41. Trace
TRACE
W hen I enter Enchanted Pages, I see her standing there, looking like some sort of goddamn apparition. The sunlight is streaming through the window, bathing her as if it's a spotlight. I almost lose my nerve, but then I remember she's staying with Kyle, and I have no idea how long she'll be there for.
Not only that, but there's no telling how long she's prepared to wait for me to approach her. Since I'm the one who said the words that pissed her off, I'm the one who needs to apologize. Truth is I'm feeling like an asshole. Nothing that the two of us have done, has been transactional. I knew that from the first moment I met her in that bar.
She doesn't notice me, and I take another moment to watch her. The way I should've been when she was mine to watch freely. Marissa walks toward me. "Trace," he nods.
"Marissa," I nod back, the way people who've known each other for years do. "Thanks for giving her a job, and making sure she's taken care of."
"I didn't give her anything, she's earned every single thing she's gotten since she's been coming in here. She's a hard worker, and I've been pleased to have her. I'd like her to continue to work here, if y'all decide she doesn't wanna be on the ranch with you. She's a breath of fresh air."
The way she's described her is exactly how I would too. Everything about her is fresh. It's everything I would've wanted had I been able to pick the woman I was destined to marry. Part of me realizes I've been rebelling like some sort of spoiled teenager who wants to piss off their parents. Another part of me realizes this woman has worked her way beneath some of the walls I put up to keep me safe from women like her. Maybe it's the way she smiles at me when I'm inside of her, or the way she greets every day with the type of excitement I wish I could. Either way, she's deep down in the marrow of my bones, and I don't think anything is ever going to change that.
Just as I'm thinking of leaving her alone, knowing that she'd probably be fucking better off without me, she lifts her head up and our eyes meet.
The world seems to slightly spin, and I have to reach out to steady myself on one of the empty shelves.
"What are you doing here?" She asks softly.
If we had been in any other spot, I wouldn't be able to hear her. There's nothing going on in this aisle of the book store, though and it's as if she's standing right next to me. "I'm here for you," I shrug, bashfully.
I wonder if she notices I've taken pains to look different than I normally do. I got Kyle to cut my hair, and I've got on a pair of jeans that don't have holes in the knees where I bend all the time, and on the ass, where I ride horses daily. I care about impressing her, maybe it's something I should've cared about the moment I met her.
She puts her hands on her hips. "Why are you here for me?"
I look around, noticing people are beginning to watch us. "Can we take this outside? Not because I'm embarrassed or anything of that nature, but because I want to keep this between the two of us."
It looks as if she wants to argue, but she decides to put me out of my misery. "Okay, we can go outside if that's what you want."
"It is. I want just a few minutes alone with you if that's okay?"
She wipes her hands on her thighs and steps over the boxes she was emptying. "Let's go. I have work to do."
The way she puts an extra sway in her hips as she walks away from me is enough to make my cock punch against my zipper. She's sassy and I fuckin' love it when she's sassy. We don't say a word to one another as we walk out of the store and into the heat of the day. I'm longing for the days when we get cooler weather, and I don't have to worry about sweating as I stand out in the sunshine.
"Well," she says, turning around to face me.
Her arms are crossed as she leans against the SUV she took from my family's garage. I don't have the heart to tell her it was Ward's, but something about that seems like Kismet.
"What is it you want to say?" She throws an attitude at me, and all I wanna do is scoop her up in my arms and kiss the living daylights out of her.
"There's a lot I wanna say," I hook my fingers in my belt loop to keep myself from reaching out to her. "I"m just unsure if you wanna hear any of it."
Katie pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. "I always want to hear what you have to say. You're the one who thought I wasn't prepared for it. On second thought, though. I wasn't prepared to hear you thought we were fucking transactional. I let you inside me without protection," she hisses. "Do you know I've never let anyone else do that? I did that because I trusted you, I thought we were in this together and it was so easy for you just to assume I didn't give a shit. That I didn't think that we were serious. How could you? How could you think I didn't care for you with everything I am?"
"Because no one else has ever cared for me that much," I shout at her. "No one in my life has never cared for me that much. How am I supposed to think someone who hasn't known me for more than a few months knows cares about me more than the actual people who gave birth to me? It's hard to believe, hard to fathom that life can be any different than what I've always imagined it could be," I pour out my innermost thoughts and feelings.
She sighs, opening her mouth and then closing it. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed things about you, I wouldn't want people to assume about me. I don't think we were ever meant to give each other the benefit of the doubt though, ya know? As soon as we were pushed together we were meant to know everything and be able to make a marriage work. I think we can both agree we weren't prepared for that."
My stomach is doing weird things I never thought it would. Excitement and apprehension are bubbling up under the surface, threatening to come spewing out in a word-vomit of everything I've wanted to tell her. But I can't do that here, not in the parking lot of the Enchanted Pages. She deserves so much more than this. "I want to be deserving of you, want you to feel like I'm treating you the way I should be. It needs to be better than what's happening right here, right now."
"Don't," she shakes her head. "Don't tell me I need something better. All I've ever wanted, all I've ever needed is what you'll give me. I don't need anything more than who you are. Fancy words don't mean anything, Trace. Not if you don't mean them. Tell me, I'm begging you, stop holding back and tell me what you want from me. Tell me what you want us to be. If we're on the same page, then I see no reason we can't work together and make our lives what we want them to. The only thing holding us back is ourselves."
"And our circumstances," I remind her. "There's so much red tape with the owners of the ranch, and what we have to do in order to take it over from my parents."
"We can figure that out later. We don't have to have all the answers. All we need to do is know we're in this together, and then we can make the rest of it work. It's not as hard as we try to make it be."
Her eyes are pleading with me, and for once I kind of believe her. I want to believe we can be different. We can change the way things have always been done, and make a name for ourselves, instead of riding the coattails of our families. "Let's do it, let's make our lives what we want them to be and fuck everyone else."
She grins at me. "Let's do it. Together we can make it."
I reach over and grab her hand in mine. "We're stronger together than we ever have been apart."
"Do you truly believe that?" She whispers.
"I do, can I hold strong to it? I fucking hope so, but I'm going to be honest with you. It's hard for me to go against my family, it's hard for me not to let other people get in my head. I know there's so many things we can do, and I'd be so much further if I hadn't let them get the best of me. But that's why I need you. To believe in me when I don't believe in myself."
"I'll be there," she promises. I'll be the person you need and the voice inside your heart that calms the ones inside your head."
I can't help it, I reach forward, grabbing her up in my arms, hugging her tightly. She giggles and I spin her around. Happier than I've been in a very long time. Also at the same time, I know that this makes us vulnerable in away we've never been before.