Page 95 of Last Chance Cowboy
Because when she wasn’t here, she just wanted to be with him.
And she was going to be. Tonight.
“Definitely let’s do dinner,” she said, because it was going to be good for her, because she couldn’t sync everything into Zane. This was temporary. He had made that much clear from the beginning, and she needed a temporary anyway. Because Marlowe was actually right. She didn’t want to find what Marlowe had with Cody. Not right now. She was just on the verge of figuring out how to live her life.
She was just on the verge of something like freedom, without having an obligation to another person. Without caregiving.
It would be insane to jump into a long-term relationship so quickly. And sure, it had worked out for Marlowe. But all of that was different. Yes, she had been married, but she had chosen that.
She had chosen to marry Cara’s brother, had chosen to take on the jobs that they had taken on, to live the life that they had lived.
Cara hadn’t chosen anything.
She needed to. She needed to start choosing different things.
Right now, she was choosing this whole thing with Zane.
And it was wonderful, and she was going to enjoy it while she had it.
She was itching to close the bakery, and she actually left while her employees were still cleaning, which she pretty much never did, just because she liked having a hand in everything and overseeing, and she did feel like a boss ought to be willing to do everything she asked her workers to do.
But she was too anxious to get up to Zane’s place. Of course, he might not be there yet.
But he did keep the same early hours that she did.
Heart pounding, she drove her car up to his place. She reflected on the first time she had gone up there, basket in hand.
Had part of her known then?
Had it been inevitable? Because now, with all this hindsight, now with all this sexual experience, she knew that her feelings for him were nothing even remotely like neutral. That it wasn’t only a fascination.
She had been attracted to him. Deeply, desperately from the first moment she had seen that man, and it had been mutual.
She pulled up to the front of the cabin, and a big balloon felt like it deflated inside of her when she saw that his truck wasn’t there.
She wrinkled her nose, got out of the car, and looked around. Then she heard the rumble of an engine, tires on gravel.
She turned quickly and saw his truck come into view.
She thought that her heart was going to beat out of her chest.
He pulled the truck up beside her car and got out. He wasdusty, he had dirt all over his face, his shirt was a mess, so were his jeans. And she didn’t care. She ran to him.
She jumped into his arms, practically scaled him like he was a redwood tree, and wrapped her legs around his waist, arms around his neck as she kissed him.
He cupped the back of her head, his cowboy hat falling off as they kissed, deep and intense, until neither of them could breathe.
“I’m a mess,” he said against her mouth.
Maybe he meant the dirt on his clothes. Or maybe he meant something else. Something deeper.
They looked at each other for a long moment, and she swallowed hard, feeling giddy.
“That’s okay,” she said.
It was. For now, it was all okay. Because this was… Beautiful right now. It really was.
Beautiful and lovely and all that she needed it to be. And when it was over, it would be okay, because it would be time for them to move on. It would be time for her to live her life, to do the things that she had told Jackson that she was doing.
