Stick Shift (18 page)
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Snatching them up, she tried to tamp down the always present, always insistent arousal for Cam. Sh— “What do you have there?”
Damn. She hadn't heard Alli come outside. “Uh, nothing. Just cleaning up out here.”
“Uh-huh. Liar.”
“Oh shut up.”
“Had some outdoor sex with Cam? Is Candi gonna have to wash the chair cushions? Are we going to want to eat off the table again?”
Lily tried not to laugh but couldn't help it. The images Alli's questions painted were quite funny. “No. I already disinfected everything,” she said, walking past her friend and back into the house, her panties stuffed securely in the front pocket of her jeans.
* * *
He was going to have to go after her. She'd been talking about being a distraction last night, and he'd just thought it was adrenaline and a bit of fear from the wreck that had her thinking that way. Evidently there was more to it.
He didn't know what had made her run, but he would be going after her as soon as he could get away. He'd have to get Alli to give him Lily's address in Florida, and he'd have to get back in time to leave town for California.
When the doorbell rang just as he'd picked up his cell again, this time to call Alli, he took the stairs at a run to the front door. He couldn't believe who stood on the other side of the threshold. “Jake? What the hell are you doing here?”
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“I came to apologize, Cam. May I come in?”
No. “Sure. I don't have a lot of time, but I have a few minutes.” And I'd really like to deck the shit out of you. He'd hear him out though. Jake was a legend in the sport, and he'd been a phenom early in his career just like Cam. The last few years had been rough for Jake. He'd become almost laughable because he hardly ever finished races nowadays.
He shut the door behind Jake after welcoming him inside. They each took a seat in the living room, facing one another in opposite chairs. The silence was awkward, and Cam wondered if he needed to start the conversation, but he honestly wasn't sure what to say. The longer he looked at Jake, the more his irritation and anger fell away, and sympathy, maybe even some pity, set in. Jake was a former champion three times over, and Cam had always had great respect for him.
“Jake…”
Jake sat up on the edge of his chair with his hands hanging between his knees.
He shook his head and looked up at Cam with a rueful smile.
“I'm sorry, Cam. I took some chances in the last couple of races and put both of us in danger.”
“I don't know if I'd call what you did taking chances, but thanks for the apology.”
“Maybe not from where you sit. I know, I used to sit in the same place. I was young and cocky and full of all the drive and ambition that you are. I've been at the beginning of a career with more talent in my pinkie finger than most of the others on the track have in their whole bodies.
“And now I'm sitting where you will be in twenty years or so. I'm at the end. I can't get a decent ride to save my life, and I do good just to qualify in the cars I can get. The last few years have been humbling and even humiliating at times.”
Cam nodded. He'd watched his hero fall from grace just because of a few bad seasons. He had been guilty of mocking Jake and at the moment, didn't feel too good about that. Jake was right. Cam would be there one day too when the young, up-135
and-coming drivers would take his place, when he'd lose his edge. And with those thoughts came thoughts of Lily, of her being beside him when his career came to a screeching halt. It would still be hard when the time came, but if he had her in his life… “I don't know what to say.”
“I don't expect you to say anything. I'm still proud and cocky as shit, but you deserved an apology for what's been happening on the track. Part of it was not having the car for the kind of driving I think I can still do, and part of it was jealousy that you're where I still want to be.”
Cam couldn't have been more surprised. He wasn't sure what he'd thought Jake would say, but that wasn't it. Last night and last week, Cam had been ready to go at it with the older man off the track, but now his respect for Jake grew, and he wished he knew how he could help him.
“You're the only one who will know this before the end of the season, Cam, but I'm retiring. This is it for me. I just can't keep wasting my time, and that's what it feels like now. I want to win more than you could possibly imagine, just one more time, but I know if I won again, I'd want to keep winning, keep trying. It's time for me to move on to the next thing in my life.”
“What are you going to do?”
Jake shrugged. “I've been offered a commentator position for part of the season by one of the networks, but I really don't know. I can't walk away completely.
Racing is a part of me, it's in my blood, but I think it's time I get out of the car.”
“I'm sorry, man. Really.” And he was. Cam knew Jake had given everything to his career, married more to it than to his wives. Cam didn't want to end up like that, divorced multiple times and alone. His life was racing; at the same time though, there was more to life than racing. There needed to be a balance between his personal life and his professional life. Until Jake had come to see him, Cam hadn't really put it all together in quite that way. “I won't tell anyone what you told me. Is there anything I can do?”
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“I don't know, but if there is, I'll let you know.” Jake stood and Cam stood as well. “And thanks. I appreciate you keeping this between us. There's too much racing left this season, and I want to finish it out.”
“I understand, Jake.” And he did. He walked Jake to the door, then watched as he drove off. His need to find Lily, to talk to her was no less urgent than it had been before Jake had shown up. He'd been given a lot to think about, and he knew without a doubt now that he needed to tell Lily what and how he was feeling. He couldn't let it go unsaid any longer.
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The short twenty-minute drive from the small airport in Tallahassee to the street Lily lived on took less time than Cam had anticipated, but the sooner he got to see her, the better. He didn't like not talking to her, not being able to get in touch with her, not being able to touch her. He was tired, irritable, and horny. Horny seemed to reign most of the time, but tired and irritable fought for second place constantly. Around her, he felt settled, calm, and that damn word, “focused.”
There was a balance he was missing—a balance between his incessant need to be with Lily and his drive to be in the car racing for a black-and-white-checkered flag. Both those hungers wanted to come first, and he knew she'd only been trying to help relieve some of the pressure by leaving. It hadn't helped, though. It'd only made it worse. He wished he'd met her in the off-season, but he hadn't, and somehow someway, he had to get a grip on it all here in the middle of the season or he was going to lose both. He couldn't stomach the thought.
He couldn't wait to take her back home to meet his parents. He'd been so excited he'd met “the one,” she was all he could think about in the short amount of time he'd had with her in North Carolina. Ronnie thought she was a distraction to him, and maybe she had been, through no fault of her own, but the loss of attention to what was going on around him was worse now that she'd left. Maybe he had lost some of his focus because he was trying to keep her, trying to convince her they belonged together by spending as much time as he could with her, in and out of bed.
It seemed to have somewhat backfired. She hadn't left him because she didn't want him or didn't love him. He knew without a doubt in his mind that she did love him. She left because she hadn't wanted to get in the way or take his attention 138
away from the track. The other drivers did it—had wives, kids, special events all the time. If they could do it, he could too. He just had to make sure she knew that he was better off with her. His focus was solid when she was near and had gone all to hell when she'd left without a word.
Alli had said Lily's house was the fifth one on the left, and after counting down the houses, he found it and pulled in the drive. It was a small bungalow-style house, older and very quaint. The outside fit the woman who lived there more so than his big monstrosity fit either of them.
He glanced at the clock on the dash of the rental car. It wasn't all that late, and hopefully she'd still be awake. He'd taken the first flight he could out of the small airport near the race shop. He couldn't go to another race without her, couldn't go another night sleeping alone.
He picked up the box from the passenger seat, unfolded his long body from the car, and shut the door. The inside of the house was dark, and he took a deep breath before pressing the small lit button beside the door.
* * *
She wasn't expecting anyone, and she didn't even realize her neighbors knew she was home. She'd kept to herself most of the day and standing out on her patio right then was the first time she'd been outside. The insistence of the doorbell was going to keep her from staying there, staring up at the stars, being reminded of the night on Candi's deck with Cam.
Lily sighed and headed inside. She'd made her choice, and she couldn't start regretting it yet. It was still too fresh, the feel of him inside her still too close. She'd regret the decision to leave him later.
She turned the lock and opened the door. “Cam?” She blinked a few times, certain her eyes were deceiving her. He was still there. “Cam?” she said again.
“You left me.”
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He walked into her house as though he owned it. What was he doing there?
And why did he look so damned good? His jaw was shadowed from not having been shaved recently, and he looked tired, on edge. She'd been gone, what? A day?
His scuffed cowboy boots, faded jeans, and an untucked white button-down shirt made her drool.
She nodded to the box in his hands. “What's that?” Neutral territory, she figured. Take the focus off her for a second until she could get her brain to register with the rest of her that Cam Carter was actually standing in her living room looking better than she remembered, and she'd remembered in really vivid detail.
He set the box down on the couch and then faced her with his hands on his hips. “Don't try to change the subject. You left me. Why?”
Slowly, she dragged her gaze away from his hands, away from the long, strong fingers she remembered touching every inch of her skin. Inside and out. His mouth was set in a firm, unsmiling line, and his eyes were narrow in her direction. She didn't like that look. “I thought it would be best.”
“Best?”
“Yes. I was just trying to do the right thing, Cam.”
“For who? You?”
“No, of course not for me. For you.”
“For me? If you were trying to do the best thing or the right thing for me, you'd have stayed with me instead of leaving town. You'd have talked to me, told me what you were thinking about doing. Dammit, Lily. You are what's best for me.”
“Cam…” She wanted to reach out to him, touch him, hold him. Hell, she wanted to strip naked and then strip him naked. She wanted him to take her on the couch, on the floor, in her bed—she didn't care where. Her body missed him, her heart missed him, and it was taking everything she had to stay plastered against the panel of the front door.
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“No, I'm not here to listen to it. We've talked about age and fame, so those aren't it. I don't know what it is, and frankly, I don't care anymore. I want you. Did you think that not talking to you, not seeing you, not having you in bed with me would change that? “
He'd taken one step after another as he talked, until he was standing in front of her, so close she could feel his breath against her hair. She stared at a button on his shirt and refused to look up. If she did, she'd be lost. She might be older than him and she might not be famous like him, but she was every inch a woman who wanted him, who needed him. She'd been freakin' damn miserable without him for all of a damn day. She didn't want to find out how she'd feel without him for a week, a month, a year.
“I don't need you to run from me or to run away because you're trying to protect me. I don't need protection. I don't need a mother, Lily. I've got one. I need you. You are the one who gives me peace and eases me.”
“Cam…” Her heart ached for him. She had been trying to protect him.
“I was trying so hard to make you see how much you needed me, how much you wanted me, so that you wouldn't leave. I didn't take into account how much I would need you, because I didn't think for a moment that you'd actually go.
Whatever problems I'm having on the track are not your fault. Not in the way everyone thinks, at least. I don't know how to balance the two things I want most in life when I want to be doing both at the same time. I need you for that. I need you to help me figure it out. I need you to be the haven, the calm.”
She had no idea what to say. Tears formed in her eyes and slid down her cheeks at his words. Rehearsed they might have been, but she knew they were no less sincere for it. The button she'd been staring at was suddenly very blurry.