Loving Cara (23 page)

“It was my turn to pick.” I glare at Zack defensively and snuggle Seth’s sweet, soft puppy, who has jumped back up onto my lap. “Thor would watch it with me, wouldn’t you, baby? Yes, you would.”

Thor licks my face happily.

“Thor was licking his butt earlier,” Seth informs me with a giggle.

“Yuck!” I push the pup onto the floor and wipe my mouth with my hand as the three men laugh at me. “Are you guys going to join us?”

“Hell no.” Zack shakes his head and backs toward the door. “We don’t do chick flicks.”

“No way,” Seth agrees, and motions for Thor to join them. “Dad, can we go fishing?”

“Not today, the water is running too fast and too high. We’ll have to wait a few weeks for it to recede.” Zack pats Seth’s shoulder.

“So, does this movie even have a plot?” Josh asks, and pulls me against him tightly.

“Don’t be an ass. Of course it does.”

“Are there guns? Car chases? Aliens?” he asks hopefully.

“No.” I laugh and kiss his cheek. “You’re going to survive it, I promise.”

“And I don’t even know for sure that I’ll get sexual favors out of this deal?” He sends me a mock glare and I laugh, holding my stomach.

“You probably will.”

“What do I have to do to get a ‘definitely’?” He eats an orange Skittles.

“Go pop me some popcorn.”

“Done.”

CHAPTER

Fifteen

JOSH

“Hey, man, wait up,” Zack calls to me as I walk from the barn toward my house. He jogs up to join me, matching my pace.

“What’s up?”

“How are things going?” he asks casually, but I know my brother.

“Fine.” I eye him suspiciously. “What’s going on with you and Jilly?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Come on, Bro.” I smirk at him and shake my head. “Cara and Jill are as close to sisters as they can be. You’re my brother. Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to tell. She went back to LA.”

“Have you heard from her?”

He slowly shakes his head no.

“Have you tried to call her?” I push my hands in my pockets.

“No.”

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, and shake my head at him. “One-night stands aren’t usually your style.”

His jaw tightens as he looks away, and I want to punch him in the chin, but I keep my hands in my pockets and my eyes trained on his face.

He laughs humorlessly and scrubs his hands over his face. “We are a fucked-up pair.”

“No, we’re not. I know who I want, man. She’s right inside with your kid. You’ll figure it out too. You always were the slow learner of the two of us.”

“You’re a dick.”

“Yeah, I can be.” I grin at him. “Cara will fit in here. Hell, she already does.”

“Just be careful, and for God’s sake, don’t knock her up.”

My eyes widen in surprise. “Are you saying that if you could do it all over again, you wouldn’t have had Seth?”

“No, I love my kid. I just wish I’d had him with someone else.” He brushes his hand through his hair and sighs.

“Well, maybe now you can have more kids with someone else.”

“Fuck that.”

“What did you really want to talk about, Z?”

“I can’t ask you how you are?” He grins when I glance over at him with a raised brow. “Okay, how are things with Cara?”

“Good.”

He nods and looks ahead to the house where Cara is getting her day started tutoring Seth. “She moving in here?”

“That’s the plan.”

We stop by my truck and I lean my arm against the bed, watching my brother. He won’t look me in the eye, and I know it’s because he has something to say and doesn’t want to piss me off.

“Just say it, Z.”

“Is that smart?” he asks quietly, and looks me in the eye.

“She’s not
her
,” I remind him, and sigh when his eyes harden. “Dude, what were you supposed to do? Your wife was miserable. You tried to give her what you thought she needed.”

“Yeah, and where did that get me, J? She fucked anyone who looked at her sideways and abandoned my kid.”

I flinch and roughly rub the back of my neck.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me about her?”

I don’t even pretend to not understand him. “What was I supposed to say, Z? ‘She doesn’t belong here’? It’s not like it was gonna be a forever thing anyway. I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth, I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by telling her she was not welcome here.”

Zack shrugs and looks over the pasture to the mountains and takes a deep breath. “She never would have fit in here. City girls rarely do.”

“That didn’t have anything to do with it,” I murmur. He looks back at me, then shakes his head ruefully. “Besides,” I chuckle, “it’s not like she’s from the big city.”

“No, but she grew up in town. What could she possibly know about this life? It’s hard for us and it’s in our blood.”

“True.” I nod. “Well, it’s just a good thing it didn’t turn out to be forever.”

“We’re all better off without her. I have so much to make up for with Seth. I had no idea things were so bad when I was gone. I don’t think it was always the case. I hope it wasn’t.”

“You’ll work it out, man. Seth will be fine. The change in him from the day he arrived to now is like night and day.”

CARA

“But I really, really want to go fishing.” Seth has folded his hands as if he were praying and is begging to play hooky from today’s lesson.

“Seth, we took Friday off for the Huckleberry Festival. We don’t want to get too far behind.” I smile softly at the handsome boy. He’s in his usual long jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. He’s in desperate need of a haircut.

I’ll have to take him to town for one this week.

“Cara, you know I already know this stuff. I’ll ace the tests. Pleeeeeeease?”

“I don’t think so. Where is Thor today?”

I watch as Seth slumps dejectedly in his chair. “He’s at the vet. He has to get fixed.” He wrinkles his nose and then turns his big hazel eyes on me again. “Please, Cara? I really want to show you how good I am at casting. Dad showed me a really funner way to do it.”

“Showed you a
more fun
way to do it,” I correct him, and chuckle when he rolls his eyes at me.

“A
more fun
way. It’s awesome, and the creek isn’t very far away. We can totally walk to it in just a few minutes.” He can see I’m softening because he goes in for the kill with “I really want to spend some time with you at the creek. It’s my most specialest place ever.”

“We really need to work on your grammar,” I murmur.

“You’re gonna love it, I swear. The poles are still outside by the back door.” He points to the back door, his face is happy and hopeful, and I cave.

“Why not?” I ask, and he lets out a whoop. “Come on.”

We head out back, and as he gathers the poles and a bucket of worms—gross—I pull my phone out of my pocket.

“Who are you calling?”

“Josh. I need to let him know where we’re going. It’s not safe to walk about the ranch and not let someone know where we are.”

“I think I hear him talking out front.”

I stop and listen, and sure enough, I hear voices at the front of the house. “Oh, cool. Okay, I’ll run around and let them know we’re going, and I’ll be right back.”

I saunter around the house, and as I get closer, I hear both Josh’s and Zack’s voices, and what I hear has me stopping in my tracks, right out of their sight.

“What was I supposed to say, Z? ‘She doesn’t belong here’? It’s not like it was gonna be a forever thing anyway. I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth, I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by telling her she was not welcome here.”

Josh’s words are hard and hit me like a punch to the gut.

“She never would have fit in here. City girls rarely do.” I hear the disgust in Zack’s voice.

“That didn’t have anything to do with it,” Josh murmurs. “Besides”—he chuckles humorlessly—“it’s not like she’s from the big city.”

“No, but she grew up in town. What could she possibly know about this life? It’s hard for us and it’s in our blood.”

“True. Well, it’s just a good thing it didn’t turn out to be forever.”

I’ve heard enough.

Before I hear another word, I turn silently and walk back around the house where Seth is waiting for me.

What the hell was that?

“There you are!” Seth exclaims as I join him on the back deck. “What took you so long?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head and force a smile for him. “Ready?”

“Let’s do it!” He lifts the poles and pulls them out of my reach when I try to take them from him. “No way, the girl doesn’t carry the poles.”

“That’s very chivalrous of you,” I praise him, and ruffle his hair.

“The girl carries the worms!” He laughs and dances out of my reach as I try to tickle him.

“No way!” I cringe and stick my tongue out in disgust. “You get the poles
and
the worms, kid.”

Seth laughs, grabs the bucket, and we take off through the pasture to the creek.

“What’s
chivelrist
?”

“Chivalrous,”
I correct him.

“Yeah, that.”

“It means ‘gentlemanly.’ ”

“Dad says that you should open doors for girls and carry stuff for them and crap like that.”

“Yes, your dad is very chivalrous.”

“Is Uncle Josh?” Seth swings the bucket back and forth.

“If those worms come flying at me,” I warn him sternly, “I will beat you with that fishing pole.”

He just laughs hard and continues to swing the bucket. “You will not.”

“Will too. Anyway, yes, Josh is chivalrous.”

When he’s not regretting asking me to move in with him.

“You really like him, huh?” Seth watches me out of the corner of his eye.

“I do.”

“Are you gonna marry him and have babies and all that other gross stuff?”

“It’s early days yet,” I murmur, evading the question. Until about ten minutes ago those things seemed to be a reality, and now I’m not so sure.

“You shouldn’t.” Seth shakes his head firmly.

“Why?”

“Because getting married sucks. It makes you mean and then you fight all the time, and you mess around with strange men who like to beat your kids.”

I stop in my tracks and stare at the boy who is almost the same height as me and is the spitting image of his dad and his uncle.

“Come on!” he urges impatiently, and I fall back into step beside him as we walk past the edge of the pasture and into the brush. I can hear the rush of the creek now, and as we walk just about ten yards farther, I can see and smell it too.

“It’s pretty back here,” I murmur, and take a deep breath. “Damn, Seth, your dad was right. The water is really high.” The water is rushing past us at an alarming rate, deeper than usual because it’s crested the banks, due to the snow in higher elevations still melting.

“It’s not too bad,” he disagrees, and turns pleading eyes to me.

“You stay on the bank, understand? No wading in. This water is too high and running too fast.”

He flashes me his grin and my chest tightens. This poor kid has seen so much more than he ever should have.

He strips out of his socks and shoes, rolls his pants up, and I follow suit. I’m in shorts today, so I don’t have to worry about getting my pants wet, but I tuck my phone in my bra, just in case.

Seth baits the hooks and hands me a pole. “Okay, I’ll show you how to cast.” He sounds so mature and sure of himself as he steps into the edge of the water, just close enough to get his toes wet, pulls his pole back over his shoulder, and flings the line smoothly into the water.

“Your dad is a good teacher,” I mutter with a smile.

“Yeah, he’s not as bad as I thought he was.” Seth shrugs as I also cast my line, and we stand in companionable silence for a long minute until I just can’t stand it anymore and I have to ask some questions. He’s finally talking, it’s private and quiet here, and he’s doing what he loves.

“So, you know that not all marriages are like your mom and dad’s was, right?” I ask nonchalantly.

“I guess,” he mutters, and I can tell he’s not convinced.

“Did a lot of your mom’s boyfriends hurt you?” I cast again.

“Some.” I look back at him to find that he’s looking down into the water, not paying attention to his pole. He suddenly looks over at me with wide hazel eyes. “Why did she let them do that?”

I sigh deeply and blink the tears away, determined to keep this conversation comfortable and safe for him. “I don’t know, buddy.” I shake my head and reel my line in. “Some women just shouldn’t be moms.”

“Yeah.” He reels in his own line and casts it out again. “So, my mom is a bad mom.”

“It sounds like she won’t be winning any mother-of-the-year awards.”

“But not all moms are bad.”

“Nope, they’re not.”

He’s chewing on the inside of his cheek, watching the spot in the water where his line is sunk. “I hope she never comes back. I love it here, with Dad and Gram and Gramps and Uncle Josh.” He looks up at me. “I don’t ever have to go back with her, right?”

“No, sweetheart, you don’t.”

He nods and grins at me. “Maybe someday you’ll be my Aunt Cara.”

And there goes the wind right out of me.

“Maybe.”

The conversation ends there and we cast and reel, cast and reel, for a long while without catching anything. I find my mind wandering as I settle into the rhythm of casting, listening to the wild rush of water and the wind through the trees.

Just what did Josh mean when he said he didn’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me that I am not welcome to live here? If I’m not welcome here, why did he ask me to stay?

I don’t get it, but one thing is certain, I’ll be damned if I’ll move in now.

I suddenly hear an abundance of splashing and glance over at Seth, skipping through the water gleefully.

“Seth, I told you not to go in the water! Those rocks are slippery!”

“It’s not so slippery.” He jumps deftly from one river rock to the next. “See?”

“Keep splashing like that, and you’ll scare all the fish away!” I laugh at him as he plays in the water, then suddenly, to my horror, he slips.