All on her own. Grady had wanted to fly out, just to be there for her first race as the solo crew chief, but Dobson’s secretary had scheduled his site visit for the Monday right after the race, and Grady wanted every minute he had to spend on making things perfect for the meeting. He hated having to miss the race, but he’d worked his ass off to finish up his work in time to at least watch the race on TV. He’d cheered every time the camera had panned over the crew chiefs, and tried not to notice how the cameraman seemed to love to linger on Annabelle far longer than on any other crew chief. And then Kerri had won, and Grady had called Annabelle right after the win, too, and she’d screamed and cheered into the phone one minute and told him she missed him the next. He went to the airport an hour early on Sunday, too anxious for Annabelle’s flight to arrive so that he could take her in his arms and show her how much he’d missed her, too. How proud he was of her. Kerri and Ranger had been on the same flight, and he didn’t even care that Kerri had smirked when he swept Annabelle up and kissed her with three days of pent-up longing.
