The place didn’t scream “motor racing!” It whispered “home.” It showed a side of Bart that few would suspect. He could be flamboyant in public when he chose. He could be tough as iron when he had to. But this was his sanctuary.

  He poured them each the drink of their choice, then, root-beer mug in hand, sat with them. “How’s Mom?” was the first thing he asked.

  “She’s good,” Penny said, perhaps too glibly. It was going to be hard to discuss what she and her brothers wanted to discuss with so many people there.

  So they made small talk and there was a lot of thanking. Everyone thanked Kayellen for driving to the airport and back. Penny and Craig both thanked E.A. for flying them, and E.A. thanked Will and Bart for their hospitality, and so on and so on until finally Kayellen thanked Bart for the ginger ale, but said she had to be going, could she give anyone a lift?

  Craig seemed eager to escape, and E.A. seemed eager to get into the car with Kayellen again, and Will said it was time for him to turn in, so everybody said good night and said they’d see each other tomorrow, and at last Penny was left alone with Bart.

  “So how is Mom really?” he asked with one eyebrow cocked.

  For forty-five minutes, Maeve was all they talked about.

  Then, he paused and looked Penny up and down. “And how are you?”

  “Right now I’m thinking of hitchhiking back to Dallas. The flight wasn’t the smoothest.”

  He smiled wryly. “Hey, it’ll make a story to tell your grandchildren.”

  There won’t ever be any grandchildren, she thought. She shrugged and said nothing.

  He changed the subject. “How about that Web site? Did it bother you?”

  “For a while,” she admitted. “But Selma got it taken down in record time. A few bloggers and gossip columnists will drag it out till a better scandal comes along. And a better scandal will. It always does these days.”

  “What’s with you and Craig?” he asked. “Your being here together? Does that mean you’re giving it another try?”

  Did she imagine that hope showed in Bart’s expression? Everything would be easier if her family didn’t think so much of Craig. She could divorce him, but they didn’t seem inclined to split with him, no matter what she did.

  She shook her head. “I know you like him, but I think this is the last gasp, the swan song.”

  “I’m sorry, Penn. Because I think he’s a truly fine guy.”

  “Even fine guys make mistakes,” she said with resignation. “His mistake was choosing me. Come on, little brother. Time to clean up the glasses and say night-night.”

  Later she slept and dreamt that she was caught and tossed in an endless storm. She reached desperately for Craig.

  But he was gone.

  And somehow, as was the way sometimes in dreams, she knew he was gone forever and all that was left was darkness and tumult.

  PENNY AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF children’s voices outside—some of the motor homes truly were homes away from home, so drivers could keep their families with them.

  She could already hear Bart stirring about in the kitchen. Unlike some drivers, he had no cook-housekeeper. He was surprisingly tidy, and Gerty had taught him how to make seven different dishes. He wasn’t a great cook, but he was an adequate one, and she smelled the aroma of scrambled eggs frying.

  Bart seldom showed any sign of nerves, but he seemed more serious than usual this morning. And for once, he had little to say. “You’ve got a garage pass waiting for you at the gate. You know where.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “We got you front-row seats. I wish you’d let us get you into a hospitality suite. You’re not going to be able to talk to each other over the noise.”

  “We know that,” Penny said, sitting down as he scraped the eggs, mixed with bacon, onto her plate. “He and I can talk later. The race is the race. And we’re here to support you two. It’d be very hard to concentrate on your going one hundred and eighty miles per hour while we discuss divorce.”

  “Good point,” agreed Bart, sitting down and taking a sip of coffee. “So why don’t you skip the race and just talk to the guy?”

  “Because you’re my brothers, I love you, and we need to stick together during this time. Mom and Gerty will be home, watching and biting their nails. And I’ll bite mine.”

  His phone rang. He glanced at caller ID and mouthed Will. He said hello and then “Yeah, bro. I’m about ready to head over myself. I’ll hop in the golf cart. I’ll meet you at your place.”

  He finished his breakfast hastily, and then was on his way. “Come see us in the pit afterward,” he said. “Or at least give a call. Give me a kiss for luck.”

  She did. When he left, she dressed down and put on no makeup except lip gloss and sunscreen. She wore a green bandanna that covered most of her hair and huge sunglasses that hid a third of her face. She let herself out and headed out to get her garage pass, hoping she wouldn’t meet Craig and E.A.—or worse, Craig alone.

  She’d planned on going unrecognized, and succeeded. Nobody addressed her or said, “Hey, I liked you better wearing the ferns.” If they did, she could snap back with half a dozen zingers, but she knew she shouldn’t. The Branch family was squarely in the public eye now, and they all had to play nice.

  She went back to Bart’s motor home to call Maeve. She wanted to avoid going to the pit area—or anywhere else that she might meet Craig. They’d made no firm plans for after the race. She supposed they would try to find a place to eat, then come back and each stay with one of the twins.

  E.A. wanted to fly back to Dallas early tomorrow morning. After that, she told herself, she should never agree to see Craig like this again.

  PENNY SLIPPED INTO HER SEAT early, looking as inconspicuous as possible.

  This race worried her.

  Martinsville was the shortest track in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was also one of the trickiest and most challenging.

  Its surface was peppered with bumps that would grow worse with the buildup from the “rubber marbles” torn from tires pushed to the limit. Its width made passing dicey and sometimes impossible.

  Its shape resembled a plump paper clip. The shortness of its straight track, its two U-turns and twelve-degree banking on the curves made it perilously crowded. It was one of the worst tracks on the circuit for getting banged and bumped, and heaven help you if a car suddenly wrecked in your path.

  Martinsville was a place where front tires blew and brakes could overheat and lock. The track itself was both patched concrete and asphalt, and cars could go squirrelly on it.

  The twins had short-track expertise, but they were still novices at this level of competition. They knew the turns were tough, and the tires, though crucial, were not as crucial as position. And neither of them had qualified for a position that was promising.

  Martinsville was also a race that took even more concentration than usual. Penny knew that both Bart and Will had to block out the distractions that Hilton had created and that kept mounting to ever more monstrous proportions.

  But they had to focus on the race, keep their emotions inside, and let nothing, nothing dull the intensity of their laserlike attention. Penny, on the other hand, wished she had one crucial task that forced her to concentrate.

  Her mind was torn into a wind-tossed tangle of worries that madly fluttered and knotted. Was there anything that didn’t throw her into a frenzy of worry? She worried about Hilton being caught and not being caught. She worried about Maeve incessantly. She worried about rebuilding her career.

  She worried about Craig.

  And then, suddenly, he was there, standing in the aisle. He was dressed almost the same as she was, a reversed image. She wore a hat with Will’s name and number, a shirt with Bart’s; Craig had a shirt displaying Bart’s number, a hat with Will’s.

  “Ah, here we are again,” he said, sitting beside her. “As alike as a pair of Twinkies.”

  She forced a smile. “Well, I can’t eat any Twinkies. At least I can be one.”

  “Ah, back to the everlasting diet. Is Japanese takeout okay for tonight? I ordered the seafood special for you. All right?”

  “Fine,” she said. “But where do we take it out to? A park?”

  “No,” he said. “I borrowed a cottage from a guy who likes to escape when the races are on. We’ll have privacy. And shelter. It may rain again this evening.”

  The idea of a cottage made her uneasy. Did he think he was going to tempt her into bed? But the idea of more rain made her even more uneasy.

  Craig saw the concern on her face. “I’m borrowing Kayellen’s car. I’ll get you back to Bart’s in plenty of time so you can get a good night’s sleep. And the forecast is only for showers, not lightning bolts and thunder boomers.”

  He gestured at the track. “The opening ceremony’s about to start. And here comes E.A. We’ll talk later.”

  E.A. joined them, a hot dog in one hand and a giant soft drink in the other. “I love this,” he said as he sat down. “I love this more than anything in the entire world.” He stared out at the track as if transfixed by a vision of paradise.

  “Let the thrills begin,” he said happily.

  THE RACE’S OPENING WAS spectacular, as usual. The jets flying in perfect coordination always thrilled Penny, making her tingle all over.

  The front-row seats made her feel she was on top of the action, and she was overwhelmed by feeling part of a vast, passionate neighborhood, the NASCAR community. This seemed much more intimate and communal to her than the privileged views from the suites.

  She had a better view of the crews scrambling in the pits. Even in the last minutes they were working out potential problems, trying to ensure the car wasn’t too loose or too tight—for the short track at Bristol had shown too many drivers had troubles on these sorts of turns.

  Penny’s throat tightened with anxiety. The twins knew what they had to do, preserve their brakes, roll through the center, not overdrive the turns and stay clean on pit road. The rainbow of cars roared around the track, and soon began to shift and dance on the rubber buildup. Sparks streaked from wheels on the turns.

  Will, who was a master at passing closely, was edging up, difficult as it was. Bart had made it to ninth place. Penny, listening on her scanner, heard Will ask for a banana at the next pit stop—a sure sign he had a muscle cramping up and needed potassium.

  Penny took turns listening to Bart and Will. Craig, she knew, flipped between the twins and the play-by-play commentary, and E.A. constantly switched every which way as if he were playing some fast-paced computer game. Each of them was lost in a private NASCAR world—except Penny, who was conscious of every moment of Craig’s nearness.

  She knew he never felt wholly comfortable wearing the NASCAR gear that was practically the official dress code of the tracks. Yet he looked as handsome and as at ease as he always did, and the arms under the short sleeves of his shirt were tanned and muscular, and the strength of his long legs showed beneath the snug denim of his jeans.

  Once, when Bart got a hard bump from the driver behind him, it seemed he might spin into the wall. Penny gasped and automatically grabbed Craig’s arm, just like the old days. He turned and gazed down at her, his blue-green eyes unreadable. She was careful not to touch him again.

  But she almost forgot in the final laps. Will had reached third place—remarkable! But his car blew a tire, skidded, bumped another and finally spun into the infield. She switched the scanner to his frequency and heard him say he was fine, not hurt, just disappointed. It was over for him.

  She wanted to cry about the injustice of it, about how Maeve must feel. But Bart pressed on, as if racing for both himself and Will. He somehow kept gaining, and when the checkered flag fell, he was fourth—his best NASCAR Sprint Cup Series finish ever. She felt drained of all emotion except the bittersweetness of one twin doing well and the other felled at the last minute by bad luck.

  E.A. tore off his earphones as Kent Grosso, the winning driver, cut some automotive capers, and then made his way to Victory Lane. “Your brothers did sensationally. But I couldn’t believe that tire blowing. What a rotten break.”

  “They’ll iron it out,” Craig said. “And if Will keeps racing that well, it’s going to be him in Victory Lane one of these days.” He looked at Penny in concern. “You okay?”

  She nodded, forcing a smile. “Yes. I feel bad for Will, but let’s go say hi to them.”

  She knew the twins would be glad to see them, yet have little time to spare. There would be long postmortems on the race and dealing with the team, the owner, the press and the fans. It would be like stepping into the middle of a circus.

  She went, had her photo taken with Bart, then Will, then with both together. Kayellen discreetly slipped Craig her car keys and Penny was glad to escape.

  They fought the traffic into the midst of Martinsville, where Craig picked up their Japanese takeout, then they drove to the historic district and one of the loveliest little guest cottages she’d ever seen.

  A log cabin with a chimney of native stone, it sat next to a larger guesthouse, well back on a large green lawn, with a spring garden blooming next to the flagstone porch. “Oh,” Penny said in delight. “What a treasure. You were lucky to get it.”

  “A mystery writer rents it. But he doesn’t like it when the NASCAR nation rolls into town. He’s a solitary sort. I met him when he was doing research up in South Dakota. He phones me from time to time to find out details about money laundering and stuff. The last time he called he told me he was down here and that anytime I wanted to use the place on a race day, I could.”

  He took the key from underneath a stone near the porch and opened the front door. Penny saw a charming, airy living room with colonial furniture upholstered in white, and a large braided rug in earth tones on the polished wooden floor. She also saw an open door that led into a white-walled bedroom with a king-size bed.

  She shivered involuntarily. But Craig hardly seemed to notice. There was a small dining area in the main room, and he set the food on the polished wooden table. “Do you want to see if you can find some plates and silverware?” he asked. “Or rough it and eat out of the cartons with chopsticks?”

  “Let’s rough it,” she said.

  “Fine with me,” he said. “I’ve got to get something out of the trunk.” He left and returned with a small ice chest. “Kayellen furnished the cooler,” he said. “And two glasses. Voilà! Champagne for the lady.”

  With a flourish he pulled out a bottle—one of two bottles. Penny fought against cringing. She remembered what happened last time they drank champagne. “Two bottles?” she asked warily.

  “I’ll leave one for a thank-you gift. Have a seat.”

  He pulled out her chair for her, and then took his own. He filled their glasses. “To your brothers.”

  “And may Will have better luck next time,” said Penny. They clicked their glasses, then sipped. She found it surreal to be eating Japanese takeout with bamboo chopsticks while sitting in luxurious log cabin. She didn’t know what to say.

  He ate slowly, casually, not speaking, either. At last he said, “I suppose you still want a divorce.”

  She immediately lost her appetite. “I suppose I do,” she answered.

  “Just suppose?” he asked. “Not sure? Not dead certain?”

  “Fairly certain,” she said. “We have irreconcilable differences. You want children. I don’t.”

  He laid aside his fork. “And why don’t you? You never give me a straight answer. Something changed. Just like before. Your mother and Gert and both twins said you changed before, too, after you came back to the States from Milan. Then they said you went to the Caribbean and came back even more changed.”

  He paused, his eyes locked on hers. “After those pictures of you popped up on the Internet and Selma got them off, I phoned her to thank her. I asked her about those trips to Milan, to the Caribbean. About what went on. She said she didn’t know, but she thought you’d gone through something bad. What happened in those places, Penny? Are they linked to what’s happening today, too?”

  This is it, I can’t hide any longer, she thought. It’s time to tell the truth.

  She could eat no more. She pushed the food away. She didn’t touch the champagne because she wanted to say this as clearly, as precisely as she could.

  “I’m not what you think,” she said. “And I hid the truth from you. I hid it because I kept thinking something would change. Everything would be all right. Yes. Something happened in Milan. And I want you to promise that you’ll never tell this to my mother. Or my brothers. Or anyone else.”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” he said, no emotion in his voice.

  She took a deep breath, and her chest ached, as if someone had stabbed her, twisted the knife, then pushed it deeper.

  “When I turned eighteen, my Aunt Fran was getting tired. Actually, she was getting sick. She had heart problems, and a few years later, they killed her. I was tired of being overprotected. Girls lots younger than me were going to Europe by themselves. I’d been going for six years—always on a leash.”

  She passed her fingertips over her brow. “I was restless, and I wanted freedom. I was thrilled when Hilton said I could go on my own. I’d been around, I thought I knew everything. I didn’t.

  “I did fine in London and Paris on my own. But when I got to Milan it was different. I was on a plane with four other models, all younger than I was. I was very immature, very inexperienced, compared to other models my age. But I thought I was the den mother, I could help these girls get oriented, stay out of trouble.

  “When we landed, there were young men waiting for us. They carried flowers, they had limousines waiting, they wanted to take us to the most expensive restaurant in the city for supper. They were nothing but rich playboys, but we were impressed. One was an agent—he’d told the others we were arriving.”

  She stopped and swallowed hard. Craig’s eyes seemed to bore through her.

  “At supper we met some other men. A couple were older, and one was a count with an estate in the country. He invited us for the weekend and told us we’d be safely chaperoned. His sisters would be there, and his brother’s wife.

 

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