Speed Dating (11 page)

“But I—”

“Go on, you look so cute in your new makeup.” They’d stopped for a makeover at the MAC counter and now Kendall had her own suitcase of stuff and pictures and instructions on how to use it. She had a paint-by-number face.

“What should I put on?”

“Are you going anywhere tonight?”

“I’m not sure.” She’d been so focused on tomorrow, she wasn’t certain if any plans had been made for tonight.

“That darling coral sundress with the lace-up sandals is good for pretty much anything.”

“Okay.” She crossed to the bathroom, dug through bags until she found everything, then pulled on the dress that made her think of citrus fruit. The makeup did make her look brighter and more alive, and somehow younger. Or maybe that was just the excitement of adventure, for whatever she was doing—and she didn’t like to think about it too carefully or she felt queasy—this was definitely an adventure.

The only thing that was the same was her hair. She turned her head this way and that watching the brown curls glow in the bathroom light. “Should I get my hair cut?” she yelled through the door.

“No!” came the answer. And it wasn’t Rhoda who answered. It was Dylan.

Okay, deep breath, quench foolish flutters. She felt girlish and flirty, and that was so unlike her that she wanted to scramble back into her safe suit. Except that Rhoda had come in and whisked it away almost as though she’d guessed this might happen.

Well, he was going to see her sometime; she might
as well get it over with. She opened the door to two staring faces.

“Oh, honey, you make me proud,” said Rhoda, beaming at her as though she were her daughter trying on a bridal gown.

Dylan didn’t say anything. He gave a wolf whistle.

Kendall wasn’t a troll. She got whistled at by the usual construction guys and drunks on street corners, but she’d never, ever received a wolf whistle from an actual red-blooded, hot, womanizing wolf.

So maybe a little shopping once in a while wasn’t such a bad thing.

“W
ANT TO COME
with me later when I’m putting suntan lotion on some gals in bikinis?” Dylan asked.

They were back in Florida, getting ready for the next race in Daytona. She was starting to get used to the routine, the village of motor homes where she and Dylan stayed for a few days over the race, where she appeared in public as his girlfriend with the lucky lips while in private they’d become friends. They were sharing a quick soda before he headed off to the track.

At the expression on her face, he grinned. “I swear it wasn’t my idea. It’s an ad for one of my sponsors and I would take it as a real favor if you would come with me.”

“You don’t want to be alone with all those barely dressed models?”

He shook his head. “Just come with me.”

She knew now that he liked having her around sometimes as a buffer between him and the outside world, sometimes as his Sorry I’m Taken sign. “Okay.”

“Thanks. I’m heading down to the garage. See you after practice. We’ll do the ad, then be back here for dinner?”

“Sure.” They often ended up having barbecues or
simply hanging out with other drivers, their wives and families. She always enjoyed watching Dylan with the kids. He probably spent more time with the youngsters than he did with the adults.

They were all on the road together so much that friendships formed. It was like a club or an extended family, and Kendall found herself becoming an accepted member of the club. No one questioned whether she was really Dylan’s girlfriend, and she couldn’t exactly explain the situation, so she kept up the pretense and was grateful to have the other wives and girlfriends to talk to.

These were the women who understood this world and who could help her handle media or aggressive fans and, whether they realized it or not, they gave her insight into what made a driver tick, something she was desperately trying to figure out.

Sometimes she would daydream that she really did belong, but that was crazy thinking, so she’d mentally slap herself even as she hoped Dylan’s winning streak continued so she had a reason to stay.

Her twelve weeks of stress leave were halfway over. As a cure for stress, joining the NASCAR circuit probably wasn’t the most common prescription, but if the idea of stress leave was to get her mind off her job and the messy love triangle of her, Marvin and Penelope, then NASCAR had cured her.

She barely thought of Marvin except with mild distaste and she didn’t think of her job at all. In six weeks she had to report to her new position as the assistant branch manager of a storefront insurance agency in Aurora. Her interim position as Dylan’s good-luck charm was vastly more amusing. And with a much better wardrobe.

She’d become comfortable in her new clothes and found that she liked the sunny colors and casual outfits. Her emergency calls to Rhoda were down to one a week, tops, as she gained confidence in her own choices.

Dylan’s luck was holding, as was the myth of the cute couple they made.

“Dylan?” she said, just before he stepped out.

“Uh-huh?” He paused in the act of shoving one of his endless ball caps on his head.

“Is Ashlee going to be at the race?”

“She has a condo here. What do you think?”

She rolled her eyes and immediately replanned what she’d wear tomorrow. She had no idea what Dylan’s ex thought she was up to. Their so-called—and never-ending—honeymoon had mostly been spent, as far as Kendall could tell, in popping down to Daytona Beach, where Ashlee’s family owned a condo, every time Dylan was anywhere near the place. The charity golf tournament dinner had been a nightmare as Dylan held Kendall against him like a shield. Ashlee had alternately pouted at, flirted with and charmed Dylan, while blowing hot and cold on her husband until Kendall ended up with a tension headache.

Not even the prettiest dress she’d ever owned and a couple of dreamy slow dances with Dylan had saved the evening from becoming a painful memory.

S
HE WATCHED
Dylan run his morning practice and only bit through one fingernail.

When he pulled in, he climbed out the window, the same way he’d entered the car. She still wasn’t used to
cars with no doors, stick-on decals for headlights or peel-off wrap instead of windshield wipers. It was weird.

Dylan walked up to Mike Nugent and they talked technical, so the few words she caught made no sense. However, Mike soon had a couple of the guys on the team fiddling with the engine while Dylan got ready for qualifying.

She wasn’t sure if he’d kiss her, since it was, first, a qualifier and, second, no media were near. He seemed to hesitate. She felt the eyes of the entire crew on them, and she thought that was what made him move toward her and smack her soundly on the lips. The feeling of relief from the crew was palpable. Amazing. They actually believed the flawed kiss-equals-good-luck equation.

Dylan had the fifth fastest time of the forty-three drivers who’d compete tomorrow. That put him in the front group and he seemed pretty jazzed about that. “You always bring me good luck,” he said. “Thanks.”

She was ready to leave the dirt and oil smells and the noise of the racetrack, but of course their day wasn’t over.

Jack appeared and bundled Dylan and her into a limo. They drove to where one of Dylan’s sponsors, a suntan lotion, had organized the photo shoot for an ad. Dylan was placed in front of one of his cars, with half a dozen models all in bikinis. Dylan’s job was to spread suntan lotion on the women.

He didn’t seem to mind the extra time he was putting in at the office at all.

After she’d watched him slather a ridiculous amount of lotion on a ridiculous amount of nubile skin, they
were finally allowed to leave. She saw one of the girls whisper in his ear, an obvious invitation. Dylan pulled his I’m-too-sexy-for-my-car act and pocketed a slip of paper the model handed him.

Oh, great.

“I hope I didn’t spoil your fun,” she said, when they were loaded back in the limo.

“Not at all. Those girls wanted to go party, but I explained you and I already had plans.”

“They were jailbait, anyway.” She wanted to get a few things straight, but not with Jack listening to every word. Besides, she didn’t get a chance. Dylan’s cell phone went off.

She knew it was Ashlee the minute he started talking. She spent most of the limo ride talking to Jack and resisting the urge to bash Dylan with the bottle of suntan lotion she’d been given.

A
SHLEE AND
H
ARRISON
showed up at the race the next day, as Kendall had known they would, but Ashlee was surprisingly low-key for once. Kendall wore a pretty apricot-colored gauzy sundress and put extra effort into kissing Dylan both before and especially after he placed third.

Amazingly, the ex-wife didn’t even try to get the four of them out for dinner together or some other horrendous double date, perhaps because she sensed Kendall would make up an excuse not to go.

She was congratulating herself on helping Dylan ease out of his ex-wife’s clutches when he told her he’d be staying an extra day in Daytona Beach. Dylan had agreed to visit the children’s ward of a local hospital. The visit wasn’t on his schedule, she knew, since she
kept a copy of his itinerary on her laptop computer. It helped her feel organized and gave some structure to her life to look ahead at events she’d take part in.

The next morning, they set off in a car he’d borrowed from a local dealership. She wondered if his driving it for a day would up the sticker price. It was nice, driving alone with Dylan. There was no Jack from marketing, no Jeff from PR; it was only the two of them, which was rare, she realized. Then she made the mistake of glancing at the speedometer.

“I’ve never been in Florida before this year,” she said, for something to say, to keep her mind off the fact that he was driving much too fast in her opinion. “It’s beautiful.”

He shot her a glance and she bit her tongue to prevent herself from snapping at him to keep his eyes on the road. “The tourism people will be real happy to hear that.”

Not only did his eyes move from what they should be doing, but now his hand joined in, leaving the steering wheel to land on her knee, warm and heavy. His fingers toyed with the hem of her flowered summer dress and moved against her skin. He did that sometimes, touched her in a way that was both friendly and something more. However, she was starting to see through his tricks, to understand that he used his warmth and undeniable charm for his own ends. “You’re trying to distract me,” she said.

“From what?” He sounded all innocent, but the scar was changing shape, from an
L
to a
C,
always a sign that he was amused and trying not to show it.

“From the fact that you’re doing sixty-four in a fifty-five-mile zone.”

“You know how fast I was going when I won at Talladega?”

She started to remind him that this wasn’t a controlled racetrack but her insatiable love of numbers got in the way. “How fast?”

“Average speed was one-eighty-four miles an hour and change.”

She glanced at the speedometer again. “I can’t even imagine how fast that is. What’s it like?”

He played with the hem of her dress absently while he thought, and she tried to ignore the sensations of warmth fluttering through her. “When you go that fast, the noise of the tires on the road surface are like a high-pitched whine. The g-force sucks you into the seat and it’s hot. Like sitting on top of a furnace.”

“Wow.”

“There’s no room to think of anything. I’m working with the car. Reading its signals, talking to Mike. Working our strategy.”

“Is it noisy?” She thought about how she’d felt the physical impact of all that noise the first time she’d seen a race. The fans, the cars, the booming microphones.

“I don’t notice the noise. Sometimes I get out of the car and hear all those fans yelling, and I’m a little bit surprised. I’d almost forgotten they were there.”

“That’s some focus.”

He nodded, not speaking.

Another couple of miles rolled by. “Why do you do it?” she asked suddenly.

“Do what? Tease you? Because you’re so uptight, it’s the—”

“No. Not that. Racing. Why do you race?”

He glanced over. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Is this going to end up in you telling me that I’m eleven point four times more likely to be involved in a car crash than a person who stays in their basement watching televised bowling? Because I have to tell you, that is getting old.”

“No, I’m—”

“Has it occurred to you that you are eleven point four times more likely to get into trouble hanging around with me than if you’d gone home to your regular life?”

“Oh, yes. That has definitely occurred to me.” The funny thing was that she couldn’t seem to care. Of course, her time with Dylan was short. She was on holiday from her own life, and like any holiday, it would end, hopefully with no regrets and some pleasant memories.

The wind whipped through her hair and she tipped her face up to the sun. Dylan turned up the CD player for a song he liked. The music was too loud and the increased volume wasn’t making her change her mind about country music, but it kept right on wailing whether she minded or not.

“You want to know why I race,” he said at last, shouting above the music.

“Yes.” She hadn’t thought he’d answer and was content to let it go, but she was curious as to what he’d say.

“I like the rush. I like the speed. I like the challenge.”

“And you like the attention from the fans,” she added.

He shot her a crooked grin. “I didn’t say that.”

She wrinkled her nose in thought, recalling the races she’d seen so far. “What about the crowds, the women, the…adulation?”

He looked right at her. “The women are nice. Definitely.”

Even though she wasn’t in the league of some of the women she’d seen hanging around the drivers, she appreciated the flattery. It wasn’t as though she’d received so much of it in her life that it was tedious.

However, watching him take numbers from models and chat to his ex was starting to get on her nerves.

She reached forward and turned down the music. “Uh-oh,” he said.

“I wanted to…um…talk about something.”

“The kissing thing?”

Persistence, she reminded herself. In interpersonal communication, persistence was often required to ensure her message was correctly received. “Well, that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You didn’t like the kiss yesterday? Or you were disappointed we only came in third? Honey, I have to tell you, the luck is holding. I can’t win every race, but our team is doing better than we’ve done all season. You really are our lucky charm.”

“You don’t seriously believe that.”

“I believe the results speak for themselves.”

“The thing is, I thought our time together would end sooner, that the good-luck thing wouldn’t hold up.”

All amusement was gone from his face. She even felt the car slow as though the gravity of the situation was communicating itself to the engine. “What are you saying?”