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wasn’t.

    “Let’s go in,” he said.

    In the lobby they walked right by the media, who were all asking questions.

    Jared held up his hand, stopping to talk to them while Annie kept going to the information desk.

    Carl Winnly approached as Annie disappeared down the hall.

    “Why are you here?” the reporter asked.

    “To give my support to the Jenner family,” Jared replied, hoping that Carl would take his words at face value. NASCAR was a tight community and when something like this happened to one of their own, they would all rally around the Jenner family.

    “Will you excuse me, Carl?” Jared needed to call Tucker and let him know he was going to be later to the after-party than he’d originally expected.

    “Sure. Do you know who the family spokesperson will be?”

    “No. I’ll try to find out for you.”

    Jared stepped back outside into the Florida night. It was turning cold and the air sank through his clothes, chilling him to the bone. There was a glow from the security lights in the parking lot.

    He hit the speed dial for Tucker’s number.

    “Yo, Jared. Where are you, man?” Tucker asked.

    “My date is running longer than I expected.”

    Tucker chuckled. “That’s not a bad thing.”

    “No, it’s not,” he said. Though he and Tucker were close Jared didn’t really like to talk about the women he dated.

    “We can catch up tomorrow. I want to talk to you about next week’s race.”

    “Sounds good. I’ll be back in the motor home lot tonight if you want to stop by.”

    “Will you be alone?”

    “More than likely,” he said. He thought that even if there hadn’t been a Jenner family emergency, Annie wasn’t the kind of girl to go back to his place on the night of their first date.

    He started back to the hospital, wondering if he should stay despite the fact that she wanted him to. He wasn’t really good at being a part of something. His parents deaths a mere six months apart had insulated him. He allowed himself to care for Tucker, but even that was filtered through the distance he liked to keep between himself and other people.

    Part of it he knew harkened back to those years he’d spent alone at boarding school and the behaviors he’d learned then. But another part of it was simply that life was easier when he didn’t form deep bonds with others. And if he stayed…well, he was already more into Annie than he was comfortable with.

    He shivered in the cold, feeling like the kind of man his father would have sneered at in disdain. For the first time in his thirty-five years he didn’t feel like he was a MacNeil. How had he come to this?

    He felt like shallow shell of a man who was more comfortable being charming to strangers than caring for people he knew. And the answer was very clear.

    He walked back into the hospital. She’d asked him to stay and he’d said he would. MacNeils honored their promises—he heard his father’s words echoing in his mind in his father’s deep voice. He’d always been careful about the promises he made. Careful not to make too many or to give them too lightly.

    The one he’d made tonight hadn’t been given easily or lightly. He wanted to be there for Annie. Be there with her. He strode down the hallway to the waiting area. And when he stepped inside he didn’t go back to his corner, but met Annie’s gaze head-on, and there was something there that he was almost afraid to believe was real. A kind of welcome that had always eluded him before. She held her hand out to him and he went to her side, sitting down next to her and just holding her hand.

    Dave glanced over at him, but there was no malice or anger in her brother’s gaze. Instead there was the same kind of panic he’d glimpsed in Annie’s eyes earlier. Jared had no words to reassure the family but he found them all the same. He started talking about the kinds of breakthroughs that had been made in the past few years.

    Drawing on his photographic memory he recited