by Anna Sugden
Except that he might die of lust, and he’d never felt that way before. Not with anyone. So, he mainly just scowled and ordered her around, because that was his default. His armor.
“What’s Sweetness’s favorite?” she asked, poking around one of the buckets of treats.
“I...I don’t know. She’ll eat anything,” he grumbled, trying like he tried every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday to ignore the way the colorful polish on her fingers was mesmerizing. He wrenched his gaze away from her fingers amidst his dog treats and looked around. “Where is she?”
“Aww. Missing your baby?”
She had a way of smiling that made him want to smile back. It warred with his determination to keep his expression void of emotion so no one dared pry or ask him about anything.
Cara remained completely unbothered. She kept...poking at him. Not that she harassed him at work or incessantly asked questions or hovered. She was simply relentless cheerfulness with an offbeat sense of humor that continued to catch him off guard. Worse, he didn’t feel uncomfortable around her, half the time. The other half the time, his brain got away from him and thought about sex.
Not conducive to a professional work environment, that half.
But he still wanted to smile the other half the time. So he crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “No.”
“If you say so,” she said in a way that was teasing, and yet he didn’t feel teased, he felt in on the joke. How did she do that? He wanted it to stop.
He wanted it to go on forever.
He was sick in the head.
“Let’s try one of the sweet potatoes. You made that with Mia and Dell’s sweet potatoes, right?” She smiled up at him, the sun glinting off the shades of red in her brown hair, the dark pink color of her shirt offsetting the bright blue-green of her eyes.
Maybe the nerve damage had spread to his brain. “Yeah. Take whatever you want.” When she started digging cash out of her pocket, he waved her off. “Just...take whatever. You don’t have to pay me.”
She cocked her head.
“Employee discount.”
“Discount isn’t the same as free.”
“I’d be giving them to the dog anyway if she was mine.” He shoved a bag at her so she could collect her treats.
She took it but studied the plain brown paper.
“You should name the treats.”
“Huh?”
“Instead of the labels of what’s in them, you should give them names. Sweet Pup-tato or Carrot-alls. Have a label on your bags.” She shook the little paper bag he’d handed her. “Have a saying on them, like ‘have a tail-wagging good time.’ You know, cutesy dog stuff.”
He shook his head, scowling. It wasn’t anything his mother hadn’t gently suggested, but he wasn’t the frilly sort, and neither were his treats. Adding all that...window dressing was wholly unnecessary, and he was tired of people suggesting it to him. Damn tired of Cara suggesting all manner of things, not always with words. But with looks and...
No. No cutesy dog stuff. “That’s ridiculous.”
Some of the cheer on her face vanished, and she looked toward her sister’s booth across the way. “Fine. Don’t use it. Just a suggestion. Anyway, I’ll pay—”
“Cara!”
A younger woman leading Sweetness on a leash marched toward Cara, looking less than pleased.
“I draw the line at cleaning up your dog’s crap,” the girl said, shoving the leash at Cara.
“You clean up manure all the time. How is this different?” Cara glanced at Wes out of the corner of her eye. “Anna, this is Wes, my...boss. Wes, this is Anna, my little sister.”
“Ooh,” the girl said, and Wes couldn’t even begin to understand why.
“Why are you oohing, you weirdo?” Cara gave her a shove, then turned a smile on him, almost all of her cheer so easily returned. “Ignore her. She’s eighteen. And stupid.”
“I’m stupid,” Anna said with a snort. “Glass houses and stones, Cara.”
There was a flash of something in Cara’s expression. Brief but recognizable because he’d felt that kind of pang a lot growing up. The way an offhanded comment could hit the soft underbelly without anyone noticing.
Belatedly, he realized it was the same look on her face from a second ago when he’d told her the treat name idea was ridiculous.
Hell.
“Where is it?” Cara was asking her sister, taking Sweetness’s leash and looping it around her wrist.
“Over by PMS.”
Cara rolled her eyes. “Give her my sweet potato treat, will you, Wes?” Cara said, being dragged away by Sweetness.
Wes turned his attention to Cara’s sister. Younger, obviously. Cara had said eighteen, so not the one who had a booth here. Eighteen. Yeah, he’d never much cared for anyone of an age ending in teen.
He plopped a few treats into a bag and then handed it to the teenager who was studying him. He knew he shouldn’t say anything, but somehow the words formed anyway. “She’s not stupid,” he grumbled.
Anna looked at him as if he’d just gotten on all fours and barked like a dog. “Oookay,” she replied, backing away.
Somehow making him feel like the idiot when she’d been the one to dismiss her sister in a few words without even realizing it.
Yeah, he was not the idiot. In this scenario. Which was inevitably going to lead to him being the idiot in a different one, he had no doubt.
* * *
CARA DRESSED FOR her usual Saturday night out while Sweetness pranced at her heels. She shimmied into skinny jeans, clasped her pushiest-up of push-up bras, and gave herself a liberal swipe of bright red lipstick and dark black eyeliner.
She didn’t know why each time this ritual, that had once been her favorite part of the week, felt...worse. More oppressive. Empty.
She didn’t want to give the thing with Kevin any more weight, but she couldn’t deny that part of it was her friends simply expected her to sit next to him and his fiancée and act as if he hadn’t once used her as payback against said fiancée.
None of her best friends had thought she needed to make a big deal out of it. Only Mia had ever shown her any sympathy, and now that it was almost a year later, all of them thought she should be over it. So, he’d used her for sex and revenge. It wasn’t as if Cara hadn’t ever initiated a one-night stand before.
She stared at herself in the mirror. They were right, of course. There weren’t too many guys she’d ever said no to. Why would Kevin have been any different?
Oh, the part where he promised they were broken up and said he could really imagine starting something real with you.
She stomped away from the mirror. She needed to get over it. Over. It. She was twenty-five. One guy didn’t need to define her love life for the next twenty years. She needed to get a grip, like all her friends said. They’d known her forever. How could they be wrong?
“You’re going to be a good girl for me, aren’t you?” she cooed at Sweetness. In the downward spiral of a day, starting with Wes calling her idea ridiculous and Anna mortifying her and this...stupid melancholy following her around, Sweetness was a bright spot of warmth and comfort.
Hell, the animal could chew up everything in her apartment while she was gone, and she would still be the bright spot.
“I’ll be back by ten thirty.” Her friends would call her all manner of names for bowing out at ten, and really there was no reason to. No waking up early, no salon work in the afternoon.
Nothing.
Why did she feel like crying? She never cried. She never...moped. She was not this woman currently inhabiting her body, and it was irritating. It was all Mia’s fault. Making her take the stupid interview with Sam, which had somehow led her into Wes’s creepy isolated lair.
She blew out a breath, making sure Sweetness’s dishes were full before she left. Truth be told, she liked Wes’s cabin. She liked the quiet and the space to organize his little business. She liked the trees and the solitude and the little cre
ek they ate lunch at.
She liked him, and he thought she was ridiculous. Well, her friends might not approve of her grudge against Kevin, but they didn’t judge her. They didn’t try to make her do more.
She was going to be the absolute life of the party. She was going to have the best Saturday night she’d had all year. One way or another.
An hour and three drinks later, she was pleasantly light-headed, her mouth hurt from smiling so much, and if she was having to remind herself every ten minutes or so she was having fun, damn it, well...that was just the way it was.
If only Kevin would stop moving his stupid chair closer, and if only Mackenzie wasn’t so enamored with her new boyfriend, making sure he was perfectly comfortable and entertained at all times, Cara might be able to stop having to remind herself.
“Who wants another one?” C.J. asked, pushing away from the table.
Cara shook her head, immediately earning her boos. “You guys have to keep up with me,” she said, holding her glass up and tinkling the ice. “I’m setting the pace here.”
Truth be told, she’d love another drink. She’d love to keep going until she blacked out, but she didn’t trust the way Kevin was looking at her or the absence of his fiancée.
C.J. sauntered to the bar, Mackenzie and Boyfriend Guy shimmied onto the dance floor, and since Annabelle was pregnant and rarely came out anymore, Jen had moved downtown and Greg was hiding out from warrants for speeding tickets he refused to pay, Cara was left with Kevin.
Maybe the nausea would turn in to full-on too-much-to-drink, and she could throw up on him.
“So, I missed why Lindsay isn’t here,” she said, in hopes of wiping that all-too-knowing smile off his face. So, he’d seen her naked. As if that made him special. The ass.
Kevin’s gaze was steady on hers. Steady and smarmy, that half smile she used to think was oh-so-hot made her want to throw ice cubes at him. He leaned forward, languid grace, and, yes, okay, he was hot. But he was a douche.
Her type leaned toward douche, but not lying, cheating douche. Then his palm rested on her knee, a hot, heavy weight.
“You know how she gets.”
Once Cara fully comprehended that he was actually touching her leg in an intent manner, she moved her knee away. “Ew.”
Kevin only laughed. “It’s okay. She’s not coming.” He tried again, this time his palm sliding from knee halfway up her thigh before her pushing his hand away morphed into actually slapping it, because apparently that was the only thing that was going to get him to stop.
But he didn’t seem to get the picture because his hand was coming at her again, so she pushed out of her chair. “Stop touching me, ass-hat.”
“Come on, Car, don’t pretend you don’t like it.” He grinned, and it made her sick she’d once liked that grin. “I don’t mind a little hard to get, but your normal ready and willing is way more what I’m after.”
Your ready and willing. The words made the alcohol in her system slosh uncomfortably around in her stomach. It reminded her of everything he’d done, and everything everyone expected her to overlook for the sake of the group. Because sure, she was just easy Cara. She didn’t have any feelings when it came to sex.
This was all his fault. This whole dissatisfaction she felt doing something she usually enjoyed. He’d ruined any easy or happy she’d had left by lying and cheating and messing everything up with her and her friends. And now he was trying to molest her.
So, she did what she should have done the second he laid a hand on her. She grabbed her glass of ice and tossed it in his face.
He had the gall to smirk and fold his arms over his chest. “Being a little overdramatic, don’t you think?”
“Keep your hands off me. I do not want you to touch me. Ever.”
“Ever again, you mean.”
She gave a long thought to hurling her actual glass at him, wondering how much pain that could inflict.
“Oh, my God, Cara, what are you doing?” Mackenzie demanded, pulling Boyfriend Guy off the dance floor and toward her.
“I’m leaving.” She slammed her glass down, not bothering to look at Kevin, since he was probably still smirking.
“Come on, Cara. Calm down. Come back to the table. We can talk about it.”
She walked away from Mackenzie, who kept pulling Boyfriend Guy behind her as she followed. Right, she was going to calm down and spill her guts to her best friend in front of some random guy.
“He won’t keep his nasty hands off me. I’m not coming anywhere near him again.”
“Well, you let a guy screw you once—”
She whirled on her best friend in the world, aside from her sisters. She was...so tired of Mackenzie excusing everything Kevin had done simply because she’d let him. Once. “No! No. He can’t...no! You guys are all being so... This isn’t right, and I’m not going to sit around and take it.” Because if she did, she was going to cry.
She could not think of anything that would be more mortifying than crying in front of her friends. Than them knowing how hurt she was by all this.
So, she stalked out of Juniors, blinking back the tears that were threatening. Whatever. It didn’t matter. Kevin didn’t matter, and Mackenzie’s need to find The One immediately was wearing thin. So, maybe she’d outgrown her friends or whatever.
No. Big. Deal. She’d find new ones. Ones who didn’t think she should get over some guy who couldn’t take no for an answer, just because one time she’d said yes. Ones who hadn’t known her for almost her entire life and still saw her as the things she pretended to be.
She started walking through the parking lot, feeling teary and exposed and stupid. When had her life become pretend? She couldn’t even pinpoint a certain moment. It just seemed suddenly...
Bam.
Her apartment was only two blocks away, and hopefully, that would give her enough time to get herself together. Walk off the anger and more importantly, the hurt. It wasn’t pretend. It was her life. They were her friends; this was just an unfortunate situation.
Really.
But why did they take Kevin’s side when he was obviously the sleaze in this situation?
Before she could get halfway through the parking lot, a woman’s voice called her name. She turned to see Lindsay getting out of the car. Great. Well, good thing she’d walked before Lindsay had walked in and witnessed Kevin being gross.
Of course, Lindsay definitely knew what Kevin had done, and yet that ring was still on her finger, and their undetermined wedding was still topic du jour whenever Lindsay was around.
“Leaving so soon?” Lindsay craned her neck, looking around the parking lot as if she was expecting someone else.
“Yeah, your fiancé is being a dick.” Which was not her smartest move, as they’d spent the past year pretending they hadn’t both slept with the same guy.
Lindsay took a not-nice step toward her. “Was he, or you threw yourself at him and he declined?”
Cara blinked at the woman who’d been her best friend in middle school. They’d talked about everything under the sun from crushes to getting their periods, and then something about high school had put them in some faux friendship. Where they pretended as if they liked each other, but they were constantly battling each other for something. A guy’s attention, the right kind of rumor. Whatever.
Cara was inexplicably exhausted. “For the record, I tossed a drink in his face when he wouldn’t keep his hands off me.”
Lindsay sniffed.
“Is he worth it?” Cara asked, knowing the answer before the question was even out of her mouth. Obviously Lindsay thought he was.
“Was he worth it when you slept with him while I had his ring on my finger?” She waggled the dinky little diamond in the dim light of the parking lot.
Cara could tell her, again, that she hadn’t known. That he’d said he’d broken it off. That she had actually made him work for it a little bit, and he’d romanced her into thinking maybe he really had been with Lindsay becau
se he wanted to get closer to her.
You are the biggest moron to walk into that bar tonight, Cara Pruitt, and that is saying something.
She didn’t want to fight with Lindsay. She wanted to go home to her dog and cry, so she turned on a heel and walked the two blocks home in the quiet darkness of a New Benton night.
When she walked in the door, Sweetness yapped and hopped, and people sucked, but dogs weren’t so bad.
Of course, there was a little turd sitting on her living room rug, because of course there was.
“I can’t even be mad at you,” Cara muttered, scratching her behind the ears. “That is not the worst thing to happen to me today.” Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WES KNEW HE was an idiot. That wasn’t the surprising part of this Monday morning. The surprising part was after years of learning how to silence that stupidity, or at least hide it effectively, he couldn’t stop himself.
Not when it came to Cara Pruitt, and didn’t that tell him everything he needed to know about this woman he should fire but was instead going to give more responsibilities to?
He rested his forehead against the tile of the shower, knowing he needed to hurry, so he was out of there before she arrived. Everything was taking twice as long. The morning training session with the dogs, because it kept him from thinking about work. Working out more than he usually did because it kept his mind off her.
Barely. Okay, not at all. He grunted and pushed himself from the wall. He had to get dressed and...somehow do this thing without turning into a muttery, stumbling fool in the process.
The thing about Cara was...sometimes he wasn’t that person. Sometimes, interacting with her was oddly easy. She was so...personable and had a way of never making anything too...weighty. Like that first day she’d come out to his house and he’d dropped the dog container, and she’d simply grabbed it and swept into his life.
No questions. No pity. A few sidelong glances at his scars, but she didn’t make him feel like a malfunctioning robot part of the time, and aside from his customers and suppliers, that was rare.
It made him want to try. Try to be a person again. The kind he was in the army, when he knew what was expected of him and could find enough comfort in that to be a person. Not some shell of one.
