Flat-Out Sexy (33 page)

“Hello?”

“Tammy, it’s Johnny.”

“Hi, how are you? How are the kids?” Tamara pulled clean clothes out of her suitcase and tried to sound chipper and nonchalant.

“The kids are fine. I’ve been better.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Tammy, you know that I care about you a great deal. You’ve been a part of my family for a long time and you were a good wife to my son.”

Uh-oh. She could hear the big “but” on the end of this and she swallowed hard.

“I can appreciate that you have the right to date. It’s been more than two years and you’re a young woman. I get all of that, I do.”

Tamara just waited for him to continue and he did.

“But why in the hell does it have to be Elec Monroe? Bad enough that you’ve been seeing him on the sly for months, knowing it would upset Beth and I, but for God’s sake, standing behind the man when he does a press conference? What the hell are you thinking? No one even knows you’re dating and now he’s all caught up in a major scandal—with a lingerie model, for Chrissake! I don’t think you realize what this does to your reputation, to the Briggs name, to your children.”

Tamara tried to interject, knowing he wasn’t going to understand, but having to try. “Johnny, Elec is a good man. He didn’t father that child, and he shouldn’t have to even defend himself. But since this is a gossip-crazy world we live in, he does, and I need to show my support. I know you have a feud with Elliot Monroe, but the thing is, we can’t control who we fall in love with. And I’m in love with Elec.”

“That’s all fine and good, except when it affects your children. For the first time since Petey’s birth, I can honestly say I’m calling into question your mothering. I’m completely disappointed in you.”

The insult of that hit Tamara hard, and she was equal parts furious and devastated. Her whole adult life had focused on what was best for her babies, and the one thing that had held her back from Elec had been her children. But she had realized that Elec only added to their lives, and they were all better off for knowing him, and to have Johnny accuse her of not taking their feelings into account, well, it shredded her. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said.

Then she added, “I’ll talk to you later,” and hung up so she could sit down on the bed and cry in private.

RYDER took his place in the lineup at driver’s introductions on Sunday and watched all the cameras focusing in on Elec Monroe, who was four down the line from him, Tammy standing with him. The rookie had qualified in the eighth position, despite having all the media distractions of the past few days. Elec’s brother Evan was standing next to Ryder in the fifth position.

“So, your brother’s marrying Tammy, huh?” Ryder said to him, not really surprised by the news buzzing all over the track. Elec and Tammy were both the marrying kind.

“Yep. I predicted that one.”

“They look damn happy, despite all this lawsuit bullshit everyone’s talking about. I’m almost jealous of them.” Ryder shifted in his uniform, hot already. That was one thing he would never get used to—the heat inside his flame-retardant suit.

“Jealous of marriage?” Evan snorted. “Not me. But I think they’ll be good at it.”

That made Ryder frown. Apparently he hadn’t been good at it, though he wasn’t sure why not. Whenever he tried to talk to Suzanne about it, they just seemed to go around in circles until he got a pie in his face. It wasn’t good.

But Elec and Tammy were beaming at each other, and he wished them happy.

Having her stand with him at driver’s intro was a good strategy. It was a gauge of how serious a driver was about his girlfriend. She only walked across that stage with him if she was around for the long haul, and for Tammy to choose today, of all days, to walk and wave with Elec, was good timing. It would show they were standing tall in the face of what would ultimately turn out to be just false accusations.

When the dust settled and the blonde was proven to be a liar, Elec would be in a better position with his image than he had been before. He’d be seen as decent, hardworking, a family man taking on a couple of kids that weren’t his, all at the somewhat tender age of twenty-five.

And what would Ryder be doing?

He’d be winning races.

TAMARA tried not to squirm as Hunter bounced in her seat and told her grandfather, “Elec made a fire and we roasted marshmallows. He helped us catch fireflies. And look, did you see that? He just moved into tenth place. Bet he wins. He’s an amazing driver.”

It seemed that since Hunter had been given the green light to talk about Elec, she was trying to make up for lost time. She had peppered Johnny with Elec stories all day, and Tamara was just waiting for her father-in-law to blow. Even Petey, who usually paid more attention to what was going in his mouth than the race, kept making comments about Elec’s driving.

“Mom, can we fly back home with Elec?” Petey asked.

That was the last straw for Johnny. Tamara saw his jaw lock and she hastily stood up. “Let’s go for a walk, guys. I could use a little snack. Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” Petey said immediately, which she knew he would. He was always hungry.

“Okay,” Hunter said.

“We’ll be back,” Tamara said with a smile at Johnny, who ignored her. Beth shrugged her shoulders and gave her a sympathetic look.

She had her hands filled with popcorn and hot dogs and soft drinks when her cell phone rang. Passing most of the food off to the kids, she pulled out her phone and answered it. “Hello?”

“Hey, Tamara, it’s Elliot, Elec’s father. My wife and I heard you have your kids here at the track and we were hoping you could drop by the suite with them so we could meet them since they are going to be our step-grandchildren.”

Touched by the gesture, Tamara said, “Sure. We’re at the snack bar right now. When they’re done eating, I can bring them by.”

“Oh, bring the munchies with you. That way they can sit down and eat.”

“Okay, great, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Tamara hung up and looked at her kids. “We’re going over to meet Elec’s parents. Best manners, okay?” She hadn’t told them yet that she and Elec were getting married. She had wanted a private moment with them to discuss it and she hadn’t had one yet. She would have to pull Elec’s parents aside and give them the heads-up not to say anything just yet.

When they got to the suite, Hunter was true to form, marching in and settling herself outside the box with the best view of the track, inviting Elliot to join her. Petey hung back munching on his hot dog and running his fingers along the impressive selection of soft drinks sitting on the bar.

Kathy, Elec’s mom, gave Tamara a big hug. “I knew you were something special weeks ago when he was mooning over you,” she said with a smile.

“He was mooning over me?” That was awfully nice to know.

“Oh, yeah. He went around and around on whether or not he should stop by when your kids had the chicken pox. Took him the better part of an hour and lots of coaxing from me to decide to go for it.”

Now that was just damn cute to know Elec had put that much thought into it. “Well, thank you. And while I have a quick second, I just wanted you to know that Elec just proposed to me, but my kids don’t know yet, so if you could not mention it in front of them for a few days, I’d appreciate it. I need to tell them alone.”

“Of course, sweetie. I understand. And then I can’t wait to dive into wedding plans with you. Where is your mother?”

“She’s in Seattle.” And needless to say, when Tamara had called her the night before, she had been stunned to hear her daughter was marrying yet another race car driver. “She only gets out here about once a year.”

Kathy opened her mouth to say something but stopped short when they heard a shriek from the seats by the track. Tamara didn’t wait to turn all the way around before she was running. That was Hunter and that had been a bloodcurdling scream of terror.

“What? What is it?” she said, frantically moving toward her daughter and expecting blood, a broken arm, something.

Elliot was already carrying a white-faced Hunter into the suite on his hip. “Turn up the TV,” he demanded. “Elec got caught in a pileup.”

Tamara felt the fear for her daughter shift to Elec. Oh, Lord.

Elec’s uncle had the remote and he turned the volume up while she prayed it was just a dustup, nothing serious. But she knew it had to be, given Hunter’s scream of terror. Hunter was a race fan. She knew all about bumps and spinouts and they wouldn’t upset her.

“Wow, what happened there, Rick?” the announcer said. “Let’s get a rollback on that clip.”

It happened so fast, that Tamara had a hard time following which car was which. She spotted Elec’s 56 car and tracked it as one car bumped another and they spun out, hitting a third car. The hood of the first car collided with Elec, who was trying to avoid the wreck on the apron, and in a split second his car went from in control to a full-out roll into the grass. He turned twice before coming to a stop right side up, engine dead. The caution flag went up, and the announcers started the clip all over again as they dissected what had happened.

She didn’t care what had happened. She did not give a damn who did what and why. All she cared about was that the man she loved was in that smashed car and she wasn’t sure she could survive losing him when she had just found him.

“It looked to me like the lead car started out slow when they lifted the caution flag, and when you have all these cars sitting in tenth, eleventh, twelfth place, they jam up on top of each other when they can’t get enough speed. Wow, what an accident for the fifty-six car. Let’s hope rookie Elec Monroe is okay. They’ve had no radio contact with him but they’re pulling him out of the car now.”

There was bile in Tamara’s throat and she struggled against the need to throw up.

Elec’s mother tucked her arm through Tamara’s and whispered, “It’s okay, sweetie. Wrecks happen. He’s fine. Put on a brave face for your kids.”

Tamara blinked and nodded. Kathy was right. She could see that Hunter and Petey were scared. “It’s alright,” she told them, even if her voice was shaky. “Just a little wreck, happens all the time.” She reached out and took Hunter from Elliot. Her daughter was too heavy for her to carry, but she gave her a hug before setting her back on her feet. She reached for Petey and squeezed his shoulder.

Glancing back at the TV, she saw paramedics were pulling Elec out of his car. The camera panned in as they were removing his helmet. His lips were moving, though he was clutching his ribs with his right arm.

Relief flooded her.

“He looks just fine,” Elliot said and the relief was evident in his voice as well. “Talking and everything. They’ll have to take him down to the medical center, per the rules. What do you say we all go down and check on him and let him know that next time he shouldn’t be daydreaming behind the wheel?”

“I don’t think it was his fault at all,” Hunter said, some of the color restored to her face.

Petey hadn’t said a word at all and that worried Tamara. “It’s okay,” she told him. “Elec is fine.”

He just nodded and crammed a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

The wide eyes and white faces of her children hit Tamara hard. They cared about Elec. He had filled a void in their life and they would be devastated if something happened to him.

That scared her.

All of a sudden a lot of things scared her.

ELEC rested his hand on the tape binding his ribs as he sat on the gurney, and tried not to be annoyed. He hated, absolutely hated, not being able to finish a race. It was one, a matter of pride, and two, a matter of losing points in the cup race. He had considered going back out there and running his last eighty laps since finishing last still gave you points, whereas not finishing gave you none. Then he had tried to stand up and walk across the room and nixed that idea. It felt like he had a bear on his chest, and he didn’t think he could climb into his seat.

Next week, though. The doctor said it would take six weeks for his four cracked ribs to heal completely but he figured he would be pretty pain-free by the following week and all he was doing was sitting. He could handle a few hours in the car, no problem.

There was a knock on his door, which he assumed was the nurse with his discharge instructions.

It was actually his family, who were all smiles to see him sitting up. He knew a wreck was scary for loved ones sitting and watching, and he had had his crew chief call his parents and Tamara as soon as he was out of the car and pretty sure there wasn’t all that much wrong with him.

“Hey,” he said. “How was that for a roll?”

His father said, “Had a little trouble in turn two, did you?”

It was an old racing joke. Everything was blamed on turn two.

His mother shook her head, bemused.

Eve said, “I think you’re a publicity hog. All anyone’s been talking about all weekend is you.”

“Yeah, I wrecked just to get the spotlight. And I paid off the other two cars to take me out so I could land on camera.” Elec grinned at her. “Brat.”

Hunter and Petey came into the room then with Tamara, and Elec waved them over to him. “Hey, guys, what’s up? How’s the race? You see who won?”