Loving Cara

by Kristen Proby

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “She heard you with her own ears.”

  “Jill, stop!” I hear Cara shriek, as I rack my brain.

  “And then you had to drive the nail even deeper in her heart and make it clear that she’s not part of your family.”

  My heart climbs up in my throat. Jesus, she heard my conversation with Z. “Jill—”

  “No, you listen to me, pal. You had no problem fucking her brains out with that impressive cock of yours—”

  “Jillian!” Cara yells.

  “—but if you didn’t want to live with her, you should have just manned up and been honest. Grow a pair, King. If I was in Montana right now, I’d hunt you down and shove my foot so far up your ass you’d have toes for teeth!”

  “Ouch,” I mutter, and grimace. “Listen to me. Cara misunderstood.”

  “No, she didn’t!”

  “I was talking about Kensie, Jill. Not Cara. She didn’t hear the whole conversation.” Jill grows quiet, and I can hear Cara in the background.

  “What is he saying? Hang up, Jillian.”

  “Do not hang up this phone.” My voice is hard, and I’ve never been so pissed in my life. “She ran because she misunderstood a conversation that didn’t include her and because I was a dick when Seth got hurt. I’m on my way, Jill.”

  “What?” She sounds perfectly sober now, and I hear her stand and move away from Cara.

  “Seth told me that she was on her way to you. I’m stuck in Salt Lake, but I should be there later tonight.”

  She doesn’t answer for a long minute and I’m afraid she’s hung up.

  “Jill?”

  “I’m here. If you’re lying to me . . .”

  “I’m not. Leave the front door unlocked. I’ll be there late. And, Jill?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell her—”

  “No, tell her yourself. Hurry up, loverboy.”

  She hangs up and I grin as I push my phone in my pocket and check the flight status on the large television screen above the windows ahead.

  Delayed.

  “Damn,” I murmur.

  “You’re trying to get to your girl.” An older woman sitting opposite me is knitting a red scarf and smiles at me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Must be pretty important.” She pushes the yarn down the needle.

  “It is.”

  “My daughter had a baby yesterday, and I’m on my way to spend time with her and her family.” I’m surprised. She doesn’t look old enough to be a grandmother. She smiles again, and I take a deep breath and sit back, giving her my attention.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” She leans down and rifles through her large yellow carry-on and comes out with two candy bars. “Snickers?”

  “Thanks.” I accept the candy and take a big bite, realizing how hungry I am.

  “I wish my Richard were here to see our first grandbaby,” she murmurs quietly, her eyes on her candy bar. “He passed away a few months ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  She nods and then meets my gaze again. “Time goes so fast. I know you probably hear that all the time, but it’s true. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to have my Richard here to fight with me again.” Her smile is sad as she watches me, and I just don’t know what to say. “Do you know what would always work to soften me up when I was mad at him?” she asks with a grin.

  “Chocolate?” I hold up my candy wrapper.

  “No.” She laughs and shakes her head. “Just an honest apology. It’s surprising how hard it is to say the words I’m sorry. When we were young, he was so damn stubborn. But he finally learned that all he had to do was say he was sorry.”

  “I was a jerk yesterday.”

  “It happens.” She shrugs and returns to her knitting.

  “But I’m pissed at her too.” I clench my hands into fists.

  “Well, you wouldn’t love her if you weren’t.”

  “I wish the weather would break.” I scowl and watch the rain outside.

  “You’ll get there when you’re supposed to get there.”

  I just pray I’m not too late.

  CHAPTER

  Seventeen

  CARA

  “What the hell did you just do?” I demand as Jill stumbles back into her living room, weaving through the plethora of shopping bags scattered about from today’s shopping trip.

  According to Jill, all worries can be solved with retail therapy.

  “I told him off.” She refills both our wineglasses.

  “You had to leave the room to do it?” I sip the sweet white Moscato.

  “I had to pee.”

  “So you peed while you told him off?” I giggle.

  “He didn’t know.” She waves me off and takes a long drink. “I know it’s shitty circumstances, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me too. I miss you. When are you moving home?”

  Jill bites her lip and stares down into her glass.

  “Jilly?”

  “I’m thinking about moving home soon, actually.”

  “Really?” I screech, and jump up and down on the cushions of her couch. “Why? When?”

  “In the next few weeks.” She shrugs and pulls her legs up under her.

  “Spill.”

  “Todd and his new wife are pregnant,” she whispers, and blinks tears away as she drinks her wine, stunning me into silence. “Five years,” she murmurs. “We tried to have a baby for five years, Cara.”

  “I know.” I take her hand in mine and squeeze.

  “All those medications and hormones and trips to the doctors.” She sighs and clenches her eyes shut. “I don’t know how many times I was on my back, feet in stirrups, for all of LA County to see. And not once could anyone tell me why I couldn’t get pregnant.”

  “Is that why he left you?” I ask quietly. “You never would tell anyone.”

  “No.” She shakes her head and refills her glass. I consider suggesting she slow down, but what’s the harm? “I left him because I came home early from work one afternoon to find him fucking Sheila in our bed.”

  “Sheila the new wife?” My voice is an octave higher than normal, my eyes wide in alarm.

  “The same one.” She toasts me with her glass. “He said that it was my fault. I was too preoccupied with getting pregnant, only wanting to have sex when I was ovulating, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day, he fucked around because he’s an asshole.”

  I nod, shocked. “And then he married her?”

  “Oh, honey”—Jill laughs humorlessly—“he married her two days after our divorce was final.”

  “No fucking way!” I can’t feel my lips now as I fill my glass again. “What an asshole!”

  “First-class asshole, for sure.” She bites her lip and looks at me with big tears in her eyes. “Why couldn’t I give him a baby, Cara? What’s wrong with me?”

  “Oh, sweetie, nothing is wrong with you. Maybe you just weren’t supposed to have babies with him because he’s a first-class asshole.”

  “I guess.”

  “Is that why you came home for the holiday?”

  “Yeah, I had just found out and I needed to be home to clear my head. And I realized that home is where I need to be. The only thing holding me here is my job, and I can sell houses back home just as easily as I can here.”

  “Yes, you can.” I smile widely.

  “Can I crash with you?”

  “Of course. Like you even have to ask.” My phone beeps with an incoming text. “You didn’t turn it off?”

  Josh: I miss you.

  “No, what’s the point?” She leans her head against the couch and sighs.

  “I don’t want to be nice to him.” I frown at the phone as the letters blur together. “I mean, I know I screwed up, but he wasn’t very nice to me.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Okay.” I grin as I begin to text him back.

  Meat me above.

/>   “What did you say?”

  “I told him to leave me alone,” I smirk. “Okay, now let’s talk about Zack.”

  “He’s so sexy,” Jill purrs. “Like, so, so, so, so sssssssexy.”

  “God, you’re so drunk.” I laugh and take another sip of wine, dribbling some down my blouse. My phone beeps again.

  Josh: Huh?

  “He’s not the brightest lightbulb in the box, is he?” I ask Jill, and try again.

  Go Adam.

  “There, I told him to go away.” I lay the phone on the coffee table and settle back with my wine. “Okay, tell me about Zack. Is he hung?”

  “Are you paying me back for when I was home and hounded you about Josh?”

  “Hell to the yes!”

  “They’re identical-twin brothers, Cara. What do you think?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” I take a sip and think about Josh’s beautiful body. “Does he have a freckle right here?” I point to my pelvis, just to the left of my pubis.

  “Yes! How funny.” She giggles and takes a sip of wine, also thinking. “Does Josh have dimples above his ass?”

  “Yes, and, oh my God, they are so fucking lickable.” I fall back against the cushions as if in the middle of an orgasm, making Jill laugh.

  “I know! And their shoulders? Hello, hot muscles!”

  We’re laughing in earnest now, our wine set aside.

  “When he kisses, is it, like, hot and intense, or soft and sweet?” I ask, daydreaming about Josh kissing me.

  “Zack is super intense. Like, he grips on to my neck, not like he’s choking me, just, you know, holding on to me, and kisses like he never wants to stop. Damn, he’s really good at it.”

  “Josh is too.”

  “Does Josh do this thing where he hooks your legs up over his shoulders—”

  “And pushes down on the backs of your thighs?”

  “Yes! Oh my God, that makes me hot.” Jill fans herself.

  “I wonder if they ever compare notes.”

  We just stare at each other for a few seconds, then burst into giggles again.

  “So what happened?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell him you were leaving in the morning? The sex didn’t suck.”

  “The sex was ah-mazing, like with a capital A.” She frowns, pursing her pretty pink lips. “I didn’t expect him to fuck me and then slip out in the middle of the night without saying good-bye.”

  “I don’t think it was a one-night-stand thing, Jill.” My eyes won’t stay open now. “Jesus, how much wine did we have?”

  “Three bottles. Why don’t you think it was a one-nighter?”

  “Because the next day he was freaked-out, asking me where you were.”

  “What?” she screeches, and pulls on my arm. “You never told me that!”

  “I figured he would have called you.”

  “He hasn’t.” She sighs and lays her head on my lap. I sink my fingers in her thick dark hair and comb my fingers through it, over and over.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know what to say,” I offer.

  “Maybe the sex really wasn’t very good, and he just didn’t know how to tell me.” She sighs deeply and then sits straight up. “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “If I move home, I’m gonna hafta see him all the time.” She squishes up her nose. “That’ll be ’barrassing.”

  “Nah, you’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll see, I guess.” She stares at me through glassy eyes. “Don’t be mad at me tomorrow, okay?”

  “Why would I be mad?” I ask with a frown.

  “You just might. So don’t. Because I love you.”

  “I love you too.” I hug her close and then stand and pause to get my balance as the room spins around me. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Me too.”

  “Good night, Jillybean.”

  “Good night, Carebear.”

  * * *

  Dear God, it’s too bright in here. I throw my arm over my face and groan as I turn over onto my side and pray that I won’t throw up.

  Jill fed me way too much wine last night.

  I scrub my hand over my face and down my body, frowning when I discover that I’m naked.

  Damn, I didn’t even pull on my pajamas before I fell into bed last night.

  My mouth is dry and my head hurts, so I sit up, still not opening my eyes, and try to boost my energy up enough to get out of bed and hunt down some Advil and a glass of water.

  The covers fall around my waist and my nipples pucker in the air-conditioned air. I take a deep breath and open my eyes and squeal in alarm.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Good morning.”

  Josh is sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. He’s leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His fingers are threaded together and dangling between his knees.

  He’s in jeans and a rumpled button-down, and his hair is a mess from pushing his hands through it over and over.

  Despite his casual appearance, his face is hard, and his brown eyes are the angriest that I’ve ever seen them.

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper, my hangover instantly forgotten.

  “There’s water and Advil on the table next to you.” His voice is calm.

  Too calm.

  With my eyes still on his, I take a long drink of water and toss back the Advil.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He doesn’t answer, he just watches me, unblinking, until I frown and cover my nakedness.

  “If you’re not speaking to me, why did you come?” I ask, my voice rising. “And how did you get in?”

  “Jill let me in. Watch yourself with me, Carolina. It took me a very long time to get here.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I told you once before, if you run, I’ll find you. I meant it. Why did you run, Cara?”

  God, I hate his voice right now. It’s cold, and he’s way across the room, and he hasn’t made a move to touch me.

  I so want him to touch me.

  “Do you want the long or the short list?” I ask sarcastically, and hate myself when I see a flash of hurt cross his face before he schools his features.

  “I want the truth.”

  “I left because I overheard you tell Zack that you regretted asking me to move in with you, and I left because you made me feel like a piece of shit about what happened to Seth.”

  “I am so fucking pissed at you right now,” he mutters, his voice low.

  “Yeah? Well, I’m fucking pissed too, Joshua.” I push my hair off my face and glare at him.

  “First of all”—he leans back and crosses his arms over his chest, watching me intently—“that conversation you heard wasn’t about you at all. If you’d come by a few seconds earlier, you would have heard that we were talking about Zack’s ex-wife.”

  My jaw drops and eyes widen. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty serious right now, Cara. Let me finish.”

  I frown and close my mouth, waiting for him to continue.

  “I apologize for the way I acted when Seth was hurt. I was worried about both of you, and when I saw that you were safe, I was just worried about getting help for Seth. I don’t even remember what I said, but Zack filled me in and busted my ass for it.”

  “How can you say you were worried about me? You didn’t spare me a glance. You didn’t even ask me if I was okay! You just made it perfectly clear that I fucked up!”

  “I’m sorry! I was panicked.”

  “And you think I wasn’t? I had your nephew’s broken ankle in my hand and I was standing in ice-cold water!” My adrenaline has kicked in now, and if he thinks he’s going to get off easy with a simple I’m sorry, he’s sorely wrong.

  “Fucking A,” he spits out, and scratches his scalp vigorously in agitation.

  I sit and glare at him, wanting nothing more than to wrap him in my arms and soothe us both.

  “What I’m most fucking pissed about,”
he continues, noticeably calming his voice, making me meet his gaze again, “is the fact that you didn’t trust me. You assumed that I would betray you, even after everything I’ve said and done with you.”

  My eyes widen.

  “You doubted my love for you, Carolina, and that cut me deeper than anything else you could have ever done.”

  “You weren’t showing me love—” I begin, but he cuts me off.

  He sighs and rests his face in his hands. “You shredded me.”

  “Back at you.” I fling the covers off me and jerk the dress I was wearing last night over my head in quick, angry movements.

  “If you try to run from me right now, Cara, so help me . . .”

  “I’m just getting dressed! I can’t fight with you naked!” Satisfied that I’m now covered, I quickly pull my hair up into a knot to keep it out of my way.

  “I’m not a part of your family. I get it. But the way you spoke to me before you got in that ambulance—”

  “I did not tell you that you aren’t a part of my family!” His voice rises as he stands and paces around the room. “Jesus, Cara, I asked you to move in with me. If I didn’t think of you as a part of my family, I never would have done that.”

  “You were cold and heartless, and not the man I’d fallen in love with. I saw a side to you that scared the fuck out of me, Josh.”

  He stops before the window, staring outside, and braces his hands on his hips.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and then turns to look at me again. “I’m very sorry for that. I’m excellent in dealing with emergencies when it comes to the animals on the ranch, but seeing Seth hurt, and that rushing water, knowing you could have both been killed, it just destroyed me, and then . . .”

  His hands shake as he pushes them through his hair. “I couldn’t find you.” He swallows, his voice quiet and rough. “I’ve never been that scared in my life. I didn’t know if something had happened to you. I couldn’t find you.”

  His voice catches and he stops talking, swallows again, and shakes his head in disbelief as he leans his hips against the windowsill, and in this moment, my resolve disappears and I’ll do anything to make this right.

  “I couldn’t find you. You own me, Carolina. Body and soul. I promise this will never happen again.”