“Is that right?” Calvin asked after a long pause.
“I, ah, just invited him to tag along.” Camden swallowed, and then some idea Levi already knew he wouldn’t like flashed in her eyes. “After he saw Six working a few of the older dairy cows, he wanted to see a fully trained dog. You know, for the dairy.”
Now he was practically buying a cattle dog in addition to pretend dating her? “I thought—”
Camden cut him off. “I know, dairy cattle don’t wander like beef cattle, but you said yourself there were times a cattle dog could come in handy. Maybe for Mama Hazel’s chickens or the lambs.”
Lambs? What lambs? What the hell was Camden talking about? Walters Ranch had a handful of chickens, but there were no lambs. No goats, no ducks, no faddy llamas or alpacas. It was a dairy farm, and a damn good one that ran like the well-oiled machine he and Bennett had always planned for it to be.
Camden squeezed his hand again, refocusing Levi’s attention, and that desperate, pleading expression on her face was his undoing. Before he could tell himself not to agree with her, Levi did.
“I can’t wait to see what a few herding dogs can do at the ranch,” he said.
Grant stared at the two of them for a long moment, his mouth gaping open. “You’re dating a football-playing dairy farmer?” he said. “You’re a beauty queen!”
“I don’t categorize people by what they do for a living, but, yes, Levi played football and now he runs a successful dairy farm. And, yes, I was once a beauty queen. Now I’m on my way to being a darn good stock-dog trainer. I’m not going to marry you, Grant, or reconcile with you. Go back to Kansas City. Go back to Heather or whoever else you have there.” Her voice was firm, and there was a note of steel present. Steel he hadn’t heard in Camden’s voice since she came back to town. He wondered which Camden was the real Camden—the one who ran away from her problems or the one who faced them. If pretend dating him was, in fact, facing her problems.
Not that he’d agreed to be her pretend date. That was just the kind of crazy scheme Mara would have cooked up when they were kids. But he wasn’t a kid. He was an adult. Adults didn’t scheme. Adults planned. Well, except Camden, apparently.
Why Camden, in all her forms, appealed to Levi he couldn’t put into a clear thought. She’d run away from her wedding, had jumped right into dog training—and at a training center that hadn’t been operational in nearly five years—and now she was bargaining for a handful of dates. None of this made sense to Levi.
Maybe it didn’t have to. As long as her plans didn’t mess with his, what did it matter that she’d asked him to be her pretend boyfriend to get her very real ex off her case?
The fact was he didn’t know Camden, not really, but the memory of her in that wedding dress in the Slope made him think things that just weren’t possible, like that he’d like to be the one she walked toward wearing that dress. That maybe her scheming could be a fun way to pass the time during the perennially slow winter months in Slippery Rock.
He just had to figure out who the real Camden Harris was. Was she the woman who wore jeans and goofy rain boots and made him smile? Was she the dog-losing trainer who bugged his cattle—and him? Was she the woman speaking with steel in her voice as if she never doubted herself? And if the no-nonsense woman talking now was the real Camden, why had she run away from Mr. Khaki Pants instead of telling him off when she found him playing Pin the Penis on the Bridesmaid?
“Beauty queens don’t train stock dogs, Camden,” Khaki Pants was saying, and with quite a bit of condescension in his voice.
“I’m not a beauty queen anymore, Grant. I haven’t been for about five years.”
“You have a good business, with top clientele—”
“A business I never wanted. Pomp and Circumstance was always my mother’s dream. She started it with me, and she was good at it—”
“You were just as talented,” he said, but Camden waved her hand in dismissal.
“Training pageant contestants isn’t what I want to do. Just like marrying me wasn’t what you want. Grant, can’t you see what a mistake it would have been, marrying me when you don’t want to be with me? We’re adults. We can’t keep doing the things our parents tell us to do, especially when we don’t want those things for ourselves.” Camden took a breath. “I knew it before I caught you with Heather, but I didn’t know how to stop the wedding train our mothers started. It took finding the two of you in that closet to realize it was time to walk away.”
Levi wondered how much of that was true and how much was show for Grant. Had she merely gone along with her mother’s plans for her all these years? That didn’t seem like something the Camden he remembered would do, or that the Camden who’d literally jumped his bones a few minutes ago would do. But then, he’d seen how close Camden had been to her father all those years ago. How stressed-out the farm seemed to make her mother. At the time, Levi had decided Elizabeth Harris had a monstrous stick up her butt, but maybe it was more than that. Whichever was true, he had to remember his plans in all of this. Expand the dairy operations. Not get caught up in Camden’s scheme.
Grant seemed to consider her words. “You’ll come to your senses.”
Camden shrugged. “Maybe I will. Maybe he will,” she said, pointing to Levi.
“This isn’t over, Camden, and I’m not leaving.”
“By all means, stay. There is a dance tonight at the grandstand, and a host of other events the town has come up with to ring in the Christmas season. I’m sure we’ll see you at some of them,” she said amiably.
Grant still didn’t seem convinced that what was going on between Camden and Levi was real, but to the man’s credit, when Calvin said it was time to go a moment later, he went. Like a gentleman, Levi supposed.
Like a wuss was more like it.
Levi had never been shooed away from a woman in his life; he certainly wouldn’t allow himself to be shooed at nearly thirty. Grant got into his rental car—a Mercedes, of course—and drove back down the farmhouse lane.
“I suppose you two have some things to talk about,” Bonita said after a moment. She and Calvin turned toward the house.
“No, that’s—” Levi said, but the two older people merely waved their hands at him and continued on.
“Pin the Penis on the Bridesmaid,” he said when the grandparents were too far away to overhear. “Who is this Heather?”
“My former best friend.” Camden dropped his hand, and Levi felt a bit lost at the loss of contact. Which was silly. He knew exactly who he was; holding Camden’s hand while she very nicely told off the guy who’d cheated on her didn’t change that.
“He cheated on you, at your wedding, with your best friend?”
Camden shrugged. “For most of our relationship, I think. Definitely all of our engagement.”
“You don’t seem upset about that.” And that was the strangest part of everything that had happened in the last ten minutes.
She opened the barn door and began sweeping the hard concrete floor. To avoid him or send him on his way, Levi wasn’t sure.
“I’m not. I’m not happy that it happened, but I’m glad I found out about it before we’d actually said our vows. That would have made walking away so much harder.”
“And two weeks after calling it all off, you want to not only pretend date me, but spend a few days together in Tulsa?”
“No, I want to spend a few days with my grandparents in Tulsa, but if taking you along gets Grant off my back, I’m willing.”
Levi chuckled. At least they were clear on one thing: Camden was using him to get rid of her ex. That would make saying no to the whole silly plot that much simpler. “And that kiss?”
She kept sweeping the open area of the barn, avoiding his gaze. She swept methodically until she reached a button near the front of the dog runs. The back walls
raised, allowing the dogs to move to the outside area of the runs. And still she avoided his gaze. Interesting.
“Just setting the scene. I already told you, Grant is a visual learner.”
“So we pretend to kiss, we pretend to go off to Tulsa, and he finally moves on?”
Camden shook her head, and the movement set off highlights of deep gold in her hair. “No. We go on a fake date here, he probably follows us to Tulsa and then he finally moves on when he realizes I’ve moved on. With you.”
Camden opened the interior door to one of the runs, and the dog that had been herding his cattle before came into the barn. Camden scrubbed her hand over its ears, and then threw a green ball that the dog chased around the barn.
“Will you do it?” she asked, and finally met his gaze with hers. Levi felt something hot fire up in his belly.
“What do I get if I go along with this scheme of yours?”
“My undying gratitude?”
“Gratitude doesn’t pay the bills, sweetheart,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem to me that you have trouble paying your bills.” Camden cringed. “Don’t ever call me ‘sweetheart,’ not even in pretend. How about you do this for me and I don’t rally up support for the bike trail that you obviously don’t want?”
“A bike trail versus dating you.” Levi considered the options and laughed when Camden slapped his arm. “I need a bigger return on my investment.”
“What?” she said after a moment, eyeing him with distrust. The dog brought the ball back to her and Camden threw it again.
Levi considered the options. There was nothing Camden had that he wanted, although if she did expand the stock-dog school, it could impede the growth of his dairy. With Savannah planning to put her camp for foster kids on the south side of the property, he could use the acreage he’d been leasing from Calvin on a permanent basis. It would give the older, nonorganic cattle a place to live out their days, and be a place where all the cows could eventually retire. “I’ve been renting that forty-acre plot from Calvin for a while. I’ll help you convince Grant we’re an item and that he needs to leave town if you help me convince your grandfather to sell those forty acres—acres he hasn’t used in longer than either of us have been alive,” he added when Camden tried to speak up.
“I’m not going to prostitute myself for a land deal,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“No sexual favors have to be exchanged.”
Camden blinked. “I’m not convincing my grandfather to sell his land to you just to get Grant off my back. I’ll deal with him on my own,” she said, cocking her hip to the side. The little dog was back, but instead of throwing the ball for it this time, Camden led the animal to the run, put it inside and closed the door. She put the ball in a basket nearby, and turned to him, her eyes narrowed. “Plus, we still have a dog school to run. Once we pick up a few dogs from breeders.”
“I’m only talking about a small portion of land that Calvin no longer uses. Your little training area wouldn’t be in danger.”
“‘Little’ training area?” Camden narrowed her eyes. “Those trails run all over the woods and pastures.”
“But not the forty I’ve been renting,” he said.
Camden drew her bottom lip between her teeth and seemed to consider the options. “I’ll suggest that selling might not be a terrible idea, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“And our apparent infatuation will suggest to your ex that it’s time he move on.” Levi held out his hand, and when Camden took it, he pulled her a little closer. “Assuming, of course, that I agree to the plan.”
“But we already set it in motion. I told him about the dance.”
“But you didn’t actually ask me to go to Tulsa or to the dance tonight,” Levi said, knowing he was being ridiculous. He didn’t need Camden to formally ask him to go along with the plan, but it was fun watching those golden flecks in her eyes sparkle to life in annoyance.
Seeing her physical reaction to him was fun, too. She was close enough to him that he could see her pupils dilate, but Levi didn’t pull her closer. Something flitted across her gaze. An emotion that made his belly clench. Then she blinked and the expression was gone, replaced by distance.
“Levi, will you go with me to the Christmas dance tonight, and to Tulsa on Tuesday?” she asked.
“Okay, I’ll go with you. Do I get a corsage?” She pursed her full lips, and Levi couldn’t hold back the grin any longer.
“You’re just messing with me,” she said.
“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”
“You’re annoying when you speak,” she retorted, but she didn’t jerk her hand away. “Are we doing this or not?”
“I’ll go with you to the dance, and I can carve out a little time for Tulsa.”
“Good. And I’ll talk to Granddad about your proposal for the acreage. But only in generalities and with no pressure to actually sell.” Camden pulled away from him. Levi followed her out to the barnyard. She closed the big door behind her and then slid the bolt home.
“I’ll see you tonight?” she asked.
“Pick you up at seven. We can grab some food at the grill before things get started.” Levi wanted to pull the words back into his mouth. Having dinner with Camden wasn’t part of the plan, although it might help sell their sudden supposed fascination with each other. Before he could say anything else, Levi turned toward the north pasture.
He didn’t want to date Camden. He didn’t have time for a trip to Tulsa, and even if he did, he wouldn’t make that trip just to watch some cattle dogs round up a few geese and goats. Still, the thought of spending a little more time with Camden was interesting. And the thought of turning his rental agreement with Calvin into a buyer’s agreement was even more so. And all for the price of a little acting.
Levi wasn’t looking for a relationship, but he couldn’t deny that he liked kissing Camden Harris. She made him feel things he hadn’t felt in a long time. He liked teasing her. Looked forward to actually talking with her. As little as Levi knew about her now, he knew she deserved better than to be cheated on by a guy like Khaki Pants. Grant. What kind of name was that? Preppy and obnoxious, that was the kind of name it was. Just like the man himself.
When he got to the pasture, Levi started the four-wheeler and turned it toward home, still thinking about kissing Camden.
What kind of man messed around with another woman when he had a beautiful woman like Camden already in his bed?
What kind of man pretended to date a woman like Camden, not to get her into bed but to enter into a real estate deal with her grandfather?
Levi frowned at that thought. He wasn’t using Camden or their attraction to buy something. It wasn’t like that. It was...not entirely unlike that, either.
Damn it, Walters, stop thinking already, Levi ordered himself.
Camden wasn’t looking for a relationship, and neither was he. This was just a temporary agreement to get each what they wanted.
Levi just needed to stop thinking so much.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“YOU’RE TWENTY-SIX years old. Living in your grandparents’ spare room and dating a man who would probably rather you not have a curfew. So, here,” Bonita said, pressing the key into Camden’s hand. Camden immediately put the key on the kitchen table and stepped away from it. What she wouldn’t give to have waited in the upstairs bedroom until she heard Levi’s truck in the drive.
Of course, she hadn’t waited, because that made him picking her up for dinner seem too much like a real date, and she wasn’t dating Levi. She was using him to get rid of Grant, the same way he was using her to potentially turn a lease agreement with her grandfather into a lease-to-own agreement.
It had been an odd afternoon. After Levi drove off into the woods, Camden had returned to the farmhou
se, where her grandparents were conspicuously absent.
Since she had arrived on their doorstep two weeks before, one or the other of them had hovered around her nearly every minute. It had been nice, but with them both off doing whatever it was they were doing, the house had seemed too big and too quiet, leaving her mind too much time to rethink this crazy scheme.
Pretend dating Levi. What had she been thinking? It was one thing to kiss him last night at the Slope. All eyes in the bar had been on them, but she could have eventually explained that away as too much drinking. They didn’t have to know that Camden never drank too much. She didn’t like to feel out of control, which was weird, because nothing about her life had felt totally in control since she’d walked away from the wedding, and she had embraced every minute of it.
Pretend dating Levi, though—that thought left a nervous feeling in her stomach, like maybe she was closer to out of control than she thought.
“We hardly ever lock the doors, so the key is mostly symbolic. Live your life,” Grandmom was saying.
“I don’t need a key. I don’t have anywhere to go that you two won’t already be.” Besides, it would be too weird. She’d lived in her mom and stepdad’s Mission Hills mansion for most of her adult life, but that was different than living with her grandparents. At the house in Kansas City, she had practically an entire wing to herself, but here she was sharing four bedrooms with her grandparents, with a rickety staircase and barely two thousand square feet separating the three of them. Which meant she had no plans to come and go. Even with a key, they would hear her coming and going, and this conversation was awkward enough with her grandparents just thinking she might have sex with Levi at some point in the future. She couldn’t imagine dealing with either of them over Grandmom’s scrambled eggs the morning after she actually slept with the man.
Besides which, Camden wasn’t ready to jump back into dating—pretend dating Levi aside. She needed to figure out who she was, standing on her own two feet and without a spreadsheet created by her mother to guide her.
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