Page 61 of Ignite

Things were getting personal between my father and Emmit, and it was my fault.

Emmit laughed. “Yeah well, I decided to do things my way for once.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. I could picture my father now with steam coming from his ears.

The next thing he said broke my heart. “You just cost yourself the race, Emmit.”

“Nothing matters anymore, Waldo. The only thing that mattered to me left me over a week ago.”

My breath caught in my chest as I let Emmit’s words sink in. He hadn’t mentioned me once in the last race. Not that I thought he would.

“Jesus Christ, son. Get your damn heart out of the fucking racecar. You need to be focused, Emmit. You’re going to be the cause of a wreck if you don’t get your head out of your ass!”

I stood quickly and looked around. I had no idea what I was looking for. As I spun around, I looked back at the TV and then down to my phone. Picking up my phone, I opened my voicemail and hit Stephanie’s message.

“Yes, hello. My name is Todd Frank. I’m Emmit’s new assistant. Please kindly remove Stephanie Murphy’s name from this number and replace it with my name. If you need anything or have been waiting on something from Ms. Murphy, please forward that on to me at this number or through email. [email protected] Have a wonderful evening.”

My hand dropped to the side of my body as I let my phone drop from my hand. Where was Stephanie? Did Emmit fire her? Did she step down now that their affair had been found out?

My hands covered my face as I sat down on the sofa. “Just tell me where in the hell, Malcolm is,” Emmit called out as I looked back down at my phone and picked it up.

I searched through my messages. My fingered hovered over Emmit’s last message to me.

Hitting play, I held my breath and waited to hear his voice play over the speaker.

“Hey. I really wish you’d call me back. I’ve been leaving the same message over and over, hoping like hell you’ll listen to one of them. Can’t do it today, I’m tired and I have to go race. Adaline, I love you. It’s always been only you.”

The message stopped playing as I finally remembered to breathe. “Emmit.” I looked back up at the TV. In that moment, I realized the terrible mistake I had made. I let my fear see things that were never there.

My heart felt as if I had betrayed it this last week. Anger and regret consumed me as I thought how I had let Stephanie push me away. I knew Emmit was faithful. Deep in my heart, I had always known it.

Jumping up, I grabbed my purse and rushed out of the hotel room I’d checked into last night. There was somewhere I needed to be, and this hotel was not it.

As I navigated through traffic, I drove as fast as I could. I needed to get to the track. I drove to Chicago with every intention of going to the race and talking face to face with Emmit and asking for the truth. Why it took me over a week to pull my head out of my ass to do it, I’ll never know.

I had the race playing on my car radio and Emmit’s communication still pulled up on my phone.

“And as we approach the checkered flag, it will be number twenty-four, Malcolm Wallace crossing the finish line with the number thirty-seven of Emmit Lewis coming in second. Lewis has not been very quiet over the radio about the fact that he is upset about Wallace’s pass earlier.”

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I said as I slammed my hand on the steering wheel. Damn it, what is wrong with me?

“I need to talk to, Wallace,” Emmit said over the radio.

Quickly picking up my phone, I hit the home button and said, “Call, Daddy.”

When it rang, I prayed like hell for my father to answer it.

“Adaline!”

“Daddy!” I yelled out.

“Where in the hell have you been? I’m so mad at you right now I could . . . I don’t know what I could do, Adaline Morgan. I have too much shit going on.”

“I know! I know, Daddy. I’ve been stupid. I need to talk to Emmit right away.”

“Yeah well, I’m trying to stop him from doing something stupid.”

Tears began to build in my eyes. This was my fault. If only I hadn’t run. If I had just stopped for two seconds and thought really long and hard about what I thought I had seen.