Revving Her Up(28)
His jaw tightened. “Why are you so interested in my clothes?”
“Why are you so defensive about them?”
Somewhere in the back of his mind he asked the same question but brushed it aside before an answer could arise. “I don’t need them anymore. I don’t need any of that.” He waved a hand, encompassing the closet, clothes and everything else he’d put behind him. “I’m perfectly happy with the life I have here.”
“Really?”
A fist of disappointment hit him in the gut. He’d thought that Sarah was enjoying her time in Rapture but evidently the trappings of wealth and status turned her on more than racing down the track or waking up next to a country boy. It was Natalie all over again, but he was done with that lifestyle and no city girl was going to drag him back to it.
No matter how sexy she looked in his shirt.
She tilted her head as if studying him. “Something doesn’t add up here, Cole Cassidy—”
“And it’s your business, how?”
Sarah sucked in a breath and her eyes widened. She stood for a moment with her mouth open, then closed it and shook her head.
“It’s none of my business. In fact, I have no business being here at all, so if you would just point me to my suitcase I’ll put on my fancy clothes—” she made quotes around the word, “—and get the hell out of your face.”
She turned away but not before Cole saw the sudden sheen on her lashes.
He ran a hand over his eyes. What was he saying? He’d made love to this woman, woken up next to her and now he was treating her like the enemy because of what another woman had done wrong? He had to stop blaming her for Natalie’s—for his—mistakes.
“Sarah, wait.” He put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. Looking down, she seemed to discover the tie again and tossed it over a chair.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t about you. You just touched a nerve, and I overreacted.”
She shook her head, still looking away from him. “Look, you don’t have to tell me anything—”
“I want to tell you.”
Slowly she turned to him and gave a go on look but didn’t move any closer.
He took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. “For years the annual stock car racing awards ceremonies were held in New York City. I went for the speeches and parties at first, but found myself spending more and more time there. Eventually I got caught up in the whole moneyed lifestyle. Even got an apartment.”
“Where?”
“The Meatpacking District. A two-bedroom co-op.” He waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
She nodded. “So you lived in Manhattan in an apartment I would kill for. Met a woman?”
He nodded. “Natalie. We dated for a while. Things got serious.”
“How serious?”
“I bought a ring.”
Sarah’s brows rose. Yeah, that kind of serious.
“I brought her home to show her where I came from. It was a disaster. She couldn’t relate to Rapture.” He snorted at the understatement. “Hated it really. Too small. Too backwards. In the end she wanted nothing to do with this part of my life.”
Sarah gestured at the closet with sympathy in her eyes. “She wanted the sophisticated side of you but not the hick.”
He nodded. “I broke it off. Let go of the apartment and haven’t been back.”
“Not even for the awards?”
“They’ve moved the ceremonies to Las Vegas.”
“Hate New York that much, eh?”
He shook his head. “No, I love it—that’s the problem.” He saw her confusion and continued. Now that they’d come this far he wanted her to understand.
“Natalie rejected my roots, but the truth was that I’d done the same thing. I dove into the hip city lifestyle and left behind everything that made me what I am.”
Sarah shrugged. “So you went to a bit of an extreme. Happens sometimes. But it sounds like you’ve now swung the other way. Why? I mean small towns are great—people help each other out, no one locks their doors—but why does it have to be one or the other?”
Cole was speechless. Had Sarah just said, “small towns are great”? Not in a million years could he imagine those words coming from Natalie’s lips. If he’d needed any more proof that Sarah was different, he had it now.
She continued. “I mean, why choose? New York is only a six-hour drive from here and Washington, D.C. even less than that. You don’t have to live on Park Avenue to enjoy city life once in a while. Live in the country and visit the city when you want to.” She gave him a shy smile. “Even city girls appreciate a little country now and then.”