Vanishing Dreams: Vanishing Dreams (Devil's Bend #2) (3 page)

No matter how much she fought it.

The chickens were close to waking by the time the crew had finished
closing up the bar around three o’clock in the morning. Dalton had pitched in,
unable to sit still while everyone around him worked diligently. He’d actually
been grateful for the distraction, because had he been waiting for Katie to
finish up, he would’ve gone mad just staring after her, desperately wanting to
get his hands on her.

He knew that she hadn’t worn that particular dress with the short,
frilly skirt and breast-hugging sweater just for him, but every time he took in
the sight of her in that cream-colored fabric and those brown cowgirl boots…
Yeah,
damn
was about the gist of it.

Thank God, they’d managed to close the place up. And not a moment too
soon. Now Dalton and Katie were heading out of The Rusty Nail, Eric following
them to the door and locking up behind them. While they trekked across the
parking lot, Dalton had to make a conscious effort to keep from dragging Katie to
the truck rather than walking like a man who possessed at least a minimal
amount of decorum.

“Still up for breakfast?” he asked, taking her hand and leading her
around to the passenger side of his truck.

“Depends. Are we talking taquitos to go?”

“Taquitos?” he asked, grinning. “As in Whataburger on the run?”

“That’s what I was thinkin’. I was kinda hopin’ to get some time away
from people,” Katie told him, looking up at him, a sexy little glimmer in her
charcoal-gray eyes.

Okay, so Dalton hadn’t expected that. Nor had he anticipated the
promise he saw reflecting back at him. They’d been dating — for lack of a
better term — for the last couple of months, but just when Dalton thought they
were making a little progress, Katie was always the first to put the brakes on.
He couldn’t say he was disappointed in the possibilities the night still had to
offer.

“Whataburger it is. Any thoughts on where to go after?”

“I’ll let you choose,” she said sweetly.

“I know a place,” he informed her, willing his body not to overreact
too quickly. It was bad enough that his jeans had been getting increasingly
tighter every time he looked at her. The woman had a penchant for making his
dick hard. Then again, he was the one responsible for putting himself in that
position, so the case of blue balls he’d been sporting for the last couple of
months was solely his fault. His current streak of celibacy had started the day
he’d met her.

Taking her hand, he led Katie to his truck, and after helping her in,
closing the door behind her, he was damn near bowlegged as he made his way
around to the driver’s side. Yeah, it’d been a while since he’d been laid, and
although he had no intention of going that far with Katie tonight, his dick
didn’t seem to realize that. For the first time in his life, Dalton was trying
patience on for size. Not that he was all that happy with the fit, but he was
working on it.

Good things came to those who waited, right? At least, he hoped like
hell that that was the case.

Once they were out on the main road, leaving Cooper and the rest of the
gang back at the bar, along with a handful of reporters still hanging out in
the parking lot, desperate to get a glimpse of Cooper’s new life, Dalton tried
to think of something other than sex.

It wasn’t easy.

They ventured into the small neighboring town to get taquitos, but at
that time of morning, they made good time. Since they’d made that particular
food run a couple of times recently, the overnight crew at the fast food
restaurant knew exactly who he was when he pulled up to the window. He laughed
when they all vied to get to him through the small opening, everyone speaking
at once. Thankfully, they weren’t pushy, probably because they knew he’d be
back, so several minutes later, he and Katie were pulling out.

With food sitting in a bag between them, Dalton turned the truck back
toward Devil’s Bend.

Night had fallen hours ago, blanketing the chilly Texas day in
darkness. The temperatures were hovering in the forties, significantly warmer
than Dalton was used to but still cold enough to warrant a jacket. Thankfully,
the wind had died down after the clouds had been blown out, and now the night
was clear, the threat of rain a distant thought. The only reason Dalton had the
heater on was for Katie’s benefit. Had he been alone, he would’ve had the
windows down to offset the warmth from the vents, but he wasn’t looking to
freeze her out.

But he was hot. And he wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the
heater, either. More like he was as nervous as a teenage boy was on prom night.

“Where are we goin’?” Katie asked as she stared out the window when
they crossed the county line.

“I thought we’d head to the lake,” he answered, glancing over at her
briefly, wiping his hands on the leather covering the steering wheel.

“Okay.”

“No arguments?” he teased, his voice rough with anticipation.

“Nope,” she said softly. “Not tonight.”

Dalton heard a world of innuendo in those two words, and he started to
fear he was thinking with the wrong part of his anatomy. It wasn’t all that difficult
to succumb to his little head’s curiosity, though, especially with Katie
sitting beside him, the tops of her trim, tan thighs on display beneath that
skirt. That and boots.

Lord help him, if he made it through tonight, he was going to be
inducted into sainthood.

“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked, trying to make small talk.

“It was decent,” she said, causing Dalton to dart a look her way. The
adorable smile that tipped her full lips made his dick harden that much more.

“Decent? Well, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that said about my shows.”

“Yeah, well…”

Dalton knew she was joking, and he enjoyed her banter. The fact that
things could be so easy between them was one of the reasons he loved being
around Katie so much. She wasn’t like most of the women he met, who were
constantly competing for his attention or trying to keep it if he even looked
their way.

Nope, not since he’d made it in the country music world had he met a
woman like Katie. One who just wanted to be friends and nothing more.

Katie reached for the bag and rummaged through it noisily. She
chuckled, and he looked over at her, noticing she was holding something up for
him to see.

“They gave you an apple pie,” she said with a grin.

Dalton laughed. Sometimes being famous did have its perks.

It was the little things.

Katie continued to pull items out of the bag before handing him one of
the breakfast burritos. Egg, potatoes, and cheese wrapped in a flour tortilla
should’ve been enough to bring him out of the lust-induced haze, but even that
was making his dick hard. No, wait, it wasn’t the taquito, it was the brush of
Katie’s hand against his that did it.

Come on, Calhoun. You’re not fifteen.

“Since we’re havin’ breakfast on the run, maybe we should get the
traditional part of the date over with as well,” Dalton said, willing his body
back under control. Katie’s curious glance didn’t help.

“First of all, Calhoun,” Katie told him as she held her burrito to her
mouth, “this is
not
a date.”

“You see, it kinda is,” he replied, darting his eyes over to meet hers
briefly before turning his attention back to the darkened road in front of him.

“No. It’s not,” she said more insistently.

“Fine. It’s not,” he replied with a chuckle. Whatever she wanted to
tell herself. But to him, this was a date. “However, I still think we should
get the pleasantries out of the way.”

“Pleasantries?”

“Yeah. You know. Routine date questions, the whole gettin’-to-know-you
part.”

“We already know each other. And as far as I’m concerned, you’ve asked
enough questions,” Katie told him, her voice a little harder than before.

Dalton knew Katie wasn’t much for his queries, but considering he
wanted to know everything there was to know about her and she wasn’t very
forthcoming in sharing pieces of herself, he wasn’t left with much choice. So
he pretended not to notice her affront.

“So, this is like our tenth non-date,” he told her for her benefit,
“and I still don’t know much about you other than you work at the bar and
you’re in school. Tell me somethin’ else.”

“Nothin’ to tell,” Katie said a little too fast for his peace of mind.

It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten the sense she was hiding
something. What, he had no idea, but he did notice that as soon as he tried to
get to know her better, she tended to shut down.

Luckily, Dalton didn’t scare easily. He knew with a little
encouragement, Katie would open up. Eventually.

“Nothin’?” he asked, smiling and trying to keep the subject light.

“Nope,” she added, her tone less strained than a moment ago, but he
could still detect her hesitancy.

Well, shit, this wasn’t going quite the way he had planned.

“Do your parents live in Devil’s Bend?” he asked, going for polite
conversation now. Although the two of them had gone out quite a few times,
anytime Dalton moved the subject to Katie, she always managed to deflect.

“Nope. What about yours? Do they live in Nashville?”

This time clearly wasn’t going to be any different. Going with the
flow, Dalton said, “Georgia.”

Damn, the woman was a dichotomy. He never knew what to expect from her,
but he did know that she wasn’t keen on talking about herself. That was only a
small problem where Dalton was concerned because he had this overwhelming
inquisitiveness when it came to her. Had since the moment he’d laid eyes on her
at The Rusty Nail just a few short months ago.

It was a wonder he didn’t know much about her by this point, but that
was only proof that she had succeeded in shutting him out whenever he tried to
get closer.

The conversation had hit a lull by the time they were pulling down one
of the dirt roads that led to a secluded section of the lake he’d recently
located when he was looking for a place to hide out from everyone. The good
news was that breakfast was out of the way, thanks to Katie encouraging him to
eat rather than talk.

Bless her. The woman thought she could get by without sharing more of
herself with him. He’d just have to see about that.

As though she suspected he wasn’t about to let go of the questions,
Katie shocked him by speaking up as he navigated the truck down the narrow
road.

“So, you didn’t grow up in Tennessee?” Katie asked as he pulled the
truck into a small alcove, doing a K-turn and then backing the truck closer to
the water.

“Nuh-uh,” he told her, putting the truck in park. “Come on, let’s sit
on the tailgate.”

“Seriously?” she asked as he leaned between the seats to retrieve the
blankets he had stashed in the backseat. The ones he’d put there for
specifically this purpose.

“Yep. Come on.”

Katie met his gaze across the dimly lit truck. For a brief moment, he
thought he saw concern on her pretty face. What did she think he was going to
do? Jump her bones right there at the lake? Hell, they’d had more than their
fair share of chances for him to make a move, and he’d held back all this time.
It wasn’t as if he was going to push her to do something she wasn’t ready for.

Dalton happened to like that about Katie. She wasn’t the type of woman
he was used to meeting these days. Most of them were more than willing to get
naked and horizontal before he even knew their last name. He knew it was more
due to his fame than his incredible personality, which was why he welcomed a
chance to spend time with this woman.

Katie Clarren seemed to care less that he was one of the biggest names
in country music at the moment. And Dalton’s ego wasn’t involved in the latter
part of that statement. It was a fact. The Billboard charts didn’t lie. Nor did
his bank account.

Exiting the truck, Dalton made his way to the back, lowered the
tailgate, and spread one of the blankets on the cold metal bed before moving
around to the passenger side to help Katie. The ground was soft beneath his
feet, and he didn’t want her to fall — or at least that was his excuse. What he
really wanted to do was to touch her, to feel her soft skin beneath his palms.

When she allowed him to slide his arm around her waist and help her
down the slope, he took the opportunity to breathe her in.

Damn, this woman did something crazy to him, and he had no idea why
that was. It wasn’t as if she was all that easy to get to know. In fact, quite
the opposite.

Helping her onto the tailgate by placing his hands on her waist and
lifting her up, he took a seat beside her, taking her hand in his and linking
their fingers. It was that or stand between her legs, and he knew good and damn
well that wasn’t the appropriate way to start what he would consider their
eleventh official date.

Yes, he was counting.

“You grew up here?” he asked, staring out into the inky black night,
catching a glimpse of the gentle waves backlit by the bright moon, crashing
against the bank just a few yards away from where they sat.