Convincing Cara (Wishing Well, Texas Book 2) (17 page)

Thankfully, I had a little more practice than she did. “Yeah. I already spoke to the distributor, and they’re going to move us up on the schedule.”

We’d just had a new crop of seed go bad, which Travis was aware of, and I had spoken to our distributor and gotten a new delivery date that morning.

“Great!” Cara beamed. “Well, thanks. Talk to you… I mean, see you… I mean, bye!”

As she left, I couldn’t help but smile. She was just too damn cute. I had to stop myself from following her. But first, I had to get rid of Travis,—which I planned on doing right now.

“Damn. Cara looks…different.” He stared at the doorway she’d just vacated.

I wasn’t normally the jealous or the territorial type, but the way my brother had just said that Cara looked “different” made me want to growl, “
Mine
.”

Resisting the urge to do that, I asked, “What do you mean?” instead.

He shook his head as he turned back to me. “I don’t know. I just… She looks older, or…I don’t know, something. She looks
good
.”

Yeah. No shit, Sherlock.

Cara had always been the prettiest girl in Clover County. How every male within sixty miles hadn’t been banging her door down had always baffled me. Maybe she was right. Maybe people really did see cancer when they looked at her.

“Don’t you need to go meet Jaynie?” I reminded him.

“Right.” Travis pushed off his knees and stood up. “You sure you don’t want to come hang?”

Yes!
“Honestly, bro, I’m not feeling Lizzy.” That was the god’s-honest truth. Travis might as well know now that, from here on out, he was on his own with Jaynie, who was practically glued to Lizzy’s side.

“Ah, so your
plans
are just that you don’t plan to see her.”

I nodded.

“Well, shit. I better call Coop.” He was pulling his phone out before he’d even made it out of the office.

That was one of the great parts of having so many brothers: never a shortage of wingmen.

The second his truck started up, I texted Cara.

Me:
Where are you?

My heart was pounding like a collegiate drum line as I stared at my screen, waiting for her response. When the bubbles that indicated that she was responding popped up, I almost jumped for joy.

Her response was short and sweet.

Cara:
Home.

And so was mine.

Me:
Stay there.

Cara

“You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

~ Dolly Briggs

S
haking my hands
out in front of me, I tried to calm down as I rushed down the dirt path back to my house.

“I just wanted to come and see if you got Colton’s e-mail about the um…the…delivery,” I mumbled to myself in frustrated irritation. “Talk to you… I mean, see you… I mean, bye…”

That could not have gone worse. I’d made such a big fool out of myself.

“What is wrong with me?” I asked no one as I finally made it to my front door.

Great. Now, I am officially talking to myself.

The door hadn’t even shut before I’d begun pacing in the small area in front of my couch. This whole thing was a colossal mistake.

I was sure, after my sad performance, Travis had to know that something was going on. He would probably tell Jaynie, who would tell Lizzy, who would tell
everyone
. Harmony was going to find out.

What was I thinking?

All day, I’d been going back and forth about whether or not I could actually go through with this. I’d even made a pro and con list. The con list had gotten so long that I’d stopped counting after it had hit one hundred. Even up until twenty minutes ago, I’d been firmly of the nope, not-going-to-happen mindset.

But then I’d sat at my kitchen table as the digital clock above my stove switched to six o’clock and something inside me had snapped like an overstretched rubber band. I hadn’t cared about any of the over one hundred items in the con category. They didn’t matter. I’d jumped up, thrown a dress on, brushed my hair out, and rushed to the barn like my life had depended on it. And, honestly, it’d felt like it had.

When Harmony, Destiny, and I were growing up, Grandma Dixie used to tell us girls, “Just remember, where boys are concerned, your heart and your hormones will always outvote your head.”

Truer words had never been spoken. Because, logically, I knew that this was a bad idea. Not only was I
way
too emotionally invested to be able to walk away from this without being completely devastated, but the fact that I’d just acted like a crazy person when I’d walked into Trace’s office and seen Travis was proof positive that there was no way that someone wouldn’t find out about it if anything happened.

Wishing Well was too small of a town to think that we could fly this under the gossip radar. Not to mention Harmony was my best friend, and then there was the small but very crucial fact that Trace worked on the ranch. With his brother. Where I lived. With my brother.

So, yeah. Anyone with an IQ above seventy would have been able to puzzle out that anything going on between me and Trace was a train wreck waiting to happen.

And that was exactly what I planned on explaining to Trace the next time I saw him. Which, if I had anything to say about it, would be, oh, in a month or so, after my embarrassment had worn off.

As I rolled my shoulders back, a surge of determination rose in me. I made an executive decision. The first thing I needed to do was put this entire losing-my-virginity thing out of my mind and behind me. It had led to nothing but uncomfortable dates and humiliation. To commemorate this milestone, I would burn my
lucky
(yeah, right!) underwear.

Yep. Right after I took a hot shower and tried to calm down, these puppies were toast. Burnt toast.

I was headed down the hall to do just that when my phone buzzed. My first instinct was to ignore it and carry out my hot shower-panty-burning plan. But, when my pulse sped up at the thought that it could be Trace, I aborted my mission. I had never been so happy for my psychic heartbeat, because the message was from Trace.

Trace:
Where are you?

I stared at the words on my screen and knew that this was a fork in the road of my life. One path led to me ignoring the text, taking a shower, and burning my underwear. The other direction led to…I didn’t know where. But my entire body shivered with anticipation at the endless possibilities.

I knew what I
should
do. I should stick to the
right
side of the road and travel down the safe lane.

But, as it turned out, Grandma Dixie really knew what she was talking about. Without any permission from my brain, my fingers started typing. I was sprinting to the left side of the road, the one that led to (fingers crossed) unknown erotic lands.

Me:
Home.

Heart and hormones for the win.

Almost instantly, another message appeared.

Trace:
Stay there.

A thrill ran from the top of my head to the tip of my toes and back up again, landing right in the center of my core.

I’d never really thought of Trace as bossy. Funny? Yes. Sexy? Abso-freakin-lutely. Smart? No question. Capable? Without a doubt. Hot? Ummmm, hell to the yes. A leader? Sure. But this take-charge, domineering side of him was brand spanking new to me. And I had to admit that I really,
really
liked it.

When we’d been at the park and he’d
told
me—not asked,
told me
—that I was staying to watch the movie, my entire body had lit up like a Christmas tree with arousal twinkle lights sparkling over the surface. Then, last night, when he’d instructed me to show up at his office at six and
wear
my lucky panties, his mandate has caused a very definite awakening of bliss
in
my lucky panties. Now, when he’d ordered me to “stay there,” those two words had caused the bliss to grow into a sensual pulsing beat.

Before I had a chance to recover from his tantalizing command, my front door opened.

I sucked in a sharp breath as Trace stalked inside my cozy living room, the door shutting behind him with a slam.

He couldn’t
actually
have gotten better looking in the few minutes since I’d seen him, but that really did seem to be the case. His lips looked fuller. His chest seemed broader beneath the white cotton T-shirt molded against it. His five-o’clock shadow seemed to have grown out to the perfect combination of sexy and rough. It somehow took me longer to reach his eyes, like he’d grown an inch or two and was now taller.

All of that combined with the fact that we were alone in my living room was enough to throw my already-shaky equilibrium off-balance. But, the moment our gazes met, the look in his honeyed eyes caused my world to spin out into space. I forgot how to breathe.

“Hi,” Trace’s gravelly voice rumbled and that pulsing in my core grew heavier.

“Hi,” I managed to whisper as I awkwardly raised my hand.

We stared at each other for several beats before he placed his hands in his pockets. His new stance highlighted the lines of his sculpted forearms and his biceps, causing my mouth to water. I knew I was in deep trouble when I was so entranced by just staring at his arms that it startled me when he started speaking.

“I’m sorry about Travis. I didn’t know he was going to—”

“No!
I’m
sorry! I can’t believe… I just… I didn’t know what to do. Do you think he thinks anything?” I gushed.

“Thinks anything?” Trace’s left eyebrow rose.

“Yeah. About you…and me.” I fanned my hand wildly back and forth between us. “You know, because I was acting so weird.”

Trace’s strong jaw tightened, and his nostrils flared.

Was he mad at me? Irritated? I mean, that would make sense. He was probably used to girls being a lot cooler about sex than I was. My chest constricted at the thought. In all the years I’d known Trace, he’d never been upset with me. In fact, I’d never seen him angry at a person. The only time his temper seemed to show up was when sports were involved. He was very competitive.

“He didn’t notice that you were acting strange.” His voice was flat.

“Oh.” I wanted to take his word for it, but he was acting so strange. If Travis did think something was up, I’d rather know about it now. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The strain in his voice matched his expression.

“Did he say something?”

“I don’t want to talk about Travis.” He started stalking towards me, like a predator with his prey in his sight.

As much as I would have
loved
to be Trace’s prey, I knew we had to talk about…whatever this was.

I held my hand up, and he stopped. My head was still spinning with all the reasons nothing should happen between us. The only problem was that my body was caught up in tornado-force winds with all the reasons we should.

Cara

“I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”

~ Dolly Briggs

“W
e need to
talk,” I blurted out.

I stood still as he stared at me, his face unreadable. My hands and my lips began tingling as I waited for him to make his next move, and I realized I was holding my breath.

“Okay.” He nodded and extended his hand to the small couch against my large picture window.

I exhaled as I made my way to sit down. I’d never been so thankful for having a small house before in my life. If it had taken more than two steps to get to the sofa, I would have collapsed on my shaky legs.

In a surprising move, Trace did not sit beside me on the couch. He instead took his seat in the oversized reading chair catty-cornered to the couch. My expression must have revealed my puzzlement, because he answered my silent question.

“If we’re going to
talk
, it’s safer if I sit over here.”

Oh. Oh my.

The thought that Trace would have a hard time keeping his hands to himself while sitting beside me sent a shiver of confidence dancing through me. I’d never thought that I would inspire the burning lust shining in his golden gaze in anyone, much less
him
.

Then again, maybe that was the look all guys had when they were about to have sex. That was a very real possibility, one I couldn’t confirm or discredit thanks to my lack of experience.

Not that we were about to have sex. I mean, I wanted to but…

“If you want to talk, talk. But stop whatever you’re thinking in that pretty head of yours.”

“What do you mean… I wasn’t thinkin—”

His body looked relaxed as he sat in the chair, but his tone and expression were telling a very different story. “Yes. You were. Whenever you’re worrying about something, you bite the inside of your left cheek.”

I did?
He’d said the same thing last night, but I’d been too busy trying to deal with his half naked body being inches away from me.

Automatically my tongue ran over my inner cheek, and I felt tiny ridges where the soft tissue had been between my teeth.

“How did you—”

“Like I said, Cara, I
know
you.”

My body interpreted his words as a promise rather than a statement. Sweet pleasure spiraled through me as I tried to process how it was possible that Trace knew me better than I knew myself.

“You wanted to talk,” he encouraged with a gentle authority.

“Right.” Shifting on the cushion so I was facing him head on, I placed my hands on my thighs and sat up straighter. “I just… I’ve been thinking about…everything…and I don’t think this will work.”

I paused, thinking that he would either agree or dispute my claim. He did neither though. His caramel stare remained neutral as he kept whatever he was thinking to himself. I was used to Trace talking, joking around, making everyone in any room feel included and comfortable. I was not used to the silent, measured intensity that was currently radiating from him like a furnace on a winter day.