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  Whip shook his head, frustration etched in the grooves around his eyes, his hair catching the collar of his shirt. “Whatever it was sent my dad into his last spiral. I’m not saying it was anyone’s fault but his own. I just want to know what happened to put him there.”

  “Even if you find out,” Eddie assured him, seeing too much guilt on the younger man’s face, “it doesn’t mean you could’ve put a stop to your dad’s fall.”

  “I can accept that. I have a harder time accepting there’s a puzzle piece I might never find.”

  Eddie had sworn that he’d never press his father for the truth, that Jeb would have to make that move on his own.

  But Eddie had never considered that Whip had suffered collateral damage, too. They were the two left hurting. He wasn’t going to make any promises, but helping Whip find closure wouldn’t kill him.

  Especially since the look on his daughter’s face said she was up to her eyeballs involved. “If Jeb gets a hair and starts spilling his guts I’ll definitely let you know.”

  “That’s good enough. Thank you, sir.”

  He slapped Whip on the shoulder. “Just Eddie. No sir required.”

  “Thank you, Eddie.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.” Cardin rubbed his arm, then raised up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said, before leaning close and whispering for her hearing alone, “But I’m still gonna hurt him bad if he breaks your heart.”

  Before Cardin had time to respond, Eddie heard Whip clear his throat. “Listen, Eddie. Do you think Cardin and I could talk to you and Mrs. Worth tonight? At Headlights? I can be there by the time Cardin gets off work.”

  Eddie didn’t have to see the color rise in Cardin’s face to know what was going on. And what was going on was something he wasn’t happy about at all. At least he had a good twelve hours warning. “Sure. We’ll be there.”

  And before anyone else said anything else to ruin the rest of his day, he climbed into his Charger and left.

  11

  “WHAT IN THE WORLD did you just do?”

  As Cardin’s father’s car disappeared in a plume of gravel dust and exhaust, Trey put his coffee cup next to the box of pastries on the hood of her grandfather’s truck and headed back to the barn.

  He left her with a grin he was certain would rile her further. “Hey, if we’re going to be engaged, we’re going to have to tell people. The sooner the better, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t you think for something as important as announcing our engagement you might have checked with me first?” she called from behind him.

  “I thought we were on the same page here.” Though the one he’d just turned told Trey to seal this deal now—before her father made sure it never happened, and he never learned anything about the fight.

  “We are on the same page” came her voice from farther away than before. “Though you’re obviously reading faster than I am.”

  “I figured you’d like a husband who stayed one step ahead of you.” He picked up the rusted pump he’d dropped earlier and walked into the barn.

  Her feet scuffed over the hard-packed earth as she hurried to catch him. “Not if it means I have to walk one step behind.”

  “And all this time I thought that’s where a woman’s place was.”

  “Only if you’re of the male chauvinist persuasion,” she said, following him into the darkness of the barn.

  He stopped, turned, and caught her before she slammed into him. “Hey, I’ve been out of the relationship game for a while. In fact, the longest one I’ve had has been with Butch and the guys.”

  “That scares me.”

  Trey laughed. He loved discovering that she was a good sport, that she had a sense of humor. That her mind was as incredible as her mouth. “This is probably a good time to finishing getting our story straight.”

  “Right,” she said, swatting away a dust web. “Don’t want to get caught in a lie before we even get this thing off the ground.”

  He figured she would see things his way. “Okay then,” he began, crossing his arms as he leaned against the workbench he’d been cleaning off earlier. “Last year when I was here for the Farron Fuels, did you show up for the race? Could we have got together then?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s always been a huge family affair. Up until now anyway. Last year Eddie and my mother were still living together, and he and Jeb weren’t at odds.”

  And then came the fight that nobody seemed to know anything about, because the only one alive who did wasn’t talking. “Your dad looks like he’s getting around pretty good. How bad is his leg?”

  From the workbench, Cardin picked up a baseball in one hand, and a conch shell Trey had never seen in the other. “Bad enough that he can’t drive for Jeb anymore.”

  “And that’s a strain between them?”

  “It shouldn’t be. Jeb should be happy that his son has two working legs, not out of sorts because Eddie’s bad one keeps him from racing.”

  Trey took the conch shell from her hand, tossing it into the burn barrel. “Wonder why Jeb never raced himself.”

  “Same reason he never became a lawman.” She popped the baseball up and down in her palm. “The shrapnel he took in Korea. He has to be able to sit or move when he needs to.”

  “Too bad. Dahlia could’ve benefited being served by someone like Jeb, instead of Henry Buell.”

  “That, too, but I was thinking his own injury should make him more sympathetic to Eddie’s situation.”

  Trey snagged the baseball midair. “Yeah, but parents tend to be harder on their kids when it comes to flaws they see in themselves.”

  “That would make sense if this was about his beating his wife and kicking the dog,” she argued, her frustration evident. “Eddie couldn’t help what happened to him anymore than Jeb could. In fact, if Eddie hadn’t stepped in, Jeb might’ve been the one to…uh, take the fall.”

  “Been the one my father clocked, you mean,” Trey said, striving for neutrality and hoping she would understand—and forgive—any anger that slipped through.

  Her only response was to nod. “I know it was an accident. Everyone says it was. Even Eddie. I don’t blame your father. But like you, I guess, it would be nice to know what happened. To make sense of it all. Because having my family fall apart doesn’t make a lick of it.”

  Trey took a deep breath, letting the baseball roll down the workbench and off the end to the ground. “What about with your mother? What happened between Eddie and Delta?”

  “I don’t even know really, though I’d say it started with communication. They stopped talking. Or when they did talk, it was nothing but Delta bitching, or Eddie being a dick.”

  Trey smiled to himself. “Not particularly conducive to a good relationship.”

  “Of any sort. Parent to child, me being the child. Employer to employee, me being the employee. Even their friends have been steering clear.”

  “Then we’ll have to make communication a number one priority. We don’t want that happening to us.”

  Cardin snorted, then laughed as she grabbed up the baseball and lobbed it at him. “You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”

  He tossed it back. “Are you kidding? After last night?”

  This time she blushed, running her thumb over the stitching that had faded from red to brown. “Speaking of which, I’d like to know how you expect me to sit and talk to my parents about us getting married after…all of that.”

  All of that. It made him laugh. “You think we wouldn’t have slept together by now if we were really getting married? That you wouldn’t be seeing your parents with them knowing that?”

  “Well, no,” she said, hesitating as if she hadn’t given it much thought.

  He was beginning to wonder if she’d given any thought at all to this plan. “Are you sure you’re up to playing this part?”

  “It’s either play this one or go on playing daughter on the verge of a nerv
ous breakdown.”

  “And you don’t want to do that anymore, right?”

  “If I have to do it another day, I’m going to go insane.” She pitched the baseball into the trash; the barrel rang when it hit. “You saw Eddie this morning. Mr. Mood Swing himself.”

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her close to his body. “Then maybe we should run some lines. Or block some action. Whatever will help you get into the role.”

  “I thought we were supposed to be cleaning out the barn,” she said, though she did slide her hands around his neck and lace her fingers there.

  He slipped his fingers into the waistband of her jeans and beneath the elastic of her bikini panties. “It’s probably a good time for a break.”

  She wiggled against him, faking a frown. “A break. We haven’t even done any work yet. At this rate, you won’t finish up in time to get back with your team this year.”

  “Then I hope you’re ready for a long engagement,” he said, cutting off any reply she would have made with a kiss.

  She squirmed beneath his questing, greedy hands, her body pressing fully against him bringing his to life in a heartbeat. Touching her made him hard. His tongue in her mouth made him hard. Hell, just thinking about her made him stiffen like a fossilized tree trunk.

  Such had been the case for more years than he could remember, even before Tater’s party. His holding her there against the wall and breathing her in had just been the icing on that cake.

  She moved her hands to his face, holding him while she caught and tugged at his lower lip, biting him gently, groaning as she did. He groaned as well, tucking her hips into his, showing her how powerfully crazy he wanted her.

  And it seemed she wanted him, too, parting the two sides of his shirt and burying her face against his chest. She licked, she kissed, she nipped softly. He swallowed hard, and stopped her from doing anything more, holding the both of them still while he found his control. And then he swept her up in his arms. She gasped, and then she giggled.

  She was still giggling three minutes later when he kicked open the front door and tumbled with her to the sleeping bags stacked together on the floor.

  This time they only bothered getting rid of their pants. Trey worked his down to his ankles. Cardin pulled just one leg free from hers, and then he was sheathed and inside of her, riding her, grinding against her without either one of them saying a word. Their breathing was heavy, the room was still.

  He heard his own heartbeat, heard Cardin’s whimpers as she wiggled to adjust her body beneath his. She found the place she wanted to be. He found the rhythm she needed. They rocked together, panting, grunting, his cock sliding in and out easily, lubed by her moisture.

  Her hands gripped his shoulders and held on tight. Her heels dug into his ass. Her pussy grabbed him, tugged, pulled, milked him for all he was worth. He wasn’t going to be able to hold back with all of that going on.

  He told himself to wait. He thought of all the things in the barn he needed to do. He thought of ways to get more speed out of Butch Corley’s dragster. But the woman beneath him made it hard to think of anything but her for long.

  When she cried out, he focused on taking her as high as he could. And once she was there, he followed, exploding…

  Trey wondered as he came down from the blast if they really were doing nothing but scratching an itch. Or if all this time the attraction between them had been something more.

  And what he was going to do about it—since he suspected that he couldn’t walk away and leave her here again.

  12

  THE FOUR TO EIGHT SHIFT at Headlights was pretty much Cardin’s favorite to work. Teens came in after school for cokes, French fries, shakes and flirting. Families came in wanting a quick meal before heading off to sporting events, science fairs or band competitions.

  That time period covered the regular dinner hour as well, whether folks were eating at five or at seven. She stayed busy, and staying busy kept her from thinking too much. It also made the time fly. So before she knew it, she was looking at eight o’clock—and at her mother who’d gone home earlier walking back through the door.

  Delta caught her eye, curiously condemning, then headed for a far corner table, one out of the way of the dinner crowd, one the other waitresses would know to avoid. Cardin didn’t know if she was up to waiting with her mother for the men.

  But she did know Delta would want a Diet Coke, so she scooped up ice, filled the tumbler and carried it to the table where she set it down and added a straw, avoiding meeting—though not avoiding feeling—her mother’s probing gaze.

  Before she could make her escape, however, her father joined them. She couldn’t look at him either, so she turned to go, saying, “I’ve got to clock out. I’ll be right back.”

  Eddie grabbed her wrist before she’d taken a step. “Sit down, Cardin. Tell your mother and me what’s going on.”

  “I’d rather wait for Trey.”

  “And we’d rather hear it from you,” Delta said, jabbing her straw into the tightly packed ice keeping her drink a whole lot cooler than her mood.

  Cardin was stuck. It would do her no good to argue that the boss wouldn’t want her talking until she was off the clock when it was the boss telling her to sit.

  She slid onto the bench across the table from her parents, wishing Trey were here. Wishing, strangely enough, that the lie they were about to tell was not one. Having him on her side right now, for better or for the worst she was facing, held a definitely tempting appeal.

  The only thing she could think of to say was, “What do you want to hear?”

  Her mother looked at her father. He looked back, then down at the picnic table’s scarred surface. Neon red light from the Coors sign overhead glinted off his black hair. He picked at a gouge in the wood. He cleared his throat. “If you and Whip had something to tell us, why didn’t you mention it when you asked for the schedule change?”

  Oh, good. Something she and Trey had already discussed. “He hasn’t had a free minute since he got here on Thursday. I wasn’t going to say anything to you guys until we’d had a chance to talk.”

  “This has been going on a while then,” her mother said, toying with her straw, no doubt wishing it were a sharp object.

  Cardin wondered who it was Delta most wanted to stab—her husband, her daughter, or herself. “For about a year, yes.”

  Eddie’s head snapped up. “Then you lied to us when we asked if there was something between you two.”

  “No, what I told you was that I wasn’t going to let him break my heart.”

  “Maybe you should’ve thought about how you’re breaking ours,” Delta came back with.

  Cardin looked from her mother to her father, making sure she had both her parents’ attention. “And maybe the two of you should think about what you’ve done to mine with this ridiculous estrangement.”

  The tension at the table was so thick, not a single knife in Eddie’s kitchen would’ve been able to slice it through. Cardin didn’t know how long they sat there, silent, but when Trey arrived with a pitcher of beer and four frosted mugs moments later, it took everything she had not to throw herself into his arms—not as his fiancée, but as a woman at the end of her rope.

  “You guys been waiting long?” he asked, settling in beside her and dropping an arm around her waist. He leaned over and kissed her cheek, giving her a quick wink before he went about pouring the beer.

  If she hadn’t already proposed to him, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop herself from doing so now. Though she hated feeling as if she needed a rescue, he made a damn fine white knight.

  “I haven’t even clocked out yet, but the bosses don’t seem to mind,” Cardin teased, her joke falling flat.

  She knew that when her mother said, “When payroll cuts your next check, she’ll remember exactly what time you finished for the night.”

  Oh, yeah. This was going well. Cardin reached for the mug Trey set in front of her instead of respo
nding to Delta’s jab.

  Trey looked around the table. “So what has Cardin told you so far?”

  Delta was the one to respond. “Only that she lied to us not twenty-four hours ago about anything going on with you two.”

  He glanced over. Cardin swallowed more beer.

  “It’s been hard to keep it secret,” he said, his voice gentle, his tone low, nearly intimate, taking her back to the hours before she’d come to work, hours when they hadn’t done any cleaning or packing at all. Her body heated at the thought, only to cool as her father cursed beneath his breath.

  “I’d say you’ve done a damn fine job of keeping it a secret,” Eddie muttered. “Cardin hasn’t said a thing this entire year.”

  Trey gave her thigh a reassuring pat. “That’s my girl.”

  “So we’ve just discovered,” Delta said, exchanging her diet soda for the alcohol.

  “Mr. Worth. Eddie. Mrs. Worth,” Trey began, and Cardin felt as if she’d swallowed a hornet’s nest and was being stung to death from the inside. “I know this comes out of the blue, and if I’d had a way to give you a heads-up, I would have. But I would very much like your permission to marry your daughter.”

  If the mood earlier had been heavy and depressing, the one that followed Trey’s request was worse. Neither one of her parents said a word. They looked from Trey to her to each other. They drank their beer. They stared at the table. They shifted restlessly on their bench.

  Enough. This was ridiculous. Cardin reached out and took hold of their hands. “Mom. Dad. You can’t ignore this. I know it’s a shock. I know it’s not what you may want for me. But I’m very very happy to be with Trey.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” Delta squeezed Cardin’s fingers. “It’s not that we don’t want this for you. Of course we want you to find someone and fall in love.”

  “That someone is right here, Mom. He’s asked you for my hand.” Even saying that gave Cardin chills.