“Anna’s the kind of girl you bring home to Mama. You know they’ll all love her.”

  Justin couldn’t argue with that. His parents and sisters had been after him to start making better choices in women for years. If they met Anna, they’d assume they’d finally gotten through to him. “Yeah, I know.”

  He didn’t want to push Anna. Things had been going well since he’d left Nashville. They’d spoken every night, and they had more in common than either one of them would have suspected. They liked the same movies and music. They both loved the outdoors and enjoyed traveling. No doubt about it, Anna McCall was wife material. He just hadn’t had the courage to ask her whether she still harbored fantasies of being a certain doctor’s wife.

  “I’ll worry about my family later.”

  “So, what are you guys gonna do after the race?” Mitch smiled. “As if I didn’t know.”

  “She didn’t come alone.” Justin secretly wished she had. He’d give anything for a little more alone time with her.

  “Oh no? Who’d she bring with her?” Mitch asked.

  “Her cousin, brother, and a few friends.”

  “Huh.” Mitch grinned. “Anyone I might be interested in?”

  Justin knew his friend had been trying to forget his ex-girlfriend for months, to no avail. “I don’t know, I haven’t met them yet. We’re all staying at the same hotel. I thought we’d have a drink after the race, get to know each other better.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Mitch pocketed his cell phone. “I gotta say, this is a different approach for you. Since when do you start meeting a girl’s family and friends? Especially a girl you’ve only been seeing for a month.”

  Justin wasn’t even sure that was how Anna would define their relationship. As far as he was concerned, they were dating. He wasn’t interested in seeing anyone else, but she may not share his sentiment. “I already knew her family, remember?”

  “Yeah. How does big Daddy feel about you trying to hook up with his little princess?” Mitch chuckled. “He can’t be too happy about it.”

  Justin scowled at his friend. “Why would you say that? I get along great with the McCalls.”

  “That was before you started trying to tarnish their angel’s wings.”

  Justin rolled his eyes. “Shut the hell up.”

  “I’m serious. If you had a daughter, would you want her dating a guy like you?”

  “What the hell’s wrong with me?” Justin asked, clutching his chest. “I’ve never broken the law-”

  “No, but you’ve broken quite a few hearts. Pretty publicly, I might add.”

  Justin couldn’t deny he’d been involved in too many dead end relationships, but he didn’t see why that should have any bearing on his relationship with Anna. “You really think her old man would hold that against me?” He knew Ty McCall. He was a fair, honest, decent man. Mitch was right; Ty would definitely hold his reputation against him if Anna’s heart was on the line.

  “Hell, yeah!” Mitch laughed. “Can you blame him?”

  “No. Okay, since you seem to have all the answers, what do you think I should do about her family?”

  “It depends,” Mitch said, shrugging. “Are you serious about the girl, or do you just want her to help you get over your little problem?”

  Justin winced. Sometimes he wished he’d never confided in his best friend about that, but he’d been so upset. He’d had to talk to someone outside of a doctor’s office about his challenge. Mitch seemed like the logical choice. “I would never use her that way. Besides, I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem anymore.”

  Mitch threw his head back and laughed. “You hoping to put that theory to the test tonight?”

  “I didn’t lure her here just so I could sleep with her. She’s not that kind of girl.”

  Mitch sighed. “Don’t I know it. If I thought she was, I would have tried the first night we met her.”

  “Then I would have had to kill you,” Justin muttered.

  Mitch shot him a quizzical look. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Man, if I were you, I think I’d plan to clear the air with Ty as soon as you can. You wouldn’t want her family standing between you two.”

  As far as Justin could tell, that was one of many issues they would have to overcome, but Ty seemed like the least of all of his obstacles. “I have to be in Nashville next week on business. Maybe I’ll talk to him then.”

  Mitch smiled. “Hotshots business?”

  “Yeah. It’s their quarterly sales meeting. I told Deacon I’d be there.”

  “Since when do you attend their quarterly sales meetings?”

  “Since Nashville became my new favorite place.”

  Chapter Ten

  “This is gonna be so much fun,” Lauren said, clapping her hands as she bounced up and down in her seat. “We’re so close I can almost hear the drivers talking to their pit crews.”

  They were a little too close for Anna’s comfort, but she didn’t want to spoil the fun, so she smiled and pretended to be having the time of her life.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Nick said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “My baby sister hookin’ up with the bad boy of racin’.”

  “We’re not hooking up,” Anna said, pushing his arm away. “We’re just friends.” She didn’t really believe that. Their sexual chemistry was impossible to deny.

  “That’s your loss,” Lauren said, winking at a good looking man who turned around in his seat and smiled at her.

  Anna wished she could be more like her cousin sometimes: fun, sexy, flirtatious. Lauren would know exactly how to handle a guy like Justin. Being here, in the midst of thousands of people screaming his name, reminded Anna she was out of her element. When they spoke on the phone, she almost convinced herself Justin was just a regular person, but races reminded her he was anything but.

  “I don’t just fall into bed with every guy I meet,” Anna said, crossing her arms.

  Nick covered his ears and grimaced. “I don’t wanna hear this.”

  “Oh grow up,” Lauren said, reaching across Anna to slap her cousin’s knee. “Your sister’s a grown woman. Of course she’s had sex.”

  Anna’s face flamed when Evan turned to smile at her.

  “Are they givin’ you grief again, darlin’?” Evan asked.

  Anna had also invited the Spencer brothers and their fiancées, hoping she would feel more powerful surrounded by her friends and family. Instead, they made her more uncomfortable. “What else is new?” she asked, nudging Lauren in the ribs so she would sit back.

  “You gotta admit, this is pretty cool,” Ryan said, grinning.

  Clearly Anna was the only one who wasn’t excited to watch men careen around a track at life-threatening speeds. Since she’d taken an interest in Justin, she’d done a little research on racing and had been horrified to learn that Justin’s friend was one of many casualties in the last decade. She knew racing was a dangerous sport, but watching those video clips made it so much more real. She would have to be crazy to give her heart to a man who did it for a living.

  “Here we go,” Lauren said, grabbing her hand.

  “Excuse me,” Anna said, jumping up. “I need to use the restroom.”

  “Now?” Nick asked, not taking his eyes off the track.

  “Yes.”

  Lauren grabbed her hand again to prevent her from slipping past. “You can’t keep running away from this, Anna. It’s what he does. Hell, it’s who he is.”

  “I know. That’s why I can’t be with him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m going back to the hotel to get my things.”

  “You can’t do that!” Lauren tried to haul her back down. “He invited you here because he wants you to be a part of his life. Why won’t you at least give it a chance?”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.” Anna broke free and squeezed past her friends on her way to the exit.

  Erika ran after her. “Hold up, Anna. I’ll come with you.”

  ***

  Justin usually enjoyed basking in his victory after a race, but that night was different. He couldn’t stand the thought of signing even one more autograph. “I need to get outta here,” he said to Mitch as he handed a pen and signed program back to a young boy’s father. “Have you seen Anna?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” Mitch said, pocketing his cell phone. “Not that I’m surprised. This place is like a freakin’ zoo. Where were they sitting? I can go look for her if you want.”

  “I told her to come find me. I asked the front office to hold some pit passes for her. Where the hell could she be?” Justin knew she was there because she’d texted him when she arrived. Looking up into the stands, he spotted Nick. “There’s her brother. You’ve met him before, right? On the island?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Do me a favor. Go and ask him where Anna is.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Justin watched Mitch jog toward the appointed seats, and he continued to scrawl his signature on every piece of paper thrust in his face. As soon as he saw the grim expression on Mitch’s face, Justin knew something was wrong.

  “What the hell happened?” Justin asked when his friend finally pushed his way through the crowd and reclaimed his spot at his side. “Where is she?”

  “She headed back to the hotel before the race even started.”

  “Why? She wasn’t feeling well, or what?”

  “It seems she wasn’t into it, after all.”

  Translation: She wasn’t into him. “What the hell happened to change her mind? We talked on the phone last night.” Justin scowled when someone shoved a program under his nose until he saw the little hand holding it belonged to a gap-toothed little girl with blond pigtails. Signing the paper, he forced a smile as he handed it back. “I thought she was looking forward to it.”

  “I don’t know what happened. But you may be able to catch her before she heads to the airport if you leave now. Nick said she’s in suite 703.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  ***

  Erika tucked her legs under her as Anna folded her clothes neatly and stacked them in the small suitcase. “You have to do what you feel is right, Anna. You don’t owe him anything.”

  “I know, it’s just that…” She couldn’t explain why the prospect of leaving made her so distraught. Perhaps it was knowing she would never see Justin again. “He’s a nice guy. I don’t want him to think he did anything wrong. He didn’t. I just don’t want to be with someone who does that for a living.”

  Erika smiled. “I can’t say that I blame you. Knowing your boyfriend may come home from work in a body bag is a little unsettling.”

  Anna sighed as she sat down on the bed beside her friend. “I like him a lot. It’s just that…”

  “He’s so different from the guys you usually go for.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know how to date without asking myself whether this guy could be the one, you know?”

  “And you can’t imagine spending your life with someone like Justin?”

  “God, no!” Anna wished she could retract the statement when she realized how it must have sounded. “I mean, he obviously has a lot of redeeming qualities, but he’s not exactly husband or father material.”

  “And that’s what you’re looking for?”

  “I’m thirty, not twenty. I don’t have the luxury of taking my time with every guy I meet. Especially not if I want to have three kids before I turn forty.”

  Erika smiled and reached for Anna’s hand. “That is a tight timeline, but sometimes life happens in spite of our plans.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Take you and Tom for example. You guys dated for a long time. You knew when and how you were going to get married, how many kids you wanted to have, where you’d live, and look what happened.”

  “He bailed on me.”

  “I think you bailed on him long before he bailed on you. You said in the Bahamas that you weren’t sure he was the right one anymore.”

  “I know,” Anna said, sighing. “I don’t think he was, but I don’t think Justin is either. In fact, I know he isn’t.” If only she felt as convinced as she sounded.

  Before Erika could respond, they heard a knock on the door.

  Glancing at her watch, Erika said, “The race is probably over.”

  “I don’t want to spoil your weekend,” Anna said, turning to close her suitcase. “You guys should stay, as planned.”

  Erika got up and peered through the peephole. “Oh wow, it’s not them. It’s him.” She leaned against the door and fanned her face with her hand. “I love Evan and all, but that guy is seriously hot.”

  All the more reason for Anna to keep her distance. It was only a matter of time before he got bored with the timid teacher from Tennessee. “Tell him I’m in the shower,” Anna said, making a dash for the bathroom.

  Erika grabbed her wrist. “Oh no, you don’t. You need to tell him what you just told me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to,” Erika said, opening the door. She smiled at Justin as she pulled Anna forward to face him. “You must be Justin Hunt,” Erika said, offering her hand. “I’m Erika Carlton, a friend of Anna’s. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Justin accepted Erika’s handshake, but his eyes drifted to Anna. “Nice to meet you, Erika.”

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Erika said, slipping her hand from Justin’s. To Anna, she said, “Just call if you need anything.”

  Anna waited for Erika to leave before she stepped back to allow Justin inside. “How did the race go?”

  He stopped in front of the bed and faced her. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I was counting on you being there.”

  Anna closed the door softly, turning around slowly. She tried to buy a few extra minutes to think of a plausible excuse. “I’m sorry I disappointed you, but-”

  “You did,” he said, closing in on her. “Damn it, Anna. Why do you keep doing this?”

  She could barely breathe with him standing so close. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re pushing me away.” He circled her waist with his strong arms, holding her tight. “And I just wanna get closer.”

  When he put it that way, he made it difficult to resist. “I’m sorry-”

  “I want you,” he whispered in her ear. His hands drifted up her back. “You can’t tell me you don’t want me too.”

  “I want you, but I don’t want everything that comes with you. The press, screaming fans, fast cars, red carpets, endorsement deals, travel, women…” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Just thinking about it gives me a headache.”

  “I’m afraid I’m a package deal, Anna. I can’t give up racing just to make you happy.”

  “I would never ask you to do that,” she said, slightly offended he would even think that. “I know you can’t change to make me happy. Besides, we barely know each other.”

  “I know enough to know that I want to know more,” he said, brushing his lips over hers.

  She should tell him to leave, but she couldn’t find the words. Hooking her thumbs through the belt loops on his faded designer jeans, she said, “We could try to make this work, but today reminded me this just isn’t the life I want.”

  Disappointment was evident in his dark eyes before he dropped his head. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hoped you might feel differently when you saw how much I love racing.”

  “My heart is in my throat just watching you race on TV. I was a fool to think I was strong enough to watch it firsthand.”

  He lifted his head. “Why?”

  She frowned. “Why what?”

  “Why are you so worried if you don’t give a damn about me?”

  Knowing he was trying to force her to admit she had feelings for him, she pushed out of his arms. “I never said I didn’t care whether you live or die, Justin.”

  “I’m not gonna die.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Neither do you.” He sighed when she walked to the bed to retrieve her suitcase.

  Setting it on the floor beside the door, she said, “My chances are significantly less than yours. I happen to value my life.”

  “I value life too, Anna. That’s why I choose to live it.”

  Tears sprung to her eyes, probably because he was challenging her in a way she was afraid to challenge herself. “I think you should go now. I have to leave.”

  “You don’t have to leave. You’re choosing to leave. There’s a difference.” He raked his hands through his stylishly cropped dark hair, lacing them behind his head as he walked toward the window. “I’ve lived in fear for the past couple of months, so I know what it’s like, but I sure as hell can’t imagine living my entire life that way. It must be hell.”

  She resented him for judging her, especially since he hit so close to the mark. “I like my life-”

  “No, you don’t.” He turned to face her. “I may not have known you a long time, but even I can see something’s missing. I look into your beautiful eyes, and I see this longing that breaks my heart. I think I’m drawn to you because my gut tells me I can help fill the void in your life, but only if you’ll let me.”

  He had a lot of nerve, assuming he was the answer to her prayers. “I won’t.”

  He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Why the hell not?”

  “I know what I want in a man, and you’re not it, Justin.” She knew it was harsh, but being direct seemed to be the only way to get through to him.

  “Is that so?” Instead of looking affronted, he seemed curious. “Why don’t you tell me what you want and why I’m not it?”

  “I don’t think so.” She reached for her suitcase. “I really should go.”

  “You answer those questions, and I promise I’ll never bother you again.”

  She would never admit that thought left her feeling empty. “Fine, you want to know what I’m looking for in a man, I’ll tell you.” She set her suitcase down. “I need someone who’s honest, trustworthy, dependable.” She thought about the list in her journal. “He would have to love children as much as I do.”