Almost Perfect: A Sweet Small Town Opposites Attract Romance (Back to Silver Ridge Book 1)

by Claire Cain

  “It’s really…?” I prompted, turning to face him where he stood behind me. My face showed pure innocence, of course. Inches upon inches of bare skin—who, me?

  His eyes jumped to mine. Instead of finding heat in those eyes like I’d expected, he looked ashen. Like the sight of so much skin hadn’t intrigued or tempted him, hadn’t turned him on, but instead had shocked his delicate mountain man sensibilities. Well, crap.

  “Pleasant.” The word came out low, quiet.

  Not unusual for Wyatt but maddening in that I couldn’t read the tone. I definitely couldn’t read the expression on his face, and it reminded me yet again how frustrating the get-to-know-you phase of meeting someone could be. How on earth did he do this every week?

  With a dip of his head, he moved past me to a coat rack I hadn’t noticed before and hooked mine over one peg. Then he slipped out of his jacket, a nice peacoat-style wool in dark gray, and hung it next to mine.

  I took in his collared blue-and-gray shirt, the belt that matched his black boots, and had to smile. How often had I been out in a fancy dress and the men around me wore tattered jeans and holey T-shirts? Granted, they were purposefully torn and cost a fortune, but they didn’t look nice. It was always a race to look like you cared the least, even though that very casual look consistently took time and effort no one wanted to own up to.

  But then, there was Wyatt. Not afraid to put in effort, or make clear he had. In fact, now that I had a chance to look at his face in good lighting, I noticed he’d trimmed his beard.

  My stomach flipped as he approached. I like him. It was the simplest, dumbest thought, but I liked him so, so much. I liked that he’d asked me, and that he’d tried when he got dressed. I liked that he’d found this private room, and that he’d introduced me to his friends—even his ex. Some weird, potentially masochistic part of me even liked that he didn’t immediately and obviously react to the dress.

  Granted, I wanted a reaction. Oh, how I did. Because a woman does not wear a dress like this on a date and not want a reaction. But Wyatt was just so… him. He probably had to think about his response before he gave it. He’d want to make sure it was respectful and gentlemanly.

  That I wouldn’t mind a less gentlemanly version of him would need to be part of the conversation at some point if he kept this up.

  “Have a seat,” he said and gripped the back of my chair to help me.

  I sat and scooted in as elegantly as possible, which was essentially not at all, but with his help, I didn’t have to bump along too much. I could’ve sworn I felt his eyes on my back, taking in the bare expanse and the hints of tattoos that peeked out along my sides.

  Maybe that was wishful thinking. Maybe he was singing a hearty rendition of “Home on the Range” in his head and hadn’t even noticed the cut of the dress. Get over yourself, egomaniac!

  When he took his place across from me, a waiter appeared before we could speak. He handed us menus, introduced himself as Josh, listed off several delicious-sounding specials, and took our drink orders. He left us to peruse the menu, which I did as studiously as I could, hoping Wyatt would say something. If he didn’t, pretty soon I’d end up asking him how he liked my dress, which was just too depressingly desperate to consider, and yet I could feel the words pickaxing their way up my throat to my tongue.

  “Everything here is good. You can’t go wrong,” he said, not looking at me over the leather-bound book of a menu.

  “Good to know.”

  “Also, sorry about earlier.” His eyes cut to mine and held, then dropped back to the Antipasti section.

  “With your friends?” I stared him down, already decided on my meal.

  “Yes. I’d assumed it’d be almost empty. Obviously, I was wrong.”

  I continued to watch him. He had to feel my eyes burning into his face, but he refused to look up until Josh returned. I ordered one of the specials, a mixed grill thing that would give me some lean protein I didn’t have to make for myself, and Wyatt ordered something I missed while admiring the way his beard perfectly framed his lips.

  They were really nice lips.

  Finally, Josh left us, and I sipped my wine and waited. I will not mention the dress. I will not mention the dress.

  The whole tenor between us had shifted when he’d taken off my coat. And it hadn’t been for the better, which was bad news considering we’d gotten off to an odd start tonight. Between my twenty questions in the car fueled by nerves and feeling incredibly bare as he outlined what he wanted yet again and it looked not at all like me. So the dress would need to be addressed to break this added layer of tension.

  But not by me.

  And definitely not now, when I’d look needy for compliments.

  Having been a professional model and international popstar for much of my life, I had a fair amount of confidence about my appearance. Granted, Miss Mayhem got a little wacky with wigs and makeup at times, but generally, it was all still me. My face. My body. And both were symmetrical and pleasing, plus I knew how to wield them.

  But I didn’t know what Wyatt thought. On some level, yes, I knew he thought I was attractive. But I wanted him to… I chuckled silently down at my hands in my lap. What did I want?

  Inevitably, my desire to provoke him had landed me here in the awkward quiet.

  “What’s funny?” he asked, breaking what had to be a solid two minutes of silence between us.

  “Nothing. I’m just an idiot.”

  “I doubt that.” His forehead furrowed.

  “Never mind. I’ve been meaning to ask you how many from that table of friends you’ve been out on dates with.”

  Ugh, nice. Hadn’t planned that one, but now that it was out there, might as well get there.

  He coughed, then reached for his water. “Uh, just Samantha. Well, and Sarah, but you know that story.”

  I nodded. “I like Sarah. She’s sweet.”

  “She is.”

  “And the others?”

  “Quinn Darling is a couple years younger. She’s one of Jamie Morris’s best friends, which is probably why she wasn’t as ridiculous as the others. At this point, she’s probably met a bunch of your type.”

  I blinked at that. “My type?”

  “I just mean famous people. She’s not impressed by fame or any of that.”

  Weirdly, this made me both like and loathe Quinn, plus it explained why she’d been so down to earth around me. And speaking of… “I met her when I went in to Pluck. She was great. Is Quinn Darling her real name?”

  One side of his mouth kicked up. “It is. Too perfect, right? She’s actually really talented. She and Jamie, and actually Chase too, were all in a band before he got his recording contract. Everyone always thought she’d follow him out there and make it big too.”

  I braced for it. This was normally when someone would say how I should help her. How I should listen to her demo or talk to my people about her or at least just go hear her sing and see for myself. Like I had all this power to make someone’s lifelong dream come true, and by not doing it, I was hoarding fame, money, and fulfilled dreams to myself. In reality, it just wasn’t that simple.

  But of course, that didn’t come. Wyatt simply waited for my response. Because he was a good man, and not trying to use his connection with me to gain a favor. I knew this, but something about being out and seeing other people—stepping out of the bubble, maybe—had me waiting for the other side of him to emerge.

  But if Quinn was close with Jamie, then he’d probably already done what he could for her. She certainly knew her instruments and obviously loved music. I hoped I’d get to talk to her again. But ultimately, nothing Wyatt could ask me for would change things for Quinn. Maybe he knew that. Or maybe he wasn’t seeing me as a means to an end for himself or anyone else.

  Call me pathetic, but that made me like him a little bit more. Low standard, sure, but it still made my throat dry up.

  “I’m surprised Jamie hasn’t tried to hook her up with something.”
>
  Josh arrived with a basket of bread and little round bowls for olive oil. Then, bless him, he also delivered a small dish of butter, and I decided I liked this place. I never did like having to dip bread in olive oil. I wanted butter or nothing at all.

  “Well, she had a baby not too long after Jamie left—not his, if you’re wondering.”

  I laughed. “I wasn’t, but good to know. No secret baby tell-all up and coming. I’m sure his wife is glad about that.”

  He offered a genuine smile then. “Yes, I’m positive Bel is. Anyway. Quinn’s great. She sings over at the resort’s bar on a lot of nights and weekends, gets a really good crowd. Occasionally has other gigs locally just because she loves it. But I don’t think she still has aspirations for more. It’s just in her blood.”

  That statement clanged through me. It absolutely fit with what I’d seen during my encounter with Quinn. Was music in my blood?

  Gut response? I wouldn’t say so, no. Music had simply been phase two of my professional life after modeling. A way to “level-up” as I got older, as Candy used to say.

  I did love performing. I’d taken dance since I was little, and I loved the stage production of my tours. My beginner-level musical ability when I started out had kept me from truly loving the process, though. I’d felt like I was playing catch up with my own career. And in the last few years, it felt like I’d lost the thread again. Both of the music and myself.

  Strumming my little guitar by myself in the barn had been a good release. I did feel connected to a part of myself that’d been lost, and some of the credit for feeling less like a messy ball of grief and anger was down to those quiet moments by myself, scribbling down songs I’d scratched out over days.

  What was in my blood, if music wasn’t? Hard work, yes. The desire to live life to its fullest had been, but much of that wind had been cut from under me.

  “I admire that,” I said honestly.

  “Quinn’s love of music?”

  “I guess it’s that. I admire the idea that when someone loves something so much, they do it whether it makes sense to or not. And maybe it does work for her as an outlet or something. I can’t remember doing anything simply because I love it.”

  Pathetic. The truth of that struck me, and I cleared my throat against the discomfort clogging it.

  “You came here, right? Wasn’t that something you did? Maybe not because you love it here, I guess, but because you needed to?”

  Pulling a piece of bread from the basket, I thought about that. I’d come here to hide, yes. But I’d also chosen this place because some part of my soul had known I’d needed these mountains. And it’d been right.

  “Not the same thing, I know,” Wyatt added when I didn’t respond.

  “I think you’re probably right. I’m at a crossroads in my career and life, and this was the only place I could imagine going.”

  I slathered the slice with butter, wondering what else I might have in me. If the mountains had called me home, so to speak, then what else would call to me if I let it?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Wyatt

  We’d recovered from the stilted conversation in the truck and then my awkward silence after taking her coat, and we’d settled into something more familiar. Quiet conversation about all kinds of things flowed easily between us now, both thanks to our food arriving and generally just loosening up.

  And me pushing the sight of her smooth bare back from my mind. Ignoring the physical response, the base, dire need to run a finger along her spine from the slope of her neck down to the daring, dangerously low bottom. Trace the dark wisps of tattoos that wrapped around her ribcage like fingers.

  I’d had to shake off little fantasies of what the tattoos were, where they started, and what it’d be like to see them, all of them, up close.

  And admittedly, it’d shocked me at first. I had never seen a woman wear a dress like that. Hadn’t dreamed it. Hadn’t been able to acknowledge it.

  “That look right there. What’s that for?” She pointed with her fork, smiling.

  So pretty.

  I huffed out a laugh. “I was thinking how unlike my usual dates this is.”

  Decent cover.

  One brow raised. “How so?”

  “We’ve established I don’t bring women here, or do dinner. I also rarely find myself so at ease, though we’ve had a lot of one-on-one time, so that probably primed us both for good conversation.”

  Her head tipped to the side. “True. We’re getting to know each other fairly well.”

  I squinted to stay my smile. I liked this woman too much considering there was absolutely nowhere for this to go. She was out of my league in about ten different directions, and even asking her here tonight had been stupid. And yet… I hadn’t been able to convince myself not to ask her. After the talk with Mom, it’d almost seemed inevitable.

  “We are,” I agreed.

  “And I’m fairly different than your usual kind of woman.” She raised one brow for emphasis, or maybe in challenge.

  I chuckled and nodded in agreement to cover what almost came out as a guffaw and something real country like “Ayup.”

  “You are that. I admit I’ve never taken an internationally acclaimed popstar on a date.”

  Nor had I sat across from someone that made me feel a little bit like my chair was broken, and I was falling to the ground but not hitting it.

  She chewed a bit of food, and her eyes didn’t meet mine. I took the opportunity to dive into my meal and savored every bite. I didn’t come to Basta nearly often enough.

  As we ate in the silence, I wondered if my answer had bothered her. Maybe being reduced to that status made it seem like that was the only difference. I sought to clarify.

  “Other than your vocation, I’d say there’s a fair number of other things that are different.”

  The brow raised again since her mouth was full of another bite.

  “You don’t live here, so that’s one. And you maybe don’t even want a relationship, which is fairly different from most women I meet up with on the app, since it’s specifically not for hookups. And you’re also, uh, a bit more outgoing.”

  The tips of my ears burned, but I kept my head ducked, hoping she wouldn’t be able to see the matching singe on my cheeks.

  “I’m outgoing?”

  The tone told me very clearly that she didn’t view herself that way. And fair enough, she wasn’t what I’d call an extrovert. Certainly not like Warrick. Plus, I hadn’t really meant socially outgoing.

  “Maybe not like you’re an extrovert. I guess you’re just… I wouldn’t say you’re simple.”

  She chuckled low. “I’m definitely not that, no.”

  “And you’ve got a different style and such.” Oh hell, this was going nowhere good.

  “Style? Like my dress?”

  Those brown eyes speared me in my seat. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I looked down to see myself taped to the chair—her gaze held me so tight.

  I swallowed and nodded.

  Her demeanor intensified in some way, but I couldn’t have said how. It was like she suddenly sat closer than she really did.

  Was this some kind of popstar charisma voodoo or something? My heart beat wildly in my chest, and I felt faint.

  No, really, I felt like I might be moments away from fuzzy vision and then graying out.

  “You don’t like my dress?”

  She glanced down at one of the elbow-length sleeves. It left her forearms and hands bare, but everything else from knee to just above her collarbone was covered. She eyed it as though the sleeve was emblematic of the whole thing and not a fake out.

  “I didn’t say that.” My voice was a little low, because naturally, now I was thinking about the dress. About what the dress did and didn’t show. About the body inside the dress and the extremely intriguing person inside the body.

  “So in this case, different might not be so very bad?”

  Just as I was about to confess how not so very
bad her brand of different was, even though I didn’t fully understand why considering it seemed so completely opposite than what I’d always thought I wanted, good ol’ Josh showed up again.

  “How we doing, folks?” His placid smile didn’t waver as he looked between us.

  I had to give it to him—he didn’t appear to be affected by Calla’s presence at all. And at this point, he had to know who she was. But maybe with Jamie and a handful of other celebrities in the area more often now, it really didn’t faze him.

  “Everything’s delicious, thank you.” She smiled up at him, one demure little nod to let him know he could go.

  And he did.

  That small movement said so much. She was used to speaking for herself and giving orders. She knew how to command a room, how to charm people, and how to captivate an audience of literal thousands. It was a side of her I hadn’t been privy to until tonight—until I saw her greet people who knew who she was, and now talk to Josh.

  Before I could say something stupid about her dress or her career or just generally anything since I seemed to be nailing the awkward comment game tonight, she saved me, launching into a series of questions about my work. She acted like a boutique cattle ranch was fascinating, and I talked more than I had at one time in… well, as long as I could remember.

  We drove back up the mountain in quiet. For my part, I’d used about all the words I had for the day. I wasn’t a true introvert, in that being around others didn’t always drain me, but I preferred to be listening and observing. I liked being the one to ask questions and gather information rather than the one in the other seat.

  Calla hadn’t gone for that. Anytime I asked her a question, she turned it around. This served to highlight yet another difference between our night together and every other date I’d had, much less the fledgling attempts at a relationship with Samantha.

  I’d always driven the conversation with questions. Maybe it came back to that idea of interviewing, but most women ended up chatting away, only occasionally reciprocating. And I preferred it that way. I wasn’t someone who had to get his word in.