Chapter Ten
Carly stared at Owen with her mouth hanging open for a second before she snapped it shut.
For a man with a traumatic brain injury, he’d set and sprung a trap well.
She’d worked with Owen as a favor to Addie, but instead of developing a support system, he’d started relying on her.
Damn his male pride. How could she have been foolish enough to think Owen would be different?
“Is that why you helped with the presentation? So I’d feel obligated and agree to go bowling with you?” She winced as her voice rose in pitch.
“Do you really think I’d resort to a trick like that?” Owen leaned forward, the intensity in his eyes drawing her in. “I have more pleasurable ways to convince a woman to go out with me.”
Carly’s breath hitched as her exasperation and the world faded away. She tried to swallow, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her hand twitching, she grabbed her water glass and took a long drink. She’d done it again. Poked the bear, without thinking of the risk.
“Did what I said make you nervous?” Owen asked.
“Of course not.” She scoffed and twirled her pearl earring between her thumb and index finger.
“Darlin’, you’re a lousy liar.”
She glanced around, fearing someone heard the endearment. She ignored the liar part of his comment. “Don’t call me that.”
“A liar or dar—”
“Stop right there.”
“Don’t you wonder how I knew?”
She was more curious than a kid on Christmas Eve, but nothing could make her ask the question.
“You play with your earring when you’re lying.”
“No, I don’t.” Her hand reached for her earring.
Owen chuckled. “Yes, you do.”
Her hand dropped to her lap. Oh, goodness. How could he still know her so well, and why didn’t she find the fact more irritating? “Like I said. Find someone else to go with you.”
Owen cleared his throat. “You’re the only one I trust. The only one who knows how bad things can get for me.” He paused, and his chest rose and fell as he took two deep breaths. “Toss me a bone. Go with me.”
His honest admission about his fears had shaken her earlier.
His quiet plea now shattered her remaining resistance.
If he hadn’t confessed how difficult his life had become, of his struggles, and how he feared looking foolish, she could’ve held out, but now she couldn’t say no.
She inhaled deeply, cursed her empathetic streak, and slowly exhaled.
“I’ll go bowling with you, but as a friend and to act as a buffer. It is not a date.”
“Understood.”
A shiver darted up her spine, adding to her unease as the thought that she’d just driven around a Danger: High Water sign and was about to be swept away by the current popped into her head.
*
The next morning Owen stood in his parents’ barn saddling his horse, he still couldn’t figure out how the night with Carly had gone awry. That last thing he wanted from a woman who tied him up in more ways than Lucchese had cowboy boots was her feeling obligated to go out with him.
Her agreeing to go bowling with him basically as his caretaker had killed the evening.
They’d finished eating in silence and asked for the check.
Hell, he hadn’t even argued when Carly insisted on paying to thank him for his help with the presentation.
When she’d driven him home, she nervously rattled off strategies and advice they could use Friday.
Then when they arrived at his parents’ house, she’d thanked him again and wished him a good night.
This wasn’t how he saw things going when he decided to come home.
Home? As he and Major headed out to the mini equestrian therapy area he’d created in the west pasture, he realized between moving due to assignments and deployments, he hadn’t stayed anywhere long enough to call it home.
Before when he visited his parents, Service hadn’t felt like home either.
However, today the simple word hit him differently, and he wondered why.
So why did being here feel different this time?
Carly.
They’d made a good team professionally yesterday, and he’d thought they could be personally too.
Gut instinct told him them being together would be even better now, but what would they do when he returned to active duty?
He had enough issues to occupy his thoughts without bearing more.
For now, he wanted to enjoy Carly’s company and the fact that she made him feel closer to whole than he’d felt since the bombing.
Having reached the far fence, he halted Major and retrieved two baseballs from his saddle bag.
Owen pulled his arm back and let the baseball fly, but the gelding shifted nervously under him.
Instead of hitting the first empty Shiner can lined up on the fence, his throw sailed a good six inches over his target.
“Dang it, Major. Keep steady.”
The horse snorted, shook his head, and gazed back at Owen as if to say, Hey, pal. It wasn’t my fault. You twitched your knee, so I moved.
“You saying I’m distracted?” he said, and the gelding snorted again. “Okay, I admit it. Women will do that to a man now and again.”
He shook his head. Or twenty out of twenty-four hours a day, but better focusing on Carly than where he might be in six months. He shoved the remaining softball into the saddlebag. “Let’s do the obstacle course instead.”
Major whinnied his approval, and they set off for the barrels, hay bales, and old troughs some feet away.
Muscles stretching, Owen maneuvered around the obstacles while concentrating on maintaining his balance.
Then he urged Major to a faster pace. Forced to make quicker assessments and adjustments in his positioning and the horse’s, his brain struggled to keep pace.
He worked until he feared he’d fall from the saddle, and then drenched in sweat, he returned to the barn. While his head wasn’t clearer, he’d at least burned off his frustration. After he’d unsaddled Major and stood brushing the animal, the barn door opened.
*
The week following their presentation Carly’s therapy sessions with Owen changed.
His admissions, sharing what demons drove him, confessing his fears, helped her understand why he questioned her.
His desperate need to grasp his situation and prospects were a physical symptom of his fears.
That realization made being patient with Owen easier.
Instead of dreading the sessions, she looked forward to them.
They laughed. They joked. They worked damn hard, and he’d progressed faster than she anticipated.
In fact, at his last doctor’s appointment, he’d been cleared to drive.
Despite that, when Friday night, the night for them to go bowling arrived Carly stood in front of her closet feeling as if the Dallas Cowboys had set up a practice scrimmage in her stomach.
Her attack of nerves made no sense because this wasn’t a date, but apparently her body hadn’t received the memo.
She told herself her edginess resulted from concern over what people would think.
Especially if Owen tossed out his sexy, suggestive comments while flashing her an I-can-make-you-melt gazes.
Seriously, did the man practice that look in front of the mirror until it became lethal?
And why hadn’t she thought to stipulate what behavior was acceptable and what was off-limits before she agreed to go?
Hopefully their friends would act as a buffer. Then if she focused on watching Owen for potential problems, she wouldn’t get drawn into his sensual cat and mouse game.
Having a strategy in place, she yanked a shirt from her closet and threw it on with her jeans.
Glancing in the full-length mirror, she winced.
The olive-green top gave her complexion the same sickly color it possessed when she’d had the flu last year.
What was she thinking when she bought the garment?
That having Grinch-colored skin would be a turn on?
She tore off the top, tossed it on the reject pile of garments littering her bed, and grabbed a layered, gauzy tangerine shirt instead.
When the doorbell rang, she called out, “Would you get that Ryder? It’s probably Owen.”
“Answer your own damn door. I’m not your servant.”
“I’m not dressed. Please?” She hated having to beg for simple courtesies.
Though she didn’t receive an answer, a minute later surprisingly calm male voices floated upstairs. Her brother’s voice lacked the cynicism and anger she constantly received. She smiled, realizing the teenager she loved and missed still resided deep inside his current surly exterior.
Sitting on her bed, she traced the delicate turquoise filigree stitching on her favorite cowboy boots.
She smiled remembering how Ryder had blushed when she’d hugged him and kissed his cheek when he gave her them last Christmas.
How had they gone from him carefully selecting a present for her to open to constant hostility?
Shrugging off the memory and her concerns, she tugged on her boots and added a chunky turquoise necklace and earrings to complete her outfit. As she left her bedroom, she vowed to leave her worries behind. Tonight was about assisting Owen, and if she was lucky, she’d have a little fun too.
“Was being over there as bad as everyone says?” Ryder asked when she reached the stairs.
“It’s never easy being in a country where part of the population wants to blow you up to make a political statement and bring honor to their family.”
“And I thought high school was tough.”
When a stair creaked, Owen and Ryder turned in her direction.
Her brother’s smile faded as he stiffened, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at her.
Owen leaned back on his heels and his heated gaze locked with hers.
His gaze certainly appeared date-like. Her heart did a backflip, followed by a cartwheel, then a roundoff. Not a good sign.
“See ya, Owen.” Ryder yanked his ragged hoodie off the coat-tree and reached for the door as Carly raced to catch him.