Convincing Cara (Wishing Well, Texas Book 2) (6 page)

So, fighting every urge I had to get up and run, just like I had every time I’d seen Trace the past couple of weeks, I turned and tried to sound as casual and unaffected as I could. “Cool.”

The smile that spread on his face had heat exploding through me like fireworks on the Fourth.

Yeah…this was so
not
cool.

Trace

“About as welcome as a porcupine at a nudist colony.”

~ Dolly Briggs

O
ne thing was
for sure: I wasn’t paranoid. There was no doubt that Cara wanted to be anywhere but sitting beside me on this blanket. Her body language could not have been any clearer.

I knew she didn’t need this spot for her friends. Cara had no idea that I’d been a couple of feet back on a blanket of my own and overheard the messages she’d exchanged with Harmony and Destiny. The second she had started to gather her things, I’d made my move.

Shocked. That’s what she’d been when I’d sidled up next to her. So shocked that her knee-jerk response had been to lie. I was no relationship expert, but I was pretty sure there was no way that was a good sign of things to come. I needed to get to the bottom of this.

“Haven’t seen you around much lately,” I commented.

“Yeah…I’ve been, just, um, kind of… I mean, really busy.” Cara’s leg bounced up and down as she stammered through her response.

I’d known Cara all of her life and seen her in a lot of different situations. I’d witnessed her waiting on calls from physicians with blood cell counts to seeing who the bachelor gave his final rose to. Whenever she was uncertain of an outcome, her legs either jiggled or bounced. Her upper body was still and composed, but her lower half broadcasted that her nerves were popping like bubbles floating through a field of cacti.

Other people who didn’t know Cara as well as I did might have thought she was fidgety or even keeping time to music playing in her head. But I knew the truth. She was nervous. The question was: Why?

I was trying to concentrate on discovering what was going on between us. Until I uncovered that truth, I couldn’t tell her how I felt. I mean, how could I lay out how I’d felt about her for years, if she couldn’t even sit next to me? The problem was that my mind knew that but my body had other ideas.

I might have only caught the movement because I’d first noticed the sexy lines of her golden legs stretched out before her. I found so much about Cara to be innately and effortlessly sexy. Her eyes. Her lips. Her smile. Her laugh. Her neck. But her legs? Damn, they topped the list.

Clearing my throat, I tore my gaze away from the slope of the inner thigh I’d touched just two weeks ago. “Things busy at work?”

“What?” Her gaze sliced towards me, and her brow furrowed.

“You said you were busy,” I reminded her.

“Oh, right. Yeah.” She nodded a little bit too enthusiastically, as a light blush appeared on her cheek. “I’ve been busy at work.”

I wanted to mention that, if she had been Pinocchio, her nose would have been the length of a football field, but I didn’t see the point. I knew Cara. And just like I knew she was nervous with me sitting next to her, I also knew she wasn’t normally a liar, which meant there must’ve been a reason for her less-than-truthful behavior around me lately.

“What are you working on?”

This conversation was not going well, but I pushed forward, ignoring that her body language was making it clear she was as happy sitting next to me as she would be next to an outhouse on a windy day.

“Umm…I just got moved to the digital department. I’m going to be doing a weekly lifestyle blog,” she explained as she scanned the grassy area, which was growing more and more crowded.

“So, is that full-time, then?”

She’d been working towards a full-time position since she’d taken the internship at the magazine when she was a junior in college. After college, they’d hired her as a contract employee, but if she was full-time, that was huge.

“Yep.” Her lips popped the P at the end as her head bobbed up and down in a nod. “I’m going to have a permanent byline.”

“When did this happen?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

I stared at her profile, trying to figure out why she wasn’t more excited about this development. It had been a year since we’d had lunch at Circle M and talked about what we wanted as far as our careers went. At the time, she’d been a little discouraged because, with print becoming less and less popular and personal blogs saturating the marketplace, the magazine had been laying writers off left and right. But Cara, being the glass-half-full girl she was, had said that she wasn’t going to throw in the towel. They’d have to come and pry it from her hands. Now, it looked like she got to keep her towel.

Still, that was a year ago. Maybe her goals had changed.

“Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

“Mmm, hmm,” she hummed.

“Okay, am I missing something? Why aren’t you more excited?”

“Oh, uh, I don’t know.” She turned her head towards me, and I saw confusion swimming in her baby blues. It looked as if she hadn’t even considered being more excited about it. “I found out a couple of days after my last doctor’s appointment. Oh, and the same day that I got the call from my editor, Colton got offered that show overseas.”

Cara’s older brother had been on a reality show a few years prior called
Fairytale Love
. He’d made it to the finale, and even though he hadn’t ended up with the happily-ever-after, he had been a fan favorite on the show and his popularity had skyrocketed overnight. Now, he was a legitimate reality TV star. Over the past few years, he’d appeared on several more shows, which always led to personal appearances, not to mention press junkets. Since he couldn’t run the ranch while being away so much, he’d hired my brother Travis and me to take care of things. On top of all the physical labor of running the large operation, I was also the foreman.

The show Colton was headed to now was a new reality program that had been pitched to him as
Survivor
meets
Big Brother
. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone. It could be anywhere from one to six months.

Letting out a sigh, Cara pulled her legs up and hugged her knees. Her voice sounded like she was a million miles away as she sighed. “I guess, with everything going on, my promotion kind of got lost in the shuffle.”

Cara’s innate vulnerability was matched only by her strength. It always brought out the caveman side of me. As much as I admired her tenacity and her unbreakable spirit, I wanted to take every worry, every fear, every ounce of uncertainty away from her and make everything in her life right. This girl had held the weight of the world on her shoulders for far too long, and it was time someone else carried it for a while. I might not have been able to do that, but I sure as hell could tell her how proud I was of her.

“Well, it shouldn’t have. I know how hard you worked. Congratulations!” I exclaimed as I wrapped my arms around her small form and hauled her to my chest. “I’m so proud of you!”

At first, her entire body was stiff, but after a few seconds, she melted into me like a body pillow. It wasn’t physically possible for my heart to expand like a balloon, but that’s what it felt like was happening in my chest. It always did when Cara was in my arms. The feeling of rightness, of contentment, of possession was almost indescribable.

“Thanks.” Her muffled voice was barely audible as she nuzzled against me.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the peach scent of her soft, blonde hair. It was my favorite smell in the entire world. My mom’s famous brownies were second.

Everyone in the park—hell, the entire world—disappeared as I held Cara. Nothing existed but the two of us. Not doctors, not promotions, not the ranch, not my family. All of that slipped away. My entire awareness was laser-focused on the girl who had stolen my heart one random day as she’d run laughing through a field, and she’d never given it back.

A girl’s voice invaded our private moment, and just as quickly as everything had faded, my senses returned in a flash.

“Trace!”

Cara pulled out of my hold, and she blinked several times, a dazed look on her beautiful face. Her breaths were coming in shorter pants than usual, and her cheeks had a light-pink stain to them.

“Trace! I saved you a seat!” the same girl shouted again.

Without looking up, I recognized the voice as belonging to Lizzy Green. She’d been texting me and hitting me up on Facebook a lot over the summer. I liked her, she was a sweet girl, but I had no interest in anyone but the person sitting beside me.

Somewhere in the back of my consciousness, I knew I needed to acknowledge Lizzy, who was trying desperately to get my attention. But, like a magnet drawn to steel, I couldn’t seem to break my gaze away from Cara.

“You can go sit with Lizzy. You don’t have to wait with me. The girls aren’t coming.”

“I know,” I admitted.

“You know?” Her gaze shot to mine.

“Yep.” I popped my P the same way she had. Then, scanning the crowd, I located Lizzy, who was standing up and waving her hands. Sitting up straighter, I called out, “Hey, Liz! I’m gonna hang here. But thanks.”

“You don’t have to,” Cara snipped.

“I know.”

She was still a little breathless as she spoke, “I’m not even sure I’m going to stay.”

“You are,” I answered confidently.

“I am?” Her eyebrows rose as her lips turned up in a small, sassy grin.

“You are.”

After a few moments where the jury seemed to be out, she finally sat back and sighed. “Fine.”

It was the same sigh she exhaled every time she popped open a carton of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, which she maintained was her greatest guilty pleasure.

Then, as if on cue, like we were in a movie of our own, the wall of the courthouse illuminated with a frame welcoming the town to tonight’s Movies in the Park showing of
Ghost
. Our mayor’s voice sounded over the speakers as she talked about the rating and running time of the film.

I couldn’t count the number of girls I’d spent Saturday nights in this park with. They’d been snuggled between my legs, their heads resting on my chest as we watched and made out—mostly made out—during whatever was showing.

As much of an asshole as it made me, the truth was that all of those other girls had just been seat fillers. Because there had only been one girl I’d actually wanted to share the experience with and she was sitting beside me now. I didn’t have the right to pull her between my legs and wrap my arms around her waist. Yet. Tonight, I’d have to be satisfied with sitting next to her and knowing that, for whatever reason, I was the guilty pleasure she was indulging in this evening.

Yeah, I could live with that.

Cara

“Your ears must be burnin’ like bare feet on a hot tin roof.”

~ Dolly Briggs

“W
hat are you
going to wear?” Harmony asked over FaceTime.

“I’m not sure.” I had three dresses in my closet that I’d never worn before and tonight I was going to take one of them for a spin.

Excitement or nerves—most likely nerves—fluttered in my belly as I looked at the three contenders laid out on my bed. A sleeveless, lavender mid-thigh; a coral turtleneck bodycon; and a red, form-fitting halter that hit me just above my knee. All three covered the one part of my body I did not want to show tonight—my port scar—so that was not a consideration.

“Hey, I’m sorry for bailing on you Saturday night.”

It hadn’t surprised me that Destiny had felt really bad for not having been able to make it. But feeling bad for things wasn’t really Harmony’s style. Our auburn-haired angel was a live-in-the-moment, fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants, take-no-prisoners, no-regrets kinda gal.

“Don’t apologize. You had food poisoning. It’s not your fault,” I assured her as I picked up the flowing, light-purple, empire-waist dress and held it up to me. Then I pivoted towards the oval, full-length mirror in the corner of my room.

“I know. I just feel bad that you got stuck there with Trace.”

Aha! There it is. This “apology” was a means to an end. A fishing expedition of sorts.

“It was fine.” It was more than fine, but there was no way I was going to admit that to Harmony. Not only was she Trace’s sister, but she was like a bloodhound, and once she got on the trail of something she was relentless in pursuing it.

I had actually managed to not think about him—or that I’d finally been the girl sitting next to Trace Briggs on Saturday night while watching the movie in the park—for the last ten minutes. Which was a record. Over the past few days, my mind had been on a constant loop of the moments, the looks, the conversation, and the innocent touches we’d shared.

“I saw Lizzy in the Spoon, and she said that you and Trace were all over each other.” Harmony’s tone was not quite a resident of Accusation Town, but it was definitely on the border.

“Lizzy’s a drama queen.” Inhaling slowly through my nose, I worked to maintain a neutral expression. It was harder than you might think. Just the mention of
his
name caused the nervous flutter in my stomach to amplify significantly.

“True,” Harmony concurred. “Buuuuut, Mrs. Patterson who happened to be picking up a pie for her Bible study group, overheard our conversation, and eagerly backed up Lizzy’s claim. She even added that you two were ‘making lovey-dovey eyes’ at each other. Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

Even in the small screen Harmony’s face was illuminated on, I could see her eyebrows rising in question. My heart started racing, and my palms were wetter than the back porch after a week of rain. But I didn’t dare let any of that show.

There was only one way to deal with this. Sarcasm.

“Yeah. Trace and I went at it like rabbits right in the middle of the park. I figured, since the entire town had been there for me, supporting me through my treatment, they deserved to see me lose my virginity. It’s really the least I could have done.” I picked up the coral dress, which was contestant number two, and tried to act as unfazed by this topic as possible.