Coach Love(39)
She put her hand on the doorknob and studied him with those cold, flat gray eyes. “Best of luck to you,” she said.
He exhaled slowly and faced the window to make sure she actually left. It took every bit of willpower he possessed not to chase after her and beg her to come back. But he used it, and waited until the taillights of her car flashed red as she drove off down the road.
Chapter Fifteen
“Babe, I really need you to give me an answer on this.” Kent pointed down at the blueprints, again. “Cara.” His voice sharpened, piercing her gauzy fog.
“What? I don’t care. I told you already.” She pushed the plans away from her. “I don’t want to move. This is your project. You manage it.”
She got up too fast and had to grip the edge of the table. He appeared at her side in an instant.
“Good Lord almighty, will you stop?” Moving out of his reach she wandered into his kitchen, noting its extreme tidiness for the zillionth time. She took down a glass from a cabinet where all the glasses matched and were in rows by size, filled it with water from his reverse osmosis filter, and drank it.
She sensed him nearby, could hear him breathing, smell his cologne, almost taste his anxiety, and every bit of it made her want to scream. Her better self started to lecture.
Unfair, Cara. So very unfair. This man loves you, is still willing to marry you even though you lost the baby. He won’t let his parents bully you. What is your dang problem?
Her dang problem was clear to her, of course—all six-foot-six, redheaded, freckle-faced, high school sweetheart of him, who’d somehow managed to inject himself into her life, in more ways than one, and now she simply couldn’t eject him from her thoughts.
She flinched when Kent touched her shoulder. He seemed so forlorn, dressed in his expensive suit, shirt and tie, his jaw dark with stubble, hair messy from dragging his fingers through it.
He is so hot. And rich. And great in bed, most of the time.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Hormones, I get it.” He tugged at her and she went into his arms. After a few minutes, gave her a squeeze and let go. “Now, please, give me some input on Cara’s Dream Kitchen?” Dipping his face down to make her meet his eyes, he grinned. “Anything you want, my love. Granite? Marble? Stainless? Corian?”
She tried hard not to snap at him again. “Fine. Let me see the…thing.” He led her to the table covered in blueprints and sweet-talked her through a boring hour’s worth of cabinet materials, countertops, backsplash tile, faucets. By the time she’d finally okayed the last detail—drawer pulls, of all things—her head ached.
Finally, she sat back. “I’m starving.”
“My command,” Kent said, heading into the kitchen.
While he puttered around the kitchen, she decided to stretch out on the couch. Her body felt mired in mud, weighed down. The sensation of moving in slow motion, as if underwater but at the same time forlorn and emptied out, devoid of the living hope for her future marriage’s success never left her.
She drifted a bit, in an in-between land free of final dress fittings, major life-changing decisions about the color of her kitchen tile and how much cream to inject into the center of the obnoxious wedding cake they’d chosen. Such trivia had never been her strong suit. Growing up she’d been too concerned over money for dinner every night, or wondering if her mother would actually come home from her second waitressing job sober and alone or drunk and with some loser hanging off her like a redneck leech. She’d had little time for the pretty little details like what color nail polish would match her Sunday dress.
Rubbing the bridge of her noise, she realized she’d forgotten to stop and get the dry cleaning. Her formal engagement tea at the club loomed around the corner on Sunday. She’d have to make it before noon tomorrow in order to have the dress she and Vivian had chosen for it, plus she had to get nails re-done, her brows and crotch re-waxed, and who the hell knew what else. Putting her body through the wringer of extreme wedding perfection made her want to scream. She hated all of it and wished she’d convinced Kent to elope to Hawaii or someplace equally exotic to her small-town imagination, like, Key West.
Kent nudged her a few minutes, or maybe an hour, later, holding out her phone.
“Your mother,” he mouthed with a sympathetic shrug before giving it to her and hightailing it out of her hearing. She took the device and held onto it a full minute, trying to gather her energy before putting it to her ear.
“Baby!” Cara winced, convinced the woman’s shriek could likely be heard by dogs in the next county. As her bed-bug crazy mama filled her ears about her AA meeting, her new boyfriend, a fellow alkie named Glen, the dress she’d be wearing on Sunday, Cara almost missed the little aside about money Kent had sent her to cover the costs of all the primping and fussing required.