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.
