by Anna Sugden
When it came to emotion, the kind that hurt and broke, she vanished. Because otherwise she’d fall apart.
She’d dealt with all that by surrounding herself with people who’d never need more from her than a laugh and a drink.
Even worse than that knowledge was the bone-deep desire to help. A kind of deep ache that was only overshadowed by the blinding fear that followed it.
When there’d been a goal—to get the guy out of Virgin City—it had seemed easy enough. But what was she doing now besides getting wrapped up in him? She didn’t need to teach him how to seduce a woman. He’d learned all he needed to know from her.
What more did he need from her? Not a damn thing.
Cara leaned her forehead against her palms. God, this was too much thinking. Way too much feeling.
Then a dog nosed her thigh. Phantom. The tears almost immediately followed, because he was a therapy dog for a guy who’d been in war and she was just some idiot girl who couldn’t seem to figure out what to do about much of anything. And every forward step almost immediately felt like a shove in the opposite direction.
“Cara? It’s past four thirty, you can—” Wes stopped abruptly, presumably because he recognized her almost-breakdown stance by now. She kept having them around him. It must be all his fault, really.
“You okay?”
She nodded, swallowing at the lump in her throat. For some reason, all this bad feeling made her think of yesterday with Mia. Mia saying she only ever focused on her mistakes. But they were so big. How could she not?
“You don’t seem okay.”
“I’m having a bit of a...” She cleared her throat, trying to smile or laugh or make light of it all in some way. “Quarter-life crisis. I’m basically a John Mayer song. Just wishing gravity would stay the hell away from me and all that.”
“I have no idea what to say to that.”
“Yeah, listen, I’m going to take off.” Get out of this bizarro place where she thought about all the pain and emotions and bad stuff. She didn’t dwell on that. She focused on the happy, and if she couldn’t, she drank or sexed it away.
Briefly, she considered propositioning him because that had been the plan. But she was beginning to think it couldn’t be just sex with Wes. She hadn’t analyzed all these feelings or even felt some of them before she met him, so he had to be the reason. He had to be to blame.
She had to get out of here. “I’ll see you next week.” She abruptly stood, almost knocking the chair sideways, which reminded her of Wes the night he’d told her he was a virgin.
Was she turning into him?
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Why—oh, the market.” She met his gaze for a second, enough to recognize concern etched across his face.
She felt sick to her stomach and grabbed her bag. He could not be concerned about her. “Yup. Saturday. B-bye.” And stuttering, perfect. She scurried out the door, trying to ignore him and Phantom following her. She whistled for Sweetness, who bounded from her curled-up spot under the dining room table.
Cara tugged the leash out of her purse, causing a few papers to spill out. She struggled to pick them up and leash Sweetness at the same time.
“Are you sure everything is all—”
“Just peachy.” She popped up even though the clip of the leash hadn’t fastened. She knew she wasn’t fooling him for a second, because she was panicking inwardly and outwardly.
But she couldn’t stop herself. She was going to break down. She’d been barely avoiding it for weeks now, but she couldn’t stem the tide anymore. Everything in her life wasn’t just ill-fitting now, it was topsy-turvy. Well and truly unrecognizable.
So, she hurried to her car where she would be alone and safe and tried to ignore the tears building.
When she glanced back at his house, Wes was standing on the porch. Watching her go. That push of want, the pull of ensured failure coiled around her lungs. For the second day in a row, she was running away from him.
A little voice in her head told her to believe she could face this. To believe she could learn how to navigate Wes’s issues and hers, but the little voice held no weight.
She got in the car, because it was better to bolt and panic than it was to try and fail. Everything was better than disappointing people, letting them down.
So running away had to be better, and it was time she stopped fighting it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WES STOOD BEHIND his booth, trying not to be too obvious about the fact he was trying to catch a glimpse of Cara over at her sister’s booth. Unfortunately, the Pruitt Morning Sun Farms table was one row over and partially hidden behind the person across from him, so he wasn’t even sure she was over there.
He tried to talk himself out of caring, but, well, he wasn’t having any luck. Fact of the matter was, Cara had smashed into his life, and he was kind of reticent to turn back the clock.
Which was so weird he didn’t even know how to fight it. But watching her run away yesterday had given him an unfamiliar feeling. For the first time in his life, it felt as if he was the one flipping the domino. Where Liz and bombs had been the things to sweep in and change his plans, he was the one changing them now.
He was the one deciding that, despite everything wrong with him, despite everything that would probably end up destroyed, he didn’t want to go back to the person he’d been. He’d found someone who felt as though she belonged in his life, and he wanted to see where that could go.
He didn’t have much hope it’d go anywhere fantastic, but it certainly couldn’t be worse than an explosion or public ridicule.
He hoped.
When Cara finally appeared, she was walking toward him with something tucked under her arm. But even though she was coming for him, she didn’t look up from her shoes, didn’t meet his gaze.
So unlike her. “Hey,” he offered when she was close enough to hear.
“Hi.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and he got the distinct impression she was nervous. That shouldn’t have surprised him after the way she’d bolted yesterday. Whatever was going on with her suddenly made her act differently around him.
There’d been a few times where he’d started to wonder if he was the problem, if he was the one making her that way, but despite that knee-jerk reaction, he talked himself out of it every time.
He wasn’t causing whatever was up with her. It was a strange relief, one that gave him a confidence he’d never felt around anyone else before.
“So, I picked up the labels I had made for you.” She pulled out a few sheets of heavy paper. “Um, I charged it to your business account and everything, and I’ll file the receipt Monday.”
“That looks great.”
She awkwardly moved toward the bins on his table, still not meeting his gaze. “Yeah, I thought so. I haven’t seen too many stop by your booth today. Maybe this will help.”
“Maybe.” He tried to catch her eye, but she was having none of it.
She started peeling stickers and carefully placing them on the bins. He read the names, and they weren’t outrageously cheesy. Sweet Pup-tatoes, like she’d suggested earlier. Peagles. A little punny, but not ridiculous.
“You know these are amazing, right?” His booth was suddenly transformed into something that fit in with the rest of the crowd. He’d never thought about wanting to do that, but now he could see the difference. How the sparseness might have kept some people from approaching him.
She shrugged and took a deep breath. “I hope it helps.”
He did something he couldn’t have imagined doing forty-eight hours ago. He reached out and gave her shoulder a squeeze. Quick. Platonic. Mostly. He was pleased with himself for how normal that was, despite how she was acting.
He almost liked this guy. He was reminding himself of who he used to be in the army. Once he’d gotten past basic training and understood the general structure of everything. He’d been comfortable. He might not have known if a bomb was going to go off when h
e walked into a situation, but he had known what was expected of him.
Now he didn’t know what Cara expected of him, but he was starting to understand what he expected from himself, and that was very, very new. Flick that domino.
He nodded. “Thanks for getting this together. Bringing me stuff seems to be your new habit.”
She smiled at that. “Well, I do work for you, and this is business.”
Business. Right. That’s what he couldn’t get a handle on the past few days. What exactly Cara wanted from him, or was offering of herself. Where her issues were coming from. “Um, I know I’m kind of new to this whole flirtation dynamic thing, but you’re confusing the hell out of me.”
Her friendly smile fell. “Ugh. I’m sorry, Wes. Really. I’m in a weird place right now. Trying to figure out me, I guess. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“You know...” He couldn’t believe he was about to say this, but she brought it out in him. That long-buried need to help people, not just animals. He’d never helped any person; that’s why he’d buried the instinct.
But, every once in a while, she made him believe he could do something for her. Even if he was totally delusional, it was a feeling he couldn’t fight. Because she’d given him something he’d given up on so many times.
She deserved some piece of himself in return. Some attempt at a piece of himself, anyway.
“I know what it’s like to not have any direction. Coming back from Afghanistan, I didn’t know what I was going to do, and being in the army was the only time I’d ever felt like, I don’t know, myself. I had a purpose, and I didn’t feel like an outcast. It was a good place for me, and I didn’t have that anymore, and I didn’t have my vet dream anymore and I didn’t know anything.”
“I can’t believe you’re even comparing the two, Wes. I’m some idiot who’s never had anything really bad happen to her and you—”
“Are a pathetic mess of bad things?”
“Are so sweet it hurts.” She shook her head. “Thanks for saying all that. Really. The last thing I want to do is drag you into my crap.”
“I find myself oddly not minding. The thing is, regardless of if the circumstances are easy or tragic, figuring out who you are sucks. But it happens. It’ll happen for you.”
She stared up at him, like how she did when he’d suggested baking her pies at home instead of the restaurant. All wonder and amazement.
Which was both amazing and uncomfortable at the same time. He had to look away, clear his throat.
“I do not know what to do about you, Wes Stone,” she said, shaking her head.
“If it helps, I feel that way a lot.”
She laughed as he’d hoped, but then she looked a little sad again. He hated seeing that. Hated that she felt as though she couldn’t get a handle on herself when she had done so much for him.
“Listen, um, do you want to...” He couldn’t believe he was about to do this. But he had to. For himself. Regardless of the outcome, he owed it to himself to try. “Have dinner with me?”
“Like a date?”
“Yes. I am asking you out on a date.” He’d throw up over that later. That and the fact she was staring up at him, wide-eyed, as if he’d asked her to jump into no-man’s-land.
“Oh. Well.” She let out a long breath. “Remember yesterday when I said I wouldn’t be any good for your stuff?”
“Yeah, and I don’t think I’d be any good for yours, but maybe we should do it anyway. I haven’t wanted to try anything hard in a long time. And now I do? I guess. I don’t know. Things are weird. You kind of pushed me into the weird.”
“Ditto, honey.”
He chuckled. “So, what do you say? Try this out. If we fail spectacularly, we do it together.” He tried not to squirm or fall back into those nerves.
Because all the stuff he’d just said to her was true. He’d had to find himself again after the army and losing the vet chances, and he hadn’t realized it in the past few years but he actually had. He’d built this business and himself in the process.
He understood—what she was going through, where she was coming from. The way uncertainty and failure clawed at you until you felt like some weird shell of yourself. So, if they had amazing sex and almost kind of understood each other, why shouldn’t they try?
He wasn’t scared of her—or life. Maybe he hadn’t figured out his family issues, but he had figured out what he needed and he went about giving himself that. It hadn’t been easy, but here he was. Successful business, not a virgin and asking someone out.
“I don’t think failing spectacularly is an if, more of a when.”
He shrugged and held out his hand. “So be it?”
* * *
CARA STARED AT Wes’s outstretched hand. Who was this guy? Not a stutter or blush or anything. He was giving her life advice and asking her out with barely an “um.” How had things gotten all topsy-turvy?
She couldn’t believe she was even contemplating it. An actual date. With a guy who was life skilling and experiencing her out of the water.
And she was scared. She felt things for Wes, and the two times she’d gone into a date with feelings or hope, as with Kevin and James, Kevin had tricked her and she’d failed James.
But Wes was standing there looking so hopeful. The fact of the matter was, she did want to go on a date with him. Maybe if she went in knowing it wouldn’t go anywhere—because one of them was bound to ruin it—then the ending wouldn’t have to be that painful, even if she went in with feelings.
“You can say no, Cara. I won’t be scarred into not asking a woman out for another thirty-one years, really.”
He seemed to mean it, but she was reminded how little experience Wes had. There was no way she was the right woman to handle his baggage, but maybe she could be the right woman to give him a quick, fun relationship that would lead him on to less quick, more fun, deeper relationships.
She ignored the little pinch in her heart at the thought of other women and smiled. “I’m not going to say no.” She took his still-outstretched hand and shook it. “The race to see who screws this up first is on.”
“Your optimism warms my heart,” he said dryly.
She couldn’t comment on that, because a family approached the booth, and they seemed to be regulars because Wes greeted them with news about some new size of treat he’d made for smaller dogs.
Cara offered a little wave before heading back to Mia’s booth. Maybe the idea of an actual date was intimidating, but with a mission—give Wes a fun dating experience—everything would be fine. And he figured they’d fail, so there was no expectation. No one would be hurt when they weren’t right for each other.
A few minutes later, her phone chimed. Pick you up at seven?
She looked back at Wes’s booth and offered a smile and a nod. Everything would be fine, and they would both have fun and it’d be great.
If the little pool of dread in her stomach didn’t dissipate, she’d make sure it did before seven.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WES STOOD AT his truck, fighting the urge to pull out his cell phone and text a “sorry, can’t make it” to Cara.
Why on earth had he thought this was a good idea? Something he needed to do? Something he wanted to do? A frigging date. A date. At a restaurant. With people.
With Cara.
Screw the dominoes. He’d kick them all over and throw them away and go home and...
No. He yanked open the truck door and climbed in. He was better than this. He was. He could be. If he tried. Because he cared, and he couldn’t cut that out or ignore it away, so this was his only choice.
Pulling triggers right and left. That’s what they were doing. Which was insane and probably why it was working for him.
He drove to town, maybe clutching the steering wheel a little tight. Maybe having some second thoughts, but he didn’t stop and he didn’t turn around. He was making progress. Damn it.
He pulled the truck into the spot behin
d her car in front of her little apartment complex. Some old building that could use a face-lift for sure.
The nerves returned, but he ignored them. Because, at the end of the day, he’d already slept with her. Had asked her out. He’d hurdled all these issues with her and she kept saying yes. Kept agreeing to work with him and sleep with him and go on a date with him.
So, what was the worst that could happen? They ran out of things to talk about? She changed her mind? Big deal. He had a pocket full of things he’d done once, which meant he could do them again. Even if it was with someone else.
He flexed his hand, ignoring the little zing of pain from clutching the steering wheel too tight. It’d go away. So would the dull headache. It would all fade, and he would be fine.
Maybe he’d even move on enough to believe that he could be fine long-term.
Sex has broken your brain.
But what a way to go. When he got to Cara’s, he knocked on the door, and it was flung open after a few seconds. She was wearing a dress that was all swirly blues and purples and greens. It dipped low at the top and came to a stop considerably above her knees. Her hair was all piled on top of her head, and her lips were pink, her eyes all sparkly.
Any doubts he’d had vanished for the time being. “Hi.”
“Howdy,” she offered with a grin as Sweetness sniffed at his shoes.
“Did you get your pies done?”
Her face softened, which always made his chest feel tight. “You remembered.”
“Well, it’s a big deal. Your first pie weekend. Right?”
She swallowed and nodded. “It is a big deal. And, yes, pies were made and delivered. And I don’t want to think about that for the rest of the night.”
“Oh.” That kind of ruined the date he had planned.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I thought we could go there. And you could order your own pie. You know. To see. But—”
