“Yeah, she’ll be fine. She’ll feel like shit in the morning, but she’ll make it.”
“Man, that girl is tore up!”
“What do you mean?”
“She was a wreck when she called. Still was when we got to her.”
“About what?”
“What do you think, dickhead? About you!”
“Whatever’s wrong with her has nothing to do with me. She’s back with that douche of a boyfriend she had.”
“No, she’s not. Not according to Jenna.”
My heart is thumping so hard, it feels like it might jump out of my chest.
“What’d she say?”
“She’s got it bad for you, Trick. I thought you knew.”
“
If
she ever did, she sure got over it fast enough.”
“Or you just
think
she did.”
“No offense, Rus, but you don’t know what you’re talking about here. Maybe it’s best for you to just stay out of it.”
“That’s exactly what I told Jenna, but damn if that girl didn’t convince me Cami’s in love with you. She looks at me with those sexy eyes and I quit thinking with this head,” he says with a grin, tapping his forehead.
“It’s okay. I appreciate you trying to help, but it’s over. It’s just…it’s over.”
“It’s a shame, dude. You two were good together.”
His words, they’re like a knife in the chest. I smile as best I can. “I know. But…whatever.”
I wish I could actually
feel
that blasé about the whole thing. But I can’t. It’s tearing me up inside. I’m just pretty good at hiding it.
I turn and walk to the fridge that sits in the back corner of the garage. I see the unopened bottle of Patron sitting on top and I consider it. But then I open the door and grab a cold beer instead.
Before I can take more than one drink, the door to the little room at the back comes flying open revealing a seriously mad Cami standing in the doorway.
She looks adorable. And hot. Her hair is messed up, coming undone from whatever has been holding it up all day. Her shirt is wrinkled and hanging off one shoulder. Her chest is heaving. Her feet are bare. But the most mesmerizing thing is her face. Her gorgeous face. Her cheeks are flushed, like a permanent blush, and her eyes are sparkling with fury. I don’t know what has her so fired up, but I’d like to shake its hand.
She looks around the interior of the garage, her gaze stopping on Rusty and Jenna first then moving on. They stop when she spots me and I swear I think she actually turns about three shades more beautiful.
Her lips part a little and for just a second, there’s something other than anger in her eyes. It’s almost like she’s glad to see me, but hates that she is.
Could Rusty and Jenna be right? Could I have so badly misjudged and misread the situation?
As we stare at each other, for the space of no more than a few seconds, I decide there’s only one way to find out. Just as she starts to stomp toward me, I start walking in her direction. I think it confuses her a little because she stops and looks to Rusty and Jenna again before turning her attention back to me.
I don’t stop until I’m practically right on top of her. I’m staring down at her, never wanting to kiss somebody so bad in all my life. She’s looking up at me, her eyes wide and confused. She’s sexy as hell and I really have no other choice.
So I kiss her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE- Cami
Of all the things I expected when I stomped out of that little room, this was nowhere on the list.
Trick’s hands are cupping my face and his mouth is devouring mine. My head is reeling from the mixture of cold beer and sweet mint on his tongue.
I’m shocked. And confused. And thrilled. And hopeful. All at once. It takes a few seconds for me to recover, for me to figure out what to do. But when I do, there’s no question what my next move is.
I go with it.
I don’t care about the answers I don’t have or the doubts that I do. I care about Trick wanting me right now, in this moment. That’s all that matters. Even if it’s just this one last time, I’ll take it.
Turning my head to the side, I deepen the kiss and lean into Trick. His groan vibrates along my tongue and tingles on my lips. Heat pools low in my stomach.
His hands slide into my hair and the kiss turns hungry. Like he feels the same desperate need I feel. Wrapping my arms around him, I let my fingers crawl up under his shirt where I can feel the smooth, warm skin of his back.
Trick’s lips never leave mine when he sweeps me into his arms. My pulse races and I hold on tighter, not willing to ever let him go.
When he takes me back into the room I just left, he kicks the door shut and sets me on my feet. I kiss him harder, not wanting to give him a second to breathe or think or change his mind. I want him all emotion, all hunger, all raw need. I can’t take the chance that he’ll remember all the reasons “why not.”
I tug at his shirt and lean back only long enough to pull it over his head. He whips mine over my head and then we’re kissing again. I can’t get close enough to him, can’t get enough of his skin on mine. I strain against him as I work the button on his jeans. His fingers brush mine aside and make quick work of the closure. He sheds his pants then picks me up and carries me to the bed.
Like magic, he has me out of my clothes in a heartbeat. I thread my fingers through his hair and pull him to me, kissing him with all the love and passion I feel for him. I shiver when he stretches out on top of me, every inch of my body covered by his.
I wrap my legs around his hips and hold on tight, anticipation winding my muscles into coiled springs. I gasp when he pushes into me. Nothing has ever felt more like home. Words pour from my heart, from my lips without thought to consequences.
“I love you,” I whisper.
Trick stills. His body buried deep inside me, he lifts his head and looks down into my face.
His eyes are pale even in the low light. I stare into them, committing them and this moment to memory. The fleeting nature of this perfect piece of happiness rushes in and chokes me. Tears fill my eyes and spill over, running into the hair at my temples. I squeeze them shut, not wanting him to see my heartbreak. Or ruin the poignancy of the scene.
“What did you say?”
His voice is so low, so quiet, I open my eyes to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. His lips aren’t moving.
“What did you say?” he repeats.
Heat floods my cheeks. It’s one thing to confess something like that in the heat of the moment, not knowing rejection is waiting on the other side. It is quite another to do it in the face of such serious lucidity, like now.
But I tell him what he wants to know, partly because I don’t want to regret
not
telling him how I feel, even though he doesn’t feel the same. I’ll treasure the time I have with Trick for the rest of my life. I might as well go balls out.
“I said ‘I love you’.”
His brow wrinkles. “But what about Brent? And your father? And…everything else?”
“I don’t care about anyone else. Or any
thing
else. All I care about is you.”
“So you’re not back with Brent?”
“No.”
“If you love me, why didn’t you come to me? Why have you stayed away?”
It’s my turn to frown. “I did come to you. I went to your house and talked to your mom. Didn’t she tell you?”
Trick sighs and lowers his forehead to mine. “No, she didn’t.”
Something alarmingly close to hope unfurls in my chest. A question stands on the tip of my tongue. My heart pounds as I let it go. But I have to know. And I might not get another chance. “Would it have mattered?”
Trick looks at me. “Of course it would’ve mattered. Cami, I’m in love with you. I stayed away because I thought it’s what you wanted?”
I hear nothing past the part where he said he’s in love with me. The tears flow faster.
“What’s the matter?” he asks softly, catching a tear with his thumb as it slides from the corner of my eye. “Why are you crying?”
“I thought you were gone. Forever. I thought I’d lost you.”
“I thought the same thing,” he admits, kissing my eyelids and my cheeks. “God, Cami, I didn’t know how I was gonna live the rest of my life without you.”
I wrap my arms and legs tighter around Trick, a physical way of expressing that I’m never letting him go. Never.
The action causes him to move inside me and my body reflexively squeezes, drawing him even further in. I hear the breath hiss through his teeth.
“Damn, can we talk about this later? I can barely think when you do that, much less talk.”
I laugh. In my heart, in my head, in my soul, I laugh. “Yes, we’ll talk later. I think we’ve already covered the most important things anyway.”
He pulls out and thrusts back into me. The sensation steals my breath. “I think there’s one thing left that I need to ‘cover’ if you don’t mind.”
He bites my chin playfully as he flexes his hips, sending fingers of sensation skittering through me.
“Do what you must,” I say.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO- Trick
I put the truck in park right at the edge of the clearing where the house will sit. At least I think that’s where it will sit. My wife will have the final say. Provided that she says yes, of course.
I look over at Cami, sitting quietly beside me, all blindfolded and excited.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“To see what you bought with all that money from the car? Hell yeah, I’m sure.”
“I told you part of it went to Mom and some of it went into stabling Rags and getting him ready to race.”
“But the rest you invested. You already told me. And now I get to see what the big secret is.”
She rubs her hands together excitedly. Now I’m having second thoughts. She’s obviously anxious to know what it is, but I wonder if she has some preconceived notion of what it is. What if she’s disappointed?
I get out and walk around to her side of the truck. I help her down, but leave her blindfolded.
“Come on. I’ll go slow. Just hold on to me.”
Always game, Cami nods and lets me lead her into the clearing. In the distance, I can see where the stable I had built sits at the edge of the field. I hope Cami doesn’t mind staying in the tiny apartment in the top half of it until the house is completed. Since Rags won his first two races, I had enough money to get her a ring plus some to spare for a down payment on a construction loan. All the bank needs is the house plan.
And all I need for that is Cami.
I grab her by the shoulders and position her facing the house site and the stable beyond. “Stay right here.” I drop to one knee and dig the ring out of my pocket. After a deep breath, I tell her, “You can look.”
I watch her face as she pulls off the tie I’d used to blindfold her and looks around. She scans the clearing first and I see her eyes pause on the stable before they search for and find me, kneeling at her side.
When she understands what’s going on, her hands fly to her face. She covers her mouth and turns to face me. My heart jumps up into my throat.
“I know how much you’ve sacrificed to be with me. Having to stay with Jenna because of your dad and having to put off school for a while. And I promised you I’d make it up to you. This,” I say, sweeping my arm out to encompass all the land that I now call mine, “is the first step. I want this to be our home. I want to build a life with you and a business around Rags that we can run together. I want to pick out carpet and curtains with you. I want to pick out new horses with you. I want to pick out baby furniture with you. I want to grow old with you. I want you. Forever. I’m hoping that if you can see that future, the future that I see, you can wait just a little while longer for all of it to come together. I’m working on it. Every day, I’m working on it. For you. For us. But until then,” I pause, holding out the ring. “Cami, will you marry me?”
I’m pretty sure I can’t breathe. My chest is so tight it feels like it might pop from the pressure.
Although she only pauses for a few seconds, it feels like an eternity. When she drops to her knees in front of me and takes my hands, I feel a relieved sigh rush out in a flood, taking with it all the last little bits of doubt I’d had.
I can see her answer in her eyes, before she even opens her mouth. And it makes me want to celebrate.
“Yes. To all of that. I don’t have a life without you. I never did. I never could. You’re everything to me. You’re all I’ve ever wanted and all I’ll ever need. I’m never letting you go.”
When she brings her mouth to mine, I can’t help but smile. Yes, I’m happy—so, so happy—with her answer. But that’s not all. I get to make her even happier later when I tell her that I finally got her father’s blessing.
About two weeks ago, when I bought Cami’s ring, I made an impulsive detour on the way back from the jeweler’s. I decided to stop by the Hines ranch. I knew Cami wouldn’t be there; she’d already moved in with Jenna. What I didn’t know is whether or not Jack would be there. I knew it would be worth a try, though. And it was a good gamble. Turns out he was there after all.