Convincing Cara (Wishing Well, Texas Book 2) (9 page)

“A pissing contest is one thing.” Destiny’s face scrunched. “But showing a girl you just met a picture of your, you know,
Wally
? That’s…that’s not the same. Also, why would did he name it
Wally
?”

“Because it’s always lookin’ for The Beav.” Harmony and I answered in unison.

Destiny’s head fell back as laughter bubbled from her belly.

“I told you he was funny,” Harmony half-heartedly defended Peter. “I mean, how do you not love a guy that can make
Leave it to Beaver
dirty?”

I shook my head even as a grin pulled at my lips. “He also informed me,
bluntly
, that he was quite the ladies’ man in college. Even entertaining more than one lady at a time,” I said, explaining as delicately as possible.

“More than one at a time?” Destiny questioned.

“A threesome,” Harmony replied, filling in the blanks. Then she rolled her eyes and picked her phone up. “I can’t believe that he was bragging about that. I’m going to kill him.”

“No!” I tried to pull the device out of her hand. “Don’t say anything to him. I’m just telling you guys all of the more shocking events of the evening. Honestly, he was sweet in his own way. It just wasn’t a love connection. That’s all.”

“Fine. I won’t kill him.” Harmony retained an ironclad grip on her phone, but she did put it back on the table. “I really am sorry, Care Bear. I knew he could be kind of an idiot, but I thought it was in a fun, party kind of way. Not in a totally-inappropriate-behavior kind of way.”

“I’m sure he is fun.” I popped an onion ring from the appetizer platter we’d ordered in my mouth. “Maybe a little too fun for me.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure bachelor number two will
not
show you any dick pics,” Harmony assured me.

“No, he won’t,” Destiny agreed enthusiastically.

“I don’t know, guys.” I hesitated before saying, “I’m not sure this is such a great idea.”

“You can’t bail out now. My guy is up next. Please, just give him a chance,” Destiny begged as she folded her hands like she was praying.

I did
not
want to spend another awkward night on a blind date. “Do you guys remember me talking about that lawyer that is in the same building as the magazine? He’s asked me out for coffee a couple of times. I was thinking about maybe going.”

My announcement was met with blank stares.

“What?” I asked after a few awkward beats of silence.

“I’m just confused.” Harmony tilted her head to the side. “The only lawyer you told us about was that guy… I think his name was Derek, and you said he was short and balding.”

I was seriously regretting that I’d shared that not-so-flattering description with my besties. Derek might’a been short and balding, but at least I knew him—kind of. We’d shared several conversations on the elevator and one significantly longer exchange in the parking garage. A dinner with him would have to be less uncomfortable than the one I’d had with Peter.

“I mean, yes, he
is
smaller in stature than most—that’s true. And his hairline is a little farther back than is common for a man his age. But he’s in his late twenties and he’s employed.”

Even to my own ears, my sales pitch was weak at best.

“He sounds nice. And you should definitely go for coffee with him, but there’s nothing wrong with keeping your options open,” Destiny pragmatically pointed out. “I say go to dinner with my guy and then coffee with yours.”

Since I’d let Harmony set me up, it was only fair to let the third in our trio do the same.

“Who is your guy again?” I asked.

“His name’s Brett. He’s my college roommate’s brother. He recently moved back here after being in school in California. He got his PhD in internal medicine from Stanford.”

“So, he’s a doctor?”

Most girls would probably jump at the chance to date a physician, but I’d spent so much time in hospitals and doctors’ offices that I didn’t share that enthusiasm.

“He is.” Destiny beamed, obviously thinking that his occupation would be firmly in the pro column. “He’s doing his residency at Valley Memorial. I saw him when Gram was there.”

Destiny’s great-grandmother had raised her. She was the only parent Destiny had known. Her mother had passed away during childbirth, and her father had been serving overseas at the time and had been killed in action. When her gram had been hospitalized, Destiny had not left the hospital for three days straight. She’d left when Dixie had left.

“How’s Grandma Dixie feelin’?”

Destiny’s gram was a pillar of the community and had pretty much adopted the entire town as her own. There wasn’t a Wishing Well resident under the age of sixty that didn’t call her Grandma Dixie.

“She’s doing so much better now that they’ve worked out the iron deficiency. And she can’t wait to be a great-great-grandma.” Destiny rubbed her still-flat belly.

“Wait, what’s Brett’s last name? Maybe I’ve met him,” Harmony asked Destiny. “I’ve spent much more time than I’d like to admit over the past few weeks in various waiting rooms and the cafeteria in that hospital.”

From what Harmony had said, things with the good doctor were not moving fast enough for her liking, and her much-hated nookie drought was still in full effect. The last time the subject had been broached, her exact words had been, “It’s been so long I wouldn’t be surprised if there were cobwebs down there.”

“Hall. Brett Hall,” Destiny replied, mimicking the way people said, “Bond. James Bond.”

“Hall…Hall…Hall,” Harmony repeated as she drummed her fingers on the table and narrowed her eyes. After a few beats, she snapped her fingers. “About six foot tall, wavy, blond hair, brown eyes, broad shoulders, with a scar above his right eye and a dimple on his left cheek?”

“That’s him,” Destiny confirmed.

“Wow. That’s a
really
specific description for someone you weren’t even sure you knew,” I observed.

“The name didn’t immediately ring a bell, but then I remembered when I was waiting for Dr. Hottie to get off his shift I overheard a couple of candy stripers talking about all the things they wanted to
do
in the hall with Dr. Hall. Out of sheer curiosity and boredom, I did a little covert spying and found out who was inspiring this talk of naughty hallway fantasies.” Harmony wrapped her fingers around the stem of her glass and took a sip of her cosmo.

“So,” I prompted, my interest effectively piqued. “Was he nice? Did you talk to him? Is he cute?”

Of course, if Destiny was setting me up with him, she thought he was nice and cute, but she thought everyone was nice. Harmony had a much more discerning nature. Which was why her pick had shocked me so much.

“I didn’t actually have a one-on-one conversation, but I overheard via eavesdropping several convos he was involved in. He seemed very down to earth from the few interactions I witnessed. Cute? Um, no, I would not describe him as
cute
…”

Okay, well, looks weren’t everything. I mean, Derek was no prize in the looks department, but he had a lot of other things going for him.

Destiny jumped in to defend her bachelor. “Hey, I think he’s very—”

“I wasn’t finished.” Harmony lifted her hand. “Cute, not so much. Hot. Gorgeous. Sexy. Those would all be words that would describe Dr. Hall. Let’s just say McDreamy and McSteamy have nothing on him.”

“I still can’t believe they’re dead,” Destiny spoke reverently about two of our favorite characters on one of our favorite shows,
Grey’s Anatomy.
Destiny and I had taken the deaths particularly hard.

Harmony, who had a much easier time distinguishing between fiction and reality, continued, “As much as I hate to admit it, because you
know
how I do love to be the best at everything and win always, I think Destiny’s bachelor may be more your speed.”

I was stunned silent by our third angel’s confession. Harmony was, by far, one of the most competitive people I knew. Destiny and I had always humored her and figured that our friend was the way she was because of her upbringing. Having eight older brothers hadn’t just lit the competitive fire in Harmony; it’d caused a cut-throat inferno to blaze beneath the surface.

Colton and I had never been very competitive. I attributed that to our six-year age difference. My having been sick so much of my childhood had been a contributing factor as well. But, even before I had been diagnosed, my brother had always treated me like a princess.

My mom said that, from the time I was born, he’d hated seeing me cry and would do anything to make me stop. He’d give me his toys, make funny faces, do silly dances—whatever it had taken for his baby sister to be happy. That behavior continued to this day. If I wanted anything, Colton did what he could to get it for me. If I was sick, tired, or not feeling well, he would still do impressions or launch into funny dances to make me smile. Right after I’d gone into remission, he’d even agreed to go on
Fairytale Love
, a reality dating show, just because
I’d
wanted him to. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with it.

But I was glad he had. Now, almost four years later, he was still working in reality TV. He’d made it all the way to the finale and handled himself with so much class that he’d garnered quite the following. Ninety percent of which were female. Not that he’d noticed. Only one girl had ever caught and held my brother’s attention, and she’d been out of his life for over six years now.

“You made it!” A high-pitched scream filled the room, pulling my attention to the front of the bar.

The place was packed, especially for a weeknight. But, over the sea of people, I spotted the source of the excited exclamation. Trace Briggs had just walked in, and Lizzy’s response reminded me of an overexcited Chihuahua. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d peed herself.

“Oh look, your brother’s here.” Destiny pointed in Trace’s direction.

Harmony had to lift off her seat to try to peer over the high-top back of the booth. Before she saw him, she asked, “Sawyer?”

“No,” Destiny and I both replied.

“Coop?”

“Trace,” Destiny and I corrected her in unison, knowing she had six more she could run through.

Laughing, Destiny leaned towards me. “We really do need to start being more specific right off the bat.”

I nodded as I downed the rest of the cosmo I’d been nursing for the last hour in one gulp. My nerves started popping like bubble wrap under a steamroller. My stomach had suddenly been inhabited by a group of River Dancers who were doing a jig. Just knowing that Trace was there had my body going into hormone hyper speed.

The bar was filled with age-appropriate, good-looking guys. A couple even shared Trace’s last name. Travis was there, and JJ had stayed after he’d dropped Destiny off under the guise of hanging out with Travis, but since he hadn’t taken his eyes off his expectant wife, his real motivation was clear. JJ was obviously off-limits, but Travis wasn’t.

On paper, Travis and Trace were almost clones. When they had been little, people had even mistaken them for twins. Their similarities didn’t stop at their physical attributes, either.

As kids, they’d been nicknamed TNT because of an incident involving firecrackers that had gone horribly wrong. If there was trouble within spitting distance, TNT were knee-deep in it. They looked alike, had been born less than a year apart, and had nearly identical personalities.

So, why were my reactions to each of them so different? Or the better question: Why was my reaction so different to Trace than Peter, Derek, or any guy I’d ever met?

“Trace, dance with me!” Lizzy’s loud, drunken voice was easily heard over the chatter and the music.

Her request brought up another frustrating question: why was hearing or seeing Trace with other girls like getting punched in the stomach? And the most important question of all: what in the world was I going to do about it?

Trace

“She couldn’t take a hint if you gift wrapped it.”

~ Dolly Briggs

“C
ome on.” Lizzy
pulled at my arm, tugging me onto the crowded dance floor. “Trace! Dance with me!”

The last thing I wanted to do was dance. But, if I didn’t oblige my inebriated friend, she would have had no qualms about making a scene. It was better to get it over with.

I encircled her small waist with my arm and led her to the center of the wooden floor. I pulled her against me as we began swaying back and forth. She was mumbling words she must have thought were seductive but were coming off as comical.

Her hands, which had started the dance resting on my shoulders, quickly migrated south, from the blades of my shoulders down to my lower back. She didn’t stop until she had a handful of my ass in her palms. The unwanted public display of affection did nothing to improve my sour mood.

I was trying my best to ignore her advances, both verbal and physical, but she wasn’t making it easy on me. After several failed attempts at nudging her hands up, I was starting to feel like a girl at a middle school dance. Since the subtle route had been a dead end, and I really didn’t want to discuss that I didn’t want her groping me, I got creative. I wrapped my fingers around her wrist and lifted her arm up in the air. Then, with my other hand, I gave her hip a push and spun her in a circle. Which reminded me of something I’d seen on
Dancing with the Stars
.

It caught the attention of the other couples on the dance floor and those at the tables and the booths surrounding the square wood area. Thankfully, when her spin ended, the song did too. After a dramatic dip, I lifted her up and we both bowed as we were showered with applause and whistles.

She ate the attention up like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I used her distraction to my advantage and slipped away while she was on her third curtsey. I hadn’t made it two steps off the dance floor when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of familiar-looking red. When I turned my head, I was not disappointed.

Cara was seated at a back booth with her two partners in crime.

My feet had already started heading in their direction when my sister waved me over. My first thought was that this might be a repeat of their celebration of Cara’s being cancer-free. That all three girls might be tipsier than the cartoon cow on this bar’s logo, but that theory was quickly discounted.