Elusive Dawn (17 page)

"Honey, it's a reasonable fear," he said quietly.

"If it were just fear, yes, it would be. But it's terror, Shane.
Crippling terror.
And if I don't face it now, learn to deal with it,
then
it'll only get worse."

Shane ran a distracted hand through his hair and sighed roughly. "Robyn, what are you saying?"

"That I... have to watch you race. I have to prove to myself that I can handle the fear."

"And if you can't?"

Through gritted teeth, she responded, "I will! I won't let myself be a coward. I won't smother you because I'm terrified something will happen to you!"

He was watching her very intently, a thoughtful expression on his lean face. "This is very important to you, isn't it?"

"Shane..." She took a deep breath. "I don't want to tell you to race. I want to live with you in your mountain aerie and make wine and babies. I want to grow old with you. But I have to prove to myself that I'm not a coward."

"You're not a coward, love. You hung on to your sanity for a year while your husband raced. That took courage."

"I didn't love him the way I love you. And I just don't know if I can watch you race, Shane. But I have to try. Do you understand?"

He smiled crookedly. "I think so. But, Robyn, I'm going to marry you no matter what happens. Do
you
understand?"

Robyn hesitated before replying. "One thing at a time, okay?"

His emerald eyes darkened almost to jet. "Robyn, if you're saying you won't marry me if you can't face my racing-to hell with that! I'll hang up my driving gloves, and we'll stop off in Vegas on our way to California!"

She startled herself by laughing. "Commanding sort of man, aren't you?"

"Robyn-"

She lifted a hand to cut him off. "I'm just saying that I want to think of one thing at a time."

"You're going to marry me."

Grateful for the lightened atmosphere, Robyn gave him a mock frown. "Not if you keep ordering me around like that."

"We'll make wine and babies."

"There's a population explosion."

"And you can knit little things."

"I can't knit."

"Then you can
buy
little things. Or you can
sell
little things-like books."

Robyn giggled again and immediately went to him when he smilingly held out his arms. The sense of desperation she had felt for so long was gone now, replaced by the calm determination she had felt earlier. Shane had been right; they would work it out.

He tilted her face up and kissed her. "I have to go take care of some business," he murmured huskily. "Are you going to let me stay here tonight?"

"Let
you?" Robyn's senses whirled dizzily as she gazed into the slumbering passion and love in his eyes. "I may not let you leave in the first place!"

He chuckled softly, his eyes devouring her. "You've gotten tangled up in your own spell, haven't you, witch?"

"Looks that way."
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly, but ended up staying on her toes for some minutes because Shane wanted more than a light kiss. When he finally put her away from him, it was with obvious reluctance.

"If I don't leave right now, I never will," he muttered hoarsely. "And if I don't take care of Mother's business, she'll shoot me."

"You haven't done that
yet?
You mentioned being in Miami because of business a week ago!"

"I've been a bit... distracted."

"Your mother won't believe that."

"She will when she sees you."

Robyn smiled and reached out to trace his bottom lip with one finger. "When are you going to Daytona?"

"We
are going tomorrow. That is, if you can get Janie to run the store for you for another week." When she hesitated, he added quietly. "I need to have you with me, Robyn."

Immediately, she nodded. "I'll call Janie and see what we can work out. You-you will come back here after you've finished with your business?"

"Never doubt it, love." He gave her one last, possessive kiss and quickly strode toward the door. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."

Robyn stood where he'd left her, smiling, until she heard the roar of the Porsche pulling out of the drive. Then she turned slowly, staring appraisingly around the room. Mentally rolling up her sleeves, she briskly got to work.

When George dashed through the open door a few moments later, she was opening the drapes and letting sunlight into the room for the first time in months.
Marty came into the room just as Robyn was throwing a pillow at the cat for sharpening his claws on the couch.

"He got into the kitchen cabinets a few minutes ago," the older woman said disapprovingly.
"Spilled a box of cereal all over the floor."

"He's been a vagabond, Marty; we'll have to teach him some manners," Robyn responded vaguely, retrieving the pillow from the floor and busily plumping it up. "Do we have any packing boxes?"

"In the storage room.
Why?"

Robyn waved a hand at the trophies, plaques, and photographs. "I think it's time this stuff was packed away. Don't you?"

Marty had been watching her rather intently since entering the room, but now she smiled. Apparently going off on a tangent, she murmured, "Does Mr. Shane like baked chicken? I'm fixing it for dinner tonight."

Robyn immediately caught the change in Marty's tone, including the half mocking, semi-formal address, and she knew that the relationship met with Marty's fullest approval. Smiling at the older woman, Robyn laughed. "You know, I haven't the faintest idea whether he likes baked chicken or not!"

By two o'clock Tuesday afternoon, Robyn was busy again - unpacking in a lovely hotel suite less than half a mile from the track in Daytona Beach.

"Why did you tell me to pack lots of jeans?" she asked Shane as he hung up the phone and turned toward her. He'd been talking to Eric, and she hadn't paid any attention to the conversation.

"Because the track's not the cleanest place, and that's where we'll be all week."

Robyn felt a quick stab of panic, but curiosity overrode her instinctive reaction. "Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to learn more about racing than I ever wanted to know?" she asked warily.

Shane leaned over to fish a pair of jeans out of his own suitcase, and he waved them about instructively. "The best cure for a fear is familiarity with the object of that fear," he intoned solemnly.

"Uh huh.
How sure are you of that?"

He sobered abruptly, smiling at her reassuringly.
"Pretty sure.
One of my sisters, Beth, was terrified of horses when she was small. Since the rest of us rode, and we didn't want her to miss out on the experience, we all worked to cure her of it. She didn't know much about horses, so we taught her.
From the basics.
Care and feeding, the different breeds, equipment, and so on.
By the time she finally climbed into the saddle, most of her fear was gone."

"I do ride, by the way," Robyn said, mentally going over his strategy and finding it sound.

"Good. I know some terrific trails. Why are you standing there with that shirt in your hands? Move, woman! We have things to do!"

Robyn gave him a long-suffering look and continued with her unpacking. "We're not on the boat anymore; you can stop ordering me around now."

"I like ordering you around."

"I've noticed."

"If you really don't like it, you can try out one of those karate kicks like you did in the shower this morning."

"That was not a karate kick! I slipped on the damn soap, and you know it."

"Good thing I was there to catch you," he murmured.

Robyn threw a pair of her shorts at him and then dashed into the bathroom with her makeup bag before he could retaliate. Emerging to find him hanging up several of his shirts in the closet, she said, "I wonder if Marty ever found Kris. I wanted to let her know we hadn't drowned, but she wasn't home when I called."

Shane turned from the closet with laughter gleaming in his eyes. "I think you'd better sit down," he warned gravely.

Automatically, she sank down onto the foot of the bed. "Why? Is something going on?"

He appeared to consider the thought. "I would say so.
Definitely."

"Well, what?"

"It's about Kris. And why she wasn't there to answer the phone."

Robyn eyed him suspiciously. "You appear to be hugely enjoying yourself. Why wasn't Kris there to answer the phone?"

"Because she's here."

"In Daytona?" she asked blankly. "Why would she be here?"

Shane smiled gently. "Remember Eric?" he quizzed.

Robyn stared at him for a long moment with slowly widening eyes. "Eric? She's here with Eric?"

"Well, you told me to give him her number. Apparently, they really hit it off."

"If she's here with him, I guess they did." Robyn shook her head dazedly. "Is it serious, do you think?"

"Judging by Eric's voice, it is. I've never heard him sound so happy. There may well be two weddings in the offing."

"They haven't known each other a week!"

"Does that matter?" Shane asked softly.

Looking at the man she had known less than two weeks, Robyn smiled slowly. "No. That doesn't matter at all."

Slightly more than an hour later, Robyn was trying to get straight in her mind the names of the men in Shane's pit crew. There were half a dozen of them, and the only one she could remember was Shorty-who was nearly a head taller than Shane and thin as a rail.

They were all at the track, and Shane was "starting with the basics." After introducing her to the men, he calmly put her behind the wheel of his car, a gleaming Thunderbird, and began explaining all the safety features.

At first nervous, Robyn quickly became interested enough to pay close attention. She was surprised to find that the car was actually much safer than the one she drove to work each morning; but she reminded herself that it was a machine pushed to the highest speeds and structurally strained to the limits on the racetrack.

Still, it was reassuring to find that Shane took safety very seriously. He explained the checklist he went over before each race and briefly touched on the amount of work constantly done on the car to keep it in top shape.

The work was going on as they sat there, and Robyn got out of the car-with a little help from Shane, since the door wouldn't open-and walked around to the open hood to see what was going on. She peered into the car's innards, frowning slightly.

"Routine maintenance."
Shane had come up behind her. "Right now, he's-"

"I know," she said. "He's adjusting the carburetor."

Shane turned her around to face him. "You are the most amazing mixture of ignorance and gold! You've been holding out on me again, haven't you?" he accused softly.

"Not really." She smiled up at him. "I'm an Army brat, remember?
And my father's only offspring.
Naturally, I was given the benefit of his teachings. So I do know one end of a car from the other. As a matter of fact, I can tinker with the best of them."

"Change a tire?"

"Or the oil.
I even overhauled a transmission once."

"Then why am I paying these lazy bums?" Shane sent a mocking glare toward Shorty, still bent under the hood of the T-Bird. "I'll just hire you."

Robyn shook her head as Shorty chuckled softly.
"No way.
I don't know anything about race cars. Besides, I'd ruin my nails."

"Women!"
Shane rolled his eyes heavenward.

"Uh
uh
.
Woman.
Singular."

"I'll go along with that."

Robyn didn't feel the slightest bit of embarrassment as Shane kissed her in front of half a dozen grinning,
coveralled
men. In fact, she returned the embrace with great enthusiasm.

"Hello? Will you look at that? It's indecent!"

With her arms still around Shane's waist, Robyn leaned sideways to peer past him at Kris and Eric, who had just arrived. "Hello. When did you blow into town?" she asked pleasantly.

"Over the weekend," Kris informed her with equal aplomb.

Looking at her cousin's glowing face and Eric's happy smile-and their entwined hands-Robyn lifted an eyebrow. "That was fast work," she commented teasingly. "I've never seen such fatuous expressions in my life!"

"Try looking in a mirror!" Kris retorted.

Robyn kept one arm around Shane's slim waist as he turned to greet the new arrivals. When Eric immediately began talking about some problem with one of Shane's sponsors, Kris took her cousin's hand and drew her a little apart from the hubbub surrounding the car.

"Robyn, you're going to let him race?"

"What choice do I have?" Robyn was watching Shane.

"Are you kidding? Shane adores you; anybody could see that. He'd do anything for you!"

Robyn transferred her gaze to Kris's worried face. "And I'd do anything for him." Her voice was smooth. "I have to let him race, Kris. I have to know that I can take it, that I won't smother him with my own stupid fears."

Kris stared at her for a long silent moment. "And how will Shane feel," she pressed quietly, "when he has to watch you suffer? He won't do it, Robyn. I think he'll quit whether you can take it or not."

Running damp palms down the thighs of her faded jeans, Robyn met Kris's look, telling herself that her cousin was right about one thing: Shane wouldn't let her suffer if he could help it. His love for her made him as protective as her love for him made her. And she thought with remorse of the fear she had put him through because she'd been reluctant to explain her own fears.

"He won't watch me suffer," she told Kris flatly, fierce determination straightening her shoulders.
"Because I
won't
suffer.
I won't do that to myself anymore. I won't do that to us."

"You
could
take the easy route, you know," Kris pointed out.

Robyn sighed. "I've taken the line of least resistance all my life. I think it's time I grew up."