Hard and Fast (30 page)

“No. I had no idea,” she said most sincerely.

Conscious of the need to be aware of both Hunter and Pete’s whereabouts since they were her responsibility, and making sure she could stay standing instead of collapsing in a puddle of shock seemed to take all her collected faculties at the moment. Forget charming or witty. And she was fairly certain that her face resembled the Joker more than a newly engaged woman.

Engaged.

She was engaged.

She had known the man for only a few months, had only been dating him for weeks, and she had agreed to marry him.

Never in her entire twenty-eight years of existence had she done something so impulsive.

She kept waiting for it to feel like a gigantic mistake, but aside from the surreal aspect of the situation, she didn’t feel doubt.

She just felt . . . disbelief.

Out of all those women in the world who threw themselves at race car drivers, why would he pick her?

It challenged the tenets of logic.

But then again, she believed that he loved her. She had seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. She trusted that, she really did, so why had her mind never leaped forward to the concept of marriage and happily ever after?

Because she had been scared to. Afraid that he would change his mind. And those kinds of doubts bothered her. It told her she wasn’t as confident and secure as she would like to be, that she exhibited a vulnerability to men. To this man. Or did she? And if she did, was that a bad thing?

Sometimes, the fact that her mind didn’t shut down, and analyzed from seven thousand directions over and over again, was a real pain in the ass.

She had just received a marriage proposal from the man she loved and she was dissecting it for weaknesses.

“Sorry about the media blitz,” Ty whispered in her ear, his breath tickling her skin. “Didn’t think that part through, babe. I just saw you and knew I wanted to marry you so I asked. I couldn’t wait.”

Imogen looked at Ty, at the one man who could halt her stone-cold logic and make her just
feel
. For the first time since he’d dropped to the ground, she felt a smile crack. “It’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t wait.” She needed that, to be caught off guard, to learn to trust her first gut reaction to her emotions. There had been no hesitation on her part—he had asked and her heart had sung out a big fat
yes
.

He grinned at her. “Good. I would pay a thousand dollars to be able to kiss you with tongue right now.”

She laughed. “That would get some airtime.”

“No joke. I think they’re done bugging you. If you want to take the kids back to the coach, I’ll be there soon. Or you can just wait to the side. Where the hell is Tammy, by the way?”

“She felt sick, so she left early.”

“Oh, does Elec know? I imagine he’d want to collect the kids.”

“I doubt it. She looked like she was going to throw up, so it’s unlikely she’s had a chance to call him.”

“I’ll get someone on tracking him down. You want to wait here, then?”

“Sure.”

Imogen gathered Hunter, who was bouncing and jumping and chattering a mile a minute, and Pete, who looked profoundly bored.

“Are we going back to the coach?” he asked. “I’m hungry.”

“We’re going to wait for your stepdad, and he’ll take you back. I’m sure he’ll feed you.”

“Ice cream!” Hunter declared, her arms shooting up in the air. “So when are you and Ty getting married?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that yet.”

“My mom and Elec got married and now he sleeps in her bed with her. I think that would suck. When I get married, my husband is going to have to have his own room.”

Imogen almost laughed. “You might change your mind about that at some point. Presumably if you marry him, you’ll like him enough to want to spend a lot of time with him.”

“I don’t know.” Hunter looked doubtful. “It seems silly to me to stuff two people in one bed together.”

The very thought of that, settling into sleep every night with Ty beside her, waking up to his cheerful chatter and big warm hands, made her deeply, profoundly happy. “Maybe it is silly, but when you love someone, you want to cuddle.”

Hunter looked ready to refute that when she spotted her stepfather striding toward them.

“Hey, squirt, what’s up?” he asked.

“Good race,” she told him as he picked her up and settled her on his hip, her long legs dangling.

“Thanks, baby girl. You guys ready to go? Ty told me Mom is sick. We should head back and check up on her.”

“Can we eat?” Pete asked.

“Most likely I’ll let you eat at some point,” Elec said, ruffling Pete’s hair. “You’re a bottomless pit.”

“Yep.” Pete grinned.

Elec looked at Imogen. “Thanks for watching them. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. We had fun watching the race.”

“And I hear congratulations are in order.” Elec grinned. “Ty popping the question is all anyone’s talking about.”

She felt her cheeks heat. “Thanks.”

“We’ll catch you later, then,” he said, and headed off with the kids.

Imogen’s phone rang and she stepped a little farther back from the media zone to answer it. It was Suzanne. “Hello?”

“What the fuck!” was her friend’s reaction. “I’m watching the race on TV and then Ty drops and asks you to marry him and I’m like Oh. My. God. Did you know?”

“No! I had no clue.”

“That little devil, who knew he had a romantic bone in his body. Well, are you happy? Are you shitting bricks?”

“Both.” Imogen laughed.

Suzanne laughed with her. “No kidding. My God, your proposal was just witnessed by, like, a million viewers. I say you stick him for the biggest rock ever for not warning you ahead of time.”

Imogen tugged on her sweatshirt strings. “A million viewers? You are exaggerating, right?” She couldn’t even imagine what her face had looked like. Her hair was in a ponytail. No makeup. And she was wearing a sweatshirt, which she never did. Yikes.

“Um, no, not really. It’s a popular sport. But you looked cute, I swear. Just a little stunned. But when you said yes, I think there was a collective sigh across America.”

“
Stunned
is the word for it. I am still in total shock.”

“Well, yeah, hello. It’s really soon.” Suzanne paused and her voice softened. “Are you happy? Is this what you want?”

“Yes, it is.” It was. She knew that without a shadow of a doubt.

“Does he make you so happy your face could crack? Do you want to make babies with him?”

The thought of having children with Ty had never occurred to her either. Now the image of little grinning shaggy-haired kids with personalities a lot like Hunter’s popped into her head and wouldn’t shake loose. “Yes, and yes.”

“Then congratulations, sweetheart. And guess who is going to be your wedding planner?”

Imogen laughed. “That would be awesome, Suz. I know you’ll do an amazing job, and I swear I won’t request naked monkeys on my cake.”

“You freaking better not. Not that I would let you anyway. And no racing paraphernalia, please.”

“I would love a destination wedding, actually.” Though she supposed it would need to be discussed with Ty. It’s not like she had any clue what his vision for a wedding was.

“Now you’re talking, sister.”

Her call waiting beeped and she pulled her phone back to check it. “Oh, Suz, it’s my mom on the other line. Can I call you later?”

“Sure, sweetie.”

“Thanks, bye.” Imogen clicked over and said, “Hello,” her heart pounding.

“Okay, you know I don’t follow sports on television,” her mother said by way of greeting. “But you know Mr. and Mrs. Hanson do and now that he’s retired, he DVRs everything. He just called me to tell me that he saw you at a stock car race where some man was proposing to you. I assumed it couldn’t be accurate but then he played it back for me, and Imogen Ann, I swear it looked exactly like you. In fact, it seemed like this person even used your name when he proposed, but then I thought that can’t possibly be real because how is it that your mother doesn’t even know you are dating someone, let alone that you were on the verge of engagement?”

You had to love the power of electronics and instant communication. Imogen bit her lip. “Well, it was me, Mom. And as I’m sure you can see from the playback, I was very surprised. I had no idea I was on the verge of engagement myself or obviously I would have mentioned that fact.”

“So you are telling me that you are engaged? To a race car driver?”

“Yes.” Imogen held her breath, waiting for the backlash.

But her mother, who was controlled and never particularly excitable, actually shrieked, startling Imogen so badly she almost dropped the phone. Her mother never yelled. Never. Not in joy. Not in irritation. Not ever.

“Oh, my God!” her mother said. “Jonathon, our baby is getting married!” she called to Imogen’s father. “We have a wedding to plan! And who is this man? Shame on you for not telling me about him.” Before Imogen could answer, her mother continued, “Oh, no! I guess this means you’ll be permanently relocating to Charlotte. Oh, Imogen, I thought you would come home.”

So had she. The realization that she wouldn’t stunned her a little. Was she really moving to Charlotte forever?

Obviously she was if she was going to be married to Ty.

Wow. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“Mom, it’s not a big deal. Ty travels a lot so I’m sure I’ll be able to pop up to New York frequently and visit when he’s busy on the road.”

“I saw his name was Ty on the television. What is that short for? Is it a family name? Are you going to hyphenate your last name, keep yours, or take his? I can’t say that I really care for the sound of Imogen McCordle.”

Neither did she, now that her mother mentioned it. It was not a pretty name at all, something she had never considered. Not that it mattered. His last name could be Weed and she would still marry him. But would she take his name? She supposed she could be Imogen Wilson-McCordle. That had a scholarly ring to it. “I hadn’t thought about what to do to my name. Probably hyphenate.”

“If you think that’s best. So what is Ty short for?”

She didn’t know. She had no idea. They had never discussed it. Like many other things, it seemed. “Mom, can I call you later? Ty is finishing up with the media and I would like to get some dinner. Give my love to Dad.”

“Oh.” Her mother sounded nonplussed. “Yes, call me tonight or tomorrow. I want to know when you’re bringing Ty home to meet us, and I want your uncle Steven to show you the ballroom at his hotel. You are getting married in Manhattan, aren’t you?”

Feeling like she might actually panic, Imogen said, “Mom? Mom, I can’t hear you. I think we have a bad connection. I’ll call you la—”

She cut her own words off by hanging up her cell phone. Giving a sigh of relief, she tried to swallow the guilt. She hated to lie. She was terrible at it. She always confessed. But her mother had been having a severely negative effect on her anxiety levels.

Why did everyone assume once you got engaged you had to have the wedding planned three minutes later? She couldn’t think that far ahead; she just wanted to bask for a day or two or six months.

Looking around for Ty, she saw he was headed her way. Her phone chimed to indicate a text message. She flipped open her phone and sighed when she read it. It was from her mother.

Nice. She clearly couldn’t get engaged spontaneously without her parents assuming she was knocked up. She thrust the phone at Ty as he approached her. “Look at this. It’s my mother’s reaction to our news, which they saw on TV.”

He barely glanced at it. “I can’t see it, there’s a sun glare. What’s it say?”

“My dad wants to know if I’m pregnant.”

Ty laughed. “Tell them not yet, anyway.”

“Do you want children?” she asked him anxiously.

The smile fell off his face. “Yes. Do you?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Whew.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “You scared me there for a minute.”

She was suddenly scaring herself. There were a lot of things she and Ty hadn’t discussed. Important things. Deal-breaker things.

“We have time to grab a quick bite to eat before the flight home. Damn, I wish we weren’t leaving tonight. Stuffed into a commercial flight with you is not my idea of how we should be celebrating.”

“Me either.” Imogen really wanted to cozy up in bed with him and talk, make love, talk, make love. That would assuage the niggling little fears that were cropping up. “I do have to be back, though. Maybe we can go out to dinner tomorrow night?”

“A fancy dinner,” he promised. “And I’ve got some ring shopping to do.”

The idea of Ty picking out an engagement ring blindly brought another wave of panic. “Maybe we should do that together.”

He kissed her softly. “Sure. Damn, my phone is ringing.” Retrieving it from his pocket, he answered it without even looking at the screen.

After a minute Imogen surmised it was Elec. She took advantage of his conversation to answer the text to her mother.

Then some little devil prompted her to add Ty’s suggestion.

She wasn’t usually one to tease like that, but for some reason it felt satisfying, maybe because the inquiry as to a pregnancy had smacked to Imogen of her parents’ true opinion—she
had
to get married. Otherwise it didn’t make sense.

Ty hung up the phone and gave her a look of apology. “You don’t mind if we take the kids back to Charlotte, do you? Elec says Tammy has food poisoning and is throwing up nonstop. She’s miserable and can’t fly home tonight. He wants to stay with her, obviously, but the kids need to get back and go to school tomorrow. So I said they could keep their seats on the flight back tonight, that we would take them with us and drop them off at their grandparents’ for the night.”