Convincing Cara (Wishing Well, Texas Book 2)

by Melanie Shawn

  Convincing Cara

  by

  Melanie Shawn

  ‡

  Copyright © 2016 Melanie Shawn

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

  Cover Design by Wildcat Dezigns

  Copyedits by Mickey Reed Editing

  Book Design by BB eBooks

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing

  Rev. 1

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Sneak Peek: Discovering Harmony

  Other Titles by Melanie Shawn

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Cara

  “She’s got some snap in her garters.”

  ~ Dolly Briggs

  “I don’t want to talk about losing my V-card here!” My cheeks flamed with heat at the current topic of conversation: my virginity. “In church.”

  “We’re not in church. We’re in my car in the church parking lot, Care Bear.” Tilting her head to the side, one of my best friends in the world Harmony Briggs twisted in her seat beside me. Her long, auburn hair fell over her shoulder as she raised her eyebrow, giving me one of her patented “get real” looks. Her green eyes pinned me to the back of my seat. “And besides, do you really think the man upstairs doesn’t know you’re a virgin?”

  “Just because He knows”—I pointed towards the sky through the sunroof of the car—“doesn’t mean He wants me sitting out in front of his house, discussing the fact that I want lose it!”

  “Stop trying to veer this conversation off track. In the immortal or immoral”—Harmony waggled her eyebrows up and down suggestively “—words of Marvin Gaye, you need to get it on. I mean, look at you. You are the walking definition of a PYT. This should not be a difficult task.”

  “You don’t understand.” Leaning my head back against the headrest, I sighed. “I don’t just want a ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.’”

  “Okay, so you want a relationship.”

  Shaking my head, I turned to my friend. “I didn’t say that. I don’t want anything serious.”

  A relationship was definitely what I wanted, but realistically, my current status was a lot of pressure to put on any budding love. Not to mention the fact that I’d like to have some experience before jumping into the deep end of the serious relationship pool.

  From what I’d heard, first times were painful and less than satisfying. The rumor was, until someone was comfortable in their own skin, things were educational more than enjoyable. And the only way to tilt the scales of ecstasy in your favor was on-the-job training. You had to be intimate enough times to know what you liked and what you didn’t. The words I’d heard thrown around to describe sexual encounters before that happened ranged from awkward and uncomfortable to comical and horrible.

  So my plan was to be with someone I wasn’t serious about to practice on. I would get all of the painful, unsatisfying, awkward, uncomfortable, comical, and horrible out of the way before I was with someone I actually cared about. Many people might view my logic as screwier than a crazy straw, but to me, it was solid as oak.

  “A casual hookup then? I can work with that.” Harmony pulled her phone out of her purse.

  “I told you I am not going on Tinder.”

  The topic of my experience, or lack thereof, had been brought up at our last girls’ night out. The third leg of our best friend tripod, Destiny—who had just married Harmony’s brother JJ—had revealed that she was expecting a baby when we’d given her a hard time because she was drinking water when we were downing margaritas.

  As excited as I’d been for my friend, who had had a crush on JJ Briggs since she was four years old and was now living her lifelong dream of not only being his wife, but also having his baby, I’d had a slight alcohol-assisted meltdown. While she was in the advanced class of life and acing the sucker, I had barely reached kindergarten level.

  Harmony and Destiny, who were more like sisters than friends, had immediately noticed my tears, and the can of worms I’d been trying desperately to nail, glue, or weld shut popped open like it was spring-loaded. I’d blubbered my way through explaining how my virginity was starting to feel like a permanent condition. That I couldn’t see a light at the end of my sexless tunnel.

  Thanks to that mini-meltdown, both of my well-meaning friends were on a mission to change my virginal standing.

  “No Tinder. No eHarmony. No Match.com. No OkCupid.” Harmony listed the websites off on her fingers. “I get it. Zapp & Roger’s ‘Computer Love’ is not your jam. So the question is: What is your jam?”

  “My jam?”

  “Yes. Your type. What qualities are you looking for in the lucky gardener that will be deflowering you?”

  I laughed. Harmony definitely had a way with words that caused vivid mental pictures to pop up like moles in a game of Whack-A-Mole. Unfortunately, every mole making an unwanted appearance in my mind resembled a certain brother of Harmony’s who had sandy-brown hair, dark-brown eyes, and the strongest arms I’d ever been in. Well, besides my brother Colton’s, but familial arms did not count.

  Trace Briggs was the youngest of the Briggs boys and the closest to my and Harmony’s age. Because of that, I knew him better than any of the rest of my friend’s brothers. For as long as I could remember, Trace had always been around. He was only one year ahead of us at school, and we all shared the same circle of friends. That circle unfortunately included all the girls Trace had dated over the years. I’d had a front-row seat to his brief but—from my view—passionate romances.

  The only upshot of that scenario was that he’d never had that serious of a relationship. His longest “girlfriend” had lasted two months, one week, and four days—not that I was counting or anything. And he hadn’t even labeled her his girlfriend. She was just the longest he’d ever dated someone. It was a well-known fact all over Clover County that Trace Briggs did not do relationships.

  For years, I’d watched his attention bounce from girl to girl, always wish
ing that I was the one he was taking home or teaching how to bowl or play pool. Or that I was the girl sitting between his legs at Movies in the Park on Saturday nights—weather permitting—in the town square park. The town would gather under the stars for a BBQ dinner and then watch a movie projected onto the side of the three-story courthouse—the tallest building in the small town of Wishing Well.

  The night he and Char Kramer had been snuggled in a sleeping bag right behind where Destiny, Harmony, and I had our blankets and pillows while we watched Titanic was branded into my memory forever. To this day, I couldn’t watch Jack and Rose’s love story without hearing Char’s giggles or the soft sounds of her sighs as they made out not two feet behind me. That night had ruined one of my all-time favorite movies.

  Since my unrequited love of Trace was a secret I’d somehow managed to keep, even from my best friends, I decided not to tell Harmony that the only person I’d ever been able to imagine in the role of gardener in my deflowering was her very own brother.

  “I just… I don’t know.” My head was spinning with all the things I wished could be and never would. “I guess that’s part of the problem. I have no idea what I’m looking for,” I lied.

  I knew exactly what I was looking for. Trace Briggs. I also knew he’d never seen me like that. And he never would because he knew me too well. He knew what I’d been through. As amazingly supportive as he’d been, Trace would only ever see me in one way: as a cancer survivor. He’d been there for the good, the bad, and the very ugly. So, even if, by some miracle, he had ever been attracted to me, that ship had sailed. It had probably left the dock when I had celebrated my fourteenth birthday with a shaved head, compliments of my chemo.

  I’d tried to cancel it after I’d had to take a razor to my head three days before the event. But Harmony and Destiny had insisted that the party must go on. I still remember how bittersweet it had been to walk into my parents’ kitchen feeling like a freak and seeing that half the partygoers had also shaved their heads. All the guys on the varsity football team, to be exact. Standing right in the middle was the quarterback—Trace. Our eyes met, and just as I was about to start crying, overwhelmed at the gesture, he cracked a joke about us all having the same barber. The whole party erupted in laughter, and he walked over and gave me a hug. A friendly, supportive hug. He’d always be my friend, but he’d never see me the way I wanted to be seen by him.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what the holdup is. Look at you. Any guy would be lucky to tap that. I know men, and believe me, guys are going to line up and sell an organ to liberate you from your current status. You, my dear, are all kinds of hot, and you’ll have your pick.” Harmony winked as she picked her phone up when it buzzed—probably a text from one of her many admirers.

  If anyone could claim expertise in the knowledge of the opposite sex, Harmony Briggs could. My bestie was the youngest of nine, and all of her older siblings were of the male variety. Not only had she grown up surrounded by testosterone since birth, her dance card had always been full. Guys had tripped over themselves to gain her attention.

  When we were younger, the guys in Wishing Well were more than a little intimidated by her—understandably so—considering Harmony had eight built-in bodyguards. But, once she’d secured her license at sixteen, the dating pool had extended to the entirety of Clover County. She’d wasted no time taking full advantage of the newfound water, and since she’d kept it out of the city limits, her brothers had been none the wiser.

  Glancing over at my friend as she typed on her iPhone, I silently wished that confidence could be derived via osmosis. If it could, I would’ve soaked up every ounce like a sponge in the ocean from the girl sitting beside me, who radiated self-assurance like no other person I knew. Harmony knew her worth. Not in a stuck-up way. It was just that she knew she was attractive, smart, and funny, and she could hold her own with anyone.

  If she could bottle that self-esteem, she would be a millionaire.

  I would be her first customer.

  Out of habit, I tugged on the soft cotton fabric of my cardigan. The temperature was in the low nineties, but even if it had been in the hundreds, I still would have been that covered up. Logically, I understood that my port scar was not the worst thing in the world. I was used to it. Half of the time when I looked at it, I saw a badge of honor. It was the evidence of my survival. But, the other half of the time, I saw a glaring reminder that I was different. As much as it represented the life I’d gained, it also represented the childhood and the years I’d lost.

  Not to mention, what girl wanted to have a scar right above her lady lumps? Maybe if I’d been rocking double Ds, that wouldn’t be an issue. But my B cups (on a good day!) were not anything to write home about.

  It wasn’t that I thought I was unattractive. I knew I was pretty—in a plain way. Harmony and Destiny always tried to tell me that I was hot. I’d always taken the compliments with a grain of salt. Especially considering that they had stuck to that story even when I was in the hospital and looked like the walking dead. They’d wanted to make me feel better, and even though I was convinced they really did believe what they were saying, I was not so sure.

  It was hard to have any kind of confidence after I’d spent my formative years fighting leukemia. My diagnosis at age twelve had changed everything. When most girls were developing and becoming a woman, I’d been trying to stay alive. I’d gone into remission at age seventeen. A few months later, I’d left for college with every intention of making up for lost time. I was going to have all the experiences I’d missed in high school.

  But, instead of letting loose, I’d spent those years holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’d constantly overanalyzed every symptom I experienced. Every time I woke up and still felt fatigued, every headache and stomachache, every time I lost my appetite, I’d been sure that the C-word had returned.

  Thank God it hadn’t.

  Then, a month ago, I’d gotten the news that I was no longer classified as being “in remission.” After five years of clean bloodwork and scans, I’d been upgraded to “cancer-free.” That news, as good as it was, caused me to hold a mirror up to my life.

  Had I been living? Yes. I’d graduated from Baylor University with a degree in communications. I’d just been hired on full-time for a publication in Dallas, where I’d freelanced for two years. I had amazing friends.

  Technically, I did still live with my brother. But it was in my own house. It was on his property, but it was mine.

  Life was good. Just not as good as I wanted it.

  Laughter sounded, causing me to glance up. A wave of the congregation filed out of the church through the large, wooden doors. There were kids, parents, teens. Families. From the time I was a little girl, that was all I’d really wanted. Whenever Destiny, Harmony, and I would play house in her shed, we’d pretend that our husbands were out in the field and we were fixing supper for them. But I hadn’t had to pretend that much because the man I wanted to marry, even at six, was out in Harmony’s field.

  “Oh shoot, I’m late. I didn’t realize how long Pastor Benson’s service went.” She was in full puppy-dog-eyes mode, which meant I would probably not be getting the ride home she’d promised me. “Care Bear, do you think—”

  Lifting my hand, I stopped her. “It’s cool. I can find another ride.” Or, more likely, I’d walk. No way was I going to ask someone to go out of their way to give me a ride. “Go get your groove back, Stella.”

  During the past six months, Harmony had been in a self-imposed dry spell. She’d decided to be a little more discriminating when it came to the partners she did the horizontal mambo with, mainly for the very reasons I wanted to get it out of the way. Her love life had been filled with encounters that she said didn’t even out rank a good bath and a glass of wine.

  But, over the past few weeks, Harmony had started seeing a doctor two towns over in Parish Creek. She’d met him while Destiny’s grandma had been in the hospital after she’d fainted. T
hankfully, Grandma Dixie, who was the town matriarch, had only suffered from anemia. After a two-night stay, she’d been discharged and was right as rain.

  Harmony was more than a little eager to see her Dr. Hottie since they hadn’t done the deed yet, and their time together was limited due to the crazy hours he had to put in at the hospital. The last thing I wanted to be was a nookie blocker.

  “Oh look!” Harmony’s fingers grabbed my forearm as I was reaching down to get my purse. Then she called out, “Trace!”

  I froze.

  “Hey, sis!”

  The deep rumble of Trace’s voice sent a shiver down my spine, and goosebumps broke out on my arm. Trying to mask the fact that my pulse had just sped so fast that you would think it was trying to outrun the law, I sat up straighter as Trace’s sculpted forearms appeared on the passenger side of Harmony’s Jeep. His face was less than six inches from mine as he leaned in the car, and before I could stop it, I inhaled sharply. His clean, musky scent wafted into the vehicle, and his nearness made it difficult for me to remember how to breathe.

  Staring straight ahead, I prayed that neither Harmony nor the cause of my breathlessness noticed my reaction.

  Leaning over the center console, appearing to be completely unaware that I’d forgotten how to intake or expel oxygen, Harmony asked, “Hey, are you headed to Circle M? Cara needs a ride home.”

  No. No. No! My inner self-protective voice screamed in panic.

  It was hard enough for me to deal with the fact that Trace worked for my brother Colton on the ranch. That, at any moment of any day, I would see him up at the main house, in the stables, out in the fields. The last thing I needed was to be in a confined space with him. I was scared that my overactive, under-stimulated hormones might turn me into some sex-crazed freak. That he would be the moon to my werewolf.

  “Sure thing. I was just headed that way,” Trace easily agreed as he opened the door.

  “Great!” Harmony chirped. She wrapped her arms around my neck to give me a quick hug as she whispered in my ear, “This conversation is not over. I’ll call you tonight.”