One Track Mind (20 page)

She found Kane in his office, talking spiritedly on the phone. “I know he should be punished, Justin,” he said, “I’m not saying let him off free. But I don’t want to ruin the kid’s life, either.”

He looked up, and Lori knew her expression was stormy. “We have to talk,” she told him. “Right now.”

“Justin, something’s come up,” he said. “We’ll talk later.” He gazed up at her, cocking an eyebrow. “You don’t look happy, babe.”

“I was up in the suite, and that NASCAR representative we met in Illinois was there,” she said from between her teeth. “He was jet-lagged. He let slip that NASCAR’s interested in scheduling some racing here. That they’ve been interested
for some time.
”

“They said they were interested, they didn’t say it was going to happen,” he said with a calm she found infuriating.

“You held out on me,” she accused. “I might have gotten
help from the bank if I’d known NASCAR was interested. But no. You didn’t tell me. Not even in June when you bought it. If I’d hung on just a little while longer—”

“You couldn’t hang on any longer,” he countered. “I repeat—how could I know a NASCAR offer would materialize? The track needed improvements—badly. I could have tried to find investors, but that’s time-consuming. I decided to go it alone.”

“You could have told me the truth,” she accused.

“I didn’t
know
for sure,” he insisted. “I still don’t know. And from the beginning I didn’t know how you’d react to me. I didn’t even know how
I’d
react to this whole deal. I’ll tell you something, Lori. It wasn’t easy coming back here. Never for a minute think it was easy.”

“You wanted to get even with me. You admitted that. Well, I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Part of me did want to pay you back. But once I saw you, I had to forgive you. We were kids.
Kids.
Can’t you forgive me for not telling you about an agreement with NASCAR that wasn’t offered, might never be? What if I told you and it came to nothing? How much would
that
disappoint you? If it happened, I wanted it to be wonderful for you—and me. If it didn’t, I didn’t want you disillusioned.”

“Oh,” she said furiously, “you can talk so fast. You’re such a wheeler-dealer. I wish I…I wish you’d never…I wish…” she burst into tears and covered her face with her hands.

“Lori,” he said gently, “I’ve loved you since I was seventeen years old. Yes, I was arrogant when I came back. Yes, I sent contradictory signals. And no, I didn’t understand my own motives.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. She should have shaken off his touch, but she couldn’t. Her emotions were a maelstrom, spinning wildly.

“But,” he said, “I do love you. I’ll stop trying to change you. I’ll stop trying to test you. And I want to marry you. I said I didn’t want commitments—yet I do. I realized that lying in
the hospital, knowing if that knife had gone an inch deeper into my chest, I could have died. Life is short, too short…

“I can’t stand to lose you again. Coming back like this was awkward. But I had to come back and see. And what I see is that it’s time to get on with the future. We need to put the dark part of the past behind us. So say you’ll marry me. It can be as long an engagement as you want. But I want us to be a couple. For the rest of our lives. And I’ll say that to anybody in the world. You know, there’s still even time for us to try for kids.”

Children?
She felt overwhelmed to the point of weakness. “I thought we were going to take this slowly.”

“Twenty-one years is slow enough,” he said. “If you don’t want an engagement ring, I’ll buy you an engaged-to-be-engaged ring.”

“Maybe I should marry you,” she retorted, giddy and trying not to cry, “just to get the speedway back in the family.”

“If that’s what it takes, I’ll have a deed drawn up tomorrow giving you fifty-one percent interest. The controlling share.”

He meant it. She could tell. “Then consider it a done deal,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “But one more thing. Promise me you won’t have the book thrown at Jimmy Pilgram. There
was
something in him that reminded me of you.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Me, too. Well, you saved me, Lori. And maybe we can help save him. Now come here.”

She leaned against him, her arms around his waist. “I really was upset when I heard that up in the suite,” she said.

“Be quiet, spitfire,” he told her. “And kiss me. Kiss me till both our heads spin. Make this frog feel like a prince again. You did it once. You know you’ve got the power.”

“You’ve always been my prince,” she whispered. “From the moment we first touched.”

She raised herself on tiptoe and kissed him. “Welcome home, your highness,” she whispered against his lips. “Welcome, welcome home.”

ISBN: 978-1-4268-3758-6

ONE TRACK MIND

Copyright © 2009 by Harlequin Books S.A.

Bethany Campbell is acknowledged as the author of this work.

NASCAR® and the NASCAR Library Collection® are registered trademarks of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc.

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

www.eHarlequin.com