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And then it was like she could see his face.
I’m dead. I got better things to do than hang around here.
That’s what he would say. And it made her laugh.
Well, maybe that was her answer. Her grandpa had better things to do than hang around here, so maybe she needed to get her life in order. Buy the hotel. Marry Jace. She didn’t want anything else. She didn’t want anyone else. She wasn’t losing anything by marrying him. Yes, the emotions would always be tricky with him. But he cared about her. And it wasn’t like she had another man who was desperately in love with her waiting in the wings. It was just... It was just knowing that she maybe cared a little bit more than he did. That was the tough thing. But it would be worth it. It would be worth it to be with him.
Her phone buzzed.
She looked down at the text that she had just gotten.
Dinner with my family tonight?
And she knew that her answer would cement this forever.
Yes.
Yes. She was going to marry Jace. And his family was going to say I told you so, and it would be totally worth it.
Twelve
It was handy that his sister Callie and her husband, Jake, had been planning on coming to spend a few days anyway. They would be here for the announcement, and that meant that he only had to tell everyone in his family one time what he was going to do. That he was leaving the rodeo, that he was getting married. All of that suited him. It suited him right down to the very ground his boots were standing on.
He had it all mapped out in his mind. Yeah, there might’ve been some merit to giving his mother at least a warning prior to making the announcement, but he just didn’t want to get into it. He only wanted to do it once, and he wanted Cara to be there when he did. Because it would make them behave. Maybe.
He had also spent part of the day looking at land.
He wanted something that was near enough to town that it would be easy for Cara to manage her interests right there on Main Street, but far enough out that they had a good-size plot of land, and opportunity to make it functional.
He was still deciding what exactly he wanted to ranch. Bison, beef or horses. All completely different endeavors.
Roots.
That’s what he was doing now. It was the thing he was doing.
What he didn’t anticipate, was how Cara would look when she showed up.
He was in his truck, out in front of his parents’ palatial country home, all square lines and lots of glass, when Cara rolled up.
He had seen her in a lot of different things. She typically wore blue jeans. She liked her rhinestones, did his girl, and on the evenings that she worked at the bar, she favored a scoop neck, tight tank top all the better to show off her figure. He was used to her in all these things. The casual T-shirt Cara, and sexy nighttime Cara.
But when she got out of the truck and revealed that she was in a soft, floaty sundress, it just about did him in. It had little short sleeves and a rounded neck with a little bow right at the center of her breasts that he desperately wanted to undo immediately. It was short, coming inches above her knees, swinging when she walked. Her blond hair was loose, curling at the ends and blowing in the breeze, and he was suddenly desperate to touch it.
What was this? This shift.
Because somehow, in that moment, it wasn’t about being attracted to his friend. It felt bigger somehow. It wasn’t just about having permission to find her beautiful—it was about this woman, this relationship, and something deepening.
He had thought of it as adding something on. But now it seemed like it was just all that they had been, but deeper.
“Look at you,” he said.
As he got closer, he could see that she had painted her lips with something glossy and nice, that she had just a little bit of mascara and some gold and green eye shadow that highlighted her eyes.
She was sexy and sweet, exactly how you would want a woman to look that you were bringing home to meet your parents and tell them you were going to marry her.
Of course, she had met his parents before.
So it was more about presenting her as his future wife, rather than his friend.
