Читать книгу All I Am - Nicole Helm - Страница 12
ОглавлениеCARA SHIVERED UNDER her bulky sweatshirt, breath huffing out in clouds as she yawned. “It’s so freaking cold.” It always took a few weeks to get into the more bearable mornings, and while she could stay home, what with the abundant help Pruitt Morning Sun now had, she was not about to get pushed out of being a part of it.
Why she felt that way was something she didn’t want to analyze.
Mia smiled. Dell rolled his eyes. Charlie, Dell’s brother, sipped his coffee. “Yes. It is. Why are all four of us here?” Charlie asked.
Cara looked away. Sorry, Charlie, but she wasn’t about to let the Wainwright brothers push her out. Maybe she wasn’t part of the farm, but she’d been a part of Mia’s booth from the beginning. That wasn’t going to change.
She hoped. She had to leave in about half an hour for the stupid interview Mia had set her up with. For making pies. At a real-life restaurant.
The cold dug deeper, and that little voice inside her head that was always right about things whispered, you’re going to screw it up.
“You come of your own accord,” Dell said to his brother. “Feel free not to. Less bitching I have to listen to.”
Charlie sighed heavily, but he didn’t say anything else. He sat on the truck bed, sipping his fancy coffee.
Cara stared at her knees, trying to focus on the cold and will the ominous feelings away. So what if she did mess up the interview? It was a dumb part-time job. One she’d have to quit her salon job over, and then she’d have to find another part-time job that would give her Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off.
This was ridiculous. How had she let Mia talk her into this? How could Mia conveniently forget that if there was pressure involved, Cara was going to fold? And fold hard. If she dreamed it, she could not do it.
A little bolt of fur shot in front of her, followed by a few yips, then paws on her shins. Sweetness panted up at her expectantly, tail wagging on overdrive.
“Geez, when did you become the anti-dog whisperer?” Dell asked. “Are dogs going to attack you every market day?”
Cara bent down to pet Wes’s littlest dog, a shaggy piece of fur that gave no hint at breed. “She’s not attacking me. Hi, Sweetness. And you are, aren’t you? A bundle of sweetness.”
A shadow stepped over the sun, and it didn’t take a fortune-teller to know that when she looked up at the looming figure, she’d come face-to-face with beard and eyes. “Sorry about her. Apparently she’s got a thing for you.”
And what does her owner have for me? In another situation, like at the bar with her friends as an audience, she probably would have said it. “I don’t mind.” She gave Sweetness a scratch before standing up and moving away from the table where Mia and Dell were dealing with customers. “She escaped you to find me. I’m flattered.”
“You must smell like bacon,” Wes replied, following her and Sweetness to a cluster of trees outside the main row of tables.
“Or I’m irresistible.”
He made a strange kind of grunting sound. “Come on, dog.” His voice was low and grumbly as he patted his thigh to grab Sweetness’s attention.
It certainly caught Cara’s attention. It was a very nice, powerful-looking, denim-clad thigh. Get a grip. He might be hot, and that might usually be all it took for her to flirt with a guy, but she didn’t think she should get involved with someone rumored to be a hermit after being injured in the military.
She wasn’t the nurturing, empathetic, there-there type. She was the suck-it-up-and-let’s-have-fun type. James had made it abundantly clear when he’d broken up with her that he was leaving because she wasn’t at all comforting or helpful when he’d been dealing with his friend’s suicide.
And he’d been right. So, Mr. Wes Stone and his gruff bluster and fluster was way off-limits.
Cara gave Sweetness a little nudge. “Go on with your grumpy daddy.” But Sweetness whined, pushing against Cara’s legs as Wes scowled at her.
“You can borrow her,” he said in that gravelly voice.
“Borrow her?”
“Yeah. You said you were thinking about getting a dog. I have a couple of them I loan out. People wanting to see if their dog’s compatible with other animals, seeing if they can work a dog into their schedule, you know, before committing. It is a commitment.”
“Tell me again why you don’t call yourself their daddy.”
He narrowed his eyes, but there was humor in the look. “Not a daddy. Owner. Master.”
It was probably her imagination that when he said master it sounded kind of dirty. And hot.
Nope. For once in her life she was going to make the right decision when it came to a guy and just not go there. “So, I could really borrow her? For how long?”
“I usually do a week. Lets people see how all aspects of their schedule would be affected and if they’ll get used to any hiccups. It’s not perfect, but it helps.”
Sweetness yipped. “I don’t have any dog supplies or—”
“I have a loaner kit. Food, treats, leash, you know.”
“You really do this a lot?”
“I don’t usually offer strange women my dogs for fun, no.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I have to get back to my booth. You interested or what? You can take her after the market. I might have a kit in my truck.”
“Yeah.” Be nice to have a little company in her empty apartment, even if it didn’t speak. “Um, I have this interview thing in a bit. Could I pick her up from you this afternoon?”
“From me?”
“We can meet at a centralized, public location if you’re afraid I might peel off your skin and eat it.”
“Skin...peeling?”
She wouldn’t have pegged him as a guy with a great sense of humor, but there was a flash of one there. Maybe he wasn’t all gloom and doom? “I promise to keep it to a minimum.”
He snorted. “All right.” Then he fidgeted. “Um.” He pulled a wallet out of his pocket, then a little business card out of the wallet. All black and white. Organic Dog Treats. Wes Stone. Website and phone number. “Call me when you’re ready to come, and I’ll give you directions.”
Do not make a dirty joke. Do not make a dirty joke. “Yeah, okay.” And then because she couldn’t work it out, asked, “You seriously do this just because?”
“I seriously do.”
“You’re not trying to hit on me or something?” Because she couldn’t remember a time a guy had been nice just to be nice. To her, anyway. Her reputation in New Benton didn’t exactly lend itself to a lot of nice from the male population.
He frowned. “If I was trying to h-hit on you, I would not do it by lending you an annoying little yap dog with a terrible name.”
“Really? You don’t know much about women, do you?”
She could have sworn that underneath the grizzly beard he was blushing.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d made a guy blush.
“Well, anyway, I should be done by twelve-thirty.” She waved the card. “I’ll give you a call. I could definitely use a furry friend after this dumb interview.” All the good feelings Sweetness had produced faltered in the face of pre-interview nerves. So, she worked up her widest grin. “And I do mean the dog, though if that falls through, you’d be a good backup.”
“Ha. Ha.” Definitely blushing. He turned and stalked back to his booth, and this time Sweetness listened and followed him.
Cara looked down at his card. Okay, maybe flirting with him was inevitable, but she would keep in mind he was probably in a fragile mental state and she had no business being a part of that.
At least she would try to keep that in mind.
* * *
WES THREW THE rope bone as hard as he could with his left hand. It veered into a cluster of trees, and he cursed. The pins and needles in his right arm were doing their dance, and he wanted to cut his own arm off to end the annoyance.
His left hand and arm had gotten more usable with practice, but it had yet to give him the controlled response his dominant hand had before.
He was going to have to go to the doctor again, and that made him want to pound his fists in fury. When would this be over?
The headache throbbed behind his left eye. His arm bothering him caused stress, and that caused a migraine. A fun circle he didn’t know how to escape, even after four years of being stateside.
When he heard the car in the distance, he knew it would be Cara, since he’d given her directions about forty-five minutes ago. He rarely let people come out here, but she’d sounded odd on the phone and his arm was bothering him, so driving out to her didn’t sound appealing.
Now the woman he had no business fantasizing about was going to be at his house. To pick up Sweetness for a loan week. Not to enact any fantasies. Lame fantasies, at that, considering how little experience he had in that particular arena.
His frustration simmered, his headache drummed. He’d get Sweetness loaded up with Cara, then he’d do some work. The methodical process of making dog treats, even when his arm sucked, was soothing. Possible. Not frustrating.
He’d learned in the army that having a precise way of doing things eased his anxiety and stress. Which helped him deal with people and life.
Cara stepped out of an old beige Toyota Camry. She wore black pants and high heels and a silky-looking green top under a black sweater.
Had he really offered a loaner dog to someone he’d met twice?
Yes, because she’s hot, and you’re very, very dumb.
Well, and Sweetness liked her. Which wasn’t all that unusual. Sweetness preferred women, though she’d gotten used to him after a family had left her with him because she hadn’t taken to their new baby.
“Hey,” Cara greeted him, picking across the yard on her high heels, getting stuck once or twice in the thawing, moist mud of his yard.
“Hey.”
Sweetness leaped off the porch, yapping the whole way to Cara. Before he could get half the stop command out of his mouth, Sweetness’s front paws were muddying up Cara’s pants.
He crossed to where Cara had knelt, right in the mud. “I’m sorry. She’s usually better at obeying.” He refused to see that as some kind of omen.
“It’s okay.” She held up her arms, showing off some patches of white dust and yellowish crusty stuff across the elbows and forearms of her black sweater. “I’m already a bit dirty.”
“I thought you had an interview?”
“Pie-baking interview.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Well, it was supposed to be a thing. Turned into a fiery ball of super fail instead.” She buried her nose in Sweetness’s fur. Phantom approached and rested his head on Cara’s shoulder.
Aw, crap.
Cara sniffled, but her head remained buried in Sweetness’s fur even as one arm curled around Phantom’s neck.
He had half a mind to tell her he was having his own meltdown, and he didn’t need hers to add to it, but this moment seemed so incongruous. He’d only spoken to her twice, but it had been obvious Cara was generally fun and happy, and the few times he’d heard her name bandied about town, those were the words used to describe her. Now she was crying all over his dogs. Hell if he knew what to do about it.
She cleared her throat, slowly released the two dogs and wiped her face with her sleeves before she turned to him. “Sorry about that,” she mumbled. “Bad day.”
“He’s a therapy dog.”
She swiped at her nose, watery bluish green eyes meeting his. “Huh?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I just mean, don’t feel bad for crying. Phantom is a therapy dog. That’s why he came over. Trained to offer comfort. Sometimes it makes you cry.”
She cocked her head, that kind of concentrated study he hated almost as much as the avoided glances. The avoided glances were I don’t want to deal with whatever is wrong with you. The cocked-head study was it doesn’t look like something is wrong with you. Are you mental?
“So, you need comfort?” she asked.
He swallowed down the “none of your damn business” and turned on a heel instead. “Let me get Sweetness’s stuff.”
Inside the kitchen, he hefted the plastic bin of food and treats and other dog paraphernalia. When he turned to walk back outside, Cara was stepping over the threshold.
Of his house. Someone else was in his house. A human being.
Phantom had followed her, resting his head against her thigh when she stopped. Traitor. Sweetness danced at her feet once she saw the plastic bin. The dog knew what was coming.
He wished he had some inkling, because he didn’t know what to do about Cara being in his house, even if it was only a few steps into the kitchen.
“This is a great place,” she said, looking around with avid interest. He looked, too. He liked it, of course, but he wasn’t sure what was that great about it.
“Is this where you make your stuff?” She pointed to his equipment and setup tables. Yes, he tended to spend more time in his kitchen making dog treats than food for himself. That was probably not normal. His hand went numb, which, while welcome over the pins and needles, was not convenient when he was holding something. His headache picked up again, and he struggled to use his good hip to balance the small bin.
Small. Light. Shouldn’t be a struggle.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He gripped tighter with his good hand, but the bin was sliding, and his hip wasn’t moving quite the way it needed to in order to balance the container. So it upended and fell.
He bent down to retrieve the scattered crap, doing his best not to shove her hands out of the way when she tried to help.
“Sure you’re okay?”
“I’ve got it under control.”
“Right. Yeah.” She stopped helping and pushed into a standing position. He didn’t look up; he knew too well the kind of expression he would see. Curiosity or discomfort or both.
She didn’t make a big deal about it, but once he’d refilled the bin with Sweetness’s things, she bent over and picked it up before he could.
He tried to come up with words to get her to leave immediately, but when he stood, she was already walking farther into his house.
Carrying the plastic bin as if it were nothing.
Dark feelings twisted in his stomach. Bitterness. Jealousy. Anger. Fear. Worst of all, fear that he’d never be okay.
She needed to go.
Cara let out a low whistle, angling her head into his office. “What happened in there?”
The rest of the house was, well, a mess. His organizational skills were lacking at best. His tidying skills were also problematic, except in the kitchen. If he had a process, a structure, an outcome, like he did with making the dog food or he’d had in the army, he could be very clean and meticulous. But a space all to himself to keep things put away? He struggled.
Cara didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate. She stepped right into the fray. As if she’d been invited. As if she were welcome.
He scowled and shoved his hands into his pockets to stop the urge to yank her away from his stuff. “Do you always barge into homes and places of business uninvited like this?”
She chuckled, and he thought she didn’t look quite so beat down, like she had earlier. She was smiling and laughing, and this was the Cara he expected from town gossip and what little he knew about her. A smile. A joke.
“All those manners and things never really stuck with me, sorry.”
He grunted. It wasn’t so much about manners as... What? Normalcy. “I’m looking for an assistant to help with filing and organizing and stuff. I haven’t had any luck yet.” Why was he telling her that? What did he care if she thought he was a slob?
“Yeah? Why not?”
“People are annoying.”
Again, she laughed. She dropped the bin of dog supplies onto a cluttered chair. She walked through his office, touching his desk of teetering piles as though this was normal.
Usually he dropped the loaner dogs off at the person’s house, and this was precisely why. Probably also why he hadn’t hired any of the three people he’d worked up to interviewing.
He didn’t like sharing. He didn’t like someone trying to look underneath everything. But Cara already was.
For the first time since his return to civilian life, he didn’t know how to stop it.
