“Really?” Nolan eyed his brother. “She’s too old for you.”
For some reason, that annoyed Eve. Shawn was actually a year younger than her. And while she one hundred percent agreed that she wouldn’t want to date a guy Rhett’s age if she wasn’t married, she didn’t want a man dismissing her or her friend as too old. It got her back up.
“That’s not the issue here,” she told her husband. “Men date younger women all the time, and no one says a damn word about it.”
“Sure they do,” Nolan protested. “Everyone says she’s a gold digger.”
“So they call younger women dating older men gold diggers and older women dating younger men cougars. Yet no one says anything about the men at all. That pisses me off.”
“I never called Shawn a cougar,” Nolan told her easily. “Frankly, my point was she’s too mature for Rhett. I don’t think he can keep up.”
“Hey.” Rhett frowned. “How exactly am I so immature? God, you and mom both. I have a job, an apartment.”
“That was my apartment,” Nolan pointed out. “I let you take over the lease when I got married and moved in with Eve. And I’m not saying you’re immature, just not as mature as a woman who runs a dirt track almost entirely on her own.”
Ah, shit. There was no way Rhett wasn’t going to be able to figure out who Shawn was now.
Eve gave her husband an annoyed look and pushed him into the house. “I’m freezing. Plus, I want pie for dessert.”
The garage door swung down slowly on automatic hinges and Rhett leaped inside before it shut. “Wait a minute,” he said, the wheels clearly turning. “That was Shawn Hamby, wasn’t it?”
Eve didn’t answer, and she put her hand on her husband’s mouth before he could further blow it. But it was too late.
Rhett broke into a grin. “It is. There can’t be two women you know named Shawn who run a dirt track. Damn. Who knew the owner of Hamby Speedway was so freaking hot?”
“She’s too old for you,” Nolan said again.
Eve didn’t say anything at all. She just pulled her phone out of her pocket. She needed to warn Shawn she was about to be stalked by a horny member of her pit crew.
• • •
“YOU cannot be serious,” Shawn said, staring at her grandfather’s lawyer, Clinton Oiler, across the desk of her office at the track. “There is no way that is even legal.”
“Oh, I can assure you it is. Your grandfather owned this track, and he had the right to do whatever he wanted with it.”
Shawn fell back against her chair, sending it rolling a foot to the left and colliding with a box of leftover programs from the previous season on the floor. Her office was a contender for putting her on an episode of Hoarders, but she wasn’t detail-oriented. She was a big picture person, and she loved this dirt track, had loved helping her grandfather run it until his death three months earlier.
Losing Pops had been rough for her. She had known it was coming. He’d battled cancer for two years before losing the fight, but he had always managed to seem like he would beat it. Until the very end, he had still been at work, and she had deluded herself into thinking he would never be gone. Then in the blink of an eye, he’d taken a turn for the worse and he was gone. But what had comforted her after he died was that she had been entrusted with his legacy, this track. It was her home, her heart, her passion.
But apparently her grandfather had thought her passion was slightly misguided.
“Are you sure it wasn’t a joke? Pops had a sense of humor.”
“No, it’s no joke. You don’t inherit the track unless you’re married. Plain and simple.”
Married. Good God. Her grandfather was blackmailing her into marriage. Unbelievable. Shawn stared at Clinton, suddenly speechless. This was the most insane thing she’d ever heard.
The lawyer pulled off his wire-frame glasses and rubbed the sagging skin under his eyes. He and her grandfather had been friends for sixty years, and he probably knew him better than anyone. “We had several conversations about it, Shawn, and I have to tell you that I told Jameson I didn’t approve of this, but he was adamant. He thought that you spent too much time at this place and that you needed more balance in your life. He wanted you to be settled and have a family, like your brother does.”
Shawn blinked. “So forcing me to marry some dude off the street is going to give me balance? That makes no sense whatsoever.”
“I imagine he had Sam in mind, not some stranger off the street.” Clinton steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips. “Everyone always thought you and Sam would get hitched.”
“Well, we didn’t,” Shawn said, pointing out the obvious. “And there was a very good reason for that. Sam cheated on me. Three times. Now I may be the forgiving sort, but even I know that three times is not the charm when it comes to infidelity.” She realized her hand was shaking and she was starting to think she might get sick. She sat on her hand to stop its tremors and regain some control. “I would rather stab myself in the eyes than marry Sam.”
“Oh, dear,” Clinton said. “I don’t think Jameson knew about the cheating.”
“I never told anyone. It’s a bit personal.” And humiliating. And so two years ago. She was completely over it, and frankly, was completely happy on her own, aside from the lack of sex. Rhett Ford popped into her head and she resolutely shoved his image aside. That was the last thing she needed to think about right now.
She had been embarrassed to realize that she was pleased and more than a little turned on when Eve had texted her that Rhett was asking about her and wanted permission to contact her. Shawn had said she would think about it, but truth be told, she had wanted him to do it anyway. She didn’t want to be the one who called the shots, because agreeing to it made her responsible. But if he pursued her and she happened to flirt back, well, then it wasn’t her seeking out dating a twenty-five-year-old. It was accidental cougar-ing. In her mind, anyway.
But she hadn’t heard from him, so all the mental gymnastics had been for nothing.
“Your grandfather figured Sam would be the perfect partner to help you out with the running of this place,” Clinton told her.
Sam couldn’t manage having an affair in secret so he certainly couldn’t keep on top of running a business venture. “That’s misogynistic and insulting. Why is it that no one can accept that women can run a business just as effectively as a man? God, racing is something I love, yet how many female drivers and team owners are there? A handful. It’s incredible.” Shawn freed her hand and shoved her hair back off her forehead.