Текст книги "Whipped"

Автор книги: Elizabeth Lee

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

A few months later...

The moment I zipped up the back of Nora’s wedding dress and saw the smile on her face, I knew that there was no way I wasn’t going to cry that day.

“You look beautiful,” I said, resting my chin on her shoulder and hugging her from behind. The dress she’d picked out for the day was perfectly Nora. The long lace sleeves and low cut back accented her figure perfectly. “Reid is going to love it.”

“I hope so,” she said with a smile. She reached back and took my hand, pulling me to stand next to her. “You look pretty amazing too,” she said. I looked at our reflections, her in her wedding gown, and me in a long flowy, navy dress—the compromise she’d agreed to instead of royal—the top was lace with cap sleeves that complimented Nora’s. The small changing room we were in was attached the chapel where, in just a few moments, my sister would be marrying the man of her dreams. “I’m sure Brett will think so.”

I gave her a wink. “We should probably get out there,” I said, pointing at the clock. “It’s almost time.”

“Yep.” She took in a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s do this.” Just as we were getting ready to walk out the door, our mother came bursting through it.

“Girls, come on! You’re going to—” The second she saw the two of us standing there, ready to go, the worry that we were going to be late dropped from her face. “You look beautiful,” she said, walking over and wrapping her arms around us. “I have the prettiest daughters on the planet,” she gushed.

“I don’t know about that, Mom.” I laughed.

“You’re going to wrinkle us all,” Nora said, giving our mother a sweet pat on the back. I looked over and watched her delicately wipe a tear from under her eye, careful not to smudge her perfected make-up.

“Stop crying,” I insisted, shaking my head and fighting back my own. “We don’t have time to cry.”

“She’s right,” Mom said. “There’s a very handsome man waiting to walk you down the aisle,” she said nodding toward the door. Our dad was dressed in a tux and grinning as he peeked in. Seeing Mr. Outdoors himself, Royce Bennett, in a three piece suit was quite a sight.

“You do look handsome, Daddy,” I said, placing a kiss on his cheek as I led my mother toward the chapel doors. I looked over my shoulder and saw my sister and father having their moment. A part of me wondered when I would get to have that moment with him. The moment where he told me how proud of me he was and how lucky the man I was about to marry was. My mom gave me one last squeeze before the doors opened and the music started.

A white runner filled the aisle that was surrounded by white orchids, roses, and lilies accented with navy and silver. Crystals and pearls gave the room added sparkle, and the soft candlelight made the room feel intimate and romantic.

A soft melody began playing the second I started down the aisle and saw Brett standing next to Reid and Hoyt, I knew that my moment with my father wasn’t going to be too far off. Especially considering how things were progressing in my relationship with the very fine-looking co-best man. He was adorably handsome in gray. The suits my sister had picked for them were perfect. If the way he was looking at me at the moment was any indication of how he’d look at me on our wedding day, I’d be a lucky woman. The idea of getting engaged hadn’t exactly come up in our conversation, but in my heart I knew that he was the one for me. He gave me a wink and then whispered something to Reid, who was nervously wringing his hands. He was calmer on a starting line than he was waiting for my sister.

I took my place on the altar and the crowd rose to their feet. A simple guitar solo played as my sister and father entered. Most of the wedding guests probably hadn’t identified the melody yet, but the music was a simplified version of I’ll Be There For You—the quintessential hair ballad that my sister and Reid had claimed for their own. I’d grinned when she told me their wedding song. It was so perfectly them. I was glad that Brett and I were more John Legend than Jon Bon Jovi though.

My dad’s misty eyes might have been the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. And, I’d never seen my sister smile more genuinely than she did when she locked eyes with Reid. The nervous energy he was carrying on his shoulders seemed to melt away the closer my dad escorted Nora to him. I pulled the tissue I’d stuck in the handle of my bouquet and dabbed my eyes.

As Reid and Nora exchanged vows—promising to love each other without fail, to trust in each other, to be faithful, patient, kind and understanding with each other. I couldn’t help but think how all our lives had changed over the past few months. Change used to terrify me, but the more I learned to embrace it, the happier I became. Change wasn’t a bad thing. It was... inevitable. I reminded myself of that anytime something came my way that was unexpected.

My sister had never expected to see Reid again and now here they were making their love for each other official. I’d never expected to fall in love again, but I did. Brett and I were in such a good place that I honestly had no complaints in life. Well, except maybe that I still had three months of school left before I could take my boards. I’d already been looking at hospitals in Texas. There were Per Diem positions that allowed flexibility in scheduling. I’d already started the application process, hoping that I’d get hired as soon as I passed my nursing exam. I’d be able to work when I wanted and travel with Brett.

“Please don’t put my career ahead of yours,” Brett had said to me when I was telling him about the job opportunity. “I know how much you love it.”

“I’m not,” I assured him. “I’m also applying for a position with MotoRx.” It was an organization that specialized in mobile health care for extreme sports events. “I’ll actually be working some of the events that you’re participating in.” It was the best of both worlds. Having learned more about the safety precautions motocross riders take and seeing Brett compete was making me a more confident fan... and girlfriend.

As Reid and Nora exchanged rings, I wondered what the next chapter had in store for all of us. Was it actually possible for us to all get our happy endings? Every time Brett sneaked a glance in my direction, I felt like it might be. “Love you,” he mouthed as everyone else had their eyes on my sister and Reid. The heat and promise in his eyes had my heart fluttering.

We’d all be back together in Halstead before too long. The new T&S Track and ProShop—Reid had insisted that Sallinger be added to the title—was going to open in the spring. I was proud of both of them for planning for the long term. The opening would probably happen right around the time I graduated, so we’d all be together soon. Bonus, it was going to be sweet to see Beau Gregurich finally get what he had coming to him. I knew we were all anxious to see him leave town. The karma train was slow going, but it would catch him eventually.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the officiant said. “I’m pleased to introduce for the very first time, Mr. and Mrs. Reid Travers.” The applause was as loud as I’m sure that chapel had ever heard. A room full of race fans and family will have that effect. Reid swept Nora in his arms, dipped her low, and placed a kiss on her lips that would have made any woman jealous. Hell, it might have made any man jealous.

The two of them walked down the aisle hand in hand, I wiped the tears from my eyes that I seemed to be unable to stop.

“Come on, pretty girl,” Brett said, walking up next to me and offering me his arm to escort me back down the aisle. I smiled widely, my heart was completely full. Of love for him. Of love for my sister and her new husband. Of love and gratitude for the life I’d been given. “There’s a party for us to get to.” I tucked my arm through his and he kissed my cheek.

“Care if I join you two?” Hoyt stepped up on my free side.

“Let’s go,” I said as I looped my other arm through his and the three of us followed the happy couple out of the chapel. I didn’t miss the lingering look Hoyt gave a certain female rider as we made our way over to the reception hall.

“I’m glad you brought a date,” Brett said. “I don’t mind sharing this one for a short stroll,” he said, giving me a wink, “but I’m the only one dancing with her all night long.”

“Lucky girl,” Hoyt teased. “Try not to step on her toes all night long.”

“You know I’m the best dancer here,” Brett defended. I started to tug him away from the battle of wit he and Hoyt would have continued for far too long.

“And for the record,” Hoyt clarified, “she’s not my date. I didn’t have much of a choice.” Hoyt may not have brought Chayse McCade to the wedding by choice, but he was watching the door pretty hard, waiting for her to enter.

“Yeah, let me know how that works out for you,” Brett added as a parting remark. His arms were around my waist as he spun me around the room, the wedding guests were already starting to trickle in. “You look beautiful,” he said.

“Why thank you,” I said, kissing the tip of his nose. “You in a suit is not a bad look, either.”

“I might have to wear one more often, if you’re into this kind of thing.” He lowered my feet to the ground. “Mr. Sallinger will see you now,” he said, adjusting his tie. The devilish look in his eyes was as tempting as the smug grin on his face.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I deadpanned.

“I can’t stop them from flowing,” he said with a shrug. I laughed and shook my head.

“We should probably go congratulate the happy couple before they’re swarmed by the masses,” I said, before he had a chance to suggest I let him tie me up. Not that I was opposed to the idea, but my sister’s wedding was not the time or place to discuss it. I slipped my hand in his and started to lead him off the dance floor only to be tugged back into him once again. “And I think we are supposed to go take some pictures,” I reminded him.

“One more kiss,” he said, pressing his lips to mine. He leaned back and looked into my eyes. The rush I felt every time I was with him didn’t seem to be fading. In fact, I think it was growing stronger each time we kissed. “Two more,” he said, lowering his face to mine.

“I love you,” I told him, smiling against his lips.

“I love you more.”

Wrapped in Hoyt’s arms on the dance floor, I forced my mind to replay his earlier comment to Brett over again in my head.

“She’s not my date. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

It stung. Each and every word was like an angry hornet with a taste for pain. But remembering them over and over kept me grounded. Kept me from getting lost in the scent of him, the sound of him, and God help every woman who ever came near his rock hard body, the feel of him.

I was stupid to think that when he’d asked me to come with him to his brother’s wedding that it was anything more than a work obligation. Of course he’d asked me as way of making sure I stayed out of trouble.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he said as we swayed back and forth to the slow song. I tried to stifle the chill that wanted to run down my spine in response to his low words in my ear. I wouldn’t have agreed to dance with him after what I’d heard him say, but the bride had insisted.

“Just dance with him, please,” Nora had pleaded. “I don’t have another bridesmaid and the picture will look terrible if he’s standing out there by himself.”

It was her day after all. And she was damn near the nicest person on the planet. I could at least make things a little less stressful for one person.

When his hands rested on my hips, I told my body to ignore the way it made my heart race. I thought that we’d turned a corner in our relationship. I apparently didn’t hate him anymore and I thought that maybe he was feeling more amicable toward me as well. On the track, I was listening to him. I was taking his suggestions seriously. Most of them, anyway. I was taking my career seriously for the first time in my life. Off the track, we were getting closer, learning to trust one another a little more each day. But I must have imagined that line blurring between us. The one that separated friendship and more than.

When he’d asked me to join him for the weekend in his hometown, I had assumed it was because he wanted me here with him. Me, Chayse McCade, woman in a date-like capacity. Not the immature, impulsive rider the company hired him to tame.

I felt so stupid that I was literally having a physical response to my personal shame. The heat in my body wasn’t just because I was angry at him for not being honest about why he wanted me here. I was angry because I’d made the painfully incorrect assumption, when, after a lifetime of my dad letting me down, I knew better by now. Or I thought I did. But Hoyt Travers had majorly messed with my hardwiring. I’d started to let myself fall for him. It was infuriating that I enjoyed the way I felt in his arms. That I felt alive looking up into his eyes. That I craved being close enough to him that I could smell his cologne. But I’d heard him after the ceremony. Heard those painful words I couldn’t unhear.

Thank God. Otherwise I might have humiliated myself this weekend.

“You don’t have to say that,” I snapped. “I’m not your date after all. Wasn’t like you had much of a choice, right?”

The look on his face made it clear that he had no idea I’d overheard him. Until now.

“Chayse. I—” he began.

“I don’t need you to make excuses,” I said, pulling myself from the warmth of his arms. “And I don’t need a babysitter either. I know why you asked me to come here. I’m not an idiot.”

I actually was an idiot, but there was no need to admit it right this moment. Leave a girl with some shred of integrity, why don’t you. I stalked off the dance floor and made my way as far from Hoyt Travers as I could get.

This is exactly what I need, I thought to myself as I swiped a bottle of whiskey from behind the bar in the corner.

The Travers’ wedding reception was well underway. No one would notice if I disappeared. I just needed a few minutes to myself. And a drink. Or ten.

If anyone would have told me a few months ago that I’d be attending superstar motocross racer Reid Travers’ wedding, I would have said, “Awesome. Looks like I’ll finally reach my potential as caterer waiter.” At least I wasn’t dancing around a pole, fishing for tips from drunk, overweight men like my mother did.

Up until a little over a year ago, I was a nobody. Just a girl who liked to ride dirt bikes. And then in one chance encounter, someone decided that I was actually worth more than just tips and hand me down race equipment. Pretty soon it was sponsorships and contracts and a whole hell of a lot more than I signed up for, but you can’t turn down an opportunity that might actually make something out of you, right?

The last thing I wanted was to be painted as the next big thing. And I sure as hell hadn’t planned to become some ‘role model’ for female extreme athletes. The whole situation was overwhelming—the practice, the focus, the know-it-all coach that kept pushing my buttons. More buttons than I cared to admit—even to myself.

The whiskey in my hand was going to help numb the ache of pressure that I constantly felt in my chest. God bless it.

I found an open door and walked into the dimly lit changing room that Nora and Georgia must have used to get ready. Clothes and makeup were scattered around every surface and even in little landmines on the floor. I locked the door behind me before plopping down on an empty bench. Letting out a deep breath, I willed myself not to cry. I’d hold my breath if I had to.

I never cried. Not when I crashed. Not when I lost. And never, ever over a guy.

My reflection taunted me from the mirror across the room. My dark hair was beautifully curled and my makeup was more demure than the heavy charcoal liner and sweep of color I usually applied when I was going somewhere “fancy.” Any other day, dirt would have been the only thing on my face.

I despised everything about this damn day.

I hated that I actually felt pretty. I abhorred the fact that I liked the simple black dress that someone had picked out for me. The fact that I’d relaxed while being pampered at a salon that morning and wanted to know all of the tips that the hairstylist and makeup artist were doling out? In-fucking-sufferable.

Something was happening to me in this Godforsaken town and I needed to get out of it. Soon.

“It will be good for your image,” Nick Pilsner, the head of Throttled Energy’s PR department had said. “Reid is your teammate and we’re a family. You should show your support.” What the hell was I supposed to know about family?

My chest felt tight as I thought about how I’d let Hoyt finally convince me to join him in Podunkville.

“Come with me,” he’d said, his sincere brown eyes pleading and promising things I must have imagined. “It will be fun.”

If I would have just used my head and said hell no like I’d originally intended, then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in an empty room feeling sorry for myself. But I’d pictured myself on his arm and I’d liked what I saw. It felt like a promise of…something more. But like bones, promises could be more than broken. They could be shattered. I knew about both all too well.

Damn it all, my eyes had even threatened to water when Reid and Nora exchanged vows. A part of me—a part that I promptly told to shut the fuck up—decided that I, too, wanted a beautiful wedding and a man to pour his heart and soul out to me in a room full of friends and family. One day.

Most of all, I loathed the fact that the second I saw Hoyt Travers in a three piece suit, I wanted him to see me as more than just his newest pain in the ass pupil. And I wanted badly to see the body under that suit. It appeared as if his eyes had widened when he’d seen me in this dress, but maybe I’d been hallucinating.

Of course I had been.

I’d never met a man like him. He was so dedicated and focused and always doing the right thing. He was the epitome of everything I wasn’t. I had a knack for screwing things up. Just ask my dad, who only acknowledged my existence when I was wearing a helmet. Hoyt, like everything else I had encountered that day, was something I’d never deserve, never be worthy of.

I was just a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who got lucky. My dad liked to remind me that the only reason I was even on the circuit radar as a pro-rider was because my last name was McCade. “Good luck filling the boots I left behind,” he’d said, referring to his own career as a pro. A career that he lost because my mom got pregnant with me.

I twisted the cap off the whiskey bottle and let it fall to the floor. As the sweet burn coated my throat, I fought the constant turmoil that was brewing inside of me. The battle of good versus evil. Should I suck it up and prove that I was actually worth the trouble Hoyt and Throttled Energy were going to, or say to hell with the whole thing and catch the next bus out of Dodge, or wherever in the hell I was currently located?

I was leaning toward buying a bus ticket when a sharp sound startled me.

Knock, knock.

“Just a second!” I answered quickly before cursing silently under my breath. My eyes scrambled to find somewhere to stash my stolen bottle.

“Chayse,” Hoyt’s voice called out gently. “Can we talk?”

Pilsner had given me a strict no alcohol policy after I’d missed a couple practices. Hoyt would report back to him, I was sure of it. I scooted over to the edge of the bench and pushed the clutter in the top of the trashcan to the side before burying the bottle on the bottom. I felt the panic start to subside the second I covered the bottle and pulled a piece of gum from my small leather clutch.

“Please,” Hoyt said again.

I had no desire to listen to his apology. No matter what I’d let my head dream up about us, it wasn’t going to happen. I had to mentally close that door completely before I could open the literal one he was on the other side of. He could wait out there for a few more minutes while I got my shit together.

When I attempted to move the trashcan back a little, it tipped over and a few of the contents fell out onto the floor. I practically growled at them. Slipping the bottle back into the wastebasket to hide the evidence of my failure to obey the rules, I realized that maybe my life wasn’t all that bad. So I had a dark past, a stressful career, and man trouble in the form of a smoking hot coach who would never want me. At least I wasn’t in here covering up a pregnancy test like the last person who must’ve been looking to hide something in this very same trashcan.

Despite the ick factor and the fact that it was none of my business, I took a second glance at the long, slender test that lay on the floor.

Two lines were visible in the little window.

It was positive.

Can Chayse and Hoyt find common ground on and off the track?

Or will their secrets and the secrets of those around them present obstacles they can’t outrun?

CLUTCHED

Book three in the Wild Riders series, COMING FEBRUARY 2016!

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