Beyond The Checkered Flag
Read Beyond The Checkered Flag Online
Authors: J.D. Wylde
Copyright
©2013 J. Wilk
All rights
reserved.
This book is
a work of fiction. Any names or characters, any resemblance to actual events or
locations is entirely coincidental.
Cover
Cover design
and graphics by Eisele Mountain Creations.
To Bobby, with love from your Momma. You share my love of
books and the written word. You feed your creative spirit a steady diet of
imagination and wonderment, and you have always been my most dedicated
supporter. This one’s for you!
And to Dave, my biggest fan, and the love of my life.
I am truly blessed.
by
J.D.
Wylde
It was a hell of a way, Bobby Wayne Forsythe thought, to find
out his life was over lying bare-ass naked in a paper gown in the cramped
examination room of Doctor Yusef Sydastick.
Doctor Sadistic
to the
unfortunate racecar drivers who needed his services. “You’re wrong, you know,”
Bobby Wayne told the NASCAR-affiliated doctor through clenched teeth.
The doctor stared at Bobby Wayne.
I am not wrong
. The
words weren’t said, but were broadcast with the sympathetic look in the
doctor’s coal black eyes. So was pity. At least that’s what Bobby Wayne thought
he saw when he could open his one good eye for more than a few seconds before
the blinding glare of the fluorescent lights overhead pierced his skull like a
knife slicing through a watermelon.
“There is life beyond the finish line,” the good doctor
sagely told him as he stitched Bobby Wayne’s forehead back together.
“I disagree,” Bobby Wayne replied. As if the doctor’s grave
assessment of his future wasn’t ripping his heart out. Roiling around in his stomach.
Rising up like bile in his constricted throat.
Racing was all Bobby Wayne knew. It had defined his life
since he’d been a six-year-old kid racing around dirt tracks in Clowders Point,
Virginia. It was his
life
. The only thing he knew. And at the ripe old
age of thirty-two, after driving his way up through the circuits to the Sprint
Cup, Bobby Wayne was at the top of his game. Owner of Forsythe Racing and
driver of the Number 35 Dunmyer Chevrolet, the winningest team on the circuit.
Seven cup championships under his belt. And he was poised to break the
Intimidator and the King’s records with one more.
It couldn’t be over!
There was
no
life beyond the finish line if it didn’t
include driving in NASCAR.
He tried to breathe. Tried to talk past the emotion clogging
his throat. “I hit the wall pretty hard.” He swallowed his own uncertainty.
“It’s just takin’ a little longer to heal this time.”
The doctor stopped his suturing. Stared at Bobby Wayne. Like
he was slow to pick up on the obvious. “You took a header down the steps in the
garage because you either blacked out, or you were so dizzy you lost your
footing. Admit it, Bobby Wayne. At least be honest with yourself.”
He’d admit to nothing. “Like I said, I hit the wall pretty
hard at Talladega.”
Hard enough he’d been airlifted from the scene. And revived
twice while in the air in route to the hospital. “The Intimidator had been
there with me.”
“A result of the seriousness of your head injuries,” the
doctor pragmatically replied.
It was okay. Nobody believed Bobby Wayne when he told them
Dale Earnhardt, Senior, the late great driver of the Number 3 Goodwrench
Chevrolet had been there, standing in the bright light that Bobby Wayne was
spiritually racing toward when the helicopter was racing the rest of his
battered body to the nearby trauma hospital. Nobody believed him when he told
them he’d seen his bloody, pain-ravaged face in the Intimidator’s mirrored
sunglasses. When racing’s best had held up his hand like a stop sign and said,
“Not today, Bobby Wayne. You got things to put to right before you cross this
finish line.”
Bobby Wayne had assumed it was breaking the Intimidator –
and
the King’s record – taking his hard-earned, rightful place in NASCAR history at
the top of the pile.
Apparently, Doctor Sadistic had other things in mind.
“Go home, Bobby Wayne.” The doctor pulled the stitch extra
tight.
“Ow! Will you quit that?” Bobby Wayne rubbed the side of his
head.
“That appears to be the only way I have to get your
attention.” The doctor held the needle in front of Bobby Wayne’s good eye like
a pointer. “You don’t listen to me when I talk.” He gave another tug as if to
drive home his point. “You’ve had an alarming amount of concussions over the
last few years of your career. Too many to be healthy. Too many for me
not
to be concerned.”
“I’m okay. I’m just takin’ a little longer to heal this time.
I’m older.”
“And more stubborn. And obviously more stupid than I ever
thought you to be.” The doctor pointed the needle at Bobby Wayne again. “What
about your fellow drivers?”
“What about ’em?”
“How many of them are you willing to put at risk if you have
a spell while driving?”
“I’m not having
spells
,” Bobby Wayne replied, a little
too defensively, if Doctor Sadistic’s look was any indication. “I wouldn’t do
that,” he emphatically added, wishing the room wasn’t swimming from the action.
“I’d never purposely endanger my fellow drivers.” He’d never put his team at
risk either with such blatant disregard for safety.
“You will. You will be putting them
all
at risk if you
get behind the wheel again.” The doctor set the needle aside. “I’m very
serious about this, Bobby Wayne. Your career is over.”
“You’re wrong.” He had to be wrong! It couldn’t end like
this.
The doctor picked up a pair of surgical scissors and clipped
the long threads. “Go home, Bobby Wayne,” he quietly added, as he dabbed at the
sutures.
The thought terrified him.
“Get reacquainted with your wife.”
“Over the years, Doc, I’ve accumulated them a lot like
sponsors.”
The doctor stopped mid-dab.
“I’ve had four, and none are currently in the ‘active’
status, if you know what I mean.”
The doctor signed off on Bobby’s Wayne’s chart. “Then court
number five.”
How could he do that?
There’d
only been
one
woman – one wife of the four who he’d ever truly loved
with all his heart. And that had been number three. Lauren Foster. The only one
who’d ever walked away from
him
without a backward glance – an action
which still rankled him.
Not the fact she’d walked. But that
he’d
let her.
There was unfinished business between them.
Business he was in no mood, or condition, at the moment to
finish.
Namely the big house they’d called home. The one he still
owned with her. The house he still had yet to explain to the woman he had yet
to forget. Like that was possible. Lauren was inside him, under his skin. In
every beat of his heart.
And she’d never understand.
He’d screwed up big time after she’d left him. And not with
just his rebound marriage and his just-as-quick divorce from wife number four.
He sighed. It didn’t matter. Lauren wouldn’t be at the house. She was on tour.
Maybe he should take some time. Get away from the garage. And the rumors he was
washed up.
“You’re a NASCAR driver, Bobby Wayne. Use the same
intelligence and burning desire you use to win a race to win yourself a woman.
And this time actually spend time with her. Get to know her. Make some babies.
Create a life together, because you will not have one in racing. If you get
behind the wheel again and wreck—”
“
Will
you quit sayin’ that?
I’m not gonna wreck!”
The doctor slowly shook his head side to side. “You might not
think
you’re going to wreck, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t be
laying for you, willing to speed your retirement along with another push into
the wall.” Driver grudges and driver envy was the nature of NASCAR – a side the
higher-ups and publicists seldom showed the racing fans. Wholesome was the
name of the game. Jealousy and envy was its seedy underbelly.
“If you get behind the wheel and you have another accident,
it could kill you. It’s that simple.”
“Simple?” Bobby Wayne slid off the table. Grabbed for his
jeans. Glared at the two doctors he saw swimming in front of his eyes. “You
call that
simple
?” He gripped the stainless steel counter as he gingerly
pushed his aching leg, the one that still hadn’t fully healed from the
accident, into his jeans. God! He hated this. All of it. The accident. Being
away from the one thing he loved. The interminably slow recovery. And now
this.
“I will race again!” he told the doctor, fiercely gripping
the counter so he didn’t fall on his ass.
“And I will come to your funeral,” the doctor solemnly
replied.
“Get a life, Bobby Wayne. Find out what’s beyond the
checkered flag.”
Lauren Foster-Forsythe, country music darling and ex-wife of
Bobby Wayne Forsythe, pulled off the main road outside of Harrington, North
Carolina. The twelve-hour drive from Nashville had given her plenty of time to
think. And reconsider what she was about to do. She’d turned the car around a
dozen times before determination had finally taken the wheel, driving her
across I-40, through the mountains of East Tennessee and across the great state
of North Carolina to Albemarle Sound. And finally on to Harrington House, the
house she still jointly owned with Bobby Wayne.
The only real
home
she’d ever known.
Lauren’s childhood had been a country music song. Her family
home a double-wide, or sometimes single wide, always on the wrong side of town,
always repossessed or left behind as the Foster’s moved from town to town, one
step ahead of the law, the landlords and the bill collectors.
Home meant everything to Lauren – everything she’d never had
as a child, but had found with Bobby Wayne here at Harrington House, a house
which had withstood the test of time. A house that had nurtured love behind its
brick walls across generations. Bliss was its original name, and bliss was what
Lauren had found here.
Until Bobby Wayne’s deceit had broken her heart.
Her much-publicized marriage to NASCAR’s golden boy had
crashed and burned. The fairytale life they’d created here was over.
“Time to move on, girl,” she told herself as she pulled off
the two-lane onto the sandy back road that led to her past. Jeremy Altmeyer,
her manager, friend and confidant was pressing for more than just a business
relationship. A relationship she promised him once she severed all ties with
Bobby Wayne.
She pulled onto the shell driveway leading to Harrington
House. Opened the window and breathed deep. The brackish smell of decay and
saltwater filled her nostrils, while a bittersweet longing for what would never
be pierced her heart. Sea grass brushed against the sides of her bright red
import like the comfort of a lover’s arms welcoming her back home. The hybrid
had been a spur-of-the-moment purchase in defiance of the man who staunchly
believed in God and country, apple pie, and Chevrolet.
Bobby Wayne Forsythe, the man who’d made
her
believe
in love, and in herself and in an American dream others could only wish for.
Lauren strained her eyes. Stared out the bug-smeared
windshield, past the leafy canopy of oaks and magnolias to the house. Would he
be here? He’d lived here with his fourth wife – the woman he’d married before
the ink had dried on
their
divorce papers. A point which still had the
power to piss her off. She snorted at her foolish hope. It should have died
when all her other hopes and dreams for a happy ever after with the man had
died. When she’d discovered his deceit.
“Ancient history,” she reminded herself. History she needed
to bury, once and for all, if she was to move on with Jeremy.
She didn’t have to worry about running into Bobby Wayne. It
was the middle of the racing season. And although she had religiously avoided
any news about the sport which had brought her greatest joy – and her deepest
sorrow – she would have to be brainless not to know Memorial Day weekend in
North Carolina was all about NASCAR racing at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and
the Coca-Cola 600. NASCAR’s longest race.
A wicked anniversary of sorts for her – and only fitting the
twisted three-year-old fairy tale that was their life together should end this
weekend, as well. She needed to get her name off the deed. It was the only
thing left tying her to Bobby Wayne. Except her heart. He’d always have that.
“It’s time to move on,” she staunchly told herself, gripping the steering wheel
tighter, shoring up her flagging resolve. She had no life with Bobby Wayne. And
no future with Jeremy as long as she was tied to Bobby Wayne jointly owning
this old house with him.
It would be hard to say goodbye to the home she’d
painstakingly helped to renovate. Maybe as hard as ending their marriage had
been, but it was Jeremy’s ultimatum.
And necessary for her to move on with her life.
She pulled the car to a stop. Pushed the door open and
stepped out. Above her, sea gulls squawked, diving for crabs half-buried in the
sandy shore nearby. And like the wind snatching her hair, plastering her jeans
to her legs and her shirt to her breasts, the memories grabbed her.
Good ones. Of Bobby Wayne and her.
Pushing them aside, she turned her head toward the brick
house that had withstood the test of time, but not her marriage. It would be
her refuge again, even if it were only for this weekend. And then she looked a
little closer. Her eyes narrowed. Her mouth gaped open.
With shock. And disbelief.
“Oh. My.
God
!” she breathed out unable to quite
believe what she was seeing. “What the hell?” she exhaled in horror. There
could be no other place but hell where the grandeur of history could be defamed
and defaced so badly.
“I am going to kill you, Bobby Wayne,” she growled under her
breath as she marched up the front steps to the grand entrance of the home which
had graced the covers of
Home Beautiful
and
Good Southern Living
.
“I can’t believe this!” she gasped. It was even more hideous, more gaudy up
close!
Black and white checkered victory flags were air brushed over
her antique, hand-finished, carved oak doors. Lauren dropped her suitcase. It
landed at her feet with a thud. She pushed her hair from her forehead with her
hands. The words to scream out her outrage were log-jammed in her throat – right
behind the ones to rip Bobby Wayne a new ass. And then the door opened. And
she couldn’t breathe. Because standing there was the man she both loved. And
hated.
And he was
here
. In her house. When he should be
hanging around a track qualifying, or testing, or doing whatever it was he did
when he wasn’t racing for the cup.
“What the hell did you do to my front door?”
“
Our
front door, sugar,” he corrected her – and he
said door like
dough-
war. His soft southern drawl slid down over her
body to awaken and excite her like his hands used to. And he stood in her
doorway filling it with his broad shoulders. The lights from the entry way
glinted off his golden blond hair like the lights flooding the track at the
night race at Bristol. The thick strands were tousled like he’d just gotten up
and ran his hands through it. Beard stubble darkened his jaw and it was sexy
as hell. And his lips, those perfectly chiseled lips that could make her do
sinfully, foolish, exciting, wild things turned up into an inviting smile that
curled her toes and set her blood on fire.
And then she looked a little higher. To the black stitches
that knotted the skin together over one bloodshot and swollen blue eye.
He looked awful. He looked wonderful.
And her traitorous heart fluttered in her chest just because
he was near.
She was an idiot.
“You’re supposed to be racing,” she told him when she should
be screaming her outrage at his defecation of her home instead of swooning over
his sexy smile. She should be blowing by him to check for more damage. Like to
Jane’s garden. Instead she was checking
him
for damage.
He was beat up. Black and blue. Cut up. The cocky swagger
he’d developed after they’d parted ways and he’d trolled for wife number four
had been replaced with a limp and a grimace. The pain lines bracketing his
mouth were deeply etched into his suntanned face. He’d been hurting for a
while.
And before she asked what had happened to him – she’d made a
vow to herself after she’d walked away from him to
never
follow his
career – before she allowed herself to be foolishly caught up in his world
again, she repeated herself. “You’re supposed to be racing. What the hell are
you doing here?”
