Flat-Out Sexy (34 page)

“Can I hug you?” Hunter asked, looking nervously at his bandaged chest. He hadn’t put his shirt back on yet because he wasn’t sure he could manage the sleeves.

“Of course you can hug me,” he said, and opened his arm so she could slide in between his legs and hug his waist. He fought the urge to wince as pain shot through his chest, but he hugged her back, tweaking her ponytail. “Thanks for coming to visit me.”

He turned to Tamara’s son. “What’s up, Pete?”

Pete didn’t say anything, just looked warily around the hospital room. Elec wondered if he was remembering his father’s wreck. Tamara had never told him if Pete had been there. Somehow he had assumed he wasn’t, but he didn’t know that for a fact.

Elec looked past him, and met Tamara’s gaze. She looked pale and pinched, her arms across her chest. “Hey, beautiful,” he told her. “Forgot to look where I was going today.” He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

His mother noticed the look on Tamara’s face and she said, “Elliot, Eve, let’s take these kids for a snack and give Elec and Tamara a minute alone.”

“Right. Good plan,” Elliot said.

Hunter gave him another squeeze but she went with his parents willingly enough, which made him happy. Petey followed, although he was still way too quiet for Elec’s tastes.

“Hey,” he said, trying to slide off the table to get to Tamara since she was still hovering in the doorway. “I’ve had a hard day, baby. I could use a kiss.”

She did come to him then, and she touched his cheeks, brushed his hair back off his forehead, glancing down at his bandaged ribs and wincing. Then she kissed him softly, her arms twining carefully around him.

“The good thing is I’ll have some extra free time this week. We can go ring shopping,” he told her, trying to inject some levity into the situation. He wasn’t that banged up, all things considered, and he didn’t want it to be a big deal.

To his shock and horror, she started sobbing in his arms, her shoulders rocking, her tears wetting his cheeks.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m alright. It’s not a big deal.”

She just shook harder and Elec lifted his arms carefully and rubbed her back to try and soothe her. It made him feel wonderful that she cared that much at the same time it terrified him. He didn’t know how to deal with this, nor did he like that he had scared her that much. “Shh. It’s alright.”

But then she pulled back from him and her face was contorted in anger. “It’s not alright!” she said, swiping at her face. “It’s not even remotely alright. You could have died out there!”

Uh-oh. How the hell did he answer that one? “I’m fine. It’s just a few cracked ribs.”

“But you could have died. It’s a huge risk you take every week going out there.”

Shit, this was about racing. He needed to nip that in the bud. Racing had its dangers, but so did life in general. “I could die choking on a piece of chicken.”

“Oh, don’t give me that stupid argument!” she said, throwing her hands in the air and turning her back on him. “The probability of a serious wreck in stock car racing is much higher than choking on your damn food and you know it.”

“Tamara, what do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” She wiped at her cheeks and said, “I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” There was a sudden pain in his chest and it had nothing to do with cracked ribs.

“This. I can’t be a driver’s wife again. I can’t live with this fear, this uncertainty. I can’t stand to see my kids terrified like that. I told you that way back when, I warned you, but we did this anyway, and now I know I should have never let it get this far.”

Elec was starting to panic. “Baby, you don’t mean that. I
love
you. We’re amazing together. We belong together.”

“I love you, too,” she said, crying in earnest again.

It broke his heart to see her like that, and he went for her, but she dodged his touch. “Tamara, I know this was a scare, but I am okay. We’re okay.” Maybe if he said it enough, it would be true.

But she just shook her head and sobbed. “I can’t, Elec. I just can’t. I can’t marry you.”

Then she turned and ran out of the room and his heart cracked just as surely as his four ribs.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

TAMARA ran down the hallway, hoping to avoid her kids for the moment. She was a mess, and she needed a minute to get ahold of herself. Unfortunately, there was really nowhere to go. One way led to her kids and Elec’s parents, the other way to the track and a crowd of almost two hundred thousand people. Not to mention the cameras and reporters, who would be dying to get her reaction to Elec’s wreck.

Her reaction sucked. She knew she was being unreasonable to him, knew it was shitty to break off their engagement in a hospital cubicle, but she had panicked. Seeing the accident, his car roll like that, seeing the expressions on her babies’ faces, then seeing him sitting there shirtless and wrapped in tape, a deep bruise under his eye from his helmet, had all welled up inside her.

She couldn’t do it. She had said yes to marry the Elec who sat on her wicker patio furniture with her and roasted marshmallows. She’d said yes to the Elec who made her feel sexy as hell in bed, who thought she was beautiful, and who was capable of loving her children as his own.

But first and foremost, Elec was a driver, and even after standing side by side with him through the media circus of the weekend, the truth of that hadn’t really hit her. She couldn’t love him only to lose him. She just couldn’t.

She just wasn’t strong enough to stay standing if it happened a second time.

Ducking down another hallway to find the restroom and splash water on her face to try and get a grip, Tamara nearly groaned out loud when she saw Pete’s father coming toward her in the opposite direction. Johnny was the last person she wanted to see at the moment. But he had already spotted her.

“Tammy, how’s Elec?”

“He’s fine,” she said, clearing her throat. “Just a few cracked ribs and some minor bruises.”

“That’s good,” Johnny said. “Doesn’t sound like a big deal.”

Of course it wasn’t a big deal. No one seemed to think it was a big deal that he could have died. “Yeah,” she managed to say, even though her throat was tight and she was fighting fresh tears.

Johnny eyed her and said, “Come on and sit down and have a chat with me, Tammy. I owe you an apology.”

She could surely use something. Johnny led her out the back of the med center and they found a bench in what was clearly intended to be the employee smoking area. They couldn’t see the track, just the fence, and they were sheltered from the grandstands by the building.

“Have a seat.”

Johnny indicated the bench so Tamara sat down and closed her eyes for a second, the heat and sunshine spilling over her. She felt him sit beside her.

“I’m sorry for what I said about your mothering,” he said. “That was petty and uncalled-for. I’ve never been anything but proud of the way you’ve raised my grandbabies.”

That caused the tears she’d been struggling against to burst forth. “Thank you,” she managed. “I have tried my best.”

He patted her knee. “You have, and you’ve been an excellent mother. A better mother than Pete was a father. It’s hard for me to admit that, but it’s true. He loved those kids, but he wasn’t hands-on and I realize that.”

“He did love his kids. And he was a good husband.” When he was around. Tamara kept that caveat to herself, though.

“I got upset with you the other day because it’s hard for me to acknowledge that my son might be replaced in Petey and Hunter’s lives. Hearing them talk about all the things Elec does with them, well, it’s hard.”

“I know that. I’m sorry for that. But you know I want you in the kids’ lives just as much as you’ve always been.”

“And Beth and I appreciate it. Hearing everything Elec does with the kids and how taken they are with him, it made me realize that while it’s hard for me, it’s good for them. They need a man in their life. Not that you’re not doing an excellent job solo but because life is just easier, more well rounded, when kids have two parents in there pitching in. Elec Monroe seems like a good kid, and you have my blessing.”

Tamara wiped her face and shook her head. “I appreciate that, Johnny, but the thing is, I just broke up with him.”

Johnny looked at her in amazement. “What? Why the hell would you do that? Did he really knock up the lingerie model? Because, honey, accidents happen.”

“No. He never slept with her.” Tamara bit her lip. “I broke up with him because I can’t deal with moments like today. That fear almost knocked me to the floor. I can’t lose another husband, I just can’t.”

“Well, now I understand fear. But, Tammy, you can’t just stop loving people because you might lose them.”

“Yes, I can.” She didn’t know how but she would force herself to stop loving Elec.

Johnny actually laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Then if that logic is true, I guess you’d better stop loving Petey and Hunter.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“The hell it isn’t. You could lose them, but would you have wanted to give back one single minute with them?”

Her throat constricted. “No, of course not.”

“Then if you love this man, go for it, girl. Grab hold of every minute of happiness and enjoy it. Tell yourself you may only have today or you may have fifty years together, but love him for that time. Love him the way we race—for the joy, for the thrill, for the adrenaline, and for the triumph.” Johnny looked at her sideways. “Does he take your breath away?”

Tamara sighed. “Yes. He does.”

“And exactly how many times do you think that’s going to happen in your lifetime?” Johnny stood up and reached for her hand. “Come on. Go on in there and make up with your man.”

Johnny was right. She knew it. She had let fear take over. If she had ten days, a year, a lifetime with Elec, it was better than denying herself him. She loved him.

“Thank you,” she told her father-in-law. “For everything. Now and the last eleven years.”

He nodded. “You’ll always be a Briggs.”

ELEC was gone when Johnny walked her back in, and Tamara’s heart sank. Pacing back outside by the bench, she called Elec’s parents to check on her kids. It turned out they had hooked up with Beth and the kids were back with their grandmother and intending to head to their hotel for the night. Tamara talked to them on the phone for a minute and they seemed tired, but fine. Elec’s parents told her they had dropped him off at the hotel. It didn’t sound like he had said anything about her outburst, because Elliot didn’t mention it, though he did say Elec looked like he was in a fair amount of pain.

“You heading back to the hotel?” Elliot asked. “I’m sure he could use some TLC from you.”

“Yeah. I have to run an errand real quick, then I’ll be there.”

Tamara hung up and called Suzanne, who had been desperately calling her and texting her all weekend.

“Oh, my God, talk to me,” Suz said as a greeting. “What is going on down there? There’s all this talk about the pit lizard and then you showed up at driver’s intro and then Elec wrecked today … it’s crazy. First, how is Elec?”

“Fine. Four cracked ribs.”

“Good. Now what the heck is up with that Crystal chick? Is she really pregnant?”

“I have no idea. But if she is, it isn’t Elec’s. She is a total liar. But I don’t want to talk about her. Elec asked me to marry him.”

Suzanne shrieked. “Holy monkey! That’s awesome! When did he propose?”

“Friday.”

“And you’re just telling me
now
? What the hell?”

“Well, everything descended into chaos with Crystal, then I had a fight with my father-in-law, then Elec wrecked, then I broke up with him.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“I freaked out, plain and simple. I saw that car roll and I just lost it. I said I couldn’t handle it and broke up with him.”

“Oh, Tammy, sweetie.” Suzanne’s voice was sympathetic. “I know that fear, baby, even though I didn’t lose a husband. You can’t let that stop you from being happy with Elec.”

“I know. I had a chat with Johnny, believe it or not, and got my head back on straight. Now I need you to do me a favor.” The idea had just popped into her head and she was going to roll with it. It was the gesture she needed to show Elec she was ready to commit to him, to a life together.

“What?”

“Find me a reputable tattoo parlor in Daytona.”

“Umm … okay. Why?”

“I need to get a tattoo.”

“Well, I figured that out. A tattoo of what, and why can’t it wait until you get home?”

“I’m getting Elec’s car number on my inside wrist like he has.”

“Wow, that’s incredibly romantic.” Suz sounded impressed. “You’re getting inked for him. Wow. Okay, I’ll call David Busbee’s wife. They live in Daytona and he’s all tatted up. I’ll call you right back.”

“Okay, thanks.” Tamara took a deep breath and hoped Elec would forgive her for her outburst. She was ready to become Tamara Briggs-Monroe.