Chapter 30
THIRTY
He was playing dirty, and he knew it.
Kasey watched Shaun as she paced around the small waiting room. She’d sat beside him for a time, leg bouncing with nervous energy, before she’d stood and started making laps around the room.
He had met Chase, Zoey’s husband, when he’d popped in to give Shaun an update, and they’d shaken hands briefly.
The expression on the other man’s face was unreadable as they’d introduced themselves.
He got the distinct impression that the impossibly tall and broad-shouldered man with the piercing blue eyes knew much more about him than the simple “This is Free’s cousin, Kasey” had let on.
“You don’t sit still very well, do you?” he asked from where he was seated in one of the uncomfortable vinyl chairs.
“I’m just anxious,” she said quietly. “She had a rough delivery with her first. At her last checkup the doctor was saying the baby may be over ten pounds.”
“Is that big?” he asked.
Shaun stopped in her pacing and turned to look at him, hands on her hips. “That’s like pushing a small thanksgiving turkey out of your hoo-ha, Kasey. Yes, that’s a big baby.”
He couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped him. “You’re a lot to handle, you know that?”
Dropping her eyes to the floor, she resumed her pacing and nodded just the slightest. “So I’ve been told.”
He stood, crossing to her to take her shoulders in his hands, forcing her to stop in her march around the room. “Hey,” he said gently, until she looked up at him. The thinly disguised sadness that clouded those sapphire eyes gutted him. “I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
She shrugged, flitting her eyes to a point over his shoulder to avoid looking at him directly. He tipped her chin up with his fingers until she looked at him again. He pressed a quick, chaste kiss to her mouth.
“Get out of your head, darlin’,” he murmured gently. “If you’ll let me, I’ll show you what an idiot he was to ever let you go.”
She sighed heavily, dropping her shoulders. “Kasey—”
The door opened then and Chase stepped through, his shoulders relaxed, and a wide grin plastered on his face as he announced, “We have a healthy baby boy! Zoey did…she was incredible. What a rockstar.”
Shaun clapped her hands and made the cutest bounce of excitement he’d ever seen, something totally out of character for her, and he enjoyed seeing this different side of her.
She wasn’t nearly as prickly as he’d always assumed, a fact that had dawned on him throughout the weekend as he watched her with her family.
The tough exterior he’d grown accustomed to, that he had always thought was just part of who she was…
he’d started to realize it was more of a mask than anything.
She was a smart ass, funny to boot, but there was a softness to her that he’d never witnessed before, and he liked that he was finally allowed to see it.
Shaun stepped forward and hugged Chase hard, congratulating him, and then Kasey reached his hand out and shook the proud new dad’s hand.
“Zoey sent me out to get you,” Chase said then, glancing at Shaun, and Kasey nodded with a grin.
“I’ll be here when you’re done getting your baby fix,” he chuckled, returning to his seat.
Shaun’s eyes met his for a heartbeat before she followed Chase out of the door, letting it click behind them.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out, swiping open the email from Charlie.
Scanning it briefly, excitement swept through him.
He was ready for the season to start. Training would begin in two weeks, and he’d never been more ready to get back behind the wheel.
The rush of adrenaline, roaring around the track at two hundred miles an hour surrounded by dozens of other machines and drivers gunning for that top spot… It was his happy place.
The door opened and he glanced up, nodding a silent hello to the older gentleman that entered.
His jeans were tattered at the hems around work boots, a flannel shirt buttoned down his chest, which was soft and slightly round.
Sandy brown hair with sprinkles of gray that was kept a touch too long fell over a wrinkled brow and kind brown eyes met his as he chose a seat across the room.
“I’m here to see my daughter and new grandson,” the older man said softly, a smile crinkling the corners of his brown eyes, and Kasey grinned.
“I take it you’re Zoey’s dad?” he asked, sitting straighter in his seat.
“I sure am,” the man said, nodding. “Thom Chandler. How do you know my Zoey?”
“I’m just an acquaintance,” he said and nodded toward the door. “I’m actually just here keeping Shauntelle Kendall some company. She’s back seeing Zoey and the baby now, Chase just came to fetch her.”
Sandy brown brows raised slightly and he nodded, making Kasey wonder briefly if Thom had ill feelings toward Shaun since she and his son had split. His hackles went up instinctively.
“Those girls have been best friends since the first day of kindergarten,” Thom said then, smiling gently, his tone soft, and Kasey forced his protectiveness to take a back seat. “Shaun has always been more like family.”
“She’s special, that’s for sure,” Kasey agreed.
Kasey’s gaze was drawn to the door when it opened again, and his entire body tensed, his jaw clenching so tightly it ached, as Tommy Chandler stepped through the door.
The click of the door shutting echoed like a bomb in the room, or perhaps it was just inside Kasey’s head. Tommy stopped where he was, brown eyes the same shade as his father’s but far less soft, meeting Kasey’s from across the room.
But it wasn’t anger, or hatred, or rage, or even jealousy that appeared in the other man’s eyes like he expected.
They were surprisingly empty, shuttered, and Kasey immediately recognized the brokenness inside Tommy.
He could only imagine what losing a woman like Shaun could do to a man.
He knew he sure as hell didn’t want to find out.
Tommy continued forward, taking a seat next to his father, directly across from Kasey, but their eyes never met again.
“This is my son, Tommy, Zoey’s brother,” Thom said then, making introductions that were wholly unnecessary, but the man clearly had no idea that the two of them already knew each other.
That Kasey had lusted after and actively pursued his son’s fiancé…
or that he had been buried balls deep in her mere hours before.
Just because Thom was oblivious to the situation, didn’t mean that Tommy didn’t understand the implication of why Kasey was there, or that it was clear that he was there with Shaun. Kasey shifted in his seat.
Kasey cleared his throat to speak, but it was Tommy that responded, his tone dull. “Yeah, we’ve met.”
Well, this is awkward.
The door opened again, and he stood, that instinctual protectiveness flaring in him as she stepped through the door, her eyes meeting his with a smile.
But then her eyes shifted toward the other two in the room, and he watched, aching inside, as her face fell, her eyes going wide and shuttering almost immediately, the joy and carefreeness from moments ago disappearing instantly.
Kasey refused to take his eyes off of her face, his heart hammering in his chest at the pain he could sense radiating off of her, even if she was trying her damndest to hide it. Out of his peripheral vision, he knew Thom had stood, taking steps toward her to embrace her in a gentle hug.
“Hi, Shaun honey,” the older man said softly. Pulling away, he asked, “How’s our girl?”
Kasey watched as Shaun swallowed hard, glancing over Thom’s shoulder at Tommy briefly, before raising her eyes back to his and said, “She’s good. Tired. Baby boy is doing great. Did you let Chase know you’re here?”
“I called him and left a voicemail,” Thom said, patting her arm in a kind, fatherly gesture. Kasey remained where he was, standing several feet away, watching everything. “I figured he was busy. He’ll come get us when they’re ready for us.”
“Does Zoey know you’re here?” she asked then, her voice breaking slightly as she spoke directly to Tommy, who had remained sitting when his father had stood to greet Shaun. “I didn’t know you were even home.”
Kasey glanced at Tommy, saw his head shake in a silent no. “I wasn’t sure if she wanted me here. Dad told me I didn’t have a choice. I’m only here for a day or two.”
“She’ll be happy to see you,” Shaun said quietly, but Tommy just shrugged, returning his gaze to the floor between dirty work boots. “So will Chase.”
Thom squeezed Shaun’s arm where his hand still rested, and she brought her eyes to his again. His lips had pulled into a sad line and he just shook his head slightly, and Shaun nodded. Those dark sapphire eyes finally came back to his, and Kasey read the plea in them.
“Well, we should probably go,” Shaun said then, reaching out a hand and accepting the jacket that Kasey held out for her. “Let you guys have some time with Zoey and the baby. Chase said she’s requesting a Northman pizza as a push present.”
“He better not forget the banana peppers,” Tommy said then from where he sat, raising his head to look at her, a half-smile pulling one corner of his mouth up. Shaun’s grudging chuckle made jealousy crash through him.
“She was mad at you for a week,” Shaun said with a small smile, and that jealousy inside Kasey turned into a rage as he watched a flicker of life return to the other man’s eyes.
But then Shaun moved her eyes away from Tommy’s and those sapphire eyes met his again, and in that moment, he didn’t blame Tommy for clinging to that feeling after being denied it for nearly a year. It was like taking a hit of the best drug possible, the strongest high.
This woman had the capability to become an addiction he had no chance in hell of kicking.