Acting Happy (Texas Desires #2) (8 page)

“Okay, there were a lot of questions right there. I’m not sure where to start,” Ty said, gripping the side of the screen door and pushing it farther open as he took the steps up that separated them. From this position, the door couldn’t just slam shut in his face with her clear irritation.

“Goodnight, Ty,” she said and started to turn away. He reached for the door knob, grabbing it before she could push open the back door and make her escape before they talked this out.

“I don’t normally have to ask women out. I might be rusty, and I’m not entirely sure why everyone’s moving us into relationship status tonight, but I saw you and thought you were pretty. Then I listened to you tonight, and you’re smart, funny, and easy to be with when you’re not bowed up tight like you are right now. I’m here for several weeks. My buddies leave in a couple of days. Have dinner with me. That’s all I’m asking,” he said, coming up another step, putting them on the same step which forced Ty to stand close and made Kenzie crane her neck in order to look him in the eyes.

Several seconds passed before she responded. “I’m not moving us into relationship anything. Let’s see how you feel about a date when your friends leave.”

“All right, I’ll interpret that to mean we’ll have dinner on Monday night,” he said boldly, smiling when she didn’t rebuke him right away. “Now, why don’t you charge that phone of yours and give me your number.” He hadn’t been this close to her all evening.

“Let’s see if you still want it tomorrow.” Her arms came up, crossing over her chest, and she stepped as far from him as she could get on that little step, backing against the opened screen door. There was defiance on her face. She wasn’t giving an inch.

“We’re going into the woods tomorrow to camp. Wanna come? Protect me from the bears?” That finally made her laugh, changing her face from deep concentration, back to a thing of great beauty. He blinked, realizing he always wanted to see her with a smile on those lips.

“No, not at all.”

“You don’t have to give me your number, just agree to a simple dinner. I’ll have you home early.”

“We don’t really have any place that I eat at around here,” she said.

“The diner’s good…” he started, but stopped and followed her direction. She shook her head no, so he did too. “Then Gatlinburg. We could go there. I just worry about being spotted, but my beard will be thicker by then. We should be okay,” Ty reasoned quickly. He could wear the ball cap and vanity glasses. Surely he could pull it off.

“How about lunch? I need to go by the health food store,” she suggested.

“Right. Vegetarian. Okay. Lunch. How about Monday?” he asked again. She was practical, which was funny, probably not meaning to be, but that made it even better. He really enjoyed her company.

“What about your friends?” she asked.

“They’ll be heading out. Besides, they’re fine on their own,” he said and waited. Several seconds passed, again with so many emotions crossing her face until she smiled. He took that as a yes.

“Okay. And still no phone number?” he added, testing his luck. When she shook her head no and started speak, he lifted two fingers to her lips, suspecting something negative. They were on a roll, and he didn’t want anything to halt the progress he’d made. “I don’t know a person that doesn’t have a cell glued to their hands.”

“That was me in a different life. I’ll see you Monday,” she said, reaching for the door then stepping inside, farther away from him.

“Probably before then,” he called out and lifted a hand as she shut the door in his face. He stood there a minute more before he just nodded. Quietly, he shut the screen door and took the steps down. Damn, it was dark. He was all alone and didn’t want to test that bear theory. Taking off in a jog, Ty couldn’t keep the smile from his face. He’d manned up, not letting that reserved side of him prevail. He’d secured a date with a beautiful woman, and whatever, if he hadn’t gotten the digits. Did he believe the phone story? Possibly. Did he want to know more about that cryptic statement of a past life? Yeah, kind of. He rounded the corner of the grocery and headed for the Jeep pretty proud of himself. The blonde he’d thought about all day long had agreed to spend time with him. This vacay was getting better and better by the moment.

Locking the front door of the store had never felt so right. With a twist of the wrist, Kenzie shut out the constant flow of customers that hadn’t really stopped coming since early Friday morning. Now, at the end of the weekend, she was completely wiped out. The shelves were bare, the meat counter had sold out hours ago, and the beer barn had been emptied even before then. After last year’s early freeze, the unexpectedly warm weather was a true gift to her parents’ hurting bank account, but not so much for her aching feet. With a hand on the sharp pain in her lower back, Kenzie wasn’t certain her body could handle too much more of the last minute wilderness enthusiast raining down on their little store.

In the silence, she could hear William in the workroom. Even with his advanced age, he worked steadily. The man never got tired and never stopped moving. He was most definitely the glue that held this store together. Her mom and dad had left about an hour ago, gone off to a special dinner at their church. They’d certainly be home soon to watch their nightly television. Even with as excited as her mom had been about Ty Bateman being in town and even more enthused that Kenzie got to spend time in his company, she’d had to hear over and over the sacrifice her mom had made in their nightly routine to make that happen.

On a giant yawn, Kenzie opened the cash register as the front door was yanked from the outside. The big red closed sign never seemed large enough. She ignored the knock that followed and started counting out the cash from the drawer. They’d made safe drops over and over throughout the day, and the registers were still loaded. After she pulled that money and shut the drawer, she pushed the buttons to begin the batch cycle of the credit card sales receipts.

As the tape started running, Kenzie spread the money out on the counter and began facing the bills all in the same direction. Her dad was OCD about properly organizing every bill before any counting could begin. By the time she made it to seventy-three one-dollar bills, her mind began to think of Ty. That was the longest he’d left her awareness since she’d opened her eyes that morning. This time, she focused on his dark eyes. She’d read they were amber, but what fascinated her more were the little flecks of gold inside them. She decided that was probably what made them almost sparkle when he smiled.

After a second more of continuing to absently put down dollar bill after dollar bill, she wondered how many people thought that about Ty’s eyes. In the pictures she’d searched of him, she didn’t notice those small gold pieces. When she rented the digital copy of his latest movie last night, she couldn’t see the gold in them on the small screen of her laptop, but she bet they had to be obvious when his movies were on the big screen, especially during close-up shots of his handsome face.

His eyes weren’t what held her attention all the way through the movie, though. No, that was his lips. When he was clean-shaven, he looked so different, and those thick full lips were so dang sexy and perfectly proportioned to his strong chin. They just drew her eyes with each word he spoke, and man, was he as good of an actor as he was handsome. It didn’t matter if he played Poseidon or Brian Piccolo in the remake of
Brian’s Song
, he made you believe he was that character, easily sucking you straight into his world.

“Hey, you’re here. I thought you were gone when I didn’t see the truck.”

Kenzie looked up to see Ty standing right inside the back door of the grocery store. Her hands faltered in laying the bills down on the counter, and her heart jerked in her chest. There he was, standing right in front of her in all that perfectly made male. She fumbled with the money and looked down to realize she had no idea how many one-dollar bills were actually there or when she had stopped counting. Her eyes darted right back up to take him all in as she lifted a hand to her hair, tucking the stray pieces behind her ear.

He was beautiful even in his current state of dishevel. He wore his ball cap backward and sunglasses that fit his face perfectly. He was tanner now, probably from the couple of days spent in the sun. His beard had fully grown in, making his strong jaw look even more pronounced. His clothes were rumpled, but that didn’t seem to matter because the T-shirt with its sleeves cut off left those perfectly defined muscular arms exposed, and his shorts were more like running shorts. They were shorter than he’d worn before and showed his legs from the mid-thigh down—his equally tanned, cut, and well-defined legs.

An unknown amount of time passed before she answered. “Hey.”

“You closed early today,” he said, coming farther inside.

“We’ve run out of everything. It was a busy weekend. What are you doing here?” she asked and absently gathered all the money together in one pile.

“I volunteered to make a beer run,” he said, coming to lean against the counter directly across from her.

“I think we’re sold out. I’m sorry,” she said and bit her lip as he took off his sunglasses and placed them around the bill of his ball cap. His eyes stayed focused on her, and he smelled all exotic and distinct, mostly definitely all man.

“It was just an excuse to come see you. We’ve got plenty of beer left over at the house,” Ty said, smiling a big toothy grin.

“Oh…” she said, a little mesmerized by the big smile. They stared at one another in silence since she couldn’t think of anything to say. Her expression no doubt showed how deer-in-the-headlights she felt. The register beeped when it finished processing, startling her and making her jump.

Quickly, Kenzie grabbed the cash and placed it in the bank bag to count later. She stuffed that, as well as the credit card tape, inside the drawer, shoving it closed.

“So I was thinking you had enough time to charge that cell phone of yours. Did you do that?”

Not looking at Ty helped keep her brain cells functioning. She rolled her eyes at the question because she had indeed pulled the phone out and charged the thing that very night. She guessed her smile was enough of a response, because he continued, “If I had that number, I could’ve just called or texted to see if we were still on for tomorrow. Now that I’m standing here with you, I’m guessing it’s not a bad thing I don’t have it. I get to see your pretty face.”

Keeping with the plan to avoid looking over at Ty, Kenzie came out of the small area that held the registers. As she passed by, she said, “I thought you were going camping with your friends.”

“I am camping. I think they’re all a bunch of young alcoholics. I was going back to the house for beer and took the long way home. The way that includes seeing you,” he said and started trailing behind her.

“Huh,” she said, sort of looking over her shoulder. She went for the back door, stopping by the workroom first and sticking her head inside. “Willie, I’m going up to the house for a minute. I’ll be back.”

“I’ll finish up, hon,” he said, running the mop over the floor.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, leaving the doorway, Ty hadn’t diverted with her by the workroom and instead stood by the back doorway waiting on her. “Let’s go see if there’s anything left in the cooler for you to take back with you.”

“No really. I’m beer fine,” he said, pushing open the door for her as she left the store. “I just wanted to see you again—whatever the excuse.”

That sent her heart into a pitter patter. She had no idea how to respond. The words didn’t really make sense and all the overthinking she’d done about Ty for the last two days had her strong protective defense mechanisms kicking in. The things she kept reminding herself about him became the anthem of her overactive heart.
A girl in every port… Here alone with time to kill…
They were pretty much the only two people in a twenty mile radius under the age of thirty-five. All those thoughts came rushing back as she switched her direction and began walking toward the house.

“I don’t know you well enough to know what being quiet means,” he finally said while trailing behind her.

“My parents are gone. They should be home soon, but the house is really outdated,” she said, taking the steps up. For the first time since being at the cash registers, Kenzie looked directly at Ty, and it was his turn to be quiet at her words. He looked confused and seemed to have no understanding why she’d just told someone like him, who ran in the circles of the rich and famous, that her parents’ house was old.

Dang, for some reason that was a little bit of a turn on too. Kenzie opened the storm door, but he reached forward to take the door, holding it for her as she walked through. Man, he had consistently good manners.

“Stay here. I’ll go get my phone.” The kitchen seemed the best place for him to wait. “There’re drinks in the refrigerator. I’ll be right back.”

She went quickly to retrieve the phone and was back in less than a minute, but came up short when she walked back to the kitchen and Ty Bateman was lounging against her mother’s 1970s burnt orange countertop. Kenzie shook her head as he turned those captivating eyes toward her.

“Okay. As much as I seem to do it, I’ve just never been any good at pretending. Let’s stop this right here. This is silly,” she said, coming forward and tossing her phone on the kitchen table before she took the first seat. She sat down right in front of him, crossed one leg over the other, and placed her hands in her lap. “Why are you here?”

He smiled a little, crinkled his brow, and turned toward her, resting his hip against the counter. He still looked a little confused but also intrigued. “You know, you make me a little insecure in my game.”

“What game are you playing?” she asked, and that time he did laugh.

“Well, maybe I’m no good at all. I’m trying to play the boy meets girl game,” he said.

“How about giant, mega movie star meets cashier and wants to take her out game,” Kenzie said a little sarcastically.

“Okay, that’s fine too,” he said, giving her about the same look he had when she’d warned him about the outdated house. He didn’t get it.

With no other way to explain the obvious, she finally asked, “Why?”

When he looked at her like she was crazy, she continued with a thought she’d had earlier. “Back in college, some of the fraternities did a joke date night where they brought the most ill-suited date to a party. Whoever brought the worst date won the prize. Is that what this is between us? Because I’ll just go to the party with you. You don’t have to do all this.”

That caused a huge bark of laughter. Only, she wasn’t joking at all. She stayed stone-still while he laughed so hard he had to hold his side. When he finally saw she wasn’t joking, he tried hard to compose himself. It still took several minutes for him to stop the fit of giggles. Then he did something remarkable, he stared at her for several long seconds before he walked toward her, that sexy smile still in place.

“Honestly, I do get what you must think about me. My corporate brand’s a well-manufactured personification that has been orchestrated by the best publicist in the world, but that’s what I do for a living. It’s not me. I admit, sometimes I get lost in that world, but it’s gotten old. Coming up here helps me clear my head and I’m in desperate need of some reality. Then, just when I’m feeling on solid ground again, I walked into that store…” Ty stopped in front of her and moved a finger like he was rewinding a clock. “Okay, further back. I was driving down that county road out there and you were walking that woman’s groceries out and, from that moment, you were just someone I needed to know. Does that help explain it?”

Seconds passed as she absorbed his words, trying to make sense of them. “So you’re needing to put your feet back on solid ground and touch base with the real world.”

“I was already meeting those goals before I saw you.” Ty reached for her hand, lifting it before tugging her up to stand. “I’d like to get to know you. That’s it. I’m interested.”

“In me?” she asked, sounding disbelieving even to herself, because it was completely unbelievable that this extraordinary guy… Yeah, she couldn’t even finish the thought with how ridiculous it sounded in her own head.

“Another way to answer might be that you’re interested in getting to know me,” he said and lifted her hand to entwine their fingers. Her eyes held his. Oh, man, he looked completely serious, and she was absolutely certain this shortness of breath she was experiencing would lead to certain hyperventilation if she didn’t do something fast.

~~~

Boy, she was hard to read. Ty tightened the hold on her hand and forced himself to wait, to let her respond before he continued. There was no way she had any idea how much shit he would get when he returned to the campsite two to three hours after leaving on a simple beer run. They’d know exactly what he had done. They’d been giving him hell this whole time over being so preoccupied that he kept making stupid little mistakes with things every novice camper should know. But dammit, he couldn’t help his distraction. She’d taken up residence in his brain. He thought about her way too often. If he could have just texted her, he’d have felt a whole lot better about where he stood with her.

When she still didn’t answer, but also didn’t move away, Ty studied her face closely. Today she didn’t wear much more than mascara and had a clean, fresh face. She was just so naturally beautiful both inside and out. He tightened his hold on her hand. It was silly to think how perfectly her hand fit his and even dumber to already be considering that this hand may just be meant to hold his for a lifetime, yet those were his thoughts as he stared down into those mesmerizing eyes.