Page 2 of Last Chance Cowboy
He’d been right. She would have never left their mother without care. Not ever.
But it hadn’t been fair.
That chapter of her life had dominated her late teens and early twenties. Now here she was, twenty-four, pretty damned estranged from the only immediate family she had left, living across the country, owning a brand-new business, and…thriving?
Was this thriving?
She felt so much like herself, just in a new place.
But somehow she seemed like she was thriving enough to be the one who had been chosen to try and convince Zane to allow Cody to expand trail riding on the ranch to include a trail that went through his property.
She found it interesting that he’d been a firm no with Cody.
She knew next to nothing about Zane — except she knew he’d met Cody in the rodeo circuit and had moved to Mustang River because of him. Cody was the only person that Zane was even remotely close to.
Even so, he’d told Cody in no uncertain terms that his property was not open to guests.
It was Walker, Cody’s younger brother, who had suggested Cara try to charm him.
Zane had put a lot of work into the bakery. He’d done some of the construction on the building before she’d arrived, he’d mounted her shelves. He ate there every morning. And maybe if it was framed as something that might increase the flow of guests overall, keep the bakery and the business solvent…
Though Cara had asked why, as someone who worked on the ranch, he wouldn’t purely be motivated by the business doing better because they had increased the offerings.
Walker had looked at her and flatly stated that she would have better luck because she was pretty.
Walker was charming, so she’d giggled and agreed.
But ever since then, all through baking the special batch of strawberry rolls she was going to take to Zane’s house, packing it in a little basket with a pink cloth, and getting dressed in a floral sundress to go up to his place, she had been questioning everything.
Mostly because even if that were true, even if she were remarkably attractive – and she didn’t think she was – Zane had never indicated that he was the sort of man who caredabout that. The kind of man who valued it or made decisions based on it.
Walker probably would. And maybe that was the issue. Walker was thinking that to him, the messenger would matter. Send a pretty girl in a short skirt, and he would say yes and probably seduce her.
Zane?
Likely not.
Though the idea of seduction made her cheeks feel a little bit warm. Was that seduction in general? Could she transfer it to someone like Walker?
That would be easy. He was really handsome. He was also, per every report she’d heard on him,easy. The kind of man a woman could have an experience with and then move on and still be friendly with him.
And yet. Something about the wordeasydidn’t create that same delicious tension inside her.
Someday, she was going to psychoanalyze this. The fact that this entire ranch was complete with gorgeous cowboys, and the one that intrigued her the most, the one that made her heartbeat just a little bit faster, was the least friendly, least accessible, least appropriate one for her to be interested in.
Interestedwas a strong word.
She wasn’tinterested.
It was just that you couldn’t help who you were attracted to.
Maybe she could, but her issues were conspiring against her.
All she knew in life was impossible, disconnection, and a distance from people she wished she could be closer to. And maybe part of her wanted to keep it that way.
Maybe part of her wanted to always be thwarted. Maybe part of her wanted to keep relationships off limits and out of reach because it justseemed safer.
At this point, her entire life had been a front-row seat to heartbreak and loss.
