“Driver’s meeting.” There was regret in his voice as he dropped a kiss on my lips.
“I’ll see you back at the trailer.” I squeezed his hand one more time before making my way back to our pits.
This was a different case of nerves. I could see them vibrating off my sister and Vic, and everyone that now crowded around the trailer. Just like them, I was swept up in the excitement for the final race.
I was bent over in the truck to snatch my camera when a voice behind me sent a cold chill down my spine.
“I thought that was you.” Caleb’s voice was the culmination of so many nightmares all balled up into reality.
I froze, fear slipping into my very being and wrapping its icy fingers around my heart. I swallowed back that fear, allowing it to quickly be replaced by anger. Anger that he would violate my world, interrupt my life like this. It had been him I’d seen. The emotional violation that Caleb was here, spread a traumatic, cold sweat across my skin.
His tone was patronizing and arrogant. “When I saw your picture in the paper, balled up and crying after that wreck, I figured I’d find you here when they raced again.”
“Why are you here?” I fought in vain to keep my trembling in check as I slid from the truck. Only a few feet away was my safety, my sister and the others. Yet,
they could have been a million miles away for all the good it served me. None of them had any reason to think anything could be wrong. Only Jordan would, and he was at the driver’s meeting.
“Turns out one of my frat brothers has a cousin who races and was entering into this thing. Maybe you know him, Eric Marshall? We thought it would be a great idea to tag along, and I thought maybe I could catch up with my girlfriend who just ran off without a word.” He was sneering, like the villain of a bad comic book.
“It’s funny how you wait to say anything to me until my boyfriend is noticeably absent.” I tried to shoulder past him, but he blocked my way.
“Who? Oh, that big oaf?” He snnd rushed back to where my sister stood. Franticallyickered. “Come on baby, you know he can’t do the things I do.”
He had no idea what Jordan was capable of. The scary part was that Caleb wouldn’t care. “Fuck off, Caleb.” I sidestepped him a, I searched for Jordan and Aiden, hoping they would be making their way back by now and that Caleb hadn’t followed me. Even being with Breanna and Vic didn’t feel so safe now.
Jordan and Aiden were close, maybe thirty feet away. Jordan took one look at me across the broken pavement and was instantly there, pulling me against his chest and tilting my face up. “What happened?”
“Rae?” Breanna was beside me, her face anxious and filled with worry. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
She had no idea how right she was. I reached for my throat, the air suddenly too thick to breathe. I was safe now, Jordan was here, and yet Caleb was squeezing the breath out of me again.
Jordan’s features changed, he grew cold and hard. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
I managed a terse nod as my legs went weak beneath me. Jordan never missed a beat, sweeping me up before I could hit the ground. He carried me to a chair and said something I couldn’t hear to my brother.
Everyone backed away except Jordan and my sister. Aiden pushed people from us as Jordan eased the mouth of a water bottle to my lips.
Cool, wet relief pushed through my throat and calmed me. I swallowed the water and managed a few gasping breaths before my world started to right itself. Sound rushed back in, the thundering of my heart slowing.
Still holding my hands Jordan turned to grill my sister. “Was anyone here? Did anyone talk to her? Touch her?”
“Yeah.” Breanna’s face went white and she swallowed. “Some guy stopped by and talked to her just before—”
“What did he look like?”
“Um, like Aiden’s height maybe? Blondish, wearing a white polo and jeans? I can point him out to you.” Fearful realization had changed to anger, her movements grew sharper and purpose driven.
I clutched Jordan’s hands. “He’s here…came with Eric Marshall.” The driver Jordan was about to race in only minutes.
I already knew how easily you could lose everything you loved, how quickly life could rip apart at the seams. Nothing else we’d survived compared to the cold dread that filled me when Jordan spun away.
He barked an order to Vic, who walked up and put an arm around me. Seconds later, Jordan, Breanna, and my brother were storming off.
“Vic, no.” I struggled against his arm. “Vic, we have to go after them.”
“No way, Raelynn, Jordan said for me to keep you here until he got back. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but he was pretty serious about it.”
I tugged frantically at his arm, but he held fast. “We have to go after him!”
Vic wasn’t listening and panic was clawing at me. If Jordan touched Caleb, he’d kill him, and I’d lose Jordan forever. Nothing was worth that, not ever, not even if it meant Caleb would feel something akin to what I’d suffered.
“What’s up, Rae?” Hunter and his friend Matt, who had been dating my sister until recently, interceded when they saw me tussling with a very confused Vic.
“Jordan’s going to do something stupid, because of me, and we have to stop him!”
Hunter only raised an eyebrow in Vic’s direction.
Vic cursed under his breath before letting me go. I didn’t wait to see if they followed. In truth, I didn’t care. I ran through the crowd of people as fast as I could, paying no attention to the race cars or the crews. I ignored the shouts, dodged obstacles, mobile and immobile alike, and found my way to Jordan.
He was almost a head taller than anyone else, so it made it easy for me. I could hear him over the din, demanding to know where Eric’s “little friend” was. It wasn’t blistering anger on his face, but something far more sinister.
Jordan Slater was eerily calm, a cobra ready to strike.
“Jordan!” About the time I reached him, Vic and Hunter reached me. My brother, as confused as Vic, stood ready at Jordan’s side. Breanna was whispering frantically in his ear. Rage and hurt flashed through Aiden’s cobalt eyes. He knew my secret.
“What friend is that, Slater?” Eric Marshall laughed as he leaned a hip against his car. Well, not his car, but the car he drove. The car owner and several minions buzzed about it.
“I think he means me.” The voice that gave a name to my nightmares.
Jordan’s head snapped around, his eyes narrowed, and that fear coiled in my gut. For just a moment, fear reflected on Caleb’s face, it was obvious he knew he’d met his match.
“Please.” With my fingertips on Jordan’s forearm, I begged. It wasn’t the first time I’d found myself pulling him from a fight. This time, though, we both had something to lose.
Caleb was cagey, smart, he’d do something to win against what was mine. He’d take the hits but make sure it was me who hurt in the long run. I could see it on his face.
“He just wants to provoke you, he wants you to hurt him, so he can hurt me.” I struggled to find the words to explain the chaos of my emotions, what I knew. Caleb’s family were powerful, had money.
“I won’t let him hurt you again.” His lip curled as he snarled.