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People dealt with heart attacks every day. This was normal. But she didn’t want this normal. She wanted the normal that had always been just outside her grasp. She shook her head, sitting up.
Anger came quickly on the heels of her panic. And she hated that about herself. She hadn’t been angry at the track when Dave had crashed, but now she was angry at her father. Daddy’s last two physical exams had revealed hardened arteries and the doctors had advised him to change his diet and lifestyle, but the old man hadn’t. He refused to let someone else tell him how to live.
He’d survived too many crashes and had some kind of belief that he was invincible. She glanced at Jared, who was watching her in the interior of the car. Only the lights of the dashboard illuminated the both of them.
He raised one eyebrow at her and she realized some of that irrational anger must be visible in her expression. She buried her face in her hands and shook her head. She felt tears stinging the back of her eyes.
“Annie, what can I do?” he asked.
She didn’t know. Honestly, she had no idea what anyone could do. She’d never had a day like this before. Of course, there’d been close calls before. Over the course of her life she’d spent many hours in ICU waiting rooms, hoping and praying that her father or brother would recover. But this was different. This wasn’t a crazy crash. This was his body telling him to change.
And her father had never listened to anyone. He was stubborn and bullheaded just like Dave. She lowered her hands and looked at this man she barely knew. This man she wanted to get to know better, but not this way. Not when she was feeling so raw and exposed. She shook her head and he didn’t say anything else, he just maneuvered the car back out on the road, driving her to the hospital.
When they arrived she noticed a news van parked in front of the E.R. entrance and could see already that some reporters were inside with their camera crews.
“Can’t they leave us alone?” she asked.
“Annie, the Jenner family is big news in Daytona, especially on race day.”
She knew that. “Please come in with me?”
“I’ll be right beside you, I promise.”
JARED WASN’T SURE how he’d be welcomed by the Jenner clan. Her brother had warned her off him and this really wasn’t the time to try and make new friends. But Annie was asking him to go with her. And he found that he didn’t want to deny her.
He nodded.
He turned the car off and got out. She hesitated in front of the Aston Martin. Just stood there staring at the hospital, saying nothing.
He could clearly remember his own father’s heart attack. He’d gotten a call in the early morning hours from his mother. By the time they’d arrived at the hospital his father had passed.
He knew exactly what held Annie in that spot in front of his car. He’d blithely entered the hospital. He had tucked his mother’s small hand under his arm, confident that his father was going to be okay. Because his father had always been bigger than life and the MacNeil clan was always unstoppable. In business they were un-rivaled and in life his father had always been invincible.
But that early morning Benjamin MacNeil had lost his super powers. And Jared had realized how human his father had been, how unpredictable life could be. He’d started moving on that day. Always staying busy so that he wouldn’t have to slow down and feel the grief. He didn’t want to feel anything really?he’d watched his mother shatter and knew he’d never wanted to end up that way.
He didn’t think that Annie was ready for that lesson. Ready to learn that the legend who was her father, the legend who’d escaped several serious crashes on the track, might be laid low by a heart attack.
Jared came up next to Annie and waited. They weren’t a couple, not really. They’d tentatively agreed to start dating but that still left him unsure of what to do here.
She didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and he thought that maybe she was frozen in that moment where if you didn’t move forward nothing worse could happen.
If she had been his, he’d wrap his arms around her and hold her tight. But she wasn’t.
“Let’s go in,” he said.
In the lobby they walked right by the media, who were all asking questions.
Jared held up his hand, stopping to talk to them while Annie kept going to the information desk.
Carl Winnly approached as Annie disappeared down the hall.
“Why are you here?” the reporter asked.
“To give my support to the Jenner family,” Jared replied, hoping that Carl would take his words at face value. NASCAR was a tight community and when something like this happened to one of their own, they would all rally around the Jenner family.
