Authors: Audra North
This is about him being proud of you.
…
if you’re willing to walk away from this team … pat you on the back.…
Was that true?
Was that what he really wanted?
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Kerri. I-I think I have to go.”
The hurt in her eyes nearly destroyed him.
“Kerri.” He reached for her, but she was already walking away. Her back was already turned, and she was striding toward her car, leaving him behind.
He didn’t go after her.
It was for the best.
He watched as she pulled out of the lot and drove away.
She didn’t look back.
* * *
She should have known that this would happen. In fact, hadn’t she even thought about it, weeks ago, when Ranger had first come crashing into her life?
How could she have been so foolish? It had been too easy, being with Ranger. He’d fallen into her life and made her hope that maybe, finally, she’d found someone who would be there for her when she needed him.
She drove to the track almost without thinking. Her mind was too numb to do anything but put herself on autopilot and just
go
. It wasn’t until she’d arrived at the speedway and suited up that she started feeling more normal. Hopefully she’d be able to focus enough for the race.
When she stepped into the pit, though, Grady took one look her and his brow furrowed in concern. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Fuck.
Last thing she needed was Grady panicking over this just before a race.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
Grady stared at her, and it looked like he was going to drop it, but just as she turned to go get ready for the time trial, he stopped her.
“What did he do to you?”
He didn’t even have to say Ranger’s name and she could already feel the tears collecting behind her eyes. But still she brazened it out. It’s what she’d always done, after all, and it was the easiest thing to fall back on. Talking back, tearing it up—that was what she knew.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
At least this time, Grady had the tact not to mention the waver in her voice. He simply shook his head and frowned. “Be careful out there.”
He was the one to walk away first, heading up the ladder to the top of the booth.
Kerri ruthlessly pushed away the tears. Ranger was gone. There was no use dwelling on it. She didn’t doubt they’d all have to hash things out after the race, figure out what was next for Hart Racing. But right now she had a job to do, and that meant putting her feelings aside and getting the hell out on the track.
As the car pulled up next to Al Colt’s private jet, Ranger wanted to smash something. The entire ride to the airport, he’d fought the feeling that this was wrong, that he shouldn’t be leaving like this.
That maybe he shouldn’t be leaving at all.
He got out of the car and climbed the stairs that were standing open in front of the plane. Did he really want his father’s approval that badly? Enough to turn his back on a promise he had made?
The second he walked through the doorway, he knew.
He didn’t want it enough. Not enough to turn his back on
love
.
He loved Kerri.
Holy fuck.
The realization shook him deep, and he had to pause for a second, trying to understand what the hell was going on. That was it, wasn’t it? All along, he’d been fooling himself. This wasn’t about Hart Racing, not really. This wasn’t about Al. This was about falling in love with a woman who’d had the courage to fight for everything she cared about, to work ceaselessly to make sure that those she loved were taken care of, not about trying to get approval from someone who had never loved him.
“Ranger.” Al looked up, startled.
“Al.” Ranger felt like he was underwater, trying to form words through the pressure of all that liquid flooding his mouth and slowing his speech.
Al frowned, but it wasn’t an angry frown. The older man seemed more … disappointed?
Ranger didn’t move out of the doorway. The flight attendant, a lovely young woman with wavy brown hair and soft brown eyes, stepped forward. “May I take your jacket, Mr. Colt?”
Ranger stared at her.
What?
He was having a hard time processing what she was saying, so he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “That’s my father’s name.”
The pretty young woman blushed and nodded her head. “Of course, sir.” She held out her arms, presumably waiting for his suit jacket, but he shook his head and turned back to Al.
“I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” The disappointment that Ranger had thought he’d seen in Al’s eyes, just a moment ago, was gone. The shrewd, assessing gaze that he always associated with his father was back and it was focused on him.
He thought of all those years that he and his mom had been alone, how hard they had struggled, and how far they had come. And as he stared back at Al, he saw the way his future would unfold if he left now. If he left Kerri behind.
He’d end up just like the man he’d spent his life resenting.
“I can’t go to Paris. I have to stay here. I have to be with Kerri. I refuse to make the same mistake that you did. I will not give up love for money.”
Al nodded. “Good.”
“I don’t care if you don’t give me the promotion. I want Kerri. I need to be with her. I—wait, did you say ‘good’?”
Al’s response had finally sunken in, and Ranger stuttered to a stop, blinking in surprise at his father. For the first time since they’d met each other as two grown men, Al looked away, focusing on something out the plane window.
“I did.”
Well, shit. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Luckily, he didn’t have to think of anything, because Al turned to look at him, his dark eyes exactly like Ranger’s, and gave a wry laugh. “Like you said, I made a mistake.”
Ranger watched the older man take a deep breath before he went on. “I loved your mother. Shit. I still love her. And I was a stupid sack of shit for letting her go.”
Something squeezed in Ranger’s chest. Al? Still loved his mother? Did that mean—? “And what about me? Are you trying to say that you would have kept her around if I hadn’t come into the picture?” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, but he was afraid the words still didn’t come out as he intended. Instead, it sounded almost … desperate.
This is about him being proud of you.
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Al paused, and Ranger could see his father’s throat working. “I never stopped loving you, either. But I never got your mother back. I know that, if I’d been a better husband, she never would have left. And that kills me every single day. At least, though, with you, I was … I was lucky enough to have you come back into my life.”
Lucky enough? What the hell?
“Wait—” Al shook his head. Everything about this felt suddenly wrong. “If you had been a better husband? You think you’re lucky that I came back into your life? But I hate—”
He broke off. He’d been going to say he hated his own father. But now that he was standing here, looking at the man, seeing that sadness creep back into Al’s face and hearing Kerri’s words in his mind, he wasn’t so sure anymore. “What are you saying?”
“I was a fool, Ranger. For letting your mother go without a fight. For trying to punish her for what I saw as a slight against me.”
“What the fuck? You know it was your fault? You let me
hate
you”—this time,he said it, letting the word go with all the pent-up intensity of three decades of pain—“like I’ve never hated anyone in my life, and all of a sudden you’re deciding to go Dr. Phil on me and share?”
Al leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked up at Ranger with the don’t-bullshit-me look that Ranger knew all too well. “You and I both know you wouldn’t have believed me.” He snorted. “If you’d even bothered to listen in the first place.”
Ranger thought about how blind he’d been about Al even up to this morning, when Kerri had said those words—
This is about him being proud of you—
and it had shaken something loose that he hadn’t even realized had been blocking him for so long.
He ran a hand threw his hair and blew out a harsh breath. “Fine,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t have believed you. I would have thought you were trying to manipulate me.”
Al tightened his mouth in a wry smile. “And now?”
“I still think you’re trying to manipulate me.” Ranger couldn’t help but grin at the look on Al’s face. “But it might be for the right reasons. Frankly, I don’t know you well enough to be sure. What you’re telling me, well … Mom always said that you didn’t love her. That you didn’t care.”
“It probably seemed that way, yeah. I was awful.” Al opened his hands in a small shrug, then let them fall together again. “She left me because I worked all the time. I never spent time with her, even when she told me it was all she wanted. The week before our third anniversary, she said if it kept up, she’d leave me and she’d take you with her. I was so used to buying my way through problems that instead of cancelling a business trip that didn’t even matter, I bought her a new car.”
He gave a wry smile. “She packed that car and drove it back to her parents’ house in Tennessee. When I came home, she was gone. No trace of either of you. She left a note, but I didn’t see it for what it was—a plea for me to see sense. A final chance, for real. Instead, I got angry that I had failed, though I didn’t realize at the time that it was disappointment in
me
and not her that was fueling my anger. I called her and told her that I wouldn’t come after her and take you if she agreed not to push me for child support.”
Ranger blinked. “That’s—”
“Despicable. I know. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to apologize. I kept meaning to. But every year, it got worse. I became convinced that I wouldn’t be able to go back, that the chance was smaller every time. But really I was just scared that she would reject me. Even if she had, I should have gone to her.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I didn’t realize … I didn’t know how bad things were for you guys—with money, I mean. Your gran and pops had always done all right and I thought you’d be okay. I never would have handed her an agreement like that if I’d known…”
He trailed off, shaking his head. “I know it’s no excuse. But I wouldn’t have let you suffer like that if I’d known. I would have at least made sure you had enough food to eat and clothes to—”
“If you didn’t know then, when did you find out? And how?” Ranger was baffled. He’d never talked to Al about this stuff.
“Your aunt called me up the day after you graduated college and laid into me something fierce. Said she’d promised your mom all those years that she’d stay quiet, but as soon as you started being the one to support your mother, and not the other way around, she figured enough was enough. She told me—” He stopped, swallowed hard, and took a deep breath before continuing. “She told me all the ways in which I’d failed you, and that I could never make it up to you or your mother for what I’d done.”
“And somehow that made you want to meddle in my life now?”
Al chuckled. “Yes, as a matter of fact. It did. I agree that I can never make it up to you, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t bother to try. I’ve been watching you and Kerri in the news and been talking to Bit, who said you’d fallen hard for her but hadn’t realized it yet. I figured I’d come out and give you a little push.”
“Bit told you? You paid him to spy on me?”
His dad scowled. “Bit did it because he cares about you as much as I do. Haven’t you ever wondered what my connection is to racing? Why I bothered to get in with Hart?”
Yes. He had wondered, but he’d just assumed Al wanted to punish him by choosing a sport that Ranger was prejudiced against. That he’d thought was stupid and foolish, for stupid and foolish people.
He’d been so wrong.
“I knew Jim Hart—Kerri’s dad—back in the day. We grew up together. Bit was a guy from our town, a little older, who tolerated two little kids hanging out, pestering him about cars. When I moved away at fourteen, I left behind a whole lot of memories. Good memories. Jim came from good stock and he was a nice man. I wanted to help his company after he died, so I made an offer.”
“But Kerri said they turned it down because you told her to wear makeup and look sexy. What was that about?”
Al waved his hand in the air to dismiss that. “I just said that when I realized they needed more than just a sponsor. Those kids and Nancy were still too raw from Jim’s death. They needed to throw themselves into racing in a way to get over it, not to drift away. Kerri was dating that good-for-nothing, Earl … it would have been a fucking mess if I’d gone in there then. I upped the stakes, told Kerri to sex herself up because I knew it would make her turn down the deal. But when you came back, looking for a promotion, I guess I felt like I had a chance to give you something that I destroyed for myself.”
“You mean you knew that I would fall for Kerri?”
Al was silent for a second, then let out a loud, guttural laugh. “Oh, shit, Ranger. No. Hell, no! I think I’ve already proven that my head is for business, not that love stuff.” Al snorted, but Ranger didn’t miss the regret in his father’s eyes. “I meant that I wanted to give you a chance to see what real success looks like. Not just money, but being on a team. Being part of something where everyone works together. Everyone looks out for one another. I grew up with that, and I knew Bit was that kind of people. I failed at keeping that alive when I went out on my own, and that’s what I wanted to give to you. You and Kerri … well, that was all your doing, son.”
For the first time in his life, Ranger found he didn’t mind so much that Al called him that.
Son.
It made him feel like he was a part of something that felt uncannily like
success
.
Al chuckled. “I tried not to call and check up on you, but I wanted to know if you were actually spending time with those guys. Letting their priorities become yours. I know you didn’t like it, but I wasn’t doing it to make you angry or to try to sabotage the deal. I wanted you to benefit from my mistakes.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, that’s not to say that I’m not glad about you and Kerri getting together. She’s a smart little thing and stubborn as hell. You met your match in that one.”