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“Then I told the principal that I thought middle school was bullshit.”
“And that’s why you’re suspended?”
“Yes.”
“It all sounds reasonable to me. Not the suspension. Everything you did. The question is, why didn’t it seem reasonable to the principal?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“I’m Jace Carson. What’s your name?”
And she suddenly felt shy and self-conscious. Because he was an older boy. And he was just so... Cute. And older boys, or boys her age, or really any boys, never talked to her.
“I’m Cara Summers. But I warn you. I’m not cool. And they call me horse teeth. And if you talk to me, they probably won’t think you’re cool either.”
“Seventh graders? I’m fine with that.”
He had walked her home. He had helped her explain the situation to her grandpa. And then he had helped with some chores around the property.
He told her a couple days later, after he came by to visit and finish some of the work, she reminded him of his sister.
He hadn’t explained any of that then.
But later, about six months into their friendship, he told her that he had a sister who would be her age now. One who had died when she was a little girl. “You remind me of her. Makes me want to look out for you. The way that I looked out for her.”
And that was it. They had really been best friends ever since then. Through a whole lot of things.
She’d admired him, for years. Just looked up to him like he was a god.
And she felt weird and possessive, and hadn’t particularly liked it when he had girlfriends.
Not that he ever had them for all that long.
And she knew that when he was out riding in the rodeo he did a lot of casual hooking up. But she just did her best not to think about that.
It wasn’t until one night at the bar, when she had been back there helping her grandpa, that she had really watched him putting the moves on a woman. He had his hand on her hip, and then he’d let it drift slowly up to her waist, and Cara had felt a physical, visceral response to it.
And that was when she’d realized.
It was when she’d realized that she wasn’t just possessive. She didn’t just admire him.
She was attracted to him.
She wanted him to touch her like that.
And she thought about saying something. About asking him if he would be her... It was so embarrassing. If he would be her first. Because she trusted Jace, so, it seemed like a pretty reasonable idea.
But then her grandpa had died. And that had been one of the single most devastating, destabilizing things that had ever happened. And in the four years since, she had done her level best to build herself back up. To take the bar and build it up. And handily, Lone Rock was having a bit of a boom, a resurgence. People were enjoying traveling locally, taking road trips, spending time in small towns.
There were all these posts that went up on the internet. These most charming small town posts, and Lone Rock was almost always there, as an 1800s gold rush town that still had original Western facades on a bunch of the buildings. With outlaw lore deeply embedded into the dirt all around, it was an attractive place for people to come and visit. Which was why she was now ready to invest in the hotel property. She wanted to reopen it. She wanted to get it online. It was haunted, that was the thing. And ghost stays were incredibly popular.
It was just that there had been three buyers that had backed out, and now the seller—who didn’t live in Lone Rock—was demanding that potential buyers spend at least one night there to prove that they could handle it. To prove that they knew what they were getting into.
She wasn’t afraid. In fact, she loved that stuff. It was just the idea of spending the night there alone...
It didn’t really appeal.
But that was future Cara’s problem. Right now, she had a bar to run, and Jace was here.
