The Chase (Fast Track #4)(63)
Author: Erin McCarthy

She pressed her fingers to her temples, not sure what to do, what to think, how to feel.

He pounded again, a harsh thump, thump, thump that echoed the rhythm of her racing heart. “Kendall!”

Maybe she should open the door. Maybe she should let him see her vulnerabilities and insecurities . . . maybe she should trust him. Trust herself. Maybe she should learn from the past and not repeat her same mistakes.

Maybe she should believe that Evan could love her just as she was, that she had nothing to fear from a woman like Sara.

Maybe . . .

Swiping her hands across her damp cheeks, she turned and opened her front door, prepared to both burst into tears and to fling herself into her husband’s arms and have it be all better.

Except he wasn’t there.

Evan had left.

“No, damn it,” she whispered. She would just go after him. He couldn’t be that far.

But when she stepped out onto the stoop to see if he and Eve were still in the driveway, her ankle rolled as she stepped on something. Moving her foot with a wince, she glanced down to see what had caused her to lose her footing.

It was the band she had put on Evan’s finger on their wedding night.

He had thrown it on the ground.

Like it was nothing.

She supposed, as her eyes blurred, that it was.

ENGINE CHECK

by Tuesday Talladega

WTF!! People, people, what is going on in the world of racing? Evan Monroe announced this morning that at the end of this season he will be retiring from the series. Retiring. At twenty-nine years old. No indication from his camp what he will be doing post-driving, but I strongly suspect changing diapers will be on his agenda. Since he is in the midst of some heavy-duty personal issues, I prefer to think of this exit as a temporary one . . . a paternity leave, if you will.

Please tell us, Evan, that you’ll be back on the track.

It just won’t be the same without you.

EVAN sat on the old dirt track off Route 3 and stared into space. It was the first of May already and grass and weeds were growing like crazy in the damp spring weather. His thoughts were hopeless, his heart aching.

Walking away from driving was the right thing to do. He was at peace with that. Maybe, if anything, the hell of the last two weeks had forced his hand. He didn’t have the passion or the dedication he needed to go out there anymore. Hell, maybe he’d never had it. Time to step aside and let the new guard take his spot.

That had definitely factored into his decision.

He had also stepped back to distance himself from Kendall personally and professionally. He couldn’t force her to talk to him, he couldn’t take back the past and the outcome of that night with Sara, but he could ensure that Kendall wouldn’t lose her sponsorship with Untamed. He could take the fallout with the gossip mongers and with Carl and cut her free of an association with him.

He could give her the divorce she was clearly going to want.

But not yet. He couldn’t bring himself to do that quite yet.

Glancing down at his bare left hand, he regretted for the thousandth time taking that ring off. It had been stupid and petty to leave it on her stoop. But he had been devastated that she wouldn’t even open the door. It had seemed a good way to hurt her as much as he’d been hurt, but he now completely regretted it. That wasn’t what their relationship was about and he wasn’t nineteen anymore.

He wanted both the ring and her back.

The sounds of tires on the brush and gravel behind him made him sigh as he leaned against the hood of the car. He wanted to sit awhile longer, but if someone else was coming around, he was going to leave. He didn’t want to make small talk with a stranger.

Only it wasn’t a stranger who got out of the truck after parking it next to Evan’s. It was Ryder Jefferson.

“What are you doing here?” Evan asked him, put out that he was going to have to talk. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to sit and stare. For the next ten years or so.

“Thought maybe you’d want to go for a mani/pedi with me.”

“Very funny. How did you know I was out here?”

“Eve told me. Your sister is really worried about you.”

He might have been touched if he wasn’t totally numb. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Alright.” Ryder leaned on the truck with him, staring out at the track like he was. “I’ll just do the talking. They say men are terrible communicators, but you know, some women don’t exactly do a fabulous job at expressing their emotions.”

Evan fought the urge to roll his eyes. He was starting to get irritated with Ryder. Couldn’t the guy see he just wanted to wallow in his own misery?

“I should know, I was married to a woman like that. And you see, I didn’t push her to talk to me, so she didn’t. And we wound up divorced. Is this sounding at all like something you’ve experienced?”

Evan wasn’t going to talk about it. He wasn’t. But then he couldn’t help himself. He needed someone to know, to acknowledge that damn it, he had wanted to work this through. “Except I’ve tried to force Kendall to talk about it. She won’t do it.”

“So you just give up? Or do you keep trying?”

“You want me to beat my head against a wall? Eventually my brains will just spill.” Evan bent down and picked up a rock. He tossed it up and down in the palm of his hand.

“Or maybe you’ll work things out. I wish I had tried harder to talk to Suzanne three years ago. I might not have lost two years. And the truth is, I’m damn lucky we wound up back together. The odds were stacked against us. Once you file for divorce, it’s hard to turn back.”

“Who said anything about filing for divorce?” Evan hurled the rock forward twenty feet, watching it hit and bounce across the track. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

“No. I’m just telling you I understand how much it hurts. And trust me, fixing it is worth whatever you have to go through to get there.”

“I’d fix it in a heartbeat if I could,” Evan told Ryder. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Well, you either do nothing and sit here and feel sorry for yourself for a couple of years like I did. Or you can think of something to try.” Ryder pushed off of the truck and pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Just remember that sometimes a grand gesture is needed.”

“What, like flowers?”

Ryder frowned. “Are you serious? Flowers aren’t a grand gesture, flowers are for scoring a little weeknight sex, not repairing serious damage. Grand. Like billboard-sized.”