“Okay. And still no phone number?” he added, testing his luck. When she shook her head no and started speak, he lifted two fingers to her lips, suspecting something negative. They were on a roll, and he didn’t want anything to halt the progress he’d made. “I don’t know a person that doesn’t have a cell glued to their hands.”
“That was me in a different life. I’ll see you Monday,” she said, reaching for the door then stepping inside, farther away from him.
“Probably before then,” he called out and lifted a hand as she shut the door in his face. He stood there a minute more before he just nodded. Quietly, he shut the screen door and took the steps down. Damn, it was dark. He was all alone and didn’t want to test that bear theory. Taking off in a jog, Ty couldn’t keep the smile from his face. He’d manned up, not letting that reserved side of him prevail. He’d secured a date with a beautiful woman, and whatever, if he hadn’t gotten the digits. Did he believe the phone story? Possibly. Did he want to know more about that cryptic statement of a past life? Yeah, kind of. He rounded the corner of the grocery and headed for the Jeep pretty proud of himself. The blonde he’d thought about all day long had agreed to spend time with him. This vacay was getting better and better by the moment.
Chapter 6
Locking the front door of the store had never felt so right. With a twist of the wrist, Kenzie shut out the constant flow of customers that hadn’t really stopped coming since early Friday morning. Now, at the end of the weekend, she was completely wiped out. The shelves were bare, the meat counter had sold out hours ago, and the beer barn had been emptied even before then. After last year’s early freeze, the unexpectedly warm weather was a true gift to her parents’ hurting bank account, but not so much for her aching feet. With a hand on the sharp pain in her lower back, Kenzie wasn’t certain her body could handle too much more of the last minute wilderness enthusiast raining down on their little store.
In the silence, she could hear William in the workroom. Even with his advanced age, he worked steadily. The man never got tired and never stopped moving. He was most definitely the glue that held this store together. Her mom and dad had left about an hour ago, gone off to a special dinner at their church. They’d certainly be home soon to watch their nightly television. Even with as excited as her mom had been about Ty Bateman being in town and even more enthused that Kenzie got to spend time in his company, she’d had to hear over and over the sacrifice her mom had made in their nightly routine to make that happen.
On a giant yawn, Kenzie opened the cash register as the front door was yanked from the outside. The big red closed sign never seemed large enough. She ignored the knock that followed and started counting out the cash from the drawer. They’d made safe drops over and over throughout the day, and the registers were still loaded. After she pulled that money and shut the drawer, she pushed the buttons to begin the batch cycle of the credit card sales receipts.
As the tape started running, Kenzie spread the money out on the counter and began facing the bills all in the same direction. Her dad was OCD about properly organizing every bill before any counting could begin. By the time she made it to seventy-three one-dollar bills, her mind began to think of Ty. That was the longest he’d left her awareness since she’d opened her eyes that morning. This time, she focused on his dark eyes. She’d read they were amber, but what fascinated her more were the little flecks of gold inside them. She decided that was probably what made them almost sparkle when he smiled.
After a second more of continuing to absently put down dollar bill after dollar bill, she wondered how many people thought that about Ty’s eyes. In the pictures she’d searched of him, she didn’t notice those small gold pieces. When she rented the digital copy of his latest movie last night, she couldn’t see the gold in them on the small screen of her laptop, but she bet they had to be obvious when his movies were on the big screen, especially during close-up shots of his handsome face.
His eyes weren’t what held her attention all the way through the movie, though. No, that was his lips. When he was clean-shaven, he looked so different, and those thick full lips were so dang sexy and perfectly proportioned to his strong chin. They just drew her eyes with each word he spoke, and man, was he as good of an actor as he was handsome. It didn’t matter if he played Poseidon or Brian Piccolo in the remake of Brian’s Song, he made you believe he was that character, easily sucking you straight into his world.
“Hey, you’re here. I thought you were gone when I didn’t see the truck.”
Kenzie looked up to see Ty standing right inside the back door of the grocery store. Her hands faltered in laying the bills down on the counter, and her heart jerked in her chest. There he was, standing right in front of her in all that perfectly made male. She fumbled with the money and looked down to realize she had no idea how many one-dollar bills were actually there or when she had stopped counting. Her eyes darted right back up to take him all in as she lifted a hand to her hair, tucking the stray pieces behind her ear.
He was beautiful even in his current state of dishevel. He wore his ball cap backward and sunglasses that fit his face perfectly. He was tanner now, probably from the couple of days spent in the sun. His beard had fully grown in, making his strong jaw look even more pronounced. His clothes were rumpled, but that didn’t seem to matter because the T-shirt with its sleeves cut off left those perfectly defined muscular arms exposed, and his shorts were more like running shorts. They were shorter than he’d worn before and showed his legs from the mid-thigh down—his equally tanned, cut, and well-defined legs.
An unknown amount of time passed before she answered. “Hey.”
“You closed early today,” he said, coming farther inside.
“We’ve run out of everything. It was a busy weekend. What are you doing here?” she asked and absently gathered all the money together in one pile.
“I volunteered to make a beer run,” he said, coming to lean against the counter directly across from her.
“I think we’re sold out. I’m sorry,” she said and bit her lip as he took off his sunglasses and placed them around the bill of his ball cap. His eyes stayed focused on her, and he smelled all exotic and distinct, mostly definitely all man.
“It was just an excuse to come see you. We’ve got plenty of beer left over at the house,” Ty said, smiling a big toothy grin.
“Oh…” she said, a little mesmerized by the big smile. They stared at one another in silence since she couldn’t think of anything to say. Her expression no doubt showed how deer-in-the-headlights she felt. The register beeped when it finished processing, startling her and making her jump.
Quickly, Kenzie grabbed the cash and placed it in the bank bag to count later. She stuffed that, as well as the credit card tape, inside the drawer, shoving it closed.
“So I was thinking you had enough time to charge that cell phone of yours. Did you do that?”
Not looking at Ty helped keep her brain cells functioning. She rolled her eyes at the question because she had indeed pulled the phone out and charged the thing that very night. She guessed her smile was enough of a response, because he continued, “If I had that number, I could’ve just called or texted to see if we were still on for tomorrow. Now that I’m standing here with you, I’m guessing it’s not a bad thing I don’t have it. I get to see your pretty face.”
Keeping with the plan to avoid looking over at Ty, Kenzie came out of the small area that held the registers. As she passed by, she said, “I thought you were going camping with your friends.”
“I am camping. I think they’re all a bunch of young alcoholics. I was going back to the house for beer and took the long way home. The way that includes seeing you,” he said and started trailing behind her.
“Huh,” she said, sort of looking over her shoulder. She went for the back door, stopping by the workroom first and sticking her head inside. “Willie, I’m going up to the house for a minute. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll finish up,
hon,” he said, running the mop over the floor.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, leaving the doorway, Ty hadn’t diverted with her by the workroom and instead stood by the back doorway waiting on her. “Let’s go see if there’s anything left in the cooler for you to take back with you.”
“No really. I’m beer fine,” he said, pushing open the door for her as she left the store. “I just wanted to see you again—whatever the excuse.”
That sent her heart into a pitter patter. She had no idea how to respond. The words didn’t really make sense and all the overthinking she’d done about Ty for the last two days had her strong protective defense mechanisms kicking in. The things she kept reminding herself about him became the anthem of her overactive heart. A girl in every port… Here alone with time to kill… They were pretty much the only two people in a twenty mile radius under the age of thirty-five. All those thoughts came rushing back as she switched her direction and began walking toward the house.
“I don’t know you well enough to know what being quiet means,” he finally said while trailing behind her.
“My parents are gone. They should be home soon, but the house is really outdated,” she said, taking the steps up. For the first time since being at the cash registers, Kenzie looked directly at Ty, and it was his turn to be quiet at her words. He looked confused and seemed to have no understanding why she’d just told someone like him, who ran in the circles of the rich and famous, that her parents’ house was old.
Dang, for some reason that was a little bit of a turn on too. Kenzie opened the storm door, but he reached forward to take the door, holding it for her as she walked through. Man, he had consistently good manners.
“Stay here. I’ll go get my phone.” The kitchen seemed the best place for him to wait. “There’re drinks in the refrigerator. I’ll be right back.”
She went quickly to retrieve the phone and was back in less than a minute, but came up short when she walked back to the kitchen and Ty Bateman was lounging against her mother’s 1970s burnt orange countertop. Kenzie shook her head as he turned those captivating eyes toward her.
“Okay. As much as I seem to do it, I’ve just never been any good at pretending. Let’s stop this right here. This is silly,” she said, coming forward and tossing her phone on the kitchen table before she took the first seat. She sat down right in front of him, crossed one leg over the other, and placed her hands in her lap. “Why are you here?”
He smiled a little, crinkled his brow, and turned toward her, resting his hip against the counter. He still looked a little confused but also intrigued. “You know, you make me a little insecure in my game.”
“What game are you playing?” she asked, and that time he did laugh.
“Well, maybe I’m no good at all. I’m trying to play the boy meets girl game,” he said.
“How about giant, mega movie star meets cashier and wants to take her out game,” Kenzie said a little sarcastically.
“Okay, that’s fine too,” he said, giving her about the same look he had when she’d warned him about the outdated house. He didn’t get it.
With no other way to explain the obvious, she finally asked, “Why?”
When he looked at her like she was crazy, she continued with a thought she’d had earlier. “Back in college, some of the fraternities did a joke date night where they brought the most ill-suited date to a party. Whoever brought the worst date won the prize. Is that what this is between us? Because I’ll just go to the party with you. You don’t have to do all this.”
That caused a huge bark of laughter. Only, she wasn’t joking at all. She stayed stone-still while he laughed so hard he had to hold his side. When he finally saw she wasn’t joking, he tried hard to compose himself. It still took several minutes for him to stop the fit of giggles. Then he did something remarkable, he stared at her for several long seconds before he walked toward her, that sexy smile still in place.
“Honestly, I do get what you must think about me. My corporate brand’s a well-manufactured personification that has been orchestrated by the best publicist in the world, but that’s what I do for a living. It’s not me. I admit, sometimes I get lost in that world, but it’s gotten old. Coming up here helps me clear my head and I’m in desperate need of some reality. Then, just when I’m feeling on solid ground again, I walked into that store…” Ty stopped in front of her and moved a finger like he was rewinding a clock. “Okay, further back. I was driving down that county road out there and you were walking that woman’s groceries out and, from that moment, you were just someone I needed to know. Does that help explain it?”
Seconds passed as she absorbed his words, trying to make sense of them. “So you’re needing to put your feet back on solid ground and touch base with the real world.”
“I was already meeting those goals before I saw you.” Ty reached for her hand, lifting it before tugging her up to stand. “I’d like to get to know you. That’s it. I’m interested.”
“In me?” she asked, sounding disbelieving even to herself, because it was completely unbelievable that this extraordinary guy… Yeah, she couldn’t even finish the thought with how ridiculous it sounded in her own head.
“Another way to answer might be that you’re interested in getting to know me,” he said and lifted her hand to entwine their fingers. Her eyes held his. Oh, man, he looked completely serious, and she was absolutely certain this shortness of breath she was experiencing would lead to certain hyperventilation if she didn’t do something fast.
~~~
Boy, she was hard to read. Ty tightened the hold on her hand and forced himself to wait, to let her respond before he continued. There was no way she had any idea how much shit he would get when he returned to the campsite two to three hours after leaving on a simple beer run. They’d know exactly what he had done. They’d been giving him hell this whole time over being so preoccupied that he kept making stupid little mistakes with things every novice camper should know. But dammit, he couldn’t help his distraction. She’d taken up residence in his brain. He thought about her way too often. If he could have just texted her, he’d have felt a whole lot better about where he stood with her.
When she still didn’t answer, but also didn’t move away, Ty studied her face closely. Today she didn’t wear much more than mascara and had a clean, fresh face. She was just so naturally beautiful both inside and out. He tightened his hold on her hand. It was silly to think how perfectly her hand fit his and even dumber to already be considering that this hand may just be meant to hold his for a lifetime, yet those were his thoughts as he stared down into those mesmerizing eyes.
“I’m not at a time in my life that it’s a good idea to start anything,” she finally said quietly. His gut told him those words had a different meaning, probably more in line with what Reed had alluded too.
“Why’s that?” he asked carefully. Wanting her to tell him what she was hiding seemed unrealistically important to him.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” she said and started to remove her hand, but he held on tight.
“I respect that. I have things I don’t want to discuss, but spending time together doesn’t mean commitment or even secret sharing.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed carefully.
“And I’d be a fool to not at least see what all this is going on inside me. I can’t stop thinking about you. Are you honestly not sharing any of this with me?” he asked, sliding outside of the game play of flirting, becoming more serious. If she didn’t share this, he needed to know now before this crazy infatuation got too out of hand.
She stayed silent and looked… If he had to guess, that expression conveyed a little panic, probably at giving him the confirmation he needed. On instinct and a need to test the waters, Ty drew her closer, hooking an arm around her waist as he let her hand go and reached up to touch her face. The same sensations he experienced with holding her hand happened again with her body so enticingly pressed against his. Though
ts of this woman being made for him had his breath hitching.
“Be in this with me. Even if it’s just for right now.” The honest plea poured from his lips as he clutched her tighter.
Her eyes widened as he slid his fingers across her cheek, caressing the soft skin until he cupped the back of her neck. Should he kiss her? How could he not when everything he had begged him to make this moment, this unexpected connection, complete. Ty moved her head slightly to the side as he lowered his head toward her, inching closer to those delectable lips. He registered the slamming of her heart against his chest, mainly due to his doing the same. She gave a short quick huff of breath, and her eyelids slid closed. Seconds before he made contact, her lips parted slightly, opening in invitation. She was truly captivating and didn’t seem to know her own beauty.
Suddenly, her hand lifted, one coming between their lips seconds before he touched her. Her eyes fluttered open. Fear ran across them, probably the only thing in the world that would have allowed him to move back and take a closer look. Being afraid made no sense at all. Kenzie took a step back and then another until she slipped free of his arms. The loss of her touch and the uncertainty in her eyes broke the bond he’d been experiencing and set up an ache in his chest. She’d turned skittish as hell in a matter of seconds. Something wasn’t right. Her eyes seemed wild as she scanned his face.
“Just for the here and now, right?” she asked, a little frantic.
“I guess,” he said and furrowed his brow, resisting the deep urge to take her back in his arms and kiss away the uncertainty, show her how right they were together. Protective juices began to flow even as Reed’s words needled in the back of his mind. What in the world had happened to make this incredible woman unsure of everything?
“Nothing that requires me to commit even though I know that sounds stupid because you’re you and I’m me.” The hand waving between them frantically showed her desperation, confusing him even further.
Acting Happy (Texas Desires #2) Page 8
