Bent Not Broken (A Cedar Creek #1) (14 page)

“We good?”

“I don’t know,” I kept whispering.

I wanted to try. I really, really did.

Which meant he needed to know what he was in for.

I loosened my hold on him, straightened up in his lap, moved my hands to hold both his cheeks to look into his deep and soulful eyes. In a trembling whisper I was being as honest as I had ever been with a man.

“You need to know that I don’t know how to trust, that I might never be able to give you all of me. I’m not comfortable with this, with you reading me so easily and trying to get through to me. But I’m willing to try and let you in as much as I’m capable of. I can’t promise you anything. I might wake up tomorrow and take it all back. But I can try and give you one day at a time as long as you promise me you won’t willingly hurt me.”

“I won’t,” Cal reassured me in a firm voice.

That was when I nodded and leaned in to kiss him softly. His arms around me tightened in return and he kissed me back. He ended the kiss and rubbed his nose against mine. Then he said, “Dinner,” which made me take a deep breath and smile shakily at him.

His smile wasn’t shaky but proud as he lifted me up and put me back in my seat. I put my seatbelt back on, and Cal drove us down the mountain to get dinner. The whole way down he held my hand tightly in his.

Yes, this felt good. I was still unsure what would come of this and it freaked me way the hell out, but I promised Cal I would give him one day at a time. So that’s what I would do. I owed him that much and more importantly, I owed it to myself.

Only when we arrived at
Becca’s Kitchen
in town did Cal let go of my hand to maneuver into a parking spot close to the entrance. He put the truck in park, released his seatbelt, turned to look at me and asked, “Ready?” to which I gave him a small smile and lied, “Yes.” I wasn’t ready. My nerves were shot, I was scared to death and nervous as hell, and the date was only twenty minutes old. I had no idea how I would make it through this.

As he got out on his side, I released my seatbelt with shaking hands and opened my door. I had one foot out on the running board when I felt hands gripping my waist and lifting me up and out of the truck. Surprised, I let out an “Eek,” whipped my head up, and braced my hands on Cal’s shoulders. His head tipped down and he didn’t look pleased.

“Babe, next time you wait.”

“Uh…wait?” I asked confused.

“Yeah. Wait.”

“For what?”

His head came down further until he was so close our noses almost touched. His eyes were boring into mine, and all I could do was stare at him.

“I’m a man.” He said, confusing me even more.

“Uh, yeah, honey, I get that.”

His body went still at my words.

What? Did I say something wrong? I hadn’t seen the ultimate proof but I was pretty sure he was a man. His eyes kept boring into me, but they had changed from being annoyed to being so intense that my body stilled as well and I stopped breathing. This went on for several moments until his hands that were still holding my waist gave me a squeeze and his body relaxed.

“A man that’s any man at all treats his woman with respect. For you, part of that means when you’re with me, you don’t open doors,” his voice had gentled.

Wow. That was nice.

I had never had a man open a door for me. Sure, leaving or entering a store or something, men—and sometimes women for that matter, but mostly men—would hold the door open for me out of politeness and I did the same, but this wasn’t what he meant. This was Cal being a gentleman, saying it was a man’s job to do simple things like opening doors for his woman.

Again.

Wow.

I got a funny feeling down in my belly as I released the breath I was still holding and smiled up at him.

“Okay. I’ll wait next time,” I said in a breathy voice.

Cal kept staring down at me, then his lips quirked up. He released my waist and took my hands that were still resting on his shoulders in both of his, released one, laced his fingers through mine of the other, then walked me up to the restaurant, opened the door, let my hand go, guided me through the door with a hand at the small of my back, followed me through the door, reclaimed my hand, and walked me up to the hostess station.

“Hey, Cal! Hi, Ivey!” Cora, the hostess, cheerily welcomed us. “Table for two?” She didn't seem surprised to see us together, holding hands. Guess the episode in
Serendipity
today had made the rounds already. Or Cal’s weeklong stalking might have clued everyone in.

He gave her a chin lift confirming we needed a table for two, which made me giggle. Cal’s head turned toward me, and his questioning eyes hit my amused ones. His face turned from questioning to gentle as he gave me a small smile while he squeezed my hand. Then he followed Cora through the restaurant, pulling me behind him.

When we reached our table, he released my hand to help me with my jacket, hung it on the hook by the booth before he moved to take off his own jacket.

I scooted halfway into the booth, expecting him to sit across from me. When he didn't appear across from me, I looked up at him, saw that he was still standing next to my seat waiting, and raised my eyebrows.

He raised his eyebrows back at me, then tipped up his chin. I drew my eyebrows down in confusion and asked, “Huh?”

“Babe. Scoot in,” He said, his tone amused.

Scoot in? I was scooted in. I looked to the other seat across from me, then back up at him, not getting it.

Apparently, Cal was done waiting, seeing as he lowered his body into the booth—
my
side of the booth—and pushed his hip against mine which made me scoot further into the booth until my right side hit wall.

I looked at him with my brows still drawn in confusion.

“What are you doing? Your seat is over there,” I said to him, pointing at the seat across from me.

“Want you close,” he said in return.

“Oh,” I muttered.

He wanted me close. Is that what men did when they took their women out for dinner? I had no idea. Granted, it had been a while since I’d dated. I was no-nonsense about my encounters with men. Yes, I had my go to men with whom I could enjoy myself, but I had never gone out with them. That was my rule. No going out or meeting in public, not even for a drink. Never took them to my house. Always met at their place, so when I got what I needed—and gave what they needed in return of course—I could leave. My terms. I never deviated from that. Until now.

I looked around the restaurant to check out the other patrons and their seating arrangements.

Paul and Chloe were sitting in the window booth, across from each other.

Bert and Linda were at a table in the middle of the room, also sitting across from each other.

So were Bill and Tara at the booth across from us.

The only people sitting next to each other were families with children, but then again, the man was sitting across from the woman, each with a child next to them, and teenagers on a double date it seemed like. But that was understandable. No teenage boy would want his girlfriend sitting next to another teenage boy. And the men at the bar, where you had no other option but to sit next to each other, seeing as it was a bar.

I looked back to Cal to see his amused eyes on me, waiting.

“Nobody else is sitting next to each other,” I pointed out to him.

“Don’t care,” was his response.

I again looked around the restaurant and realized that everyone but the teenage double date was looking at us, the women with curious looks on their faces, the men either grinning—the ones sitting with their women—or their teeth clenched—the ones sitting at the bar which I didn’t get.

There was a woman sitting at the bar with the men. Her eyes weren’t curious. They were scathing. Her face was twisted into an ugly mask of derision.

Uh, what?

Looking back at Cal I hissed under my breath, “Everyone is looking at us.”

This made him grin.

“The point, babe.”

“Cal—” I started, but was interrupted.

“Relax, baby,” he said, giving me a squeeze with his arm that I hadn’t realized until then was around my shoulder.

“I can’t. If looks could kill that blonde at the bar would have done the deed,” I hissed between my teeth. Cal’s head whipped around to the bar to see what I was talking about. When it came back to me his teeth were clenched. On another squeeze of my shoulder he said, “Ignore her. I do.”

Easy for him to say. He was not the target of a death glare. My body stayed tense and my eyes stayed on the woman at the bar. Until I felt lips brushing against my temple so gently I had no choice but to close my eyes and breathe out slowly.

“Let’s order,” I heard Cal mumble with his lips still at my temple.

“Okay,” I answered breathily, the woman at the bar all but forgotten.

I focused on the menu Cora had left for us, though I didn't really need to. I already knew what I wanted. I was a regular at
Becca’s Kitchen.
I didn’t usually eat in but ordered out a lot. Be it a sandwich for lunch that I would eat at my counter at the store or a homemade meatloaf that I would pick up on my way home. Their pizzas were great, too. And more often than not, I would come down the mountain just to pick up one of their fantastic desserts, like the hot fudge sundae or the German chocolate cake. Becca’s great grandparents were from Germany, and as everyone knows, besides beer Germans are famous for their cakes. The recipes Becca used had been handed down for generations. She had told me once that she came from a family of bakers and pastry makers, so it was no wonder that all their desserts were seriously divine. The German influence stopped there though, which I was grateful for. I wasn’t a fan of schnitzel and sauerkraut and cabbage and knödel. Ick.

I realized I was starving.

Since my store had been very busy today, I was run off my feet and hadn’t really had the time to eat anything. Add all that happened today and me being a dork and embarrassing myself in front of the whole town—okay, not the whole town but it sure felt like it—and being unsure and too nervous all day to eat I was now ravenous. My stomach confirmed this by growling loudly.

“See my woman’s hungry,” Cal muttered under his breath.

“That’s an understatement,” I said, also under my breath.

“Let’s get you fed then,” he said in a louder voice while trying to make eye contact with the waitress and being successful, giving her a chin lift indicating we were ready to order.

Conversation during dinner went well. We talked about all kinds of stuff in an easy flow. I asked Cal about Tommy and school, and Cal asked me about my bookstore.

It was during dessert that I realized I hadn’t been this comfortable in male company in a long time. So long I couldn't remember the last time I had felt this way. There was something about Cal that made me feel safe. I couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was the fact that my gut told me he was a good guy. Both of us living in the same small town, I had heard things about him, all of them good. I knew he didn’t fish in the Cedar Creek pond, probably because of the same reason I didn’t. Too messy. I could respect that.

I knew he was a good dad and well respected in the community. Now that I knew he was Betty’s son, this made him even more so in my mind. I knew Betty would put him over her knee if she knew he was screwing people over. After what she’d said about me
to
me that would definitely multiply by a gazillion if he screwed me over, seeing as it looked like she liked me. A lot. So maybe that fact contributed to me feeling safe in his presence.

Also, his absolute determination to make me trust him. He had to know that that was a lot to take on, even though he didn’t know about my past. But with what he said to me in the truck, it seemed he knew exactly what he had taken on. And it was not like I’d asked him to do any of that.

Honestly, he hadn’t even been on my radar.

Yes, I had known he existed.

And yes, I definitely had known he was hot.

He had this certain vibe about him that automatically made women go weak in the knees. But I had never considered spending any amount of time with him, apart from our easy chit chat when he dropped Tommy off or picked him up at the bookstore—if you could call me babbling and him giving me chin lifts, stares, and a few very attractive male chuckles chit chat.

No, he hadn’t been on my radar simply because I didn’t let any men in Cedar Creek enter that zone. My principle of no complications included no men from Cedar Creek. That could get uncomfortable and nasty. Exactly what I had tried to avoid.

Cal was very sure of himself in a good way. Not arrogant, not condescending, but in a self-assured male badass way that against my better judgment was a turn on.

I would have never thought that with what had been done to me, I could ever be remotely attracted to someone as aggressive and forward as Cal. But now that I thought about it I was starting to realize that there was a difference between aggressive as in violent and aggressive as in determined.

Cal was the latter.

Just like Larry.