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“Thank you,” I whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Wait,” Jo-Beth called out to Carter, interrupting our private tête-à-tête. “What are we supposed to do with the car?”
“Leave it here,” he replied loudly, his mouth close to my ear, his voice ringing through my canals. “Nothing too bad happens in Rough and Ready, ‘specially not to a dinged-up car. Should be fine.”
A wild, unknown force must have possessed me, because without thinking, I volleyed back, “Hopefully something a little bad happens around here.”
That did the trick. His deferring eyes finally shot up to meet mine, and I could see fire, flames, fear. There was an attraction there, I was sure of it, but in the same breath, a fear of that attraction. What would psych class tell me this meant? I mentally paged through countless textbooks, but couldn’t find an answer. Despite all my reading and experience, I was adrift in Carter’s gaze.
“Hop on in,” he murmured.
I didn’t need to be told twice.
I clambered into the seat of his truck, ready for the ride of my life.
CHAPTER 6
Carter
I COULD FEEL the heat of her thigh through my jeans.
In trying not to focus on it, I found that it became all I could think about. Her flesh, her blood, her heat.
Having a vintage truck means that there aren’t two seats separated by a coffee cup console, but rather, one long seat in which you can fit three people, four, if you really feel like getting pulled over. As it was, I had to take out Henry’s booster seat for them to fit. On the bench next to me was Phoebe, her thin frame pressed against mine.
I knew she had slid in first to act as a barrier between me and Jo-Beth, who wasn’t lookin’ all too kindly on me just yet. Even though I knew Phoebe’s reasoning, understood the logic, the proud part of me, the man, insisted that she’d be hankerin’ to sit next to me.
The proximity was lethal. Her smell, which seemed to radiate not from her flesh but from her streaks of buttery brown hair, was like lavender fields, miles and miles of them, tightly coiled into one powerful scent. She smelled of a girl who got up early to tend to her plants then went to bed late after dancing with fairies.
Oh, lord. I was losing my goddamn mind.
You can’t, I reminded myself bitterly. Women were a no-go, especially young ones. If you play with fire, get burned and pick up that same lit match, you’re a fool. I couldn’t let Henry burn with me, not again. And besides, practically speaking, if I made a move on her, I’d prove positive Jo-Beth’s fears — that I was just a predator, luring young women into the confines of my tiny trailer, only to romance them with my smooth country ways. No, I wouldn’t allow anyone to think I was that variety of man.
But being so close to Phoebe, I couldn’t help but feel the thing between us, those stupid little sparks. Damn sparks.
I went to move the stick shift, hoping to speed up and away from my problems. Instead, my hand brushed against Phoebe’s thigh.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“No worries.”
I gulped, trying to refocus my eyes on the road. Couldn’t let us get into an accident. Then we’d all three be stranded on the road.
But my fingers remembered the touch, as though it’d imprinted directly upon my muscles.
“Put on some music,” I said, hoping to find something, anything, to distract me from the reality of Phoebe’s body so close to mine.
I caught her glance at Jo-Beth, who turned further away, mistrustful of my offer. Fair enough. Apparently resigned to Jo-Beth’s worry, Phoebe took it upon herself to pick the station. She scrolled through channels, past bible thumpers, hard rockers, pop princesses. At last, she heard a few chords that caught her fancy, and paused her relentless scroll.
“Perfect,” she said softly, and sat back, satisfied with her work.
It was the Dixie Chicks. More specifically, their song “Cowboy Take Me Away.” The hairs on my arm bristled at the lyrics of the song. Was I Phoebe’s cowboy?
“This is one of my favorites,” I admitted.
“Me too.”
A smile danced along her lips. Don’t look at her lips. But how could one not? They were hazes of pink against the white of her skin, and they moved with the readiness of a theatrical mask.
“Where are you from?” Jo-Beth asked, her voice puncturing the rarefied air in the car.
That was a complicated question. “Texas,” I replied, keeping the answer short.
“Where in Texas?” Phoebe asked.
“Nowhere you’d have heard of.”
“Small town?” Jo-Beth inquired.
“You could say that.”
My body went stiff, as if encasing itself in a protective shell. I could sense Jo-Beth gearing up for more inquiries, none of which I was prepared to answer. The past was off limits. It held nothing but darkness, pain and regret.
