Chapter Twenty
As the sun rose, Cara called up the message from Joe. From her safe zone under her purple cover, she took a deep breath, clicked open his last email, and began typing.
“Thank you so much for the lovely dinner, and while I had a wonderful time, I need to decline our second date. You’re a fantastic guy, so please don’t think it’s you. The problem is me, and my affections are elsewhere.”
She wanted to be direct, but kind. She hoped this note fit that bill.
An entire squadron of nerves took flight in her belly, but she somehow found the courage to hit send. She was only sending an email, but as it traveled into cyberspace, hurtling on a path to Joe’s inbox, it felt like freedom from her own plans.
But it was fear, too. Fear of the great unknown. But you had to let go before you could move forward. You had to give up the safety net before you went for what you wanted.
She wasn’t sure how to navigate the what’s next in her life without a roadmap.
But she’d figure it out soon enough. Probably today, in fact, since she had a wedding to attend.
…
Travis sneaked a quick peek at the time on his watch. The clock was ticking, and he had to hit the road to make it to the wedding.
But he had a client to calm down.
Hunter slammed the cards on the oak table at the private business club in Napa. He jammed his hands in his hair, plowing them through like bulldozers.
Travis had seen this before. This kind of frustration, from Hunter and from others like him—guys with lots of spare change. ’Course, that was his whole card-playing client list—high rollers. Venture capitalists, vineyard owners, real-estate developers—they turned to him in the first place because they had money to gamble. That was a blessing and a curse.
Hunter was the wildest of the lot. Like a caged lion in a zoo, he paced around the table, back and forth, back and forth. “What the hell just happened? How did I lose that much money?”
The room had been vacated. Travis had told the other gamblers to take five.
A vein pulsed in Hunter’s neck. The man was close to snapping. He’d had two nines a few minutes ago. It was a good hand, but not nearly good enough for what he’d been wagering. Hunter had called Travis after the first hand of the game had gone bust, pretty much begging him to come by. Travis had been hoping the man was ready to have the apron strings cut. No such luck. So Travis dropped in and gave him a solid pep talk, but the advice had fallen by the wayside when the game turned heated. Travis swore he’d seen the dollar signs multiplying in Hunter’s eyes as the pot swelled. The guy was rich, but he still hated losing money.
“Seriously. What happened?” Hunter asked, practically vibrating with negative ions. “Just tell me,” he gritted out.
Calling on his best calm voice, the one he used not only with his card-playing clients but also in the firehouse, Travis prepared to lay it out for him. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.” Hunter crossed his arms over his chest as he bit off the one-word answer.
“It’s simple. You got too cocky. Too confident. You forgot the rules of the road,” he said, opting for directness because he knew that was what Hunter needed. He was one of the few clients who’d been with Travis for several years. He still hadn’t learned to rein in his childish desire to win big. This was Travis’s specialty, though. He knew how to keep every emotion in check.
“But isn’t that what the game is about? To go all in?”
“Yes and no,” Travis answered. “This is not your livelihood, man. Even if it were, you’d need better control. But it’s not. You play for fun. And you’re not having fun when you lose this big. And you always lose big when you don’t follow the plan.”
Hunter sighed in frustration, and then cursed under his breath. “Shit.”
“You’re like this cleanup hitter who swings for the fences every time. The opposing teams know you can’t resist a fastball down the middle, so you swing every time and you miss. You need to play poker like you invest in the tech companies. You study the companies, you analyze their P and Ls, you know what you’re getting into. You need to bring that to the game. You need to stop making decisions based on your emotions.”
That approach had served Travis well in life and love. He’d studied the risks of relationships and analyzed the pros and cons. He knew when to hold and when to fold. Like with Cara. Even if some part of him craved more with her, he had to lean on the analytical side of his mind. That was the side that protected him from loss. He wanted Hunter to do the same when it came to poker.
Hunter nodded several times as the advice seemed to register. “You’re right,” he admitted.
“If you could do that, you wouldn’t need me anymore, and I’d really like you to not need me, because that means I’ll have finally done my job and taught you something,” he said, clasping his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Got it?”
“Got it,” Hunter said with a nod.
“Now, I need to go to my buddy’s wedding. You,” he said, clasping his hands on Hunter’s shoulders and staring him square in the eyes, “are going to master this.”
“I am,” he said with a nod.
Travis sure hoped so. He wanted to see the man act with his head, not his heart. The heart led to trouble, and no one needed trouble in his life.
…
“You look perfect.”
Cara was the first bridesmaid to issue the declaration as the bride swiveled around to show off her attire. Megan had zipped up the back of Jamie’s dress, and earlier in the day Cara’s sister had transformed Jamie’s long blond locks into a gorgeous French twist that made her look both classy and utterly sexy on her wedding day.
The dress was simple and elegant, with cap sleeves, a fitted bodice boasting a string of delicate beads, and an A-line skirt.
“I second it. You are gorgeous,” Megan chimed in. “Now, look in the mirror, and prepare to be astonished.”
Megan guided her to the full-length mirror behind the door in Jamie’s bedroom, where they were helping the bride prep for her big day.
Jamie’s eyes widened to moon-size and she clasped a hand over her lips.
Megan beamed. “Your dress is perfect. Everything is perfect.”
Jamie nodded and swallowed visibly, as if she were holding back a tear. “I love it,” she whispered reverently.
“No crying,” Cara said, wagging a finger at the bride. “We can’t have you messing up your makeup an hour before you say I do.”
“I know, I know,” Jamie said in a thin voice as she sucked in her breath and waved a hand in front of her made-up face. She flashed a bright smile. “There. It’s all under control.”
Jamie’s phone rang from her small clutch purse on the bed, a high-pitched bell sounding. “My sister. She’s overseeing the flowers,” she said as she grabbed it and walked into the living room.
Cara glanced at the time. “As soon as she’s done with her call we should go.”
Megan nodded, and then plopped down on the edge of the bed. “Sorry. I’m just tired these days,” she said, her hands resting on her belly.
“I think it’s permissible to be tired, considering you’re baking a person in your belly,” Cara said.
Megan smiled, then cleared her throat. “So I hear you and Travis are going together today. Well, meeting up there, since we’re going with Jamie in the limo.”
Cara blushed but nodded. “Yes. Sort of like a date,” she said. Then she raised her chin higher, owning it. Megan knew they’d dated on and off; she knew they were having a thing. They were all adults. She didn’t need to act coy. “Actually, exactly like a date.”
Megan’s features lit up, a wide smile spreading across her face. “It’s about time,” she said with a quirk in her lips.
Cara shrugged. “I don’t know that it’ll amount to more than a date.”
“Do you want it to be more?” Megan asked, crossing her legs and kicking her sandaled foot back and forth. She’d chosen a pale yellow dress for today; Cara had opted for peach. Jamie said she wanted her friends to pick their own colors. Jamie didn’t call them bridesmaids. She and Smith had chosen not to have specific titles for everyone. They’d simply asked their closest friends to stand with them.
“I do want it to be more. I have no idea if he does though. He’s not the easiest guy to read,” Cara said, then stopped and quickly corrected herself. “Actually, he’s quite easy to read because he’s so direct. What I mean is I have no idea if he’d ever want more than just one last date.”
Megan smoothed her hands over her skirt. “He’s a bit rigid, isn’t he?”
Cara laughed, but it came out a bit more like a scoff. “Yeah, that kind of describes him.”
“Listen. I don’t know if Travis is a ‘more’ kind of guy, but all I can say is when he came by my house to get flowers for you, that was a big tip-off. He’s never done that before for a woman.”
Cara’s heart beat harder. “They were lovely flowers.”
“And he asked me for the recipe for my cookies,” she added.
“Well, that was over a bet he lost,” she admitted with a shrug. “But they were amazing cookies.”
“And he brags constantly about the things you’ve taught Henry. And how he thinks you’re great at everything. Cooking, dogs, making him laugh…”
“Okay, now I’m going to blush even more,” Cara said, waving her hand in the air, as if she needed to cool off.
Megan rose and draped an arm around Cara, squeezing her shoulder. “It’s not as if he confides in me, but I think I know my brother pretty well. He’s been changing because of you, Cara. I can see it. Heck, Becker can even see it. And when a man’s friends can pick up on that, you know it’s real.”
“It is real,” she said softly. A butterfly flapped happily inside her chest. Maybe she wasn’t so crazy for coming up with her plan.
In the forty-eight hours since he’d asked her to be his wedding date, she’d mulled over the right words, the right time, and the right way to put her heart on the line.
She’d logged a few hours on the elliptical processing her options.
She’d spent time walking Violet discussing the details with her dog.
She’d even jotted down a few notes in between her training sessions.
After all the time she’d spent with Travis in the last few weeks… No, she corrected herself, after all these years, she knew what she was feeling. Knew it cold.
Besides, she was pretty damn sure she wasn’t flying solo in the feelings department. From the sweet words he’d said, to the times they’d shared, and even to making love in a bed at last, somewhere along the way this fling had changed for her, and she was willing to bet the rules of the road had changed for him, too.
She wanted this date at the wedding to be the start of something, not the end of it.
Maybe that was all she truly needed to say to him, but she also knew how very important the fireman’s auction was to him. He’d come to her for help. He’d come to her because he had a mission and a goal. She wanted to show she understood him and supported those dreams, and the place where they came from. Because they came from the very spot that had made it so hard for him to let anyone in. He’d let her in, though, so she wanted to honor that in the way she told him how she felt.
The prospect of rejection terrified her, but not as much as she loathed the notion of him walking across the stage tomorrow night and another woman winning him.
“Here’s my plan,” Cara said, and then laid it out in detail.
Megan gave a huge thumbs up.
All that was left was the execution.