Read One Night in Vegas (Entangled Lovestruck) (Gambling Hearts) Online

Authors: C. M. Stone

Tags: #contemporary romance, #Lovestruck, #C.M. Stone, #category, #Las Vegas, #best friend, #Entangled, #second chance love, #older brother, #little sister, #cowboy, #One Night in Vegas

One Night in Vegas (Entangled Lovestruck) (Gambling Hearts) (7 page)

BOOK: One Night in Vegas (Entangled Lovestruck) (Gambling Hearts)
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Chapter Ten

Chris froze, taken aback by Eliza’s sudden directness. “I’ve been talking to yo
u all day.” He recognized how weak that excuse sounded even as he said it.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.” Undaunted, she came closer to him. “You’ve been getting weirder and weirder ever since we got back to your house. What’s going on?”

For a few brief seconds he weighed the likelihood of being able to just leave entirely, then dismissed that as absurd since it was his own backyard. What would he do? Abandon her there and go drive down the street to hide until Jackson took her away? No matter how uncomfortable it made him, he had to preserve at least some dignity.

“This is just a little difficult for me. I really like you, Eliza, but—”

“No.” She raised a hand, warding off any further words from him. “No, you’re not giving me that ‘I like you, but’ speech. You’re the one who was on the prowl all night. Don’t go acting like you weren’t.”

Damn, she really wouldn’t let up. Even as cornered as he felt, he admired her nerve. He stepped back to lean against the side of the barn and dragged a hand through his hair.

“Okay, you’re right. I was. And you’re going back to Missouri in, what? A week and a half? This can’t go anywhere.”

There was hurt in her eyes now that made his stomach burn with acid. He did that to her, which was exactly what he’d been so desperate to avoid.

She closed her eyes, lips pressed tightly together. “You’re saying you want last night to just be some one-off thing?”

No
, he almost said, but bit it back. He knew exactly what he wanted, but he couldn’t possibly say that. There was no going back with a girl like Eliza, and he’d known it the first time she’d kissed him. It’s why he panicked, and why he let her push him away in the first place. All he could do now was distance himself. “That’s what I thought we agreed to last night.”

She opened her eyes again. Instead of the pain he’d expected to see in them, he saw a simmering rage. “You’re such a coward.”

He spread his hands wide, exasperated. “How am I coward?”

“You’re being an ass and pushing me away again because you won’t risk getting attached or committed to anything but your precious freedom.”

His jaw dropped. She might as well have plucked the words directly from his own mind. Had he ever been that forthright with someone? Not that he could recall. Eliza simply got him like no one else, which would have thrilled him if the power of that understanding didn’t scare the crap out of him.

Rather than keep facing her, he started walking back toward his house. “That’s not it.”

“You’re a liar
and
a coward.”

“Me?” He spun around on her. “What about you? You kissed me and then never talked to me again. Over a decade went by and the only way I could get you to talk to me was by letting you hit my truck with your brother’s car!”

Her eyes widened and she backed away. A few heartbeats passed during which he thought she might flee from the confrontation, but then she rallied once more and got up in his face. “What was I supposed to do? You made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“I did not!” he countered. “I wanted you, god dammit. Too damn much. But you were sixteen and I was leaving. There was no future for us.”

After he said it, he immediately wished he could take back the words. Jackson had never even known about the kiss, as far as he could tell. He’d never dared breathe a word of it to his best friend, because it seemed like just the sort of thing to drive a wedge between them. Or, worse, Jackson would get it into his head to play matchmaker.

Just as he’d done the night before, to disastrous results.

The color washed out of Eliza’s face and she stared at him with an unfathomable expression. Finally, she blinked a few times and turned away. “Well. You sure as hell didn’t tell me you felt that way.”

“And if I had? What then?” He moved into her line of sight so she couldn’t avoid looking at him. “You wouldn’t have walked away and I wouldn’t have been able to resist you. Can you imagine a long-distance relationship at that age? Hell, can you even imagine a long-distance relationship
now
? Can you imagine Jackson and I would have stayed friends when we inevitably broke up because you found some local boyfriend?”

She scoffed. “I would never date someone else while in a relationship. That wouldn’t have happened.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Yes, it would have. You’re gorgeous and you would have recognized that eventually.”

“Is that really what you think? That just because a man finds your girlfriend attractive she’s going to cheat on you?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Was it? He knew that his parents’ divorce messed him up, and getting cheated on by his first girlfriend had left a lasting impression, but was that actually the situation he’d been fearing? Chris took a step back from her, struggling through years and years of ingrained thought.

“That’s exactly what you said.” She shook her head in disgust and circled around him to get the back door open. “I’ll make it easy for you to forget last night, Chris. I’ll go another ten years without talking to you.”

“Eliza, that’s not what I want.” He followed after her until she stopped by the front door. “I never wanted you to stop talking to me.”

“Maybe I wanted to stop talking to you.” He saw the glitter of tears in her eyes. “Maybe it was easier for me.”

He swore under his breath and paced away from her, trying to find the words to fix everything. There were none, but plenty of others that came easily to the tongue in the heat of the moment. “So you’re just going to run away again? You come back to Vegas after all this time and you haven’t spoken to any of your old friends. You want to accuse me of having a commitment problem, but it doesn’t look like I’m the only one from where I’m standing.”

“I was engaged in Kansas City and he dumped me,” she said quietly. “I don’t have any problems with commitment. Just humiliation.”

Wait, what? Jackson had never mentioned her being engaged. “That’s not fair. Everybody hates being embarrassed.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t get it, because everything you’ve ever wanted you’ve gotten. You asked a girl out for the first time and she was your girlfriend for two years. You got scholarships. You got a great job. You have everything you’ve ever honestly gone after. I don’t. When I go after anything I genuinely want, I just get rejection and humiliation. So why would I want to risk that again?”

Her words struck him, and he sank heavily onto the couch. Of course she grossly underestimated the difficulties in his own life, but that didn’t negate her point. Him pushing her away when she kissed him hadn’t simply saved him from a relationship he wasn’t ready for, but had crushed all the courage she’d worked up to make that move in the first place. Her fiancé must have hurt her similarly. Now here he was, making it all worse by rejecting her once again.

“I’m sorry, Eliza. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Her voice was quiet, with a cold edge to it. “Maybe next time you should figure out what you want and say it.”

He swallowed hard. “What?”

When she spoke again, she carefully enunciated each individual syllable. “Tell me what you want.” When he didn’t answer, she shook her head and faced the front window. “No more excuses. No ‘I like you, but’. Just say what you want and be done with it.”

His heart was pounding, torn between what he knew he wanted and the struggle of giving in to it. The thought of going another decade without seeing her again, of going to sleep without the sweet warmth of her curled by his side, was agonizing. It made his head swim to realize that their reunion had been less than twenty-four hours before, because it felt like he’d already spent a lifetime with her.

“Eliza, I…”

She shook her head, disappointment plain on her face. “Jackson’s here. You two will have to have breakfast some other time. I can’t stay.”

She grabbed her bag from where it sat by the door and walked out. Through the window, he watched her get in the Impala. Jackson was visible through the windshield, and Chris could only imagine what Eliza was saying to him by the play of confusion and worry across his face. He stared at the house for a moment before he nodded to his sister. She buckled her seatbelt and Jackson backed out of the driveway.

Chris leaned forward ever so slowly to bury his face in his hands. Three words and he couldn’t get them out.

I want you.

Chapter Eleven

“Does Friday give you enough time to figure out your babysitting situation?” Eliza cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, stirring cream and s
ugar into her coffee. “It’s my last full day before my flight back.”

“I think my sister will be available, but I’ll double-check with her and then can we make our plans from there?”

Eliza settled into the chair across from Jackson, a weight lifting off her shoulders. Making that first phone call to one of her old friends had been painful but, after the first few minutes of talking, all the good memories and camaraderie came back. Even if they were all older, and a surprising number of her friends had children in school, they were still her friends.

“Yeah, that sounds good, Ani. Maybe I could come over to your house before we leave? I’d love to see your daughter.”

Her brother had attempted to get her to talk about her feelings for Chris during the week since New Year’s without much success. Chris hadn’t attempted to contact her, which was frustrating but not really a surprise. As much as she found herself missing him, she also knew that if he wasn’t going to admit he wanted to be with her, he wasn’t worth the trouble.

More mind-blowing sex would have been nice, though. Sometimes she’d catch herself drifting off into thoughts of him again. His hands on her body had left memories in every nerve that would reawaken in her dreams, too, no matter how hard she tried to avoid dwelling on them.

“Oh, sure,” Ani assured her on the other end of the line. “Sally said you were using your brother’s car, though. Is that going to be okay?”

“It’ll be fine. We’ll work it out ahead of time.”

Once she hung up, Jackson lowered his tablet to meet her eyes. The resemblance between the two of them was clear enough with their similarly curly dark hair, olive skin, and striking green eyes. But where Eliza was short and curvy, he was tall and broadly muscled. Their personalities differed, too, and before he opened his mouth she knew he was going to say something she didn’t want to hear.

“No plans with Chris before you leave?”

Eliza shrugged and rolled her coffee cup back and forth between her hands. “I told him he had to tell me what he wanted. When he does, maybe then we can talk.”

“Fair enough.” Jackson took a sip of his coffee and his eyes drifted back to his tablet. “What about what you want? Have you thought any more about moving back here?”

Bottom lip caught between her teeth, she gave a nod. “I have. It’s really appealing, but I’m still nervous about making such a huge change.”

“Makes sense. It was easier for me because I hadn’t been close to Mom and Dad for so long by the time I settled here after school.” When his phone vibrated with a text, Jackson picked it up to read the message, frowning faintly. “Is there anything that would make you less nervous?”

A few potential answers came to Eliza’s mind. Embarrassingly, far too many of them included Chris. If she knew where she stood with him, if she knew it wasn’t going to be utter agony every time they crossed paths, maybe it would be easier. Shaking off the connection they shared remained more difficult than she thought it should be.

“I guess I just need a sign that I’m making the right choice either way.”

Jackson made a quiet sound of distracted acknowledgment as he got up from the table, his coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. His split level condo had a small balcony overlooking a modest front yard. He walked over to pull the curtains back from the sliding glass doors for the balcony and stared outside for a moment, then checked his phone again. Eliza turned in her chair to watch him until she was nearly backward. She could see her brother’s grin in profile.

“What is it?”

“I dunno. Could be a sign.”

Eliza set her own cup of coffee down to get to her feet. She could see Jackson doing his best to keep himself from laughing as he tucked his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. The knot of nerves in her stomach kept drawing tighter until she felt a touch queasy. Her brother hadn’t done some sort of weird prank, had he? He was a grown man with a serious job, she reasoned, and should have outgrown that kind of thing.

When the desert landscaping below the balcony came into view she froze in her tracks. It was Chris. Specifically, it was Chris sitting on Keifer’s back. The big white horse looked as spectacular in the middle of the yard as he had strutting his stuff through the desert. Chris looked even better, though. His black cowboy hat was pulled down to shield his face from the late morning sun. He was wearing the delicious combination of black jeans that drew tight across his muscular thighs and a black T-shirt with his leather jacket thrown over it. He was a striking dark figure on the pale horse. What she could see of his face was rather anxious, which gave her an awful little sadistic thrill after the frustration he’d put her through.

“I’d like to point out one thing.” Jackson leaned in close, his voice lowering. “If you find this a charming gesture instead of completely demented, you’re never going to be happy leaving Las Vegas.”

Eliza briefly tore her eyes away from Chris to her brother. “Did the two of you plan this?”

Jackson shrugged. “I don’t want to get into the middle of things. All I’m saying is I expect my first nephew to be named after me.”

She gave her brother a playful shove on the shoulder. “I’m going to get you back for this.”

“Payback for fixing your love life? Oh no. Anything but that.” He took a sip of his coffee, giving her a sardonic smile over the mug.

Ignoring her brother, she slid the glass door open and immediately Chris straightened up and his features took on a hopeful cast. The movements of his eyes over her as he drank her in were almost a physical presence, making her shiver despite being dressed for the cool weather.

“What are you doing?” she called down.

He reached up to sweep off his hat, then held it over his heart. “Riding up on a white steed to save you?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. Luckily, he grinned rather than being hurt by it and immediately put his hat back on so he could reach up toward the balcony and offer her his hand.

“Care to join me?”

She grabbed hold of the balcony railing to climb over. With his help, she slid down and settled onto Keifer behind Chris, which was far less comfortable than it looked in the movies. She squirmed around, trying to find a way to sit without slamming Chris forward into the saddle horn. That, she thought, could put a serious damper on everything else she wanted to do wi
th him.

“I sincerely hope you didn’t make this poor horse walk very far,” she murmured into his ear.

“No, but I’ll probably get towed if we don’t get out of here soon. My truck and trailer are blocking a couple spots next to your brother’s car.”

She rolled her eyes and reached around him to give him a light swat on the chest. “You really have no respect for law and order, do you?”

“Eh,” he answered with a shrug.

It would be so easy to just be swept up in the joy of his presence again, but she couldn’t let herself do that. Not after he’d been completely incapable of making any sort of clear statement before. She gave him a squeeze around the waist, trying to enjoy that as much as she could, and she sighed. No putting it off.

“Why are you here?”

“Well.” He nudged Keifer forward. There were neighbors on the sidewalk walking toward them, but a giant white horse likely wasn’t the strangest thing they’d seen in Vegas that day, so beyond looking and stepping out of the way, there wasn’t much of a reaction. “You called me a coward and you were right. I am. I wanted to show you I’m not afraid anymore, and I figured doing something loud and dumb might make that clear.”

“It’s loud and dumb, but nothing is clear yet.”

“I want you, Eliza.”

Her heart felt like it did a somersault in her chest before caution steadied her again. “What do you mean?”

“I want to be with you. I’ve always wanted to be with you. I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance again, but I’ve been an idiot and I probably don’t deserve it. I want you to come out and ride Molly with me. I want to go on crazy rides with you and wake up with your hair shoved up my nose and—”

“You’re veering off the romantic track now,” she warned him.

He cleared his throat. “Stay in Nevada? Give me a chance? I’ve never felt what I feel with you with anyone before. I loved you when we were in high school, and I know things have changed, but I really hope you’ll give us a chance to find out how much feeling is still there.”

Not a single word would come to the forefront of her mind. Her head was just a chaotic tumble of half-formed thoughts and images rather than a single word. When something to say finally occurred to her, it was probably the most useless question she could ask.

“How did you know I was going to be here this morning?”

Chris shifted a little to give her a wry smile. “Your brother.”

“Oh.” She fell quiet again, drawing her brows together. She’d been cagey with details about New Year’s Eve with Jackson, but it was clear he knew a bit more than she’d told him. “Just how much did you tell him about us?”

“Does that mean there’s an
us
?”

She looked at Keifer. Chris had ridden a
horse
to her brother’s apartment to sweep her off her feet from a balcony. All right, so the ride had only been from the parking lot to the yard and the balcony was less than six feet off the ground, but it still counted. No one had ever done anything even remotely like that for her. No one had ever made her feel like she was worth risking anything, not even something so small as a little embarrassment over a cheesy gesture. He wasn’t just interested; he had actually been listening and paying attention and figured out exactly what she needed.

“Yes,” she said softly. “There’s an us.”

“Oh thank God,” Chris breathed. “I can’t even imagine going home alone, rejected, with a horse.”

He drew back on the reins to stop Keifer beside the horse trailer, then climbed down. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders to ease into his embrace. His lips found hers in a hard kiss that stole her breath away. She melted against him, not even caring that her feet hadn’t touched the ground yet.

Maybe with him they never would.

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BOOK: One Night in Vegas (Entangled Lovestruck) (Gambling Hearts)
9.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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