Pace Laps (Racing on the Edge Book 10) (17 page)

LATER THAT MORNING, we finally all got our shit together enough to gather around the tree and hand out the gifts. We had shipped everything the week before we arrived so that the kids would still be able to enjoy Santa visiting them on Christmas.

Sitting on Jameson’s lap watching our family together, I was thankful he brought me here for this with the white snow falling, the candles everywhere because the power still hadn’t come back on, and Gray sitting in the middle of it all on her potty chair.

Nothing would bring back the losses we’d had over the years, the pain, the voids, but one thing created a small closure. Happiness.

“Having you here with me is the best Christmas present ever,” Jameson said in my ear as we watched our kids and grandkids open presents.

I turned to face him, firelight flickering his warm green eyes.

“Thank you,” I told him, meaning it with all my heart.

Jameson smiled. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

“No. I don’t mean for this.”

His brow creased in confusion not understanding what I was saying.

Reaching for his hand, I took it in mine squeezing lightly. “I mean thank you, for
everything
. You’ve given me an amazing life.” He winked, maybe too choked up to say anything himself, so I added. “You made all of this possible and I don’t know how I can ever truly thank you for asking me to
stay
.”

His chest shook with laughter. “Well, I was naked so I bet the decision wasn’t all that hard.”

I wracked my brain for a moment remembering that night and if he was naked at the time, but he wasn’t. It was in the doorway of the hotel. Believe me, I remember every single detail about that night. “You were not naked when you said ‘stay’.” And then I remembered that awful skirt Emma made me wear. “I was… kind of.”

Shrugging, he had to make his point when he said, “Either way, someone was naked, and staying was
definitely
the better option.”

He had a point. “Very true.”

Give up – Gradual or drastic deterioration of a tires performance during use.

After Christmas, again, our lives seemed to take a fast lane and early September we were on the west coast. Sway had made a complete recovery from the cancer and remained in remission. I was so fucking thankful for her to be alive and okay I’d laid back quite a bit even and thankfully she stopped showing everyone her tits. It only happened like once a month now.

We started the season strong only to have a string of engine failures. Rager was doing great though and bringing in the wins one by one. Maybe from the temptation of having my daughter around him so much, but either way, it was nice one of our cars was winning this year.

Arie was traveling with us and working part time for the World Racing Group. I had to admit, it was nice having her around that much. Casten was now racing full time with the Outlaws but still hadn’t pulled off that first win yet. It was coming any day now though.

Since we were on the west coast, most of our family was around for the last stretch of the tour away from home. Even Jack was here tonight and eating up every moment in the pits he could.

It was on lap fourteen of the feature event when life as we knew it came to a complete stop. The car in front of me had been squirrely in the opening laps but something went wrong on lap fourteen.

Everything seemed to move so slowly, yet too fast. I was moving, doing things, demanding people to react, but I had no control over my own body after I saw it happen. My mind wouldn’t comprehend any of it.

I saw the car wiggle in two and then shoot up the high line. I’d had that happen before on my own car and immediately knew his throttle was stuck.

The car did a half-wheel stand midway through the backstretch and then shot up over the barrier and flipped into the pits. I knew who was in the pits right there.

The boys.

When the lights on the track blinked yellow and then red, my chest constricted. I had barely stopped the car on the backstretch before I was out and running toward the pits.

I saw Tommy first, face down in the dirt with Casten hovering over him, and then Jack about ten feet from him under the four-wheeler.

Oh, God. No. Please no. Not him.

My first thought was a few broken bones. When I made it to Jack and flipped the four-wheeler off him, it wasn’t broken bones any longer. He was bleeding heavily from his neck.

I couldn’t fucking breathe. My breath came out in short quick gasps to keep from fainting on the pure adrenaline racing through me. My heart thudded loudly, my adrenaline spiking, coursing through my veins like ice. My heart pounded, moving through my chest, to my arms, shaking my hands then jolting through my legs.

Amongst the wreckage of the sprint car, Jack had been hit in the neck by something, leaving a three-inch-long gash along the left side of his neck. By the lifeless way he lay there, he was gone already, but I had to try. When I reached him, I fell to my knees beside him. His eyes opened, and then closed, his breathing short and uneven.

I started ripping my gear away, my helmet first, then gloves and the upper part of my racing suit, wanting to use the T-shirt I had under it to press against his neck. His body was completely limp, as though all muscle tone was gone. He almost felt soft, as if all his strength had suddenly disappeared.

“Jameson,” Willie gasped when he came over to us, pure white and covered in blood from Tommy.

Two paramedics ran over, their arms full of supplies but stopped, the same blank faces as everyone else when Jack drew in a labored gurgled breath. When he did that, blood pooled in his mouth.

“Do something! Help me! Call 911!” I looked down when warmth hit my hands. The blood had soaked through my shirt in less than a minute, pooling in the dirt beneath my knees. Jack wasn’t moving at all, his eyes closed, face pale, lips blue. “Do something!”

“Jameson… he’s….” The paramedic shook his head and pressed more towels to the side of Jack’s neck.

“No! Don’t you fucking give up!” I shook my head refusing to believe my grandson was dying in my arms. “He’s not! Just apply pressure. He’s going to be fine.”

His blood covered me within two minutes. All I saw was red. It was everywhere I looked. It wasn’t just coming from his neck either. It seeped out of his mouth. He had to have hit his head, or he was bleeding internally. Everything was happening so fast, and I couldn’t stop the blood. He was slipping away right before my eyes.

We used towel after towel, anything we could find to put pressure on his neck, but it soaked through just as fast.

This isn’t real. It can’t be. He’s just sleeping.

“Breathe, buddy!” I touched his face, careful not to move the pressure on his neck. “Fucking breathe!” I sobbed, my face soaked with tears. “Please fucking breathe!”

Watching someone’s life slip away before you hurt more than any pain I’d ever endured. I saw the life seeping out of him, the hopelessness taking over.

Make it stop. Make time stop. Make the pain stop right now. Give him life. Take mine. Give it to him. I’ll sacrifice the very breath in my lungs if you just please give it to him.

“Jameson,” the paramedic said again, grabbing my arm.

I pushed him away, keeping one hand on Jack. “Stop saying my fucking name and do your goddamn job!”

I looked back down at Jack and he was turning blue, his skin a light gray but with a purple tint around his eyes. They were bruising already.

When Sway was attacked, I wasn’t there. I couldn’t save her. Nothing I could have done would have done or made a difference that day. But now… maybe….

When my dad died, I was dying myself. I couldn’t save him either.

But I was here, the first one to Jack and I could save him. I needed to save my grandson. I had to….

I just had to. For me. For Axel.

Only… he was gone before I had the chance.

There was yelling all around us, and guys tried to shield everyone from what was happening not more than thirty feet from the track in clear view of the pit stands. My eyes drifted to Axel as he approached, his helmet in hand. My first-born son took in the sight before him. His first born laying in a pool of blood.

I was afraid to look at Axel. Afraid to see his eyes, but when I did, the pain hit me like a bullet to the chest.

Rager grabbed more towels from somewhere and threw them in my direction. We applied more to his neck but didn’t remove the ones that had been soaked through.

Axel didn’t move. He just stared at Jack’s body. Guys swarmed around him, waiting to see what he’d do as Lane stayed right beside him, waiting.

“Jameson, we need to transport him.”

My hands shook. I couldn’t let go of him until I realized that he wasn’t breathing any longer.

Closing my eyes, I released a sharp intake of breath.

“Jameson….” My name was said by the paramedic. “Let go of him.”

Let go of him?
How could I? How did this even happen?

The paramedics took over and tried to control the bleeding while another did CPR. I knew there was no chance, but they weren’t going to give up on a child in front of his dad. They kept looking to Axel then back at Jack, and then me.

I fell apart when he was loaded into the ambulance. I fell apart because that was when Axel did, his knees hitting the dirt with desperation.

It couldn’t end like that. It didn’t happen like that for kids.

But it does.

It did.

As I stood there, staring at the ambulance that Axel was getting into behind Jack, I couldn’t breathe.

There are no words to describe this pain. There never would be. The pain was not instant. You bled it. It poured out of you, dripping from your broken soul.

And when you finally did feel it, it took the breath right out of your lungs.

Nothing I’d ever been through in my life had resembled this. My grandson had died in my arms.

An indescribable guilt knotted in my chest when I thought about Lily, and then Sway, and Justin, Ami… all our families. This was something that tore families apart completely.

What would this mean for ours?

Handing my keys to Willie, I couldn’t even look at him. “Go get my truck for me.”

I had no idea what to do next as the ambulance left. I was crying, covered from head to toe in blood and left with a sense of shock throughout my body trying to decipher if I had just watched my grandson die in my arms.

Standing beside the hauler, my knees gave out, my head in my hands as I prayed. “Don’t let this be real. Please don’t do this.”

Each breath seemed harder than the last, a reminder his had been taken.

Casten approached me, his hand on my back in an attempt to comfort me.

Our eyes met for the briefest of moments before I stared at the dirt and climbed to my knees.

“Someone call Lily and Sway,” I told him, scrubbing my hands over my face as I climbed to my feet. “Have them go to the hospital.”

Willie drove up with my truck. Glancing at Casten, I knew he’d take care of everything here for us. “Can you…?” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. It seemed my voice and ability to form words was gone.

“I’ll take care of it.”

Breathing heavily, my head was light. Words and voices spun around me but I was too numb to decipher who or what anything meant. I knew one thing, we were all heading home now. “Tell the boys to pack up and head home. We won’t be at the final two races in California.”

I saw the track officials approaching and Arie running toward the pits, but I left with Willie to go to the hospital. Neither of us said a word on the way there, which was a first for Willie because he usually couldn’t stop talking.

When tragedy of any kind unfolded around you, there was almost a sense of despondency that took over. It was probably meant to be that way.

Your bodies way of humbling you I supposed.