, which just plain pissed
him off.

“Do not twist my words.”

“How could I twist them? There’s so freakin’ many of them
bein’ rained down on me, I’m lucky I’m not drownin’ in ’em!”

“Hey!” She grabbed his arm, hauling him to a stop. She spun
him around, and they stood toe to toe in that hideous victory circle in the
entry way. “I didn’t make this mess,” she succinctly told him, her eyes
flashing with golden fire.

“But you’re gonna hafta fix it if you want me to agree to
what you want. Those are
my
terms, sugar.”

“I do not want to hear about
your
terms. And about
what
you
want.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bobby Wayne took a step closer. “I listened to
you tellin’ me everything
you
want. You wanna sell the house. You want
the house restored. You want your life back, yet you came here instead of stayin’
in
your
life and movin’ on. Well, you know what? I don’t think you have
a clue what you want. Not really.”

Her chest heaved. Her body bristled. And still he took
another step closer, invading her space, forcing her to back off, or take the
leap of faith with him. And the air crackled around them, an unfinished fiery
past battling with a dark, uncertain future. And mixed in was the thrumming,
revving heat which always burned scalding hot between them. No matter what
damage they seemed to inflict on each other, it was always there, white hot,
cauterizing any hurts and wounds. Except the last one.

“Do you, Lauren?” He took another step closer. Giving into
his desire, he snaked an arm around her waist, hauling her body to his. “Do you
know what you really want? ’Cause I sure as hell know what I want.” Her. And
she was in his arms. Where she should never have left.

Her eyes darkened. Her mouth, the one he wanted to devour,
trembled. Her tongue nervously darted out as she wet her bottom lip. She was
scared. Like he’d never seen her. But she didn’t back off. She didn’t push him
away.

“I know what I want,” she hesitantly replied, surprising him.
She lifted her chin, her mouth nearly touching his, her breath, a barely-there
brush against his chin. “I’ve always known that. And it’s never changed.” She
drew in an unsteady breath. “No matter how hard I try to change it.”

And Bobby Wayne waited with his heart in his throat and everything
he ever wanted in his arms. This was it. She’d either tell him to go to hell
or—

Her trembling hand curled into a ball between her breasts and
he saw the battle rage in her eyes. And still he held his breath. The not knowing
if he would ever drive again, not knowing what his future would hold without
racing in it paled in comparison to not knowing what she was going to say right
now.

She held his heart in her hands.

“I tried to forget,” she breathed out. “I tried to convince
myself, and I almost did. But…” Her lips trembled. Her chest heaved. “But it
never changed. I never changed. And,” her eyes grew moist as they darkened with
desire. “I know what I want.” Her arm slid from her chest to his.

“I want you.”