A Cowboy's Wish Upon A Star (Texas Rescue Book 5)

by Caro Carson

  Perhaps Sophia had brought it on herself, but Travis feared she was going to be very uncomfortable for her sister’s sake. She was going to appease the paparazzi. She was going to spend a night with people who had reason to think badly of her.

  There wasn’t a thing he could do to erase Sophia’s past. Not one thing, but he tried to offer her some encouragement. “Braden had less to say about you than about the guy that jumped on your table.”

  She looked up quickly at that. “You know about Deezee?”

  “Braden said he stepped on his wife’s dinner and gave you a crappy apology.”

  “That’s as good a summary as any, I suppose.” She gave a halfhearted chuckle.

  “Do you think he’ll show up again?” Travis had that restless feeling again, that need to keep an eye on her—but Texas was a big state, and he’d be almost three hundred miles away with his family on the wedding day.

  “That was all orchestrated by his publicist. Deezee is too lazy to set anything up himself, so I doubt it.”

  Travis couldn’t leave without making sure she had some kind of plan in place. “If he does, don’t try to appease him. Don’t try to calm him down or take him aside. If he wants attention, you won’t be able to save your sister’s wedding from his type.”

  “The only reason he’d be there would be because of me. I think I’d owe it to everyone to try to stop him.”

  “Let Alex handle it. It’s his wedding, not yours. Jamie MacDowell’s the best man, right? You’re the maid of honor, so you should be near Jamie. And you know Braden.”

  “He kind of hates me.”

  “He doesn’t. You’ll be safe with the MacDowells. Quinn will probably be there, too.”

  “I take it Quinn is the third one in all the family portraits at the house. I’ll only recognize him if he still has braces and a bad middle school haircut.”

  “I’m serious, Sophia. I don’t want you trying to deal with this Deezee jerk.”

  For once, he wished the paparazzi had been right. He wished Grace had been setting up a wedding tent here on the ranch. He’d be here in September. He’d be here if Sophia got harassed. Hell, she wouldn’t get harassed on his ranch in the first place. That was the point of her hiding here.

  But now she was going to fly away, without him.

  She acted like she didn’t care, scoffing like she was some kind of tough street kid. “Deezee’s got no game. It would just be a lot of noise. Same old, same old. While you’re gone, you can log on to your favorite celebrity site and see if anything exciting happened. If it’s really juicy, it might make TV. That would be a fun topic around your family dinner table. ‘Look what this crazy chick who’s staying on my ranch did.’”

  He recognized the voice: she sounded like the woman in the thigh-high black boots, the one who said she didn’t care when she cared so desperately. He knew her, and he loved her. It made him sick to think that he might have come home to find her gone to LA forever.

  It would happen, sooner or later. In the meantime, he wanted to cherish her while he could, yet they were standing on opposite sides of a desk chair.

  “I’m sorry, Sophia.”

  “For what? I’m the one who hooked up with a loser. But hey, I’ve helped countless people make a living off entertainment gossip as a result. It’s all good.”

  That scoff. It was such an act. She couldn’t hide her pain from him.

  He sent the chair rolling and hugged her. She held herself stiffly, as if she didn’t need affection. He held her as if they’d just finished another round of amazing sex instead of a round of bad feelings and painful subjects, because she needed to skip right to the tenderness. So did he.

  “I’m sorry you can’t go anywhere without a camera in your face. I’m sorry you need a place to hide in the first place.”

  She made a small sound, a yip of pain like a hurt animal, and then she was hugging him back, burrowing into him in that way she had.

  He realized she was physically hiding. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly, cupping the back of her head with his hand, letting her hide her face behind his forearm. He was grateful his life’s work had given him the muscle she could literally hide behind.

  “You’ve got a safe place here. Go do your wedding and get the paparazzi eating out of your hand. When you’re done, come back here, and be safe.”

  She took a shivery breath. “But you won’t be here.”

  It wasn’t just the sex, then. It wasn’t even the friendship and the camaraderie. She felt safer around him.

  “I’ll be back Sunday. Until then, Clay will know you’re here. You won’t be alone.”

  She shook her head against the idea. “Don’t tell Clay. The more people who know about me, the less safe I am. Grace and I learned that the hard way. It’s been just me and Grace for years.”

  “But now it’s you and Grace and Alex and me, and you’re still safe. You could depend on Clay, too.” He stopped cupping her head and moved to lift her chin instead, wanting her to see that she had options. “You know Jamie and his wife, Kendry. Count on them. Braden MacDowell and his wife. She’s a doctor. She knows how to keep someone’s confidentiality. Quinn and his wife are trustworthy.”

  “I’ve never trusted that many people. Ever.”

  “But you could. The ranch that owns the Appaloosa is just a few miles away, and the Waterson family is as solid as they come. When the paparazzi came calling, all I had to tell Luke was that the MacDowells had a houseguest, and he was there for me, no questions asked. You don’t have to be so very alone, Sophia.”

  He let go of her chin to caress her face, not surprised his hand wasn’t quite steady. He had too much emotion coursing through him. He loved her so damned much, and he wanted to give her this gift. “I’ll build you a whole safety net here, baby. You can come here to stay.”

  She wanted it. He could see it in her expression as clear as day, but she didn’t say yes. It hurt her not to say yes, but she didn’t say it.

  She raised her own unsteady hand to touch his face. “I love... I love that you care.”

  “I care.”

  “Did I ever tell you my secret fantasy about you?”

  She was done with this moment of tenderness, then. It wasn’t enough for Travis, but he was a patient man. He couldn’t force Sophia to trust him any more than he could force a horse to trust him. Things took time. Things had to be earned.

  For her, he would meet her on her terms. She wanted to talk fantasies.

  “Does this fantasy have to do with more office furniture?” he asked.

  But her smile was fleeting.

  “In my fantasy, you take me on a date. We have a drink together at a place with a nice dance floor, and we talk while we have our first dance. By the second dance, maybe we stop talking, because it’s so special to be moving in sync, and thinking this is a person you’d like to know better. You drive me home and say good-night, and you tell me you’d like to see me again. There are no cameras. No one calls me names on social media. No one runs a background check on you. No one cares at all, except the two of us, because we’re the ones falling in love.”

  His heart squeezed so hard, he could only whisper her name.

  “But it’s a fantasy, you see, because that will never happen. This thing between us, it has no future, no matter how much I wish it did.”

  They had a future. He just didn’t know what it looked like yet. But Sophia was afraid now, skittish and spooked, and he needed to be patient.

  “We have this moment,” she said.

  He tried not to be spooked himself at the way she said the words, as if this could be their last moment.

  “How would you like to spend it?” he asked.

  “I want to make love to you all night and pretend that I don’t have to leave for a wedding tomor
row.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  He scooped her up as if she were the bride and carried her out of the barn.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sophia was the weird one.

  She stuck out like a sore thumb at the reception, and nobody wanted to talk to her. She’d thought she was lonely at the ranch during that first month, but she’d forgotten how lonely she could be when surrounded by people. She just didn’t fit in.

  It had started at the airport. The flight attendants had been so deferential, but she’d told herself they treated all the first-class passengers that way. Then the passengers had started holding their cell phones at slightly odd angles, and she’d known she was being photographed. OMG. Look who is on my plane!

  She couldn’t even go to the bathroom like a normal person. She had to practically clean the bathroom before she left, careful to make sure she left no drops of liquid soap or a crumpled paper towel that would mark her as a slob. OMG. Sophia Jackson left the lid down on the toilet. Does that mean she went number two?

  The only time she’d been able to forget she was different than everyone else had been in the hotel, when it had been only her, Grace and Kendry MacDowell. Kendry had overcome that invisible distance between celebrity and fan pretty quickly, and they’d had such fun as co-conspirators, trying to make Grace laugh through her bridal jitters. If only there were more Kendry MacDowells in the world...

  I’ll build you a whole safety net here, baby.

  Travis. That man was something special. That man deserved a good life with a good woman, not with an outcast like her.

  OMG. Sophia Jackson is at this wedding reception. She eats only shrimp and strawberries. What a freak.

  Sophia stood in no-man’s land, somewhere between the bar and the band. It was too embarrassing to sit at the head table, because Grace and Alex were on the dance floor, as were Kendry and Jamie. The other groomsman, Kent, was a bachelor who’d been pulled onto the dance floor by a group of single women who weren’t letting him go any time soon. Sophia couldn’t sit at the table alone.

  OMG. Sophia Jackson is like a total bitch. She won’t speak to anyone.

  She kept a pleasant, neutral smile on her face and watched her sister glow with happiness.

  The wedding ceremony had been gorgeous, a traditional service in a white church. At one point it struck her that Kendry was standing next to her with a tiny life growing in her belly. What if she, Sophia, were doing the same? In the hush of the church, surrounded by flowers and lace, pregnant had seemed like an ultra-feminine, almost divine thing to be. Even if Sophia wasn’t going to raise the baby herself, it was a miracle.

  Would Travis see it that way?

  It wasn’t July seventh. She didn’t have to worry about that yet. With luck, she’d never have to worry about that.

  She glanced at the roof of an adjacent building. She’d been holding still too long. The cameraman had a clear angle to her. She moved to the other side of the bandstand.

  “May I have this dance?”

  Travis. The man behind her sounded just like Travis, and when she turned around, she saw that the handsome man in the suit and tie was Travis.

  “It’s you. Oh, it’s so good to see you. I’m dying to hug you, but there are at least four telephoto lenses on us right this second from a roof and two balconies.”

  “I missed you, too. Would you care to dance?”

  “That would be lovely, thank you.”

  The band was playing a slower song, the kind where the man and woman could hold each other in a civilized ballroom pose and sway together, even if it was their first dance. She really almost felt like crying, it was so perfect.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” she said. “I didn’t see you at the ceremony.”

  “I saw you. You looked radiant up there. Whatever you were thinking, it looked good on your face.”

  This was their first dance, but they weren’t strangers. Sophia lowered her voice. “I may have been thinking about you and a certain desk chair?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You and a kitchen counter?”

  “Wrong again.”

  Oh, this was wonderful, to dance and flirt and feel like she belonged at the party. “How do you know what I was thinking?”

  “Because I know the look on your face when you think of countertops and chairs, and that wasn’t it. Probably a good thing when you’re standing in a church.”

  It was wonderful to be with Travis, who knew her and didn’t ask about filming Space Maze or whether she’d done her own stunts in Pioneer Woman.

  “So what do you think I was thinking?”

  “You were probably thinking about the child you helped raise, and how she’s turned into a lovely woman. Grace is a beautiful bride. You must be very proud of her. I’m very proud of you.”

  Sophia felt her happiness dim. She had been thinking about a child, but it was one that, if it existed, would end this fantasy with Travis sooner rather than later.

  “Grace was a teenager when I took over, not a child.”

  “You need to learn how to take a compliment. For example, you look very beautiful all dressed up. I’ve only ever seen you in yoga clothes and shorts. And one pair of thigh-high black boots. What did you do with those boots, by the way?”

  She smiled. “I didn’t know you owned a suit. It’s kind of surreal to see you away from the ranch.”

  “Now that is exactly how not to return a compliment. I think you’re very intriguing, though. Can I get you a drink?”

  That’s when it hit her. “Travis Chalmers. You’re giving me my fantasy, aren’t you?”

  But he’d already turned to introduce her to a man he knew. Then a woman. He got the conversation onto a topic that everyone found interesting, and then he melted into the crowd. She hated to see him go, but she knew it would save anyone from guessing they were a couple.

  She danced with some of the men she talked to. Then Travis returned for a second dance, as she’d known he would. A drink, two dances, an invitation to go out again: the fantasy she had said would never come true.

  They swayed in silence this time, not just because that had been her fantasy, but because her heart was too full to speak for at least two verses and a chorus.

  “This isn’t just about my fantasy, is it? You came to make sure that the Texas Rescue people gave me a second chance.”

  “I think they like you. God knows the men are happy enough to dance with you. They just needed to see me do it first, so they’d know you were a mortal even though you look like a goddess. Beauty can intimidate people.”

  Tears stung her eyes. That hadn’t felt like a compliment as much as a benediction. Travis believed in her. She didn’t want to be the weird one, even if it meant she was the beautiful weird one, and he understood that.

  “Clay is going to call you to tell you if I make it home safely, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he knows you’re living in the house now. I told you that I would do anything to help you whether you liked it or not. Telling Clay was one of those things. I couldn’t leave you isolated in hiding. Anything could happen, even a house fire, and no one would have known you were there. It wasn’t safe. Clay knows, and only Clay knows.”

  Subdued, humbled, she asked, “Where’s Deezee?”

  “He’s working at a club in Las Vegas tonight. You won’t be embarrassed by him, and your sister has already forgotten he exists.”

  I love you.

  She wanted to say it, she was dying to say it, but Deezee did exist, and her sister wouldn’t be the only one reminded of it if July seventh turned out the way Sophia feared.

  “I’d like to see you again, Sophia. I’ll be out of town for the rest of the week, but could I take you to dinner on Sunday? There’
s a place just outside of Austin that I think you’d enjoy.”

  She tried to play her role. “Really? Where?”

  “My house. Genuine Texas cuisine.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Zucchini and tomatoes?”

  “Steak and a baked potato. Dress is casual. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  Her voice was thick with tears as the song and her fantasy ended. “I’ll see you on Sunday. Have a nice visit with your family.”

  By Sunday, she would know one way or the other. Either she’d tell Travis she loved him, or she’d tell him she was pregnant with another man’s child.

  They had to part without a kiss.

  Sophia wondered if she’d ever get a chance to kiss him again.

  * * *

  July sixth came and went without any hoopla. Sophia talked to Clay a bit and to Samson a lot.

  The seventh came and went as well. Sophia tried throwing a few tomatoes, but it was too lonely without Travis leaning on a pillar, evaluating her technique. Instead, she breathed in the shimmering hot air as she poked around the front yard until she found the goose salt shaker, dirty but unbroken. She took it into the house and scrubbed it until there was no trace of evidence that Sophia had once pitched it into the night sky.

  On the eighth, she had to do the pregnancy test. She’d promised. She intended to, but she felt that need to hibernate. She slept most of the day, and by the time evening fell, she thought it would be best to wait until morning. She’d gone back to Mrs. MacDowell’s 1980s pregnancy handbook and flipped through the opening pages gingerly, with one finger. There seemed to be something magical about the first urine of the day. So really, she might as well go to bed and do the test first thing in the morning.

  On the morning of the ninth, she took the test. She could no longer fool herself: she was pregnant.

  She cried the entire day.

  * * *

  The movies had gotten it all wrong. The end of the world was not an isolated, brown landscape.

  Sophia woke to summer sunshine pouring in her bedroom window, mixing with the bluebonnet paintings on the walls. It was beautiful.