But Elec and Tammy were beaming at each other, and he wished them happy.
Having her stand with him at driver’s intro was a good strategy. It was a gauge of how serious a driver was about his girlfriend. She only walked across that stage with him if she was around for the long haul, and for Tammy to choose today, of all days, to walk and wave with Elec, was good timing. It would show they were standing tall in the face of what would ultimately turn out to be just false accusations.
When the dust settled and the blonde was proven to be a liar, Elec would be in a better position with his image than he had been before. He’d be seen as decent, hardworking, a family man taking on a couple of kids that weren’t his, all at the somewhat tender age of twenty-five.
And what would Ryder be doing?
He’d be winning races.
TAMARA tried not to squirm as Hunter bounced in her seat and told her grandfather, “Elec made a fire and we roasted marshmallows. He helped us catch fireflies. And look, did you see that? He just moved into tenth place. Bet he wins. He’s an amazing driver.”
It seemed that since Hunter had been given the green light to talk about Elec, she was trying to make up for lost time. She had peppered Johnny with Elec stories all day, and Tamara was just waiting for her father-in-law to blow. Even Petey, who usually paid more attention to what was going in his mouth than the race, kept making comments about Elec’s driving.
“Mom, can we fly back home with Elec?” Petey asked.
That was the last straw for Johnny. Tamara saw his jaw lock and she hastily stood up.
“Let’s go for a walk, guys. I could use a little snack. Are you hungry?”
“Yeah,” Petey said immediately, which she knew he would. He was always hungry.
“Okay,” Hunter said.
“We’ll be back,” Tamara said with a smile at Johnny, who ignored her. Beth shrugged her shoulders and gave her a sympathetic look.
She had her hands filled with popcorn and hot dogs and soft drinks when her cell phone rang. Passing most of the food off to the kids, she pulled out her phone and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Tamara, it’s Elliot, Elec’s father. My wife and I heard you have your kids here at the track and we were hoping you could drop by the suite with them so we could meet them since they are going to be our step-grandchildren.”
Touched by the gesture, Tamara said, “Sure. We’re at the snack bar right now. When they’re done eating, I can bring them by.”
“Oh, bring the munchies with you. That way they can sit down and eat.”
“Okay, great, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Tamara hung up and looked at her kids. “We’re going over to meet Elec’s parents. Best manners, okay?” She hadn’t told them yet that she and Elec were getting married. She had wanted a private moment with them to discuss it and she hadn’t had one yet. She would have to pull Elec’s parents aside and give them the heads-up not to say anything just yet.
When they got to the suite, Hunter was true to form, marching in and settling herself outside the box with the best view of the track, inviting Elliot to join her. Petey hung back munching on his hot dog and running his fingers along the impressive selection of soft drinks sitting on the bar.
Kathy, Elec’s mom, gave Tamara a big hug. “I knew you were something special weeks ago when he was mooning over you,” she said with a smile.
“He was mooning over me?” That was awfully nice to know.
“Oh, yeah. He went around and around on whether or not he should stop by when your kids had the chicken pox. Took him the better part of an hour and lots of coaxing from me to decide to go for it.”
Now that was just damn cute to know Elec had put that much thought into it. “Well, thank you. And while I have a quick second, I just wanted you to know that Elec just proposed to me, but my kids don’t know yet, so if you could not mention it in front of them for a few days, I’d appreciate it. I need to tell them alone.”
“Of course, sweetie. I understand. And then I can’t wait to dive into wedding plans with you. Where is your mother?”
“She’s in Seattle.” And needless to say, when Tamara had called her the night before, she had been stunned to hear her daughter was marrying yet another race car driver. “She only gets out here about once a year.”
Kathy opened her mouth to say something but stopped short when they heard a shriek from the seats by the track. Tamara didn’t wait to turn all the way around before she was running. That was Hunter and that had been a bloodcurdling scream of terror.
“What? What is it?” she said, frantically moving toward her daughter and expecting blood, a broken arm, something.
Elliot was already carrying a white-faced Hunter into the suite on his hip. “Turn up the TV,” he demanded. “Elec got caught in a pileup.”
Tamara felt the fear for her daughter shift to Elec. Oh, Lord.
Elec’s uncle had the remote and he turned the volume up while she prayed it was just a dustup, nothing serious. But she knew it had to be, given Hunter’s scream of terror. Hunter was a race fan. She knew all about bumps and spinouts and they wouldn’t upset her.
“Wow, what happened there, Rick?” the announcer said. “Let’s get a rollback on that clip.”
It happened so fast, that Tamara had a hard time following which car was which. She spotted Elec’s 56 car and tracked it as one car bumped another and they spun out, hitting a third car. The hood of the first car collided with Elec, who was trying to avoid the wreck on the apron, and in a split second his car went from in control to a full-out roll into the grass.
He turned twice before coming to a stop right side up, engine dead. The caution flag went up, and the announcers started the clip all over again as they dissected what had happened.
She didn’t care what had happened. She did not give a damn who did what and why. All she cared about was that the man she loved was in that smashed car and she wasn’t sure she could survive losing him when she had just found him.
“It looked to me like the lead car started out slow when they lifted the caution flag, and when you have all these cars sitting in tenth, eleventh, twelfth place, they jam up on top of each other when they can’t get enough speed. Wow, what an accident for the fifty-six car.
Let’s hope rookie Elec Monroe is okay. They’ve had no radio contact with him but they’re pulling him out of the car now.”
There was bile in Tamara’s throat and she struggled against the need to throw up.