Chapter 3
Chapter Three
TRAVIS
ONE YEAR LATER
“ Y ou ready to take her for a spin?” I question, staring down at Faith and brushing a stray mahogany lock away from her sweaty face. “Her” refers to the Chevelle parked out front. I try to sound nonchalant, but inside my nerves are raging.
We stand in the lot next to the feed store where hay and grain overflows get stored.
We’ve spent hours unloading and stacking new shipments.
Between that and the unseasonably warm March day, sweat drenches us.
I removed my shirt about thirty minutes ago, and she hasn’t stopped side-eyeing me since.
I even caught her mid-ogle while turning around, and her cheeks stained the color of her pink tank top. It was fucking adorable.
In answer to my question, Faith rolls her eyes, exhaling sharply. Damn, she’s cute when she gets exasperated.
In all fairness, this is at least the fifth time I’ve asked her to go out with me since arriving this afternoon to help unload and move straw and grain bags .
Wanna grab dinner? Or watch the sunset? How about we catch a flick at the Ophir City Drive-In? Or cuddle on my couch and binge-watch car shows?
She’s shot down every suggestion without making any of her own. And always countering with the same flimsy excuse: “I’m feeling kind of tired.”
Tired on a Friday night? Come on.
I guess I should be used to it by now, but that’s not the worst of it.
I know she has nothing planned for tonight, and neither do I.
Around ten o’clock, she’ll call, keeping me on the phone for hours.
It happens every weekend without fail, and I go along with it because somewhere in the middle of this volunteering at the feed store experiment, I had the terrible misfortune of falling … hard .
What keeps me going are the hints that I’m not alone in my feelings. Faith’s cheeks flush when I’m around, her eyes dilate, and her breath comes in sexy little pants. And when another girl comes around me? Damn, Faith’s eyes shoot daggers.
Staring down at her gorgeous face, I wish I could convince her that being in my arms is a helluva lot better than having a screen pressed to her face. I guess the phone calls are better than nothing, though. At least, when she talks to me, I know she’s not with somebody else.
Faith shifts her weight from one foot to the other as we stand outside in the feed store yard, and I brace myself for another rejection. “I just don’t know if tonight’s a good night. But thank you for your help. I appreciate it. How about I call you later?”
Friend zoned again. Fuck. “Are you telling me you spent three days this week in my garage helping me tune up Calamity, and you’re not going to take her for a spin?
How anti-climactic is that? I can’t think of one car show on TV that doesn’t end with the hosts driving around.
Can you?” Calamity’ s what Faith calls my Chevy.
It’s fucking goofy, but the name also kind of fits my pride and joy.
She raises her eyebrows, her pouty pink lips stopping mid-air as she weighs my words.
“I don’t know, Trav. You seem to have more than friendship on your mind.”
I smile gently, taking her cheek in my hand. “What I have on my mind is you, Faith. And it isn’t wrong.” I try to deliver the words with confidence, but I’ve got a lump in my throat.
I’m putting myself out there for her, and I know the risk of her shutting me down or breaking my heart is high. But she’s got me so far in the friend zone, I have to do something. “You know, playing it safe and not taking a chance on us is a risk of another kind, don’t you think?”
Swallowing hard, she looks torn. My hand drops from her cheek. I don’t want to pressure her into anything she doesn’t want. But that higher thought doesn’t make the ache in my chest hurt any less. I rub my hand over my heart, feeling the Grand Canyon-sized hole she’s put there.
I continue, “We’re good together, you and I. How would getting closer ruin that?”
She shakes her head, looking at the ground.
In low tones, I command, “You need to answer my question, Faith.”
She’s holding back, and I can’t get her to open up to me. It’s frustrating because I feel like we’re perfect for each other. We’re both into classic cars and small batch local brews, Spaghetti Westerns and car restoration shows.
She knows more about me than I’ve ever told another living soul, and she hasn’t turned tail and run. Instead, she listens with a quiet ease that makes me spill my guts some more, never judging me for any of it.
And the way she waxes on about her Cougar that we’re fixing up is sexy as hell.
I’m a die-hard Chevy man. So, that’s saying something.
She loves working in the garage as much as I do and knows her way under the hood.
Seeing that generous ass of hers in the air with her luscious dark locks streaming down her back as she wrenches away on an engine?—
Faith pulls me back from my daydreams, leveling her gaze on me. “If things don’t work out between us, everything could get awkward. We could even end up hating each other like Birdie and Zane.”
In high school, you couldn’t keep Faith’s sister, Birdie, and my foster brother, Zane, apart.
Now, they can’t be in the same room. After leaving the Navy, Birdie came home to take care of her mother who was diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s.
After Mrs. Jenkins went into memory care, Birdie became a local home health nurse, and my foster dad, Wyatt, is one of her patients.
So, now she and Zane have to see each other every day.
I haven’t asked Faith how her sister feels about the arrangement—but the last time I checked in with Zane, a prolonged string of four-letter words summarized his answer.
“Comparing us to Birdie and Zane is like apples and oranges. It’s not the same thing.” I stare at her generous, rosy lips, feeling the last tendrils of self-control fraying. “Come on. Live a little. Go out with me.”
I level my gaze, and she meets mine with an assertiveness I adore. “Travis Cartwright, we may be friends?—”
“Best friends,” I interject.
She nods, “But I know you’re trouble, and that’s the last thing I need right now.”
“I think it’s exactly what you need.”
Putting her hands on her hips, she shakes her head stubbornly. “And why would you say a thing like that?”
“Because I know you, and I know that innocent girl act you put on for the good people of Hollister isn’t the real you. You’re a lot more like me than you care to admit. ”
She laughs, “Now, you’ve gone off your rocker.”
“You may be more sheltered than I am by a long shot. I’ll give you that.
But you like having fun and need to try living it up a little.
You’re not afraid of taking risks. Hell, look at the way you ride horses.
And your choice of American muscle? Well, that’s not your average good girl’s car.
There’s a fire in your eyes longing to get out.
You know, do something crazy, howl at the moon every now and again.
But the way you want this town to see you keeps holding you back, and it’s a damn shame. ”
“Unlike you, Travis, I have to care about how other people perceive me. I’m a business owner, and it’s important to keep up appearances.”
It’s keeping up appearances that’s keeping us apart.
This town has each of us pegged in a hole we can’t get out of.
I’m known as the good-time guy, a bad boy to the core, even though my player days ended the moment I realized how deeply I feel for Faith.
And she’s clinched the hometown sweetheart role, requiring perennial wholesomeness and perfection.
Making matters worse, she’s a member of one of the strictest churches on the West Coast. In other words, dalliances with a guy like me are strictly forbidden.
I know that’s why she limits her time with me to the feed store or my garage. Well outside of the public spotlight. She doesn’t want rumors flying that we might be together. How she can be happy living life on these terms, I don’t know.
“And I’m an asshole,” I reply. “But that’s something you like about me, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“I speak my mind, and I don’t give a fuck what other people think. Imagine how liberating your life would be if you quit worrying about others’ opinions and started focusing on yourself and what you want. ”
“And I suppose you’re going to tell me what I want?” she asks, raising a challenging eyebrow.
Her eyes are hooded as she looks up at me, and her cheeks stain with desire. I notice her gaze lingering too long on my lips as she licks her own. Despite her words, she steps one inch closer, and I feel the heat radiating off her body. I’ve dealt with these mixed signals for well over a year now.
Fuck it. I wrap my arms around her waist, covering her mouth with mine. Half expecting her to struggle out of my embrace or smack me, I keep a little distance between us. I’m not sure how she’ll react to my sweaty naked chest and obvious arousal, although I have my hopes.
To my astonishment, she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me closer. Her warm, sexy lips return the kiss with increasing abandon. She sighs against my mouth, and I take my cue, claiming her with my tongue. Sucked into the cotton candy goodness of her taste, I can’t get enough.
Deepening the stroke, I let the rhythm convey my intentions.
I half expect her to fight or fly away like a wild bird caught in a thicket.
Instead, she melts into my arms breathlessly, and my hands stray.
I can’t help myself. Her soft curves beckon me.
I palm her lower back and squeeze her hips, gaining confidence.
Before I know it, my hands rest at the top of her ample ass.
She tenses a little but doesn’t stop me.
I growl against the heat of her wet, silky mouth as waves of desire crash up and down my spine, drawn like a tsunami to the juncture of my legs.
I’m ramrod hard, thinking about sinking into that precious mouth of hers or her sugar-sweet pussy.
Her hands roam across my bare back, and she anchors a hand in my belt, slipping her fingertips beneath the waistband.
I tremble where her petal-soft fingers leave trails of fire. My heart hammers against my ribs, and the thick lump of desire in my throat feels impossible to swallow. Pinning her against the wall of hay bales behind us, I arch my hips against her stomach, giving her a sneak peek of my rock-hard rod.
She gasps against the feel of me as electricity crackles in the air, arcing through my body—lighting me up with pleasure and pain. The way she pants and moans against me, I know she feels it, too.
Breathlessly, I plead, “Take a ride with me, Faith. Give me one night to thrill you—body, mind, and soul. You’ll have the rest of your life to repent.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows fly sky-high, and I realize the error in my dumbass words too late. I take a step back because she looks like she might slap me.
“Spend the rest of my life repenting? Seriously, Trav? You need some better Christian girl pickup lines. See, that right there is why we need to stay friends. You’re trouble, and I know better.”
“Stay friends after a kiss like that? You’ve got to be crazy.”
“And so are you if you think I’m about to do something with you that requires me to spend ‘the rest of my life repenting.’” She puts the last part of the phrase in air quotes as I kick myself for my unfiltered mouth.
Damn, I say the stupidest shit sometimes.
“Now, I’ve got to go back into the feed store and lock up.
Thank you again for your help and have a good night. ”
I can sure see that fire in her eyes now, although I’m not a fan of having its ferocious heat laser-focused in my direction. I watch her curvy ass bob back into the store wondering if I’ll ever get another chance to put my hands on her. Fuck, I make a terrible lovesick fool.