Page 66 of Hometown Hottie

Ryan nodded, perking up as he uncapped his beer. “Hey, at least we’ve still got tonight, right?”

Giving me a wide smile, he headed outside with Vance and the others, and I made to follow them until Carson wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pulled me aside. Looking around, he leaned in closer, the faint scent of bergamot and spice wafting from him as he penned me in against the wall. “I had a great time with you this weekend, Nova.”

“So did I.” My eyes flicked up to meet his. My heart raced again when I realized his lips were only inches away from mine. “Let’s just hope what happened doesn’t end up making you leave again.”

A smirk ghosted across his lips and he shook his head, glancing around before he leaned in even closer to speak against my ear. “I’m not going anywhere, baby. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

With that, he pushed away from me, winked, and walked away, leaving me trying to catch my breath. I let the wall hold most of my weight. Damn. That was surprisingly hot.

Unfortunately, it was also the last time I got to speak to him that night. We never seemed to be able to find another minute alone, and though I wanted to talk to him about what all of this meant, I resigned myself to having to do it when we got back home.

Early the next morning, Ryan and I drove home from the lake together, the sun only rising when we were already about halfway there. Sipping on my takeout coffee, I stared at the mountainous landscape, wishing I was waking up to the lake again.

“You had fun this weekend?” Ryan asked, his mind obviously in the same place as mine. “I have to admit, I did. There’s just something about the water that helps me relax.”

I turned to arch an eyebrow at him. “The water, huh? I’d have thought Cassidy helped you relax more than the boating did.”

He chuckled but released one hand from the steering wheel to mime zipping his lips. “I don’t kiss and tell, but nice try.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t ask you to tell, but I would like to know that you don’t plan on hurting her.”

“I’d never do that,” he said irritably. “I know we’ve grown apart a bit, but shit. You know me, Nova. You know I’d never mess with someone’s feelings. That being said, Cassidy and I talked. She knows where we stand and I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“Touchy much?” I teased, rolling my eyes as I shook my head at him. “You’re a prude, you know that?”

“I’m not a prude,” he retorted, but he laughed anyway. “Okay, maybe I am, but it’s weird talking to you about this stuff.” He dragged in a deep breath before he glanced at me. “Prude or not, I did notice you looking pretty cozy with Carson. What was that all about?”

“Nothing much, but why would it be a big deal if anything was going on between us?” I asked, using the opportunity to talk to him about it.

As expected though, he balked. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?” I ground out. “Hypothetically, if there was something going on between me and Carson, why would it even have anything to do with you?”

For the first time when speaking to me about this subject, Ryan didn’t just get mad. He also couldn’t leave, so this really was the best time to ask for the answers I’d been curious about for so long.

“Do you know the kind of life he lived before coming home?” he asked, glancing at me with a soft but wary expression in his eyes.

Turning his head back toward the road, he shoved a hand through his hair, inhaling deeply. His jaw hardened like he was trying to stop himself from being sick.

I stared at him, surprised by the question but also by the fact that he seemed to be keeping his cool, which was unexpected. I shook my head. “I don’t know much about it, other than he played in the NFL, was pretty good at it, and stuck to it until he decided to retire.”

“Pretty good?” Ryan made a face at me. “You know better than that, Nova. The guy is a living legend.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” he said emphatically. “He was dating models and actresses, traveling all over the world in the off-season and probably spending more money on one night in a club than you and I on groceries in a month. With a life like that, do you really think he’s going to settle down with a small town girl who runs a bakery? Do you even think he’s really going to make a life for himself in Silver Springs?”

“I don’t know.” I swiped my tongue across my lips, my mouth and throat suddenly drying out. “He sure seems determined to make a life for himself here.”

Ryan nodded. “I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to last. He can build the best damn house in the county and still get bored of country living and small town girls real fast. He could head back to any big city any day and only come to his nice country house once a year to spend the holidays with his mother. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but don’t let him suck you in.”

I was tempted to tell him that Carson and I had slept together just out of spite. Clearly, Ryan thought I was too small town for a guy like Carson, but he might have felt differently if he’d known what happened between us. Unease in my gut kept me from speaking up, though.

Now that he’d put it that way, I was starting to wonder if I’d misjudged my brother’s motivations. Maybe he wasn’t trying to keep me from getting with Carson simply because I was his little sister. Maybe he really was worried about me getting hurt if Carson ended up realizing that life in rural Wyoming wasn’t for him anymore.

Am I just a good time to Carson now? A conquest? Does he only want me because he “can’t” have me or because things ended the way they did way back when?

Ryan left me to my thoughts, not saying anything more on the subject and not needing to. If he’d been trying to plant a seed of doubt, he’d certainly succeeded and that seed had grown into a massive bush by the afternoon.

We got home. Our parents were working on the farm, and we joined them, helping out with the things they’d called us home for. When they invited us with them to the big Memorial Day BBQ in town, I declined. My doubts were now huge and insistent, nagging at me and refusing to let up for even a moment.

My family left for the BBQ and I went to the bakery, hoping that working would distract me, but it didn’t help at all. Late in the afternoon, Carson called me, but for whatever reason, I didn’t even reach for the phone to pick it up.

I just let him go to voicemail as my brain screamed at me that I needed to get a grip. I knew Ryan had probably just been trying to keep us apart by saying what he had, but it still stung.

Why would Carson want a girl like me after all the stunning women he’s been with in the past?The simple answer was that he wouldn’t.

Not forever anyway.

To mess around with, maybe.

But to have and to hold? There was just no way that was happening. Believing that it might was tantamount to me allowing my heart to be broken. I loved myself too much to let that happen, but I also hated the knowledge that Ryan had been right all along.

Carson and I weren’t meant to be, and the sooner I convinced myself that was true, the better. For all our sakes, I had to fstop this thing in its tracks.

As much as it sucked, that was what I intended to do.