AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s what dad is always telling me,” Dave said. Then he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “I want to talk to you about Jared MacNeil.”
“What about him?” she asked.
“What were you and he talking about before?” Dave asked, doing his protective older brother routine.
“Nothing,” she said.
“You looked pretty close for nothing.”
“Dave, I’m twenty-eight.”
“I’m aware of how old you are. I just want to know what’s up with you and that man.”
“We’re having dinner. That’s all. End of story.”
Dave cursed under his breath and she didn’t have to guess at why. Her brother had been completely snowed by Malcolm, her ex-husband. The entire family had bought in to his easygoing charm and it had taken them a long time to come around to listening to her when she’d said he was rotten to the core.
“I don’t want to see you get in over your head,” Dave said.
“Ah, Dave, you’re a sweetie for worrying, but this isn’t any big thing. Just dinner.”
Dave ran his hand over his jaw and cracked his neck. “I just don’t want to see you make another mistake.”
Her, either. This was another reason why she’d busied herself with her job at Sports Illustrated. Here in the world she’d grown up in she was surrounded by family and friends that wanted to put her in some kind of protective bubble wrap. “I’ll be okay. Have you heard anything bad about him?”
Dave shrugged and then pushed to his feet. “He’s good friends with Tucker Aldridge. That says it all as far as I’m concerned.”
“You are rivals on the track?that doesn’t make either man a bad one off the track,” she pointed out, knowing that Dave normally got along with everyone. His reputation wasn’t a false one. He was a gentleman, even to those ladies he ran through like the high-speed driver he was.
“Why him?” Dave asked.
She glanced at her brother, trying to really see if this was a sticking point for him, if he was really upset that she was going on a date with someone from another racing team.
But in his eyes she saw only that brotherly concern.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I kind of like Jared. I don’t know Tucker, what’s he like?”
“He needles me. I can’t put my finger on why exactly,” Dave said.
“Tucker is a good driver,” she said, stating something that her brother could respect.
“I know. Some say better than me.”
She gave him a smile. “Better than a Jenner?no way.”
He reached out and tugged on her hair, something he’d started doing when they were teenagers and his friends had needled him for hugging her. She knew the gesture meant I love you. She reached out and rubbed his neck as her return gesture.
“I’m still not sure about Jared. He’s not like us. He grew up in a family of socialites. I think he knows the Hilton sisters.”
“That’s not a crime, you know.”
“Yes, I know. All I know is that he seems to keep people at a distance. You need someone who’ll?”
“Don’t, Dave. Don’t try to tell me what I need. Because I’m not sure that either of us really knows.”
ANNIE LEFT the after-race party well before it was over. She wandered around the empty condo with time to spare before her date with Jared. She didn’t want to think about him or their date.
Grabbing her Nikon she took out the memory stick and downloaded the photos she’d taken at the track today. As the images flashed on her computer she tried to stay detached. Tried to be a photographer dispassionately viewing her subjects, but she couldn’t be.
The crash looked even worse in still-frame. It was amazing to her that both drivers had walked away. She changed her view from single-photo to proof-sheet and started marking notes on which pictures she wanted to submit for the book on Dave’s year.
She enlarged a photo she’d snapped of her parents and noticed for the first time how tired her father looked. She leaned closer to the screen but knew that photos didn’t lie. They showed the unvarnished truth about a subject and the viewers had to decide if they were going to believe it or not.
She’d always just seen the masculine beauty of Malcolm and had fooled herself into missing the vacuous expression in his eyes.
The doorbell rang. She left her laptop on the breakfast-bar counter and walked through the open room to the front door. The condo was typical of Florida. Open spaces with large windows that overlooked the ocean and clean white walls. This condo was owned by one of her relatives and had photos of the ocean on the wall that Annie had taken over the years.
