Her laughter rang forth even from beneath all that fabric. “Headless monkey! Headless monkey!” she shrieked.
The kid made Evan laugh. She was random and full of adventure.
“Be careful getting down!” Elec called as Hunter started to flip her legs all the way over for a dismount.
She landed safely. On her knees.
“I saw that one coming,” Elec said, wincing as Hunter stood up, covered in mud from hip to ankles. “Tamara is going to kill me.”
“It’s an ugly dress,” Evan told him. “It looks like she’s a giant cupcake. No loss. And how is that your fault anyway? She’s the one who fell.”
“Tell that to her mother.”
“We can tell Tamara I pushed Hunter.”
Elec looked at him and they both started laughing.
“I just might do that.”
“Everyone else is already pissed at me. Might as well make it the whole family.”
“No one is pissed at you. Well, okay, Eve is. But the problem is, you don’t talk to anybody. You just do stuff, and then no one knows how to react. No one even knows what you really want, man.”
Evan scoffed. “Are you for real? I’m supposed to run around talking about my feelings? When did that ever become something any dude does?”
Besides, who would listen?
“I’m not talking like deep dark secrets. Hell, I don’t want to know those. But tell us what’s going on in your personal life. Explain what you want from your career, out of life.”
Draining the remains of his beer, Evan watched Hunter following her brother down the slide, not the least bit deterred by her mucked-up dress.
“What do I want? What do I really want? Damn, I don’t know, Elec. Sometimes I don’t even know why I drive.”
“I don’t always know why you drive either. Sometimes it seems to me like you do it because this career was put in front of you.”
“It was. Maybe I do.” Their summer weather had retreated and a biting breeze cut over him. “It’s what a Monroe does—we drive.”
“Only if you want to. Is there anything else you could see yourself doing?”
Evan pondered that for a second. “Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. I wouldn’t mind being an owner someday. But I’m too young to do anything but drive, aren’t I?” The very idea of not being the one behind the wheel was strange in the extreme. But not all that unpleasant, actually. It would be nice to have a different challenge for a change.
“Not necessarily. I guess I question if you drive for the win, or because you love to drive.”
“Aren’t they one and the same?”
“No.” Elec shook his head and stood up. “They’re not. Not at all. And I’m going to let you think about that while I make my daughter go change out of this dress.”
“You want me to do a f**king Sudoku while you’re at it? I’m not big on puzzles.”
“Then don’t make life one.”
Evan shook his head at his brother. “Thanks, Mr. Miyagi.” God, his brother got married and started raising kids and thought he was full of wisdom. If Elec tried to get him to wax his car, he was leaving.
“Hunter Jean Briggs!” Tamara’s horrified voice came hurtling out of the back door.
Oops. Evan tried to look innocent, shrugging his shoulders at his sister-in-law.
Elec was already walking across the grass. “I’m on it, babe. Don’t worry about it.”
Tamara slid the patio door shut behind her and shook her head. “That girl attracts trouble like roadkill does vultures. And she has Elec wrapped around her finger.”
“I think you have him wrapped around your finger as well, Mrs. Monroe.”
She grinned at him. “Yeah, maybe. But it goes both ways.”
“So the marriage thing is working out for you?” He knew it was, he just wanted to hear it said out loud, have validation that someone was happy.
“Splendidly. You should try it sometime.”
“I wouldn’t mind doing that.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Wow. I didn’t expect you to actually say that.”
“I never said I was anti-marriage.” Well, he might have, but that was just his sour grapes talking.
“Well, well, well . . . it seems Kendall Holbrook is quite a woman if she has you admitting that marriage doesn’t totally suck.”
But Evan shook his head. “Don’t go hanging paper bells for Kendall and me. That’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? Did you honestly think I would be marrying your brother? Did you think that Suzanne and Ryder would get back together and be having a baby? That Ty and Imogen, total opposites, would be planning their fall wedding?” She crossed her arms and rubbed them against the cool air. “You and Kendall make way more sense as a couple than any of us do.”
“It’s complicated,” he told her. It was.
And hell if he really knew why.
He just knew that nightly phone calls and a stolen kiss here and there weren’t cutting it for him.
“YOU’RE so good with the kids,” Kendall’s mom said, beaming at her as she bounced her niece on her knee. “You really should have one of your own.”
Her mother was subtle as usual.
“Kind of hard to race Daytona with a pregnant belly, Mom.”
Giving a long-suffering sigh, her mother passed the platter of ham past Kendall. “It’s just not natural.”
She couldn’t help herself; she rolled her eyes at her mom. “Thanks.”
“Oh, leave her alone,” her sister Kaylynn said from across the table. “I think it’s awesome that Kendall is doing what she loves and she’s hugely successful. More women should have the guts to go for their dreams.”
“Didn’t you go for your dreams?” her mother asked. “You have everything you every wanted—a career as a nurse and a lovely family. Kendall doesn’t have any of that.”
“I’m still sitting here, Mom. If you’re going to insult me, maybe it would be nice if you went into the kitchen to do it.”
Her mother gave a contrite look. “Well, I’m sorry.”
She wasn’t, not really, and most days Kendall let it roll off her. But she’d been feeling out of sorts for the last week. Hiding her relationship with Evan was challenging, and sucked some of the joy out of it. It was nerve-wracking thinking she might get caught and have to deal with the career consequences of that.