Celia wasn’t sure when she had lost her mind, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was around the time she’d agreed to have dinner with Ry. Before that moment, life had been boring and far lonelier than she’d ever imagined, but at least she’d never acted like a crazy-pants idiot with a nervous tick. Twenty-four hours out from being danced into the hottest kiss she’d ever experienced, and she was checking her phone approximately every eight seconds to see if Ry had called.
Or texted.
Or even sent a stupid email.
Nothing.
She tried telling herself she was glad. Relieved, even. She had yet to make a decision on whether or not she was going to accept the Green Rock Ranch project, so she tried convincing herself that she was glad Ry was giving her space. Heaven knew she didn’t want him hanging around, being all distracting with his sexiness and mind-blowing kisses. What woman would want that?
Her internal wanton hopped up and down, waving a hand wildly in the air.
Okay.
Maybe that had been a stupid question.
For a while during her mostly sleepless night, she’d wondered if he’d turned on all that devastating Casanova charm just to get her to agree to do his project. But around three o’clock in the morning she realized that didn’t make sense. Sure, she was good at what she did, but there were plenty of promo people out there in the world who could accommodate the needs of Green Rock. She might be the hometown girl he said he wanted, but she certainly wasn’t the only game in town.
So, why had he kissed her?
There was only one answer she could find. Ry had kissed her because he’d wanted to. And it wasn’t just kissing he’d been interested in, if what she’d felt going on in his jeans was any indication. If they hadn’t been interrupted, she could only imagine what he would have done with that exciting stiffness she’d felt and had rubbed against. She’d wanted that impressive bulge freed from his restraining clothing so she could get it between her legs...
Goodness, it was getting downright sweltering for this time of year.
So the signals he’d sent yesterday had been crystal clear. But not hearing another word from him sent another kind of signal, and it wasn’t one she was sure she wanted to receive.
His silence told her he wasn’t that into her, after all.
Phones worked both ways, her brain stubbornly reminded her as she parked in front of the small post office facing Bitterthorn’s town square. Now that she had Ry’s phone number, she could call him up and...what? she thought, opening the trunk of her car to unload a stack of packaged portfolios that several ad agencies to which she’d applied for a job had requested. What could she possibly say to Ry that wouldn’t sound needy and pathetic?
Hi, I was just thinking of you...
Ugh. No to the sappy greeting card vibe.
So, any particular reason why I haven’t heard from you?
Too confrontational and needy. Though truth be told, she’d love an answer to that one.
Ry, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that impressive hard-on you had going on while we were kissing.
Oh, dear God, no. TMI.
She had to face facts. As her social life had gone down the tubes over the past few months, her man-woman social skills had gone right down with it.
So she couldn’t call him. She’d make an utter fool of herself if she did, and she wasn’t eager to once again put herself in a position where he’d laugh at her.
But, maybe she wouldn’t make a total idiot of herself if she sent him a pithy little text. She could probably pull off pithy if she worked at it—
“Whoa, looks like you got quite a load going on there,” came a friendly masculine voice as she approached the post office’s door.
“Um.” She came to a dead stop, stunned and automatically looking around to see if there was someone else this person was talking to. He couldn’t possibly be talking to her. Outside of a handful of boring old married guys and Ry, no man talked to her anymore. Maybe having dinner in public with Ry showed the town she was officially forgiven by the prince of Green Rock Ranch, she thought, hope soaring so fast she was almost dizzy with it. Maybe her time of being avoided was at long last coming to a close. “I probably should have made two trips. I hate to ask, but would you mind if I asked you to get the door for me, please?”
“I can do better than that.” An unfamiliar face appeared over the top of her parcels. Friendly brown eyes smiled down at her from beneath a John Deere cap, and his face was covered with an impressive amount of freckles. “I would be honored to carry your parcels for you, and you can get the door for me.”
She could have wept at the basic human kindness. What a good soul. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking. I’m insisting.” All smiles, he began taking the packages from her one at a time. “My mother would never forgive me if I let a beautiful woman struggle along with all this without offering a helping hand.”
Just as she was about to canonize him as a living saint for listening to his mother, something inside her applied the mental brakes. Beautiful woman? That was sweet, but she wasn’t sure her rusty social skills were up to navigating her way around a bold flirt. “Your mother obviously raised a gentleman. I’m both grateful and impressed.”
“So I’ve impressed you? My day is complete.” As he put the last of her packages on the pile he now cradled in his arms, he tipped her a wink. Yep. She definitely had a flirt on her hands. “You want to get the door for me, beautiful?”
A self-conscious laugh escaped her before she turned to the heavy door. “Uh, sure. And thank you. Not sure I fit that description, but I appreciate the compliment.”
“You definitely fit the description, but I can see how it might get awkward if I keep calling you beautiful, beautiful. Do you have another name I could use? I’m Brad, by the way.”
“Hello, Brad.” Smiling cautiously, she reached for the heavy post office door while trying to figure out what to do. It had been so long since a man had come on to her, she’d all but forgotten how to handle it, especially when it wasn’t something she wanted. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Celia.”
“That’s a pretty name. Wait...” He came to an abrupt stop a few feet from the door, as if he’d suddenly hit an invisible wall. “Did you say Celia?”
Her brows shot up. “Yes.”
“Celia Villarreal?”
Bewildered, she stared at him. “Yes. Have we met before? I’m sorry, I don’t remember where—”
“Shit.” A grimace crossed his face, wiping out his flirty smile as if it had never been. “Celia friggin’ Villarreal. Just my luck.”
Her jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon?”
“I can’t.” Looking around as if he thought he was about to be attacked, he shoved her parcels unceremoniously at her. Startled, she jumped forward to secure the stack of portfolios, the post office door swinging shut as she juggled the awkward load. The man, Brad, turned on his heel and walked briskly away, not even bothering to look back as the pile of packages cascaded to the ground.
“Wait—”
Behind her, the post office door suddenly swung open. Distressed, she looked back just in time to watch the sweep of the door crunch one of her portfolios against the building’s outer wall. The man exiting took one look at her, then at the scattered packages on the ground, his expression momentarily horrified. Then he stepped carefully over the spilled packages without a word or an offer to help pick them up, or even a simple glance her way to acknowledge her existence.
Oh, God.
It wasn’t over. Her punishment for daring to touch a Brody wasn’t over.
Damn it, damn it, damn it...
The beautiful hope that had bloomed in her turned to bitter ash, and her eyes stung with unshed tears as she bent to gather up her portfolios. There would be no forgiveness for her after all, she thought, the dual knives of anger and despair twisting into her chest until she couldn’t breathe. No matter what she did, there would never be any forgiveness. Nothing changed in Bitterthorn.
That meant only one thing.
She had to get out.
Clutching the portfolios to her chest and praying that one of them would be her ticket out, she turned back to the post office to fumble her way, by herself, through the door.
* * *
“Hey there.” Lucy Jax waved at Celia as she pushed through the sweet shop’s glass door. “I was thinking, for the next window mural that you do for the shop, would it be possible to have something to do with the Easter Bunny hiding eggs in a garden setting? Josie has decided that the Easter Bunny and Peter Cottontail are one and the same bunny, so I thought that might be an appropriate theme.”
“Sounds cute.” Celia tried to smile as she laid her laptop’s messenger bag on an empty table. “Mind if I jack your WiFi for a while? I need to get more resumes out there ASAP.”
“Feel free.” Lucy rang up a customer and sent them on their way with a smile while Celia plugged in her laptop and settled in. By the time she got online and opened up her emails, her friend was pulling up a chair across from her. “Okay, what’s up? You look like you’ve got the world’s biggest headache.”
“It’s just been another glorious day in Bitterthorn.” The hurt and bewildered dismay had morphed into an anger that was so dark it blotted out the afternoon sun slanting in through the front room’s windows. “So glorious I have to wonder...if I had an accident and was bleeding to death in the middle of the road, would people just walk by like I wasn’t even there? Because right now, I’m pretty sure they would.”
“It happened again,” Lucy guessed. At Celia’s grim nod, she sighed and shook her head. “What in the world is wrong with this stupid town?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. All I care about is getting the hell out of here and moving on with my life.”
“Cel—”
“I used to love this little town so much, but now I... I hate it here, Lucy.” To her horror, her voice wobbled with tears not of sadness, but of soul crushing anger. She was shaking with it, in a deep-down way that she’d never felt before and she feared she could never fully recover from. “I’m just about ready to pack up and leave even without a job waiting for me. Every time some guy makes me feel invisible, a little more of me dies, because those little pieces of me are starting to believe that I deserve to be ignored.”
“You don’t,” Lucy fired back immediately, reaching out to grab her hand. “You got drunk. You made a mistake. Every single person in this stupid town has done at least that much. If a few of them are judging you, they’re shallow hypocrites who aren’t worth your time.”
“I’m the one who’s starting to feel like I’m not worth it. Come to find out, when you’re treated like you’re nothing, you begin to believe it.”
Lucy’s intake of breath was so sharp it was like she’d been stabbed. “No, Cel. Please hear me, okay? You’re not nothing.”
Valiantly Celia tried to smile. Lucy was so sweet. “I’d really like to believe that.”
“Believe it, sweetheart. It’s the truth, I swear it.”
“It’s just... I can’t allow these bits and pieces of me to disappear until I really am nothing,” she whispered while the tears finally fell. Angrily she swiped at them before turning her attention back to her email. “I’m done with just taking what this town dishes out with good grace and hoping this crazy behavior eventually fades away. It’s not fading, but I am, so before I fade away completely, I’m going to save myself by using my brain and my talents to get out of this toxic environment. And this company might just be the ticket,” she added, clicking on an email and scanning through it quickly. “Listen to this. ‘Dear Ms. Villarreal, thank you for your interest in Velni and Associates,’ blah, blah, blah. Here... ‘After reviewing your digital work and wealth of successful projects, we believe your creative talents might be a good fit for our promotional graphics firm. If you would be willing to come in for a formal interview...’” She took in a calming breath and glanced up at her friend. “Would I be interested, can you believe it? I’d fucking run there right now, if I could.”
Lucy’s brow puckered. “Where’s this Velni and Associates located?”
“Dallas.” Celia pursed her lips as she read through the email once more. “I could live in Dallas. I’ve heard the traffic there is worse than it is in San Antonio, but I could get used to that. I mean, I practically got used to being invisible to the majority of bachelors here in Bitterthorn, so that means I’m capable of getting used to anything, right?”
“You’re not invisible to me or my family, and from what you’ve told me, you’re not invisible to Ry Brody.”
The words sparked a lovely glow in her heart before reality mercilessly smothered it out of existence. “And yet the moment I’m out of his sight, I’m out of his mind.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I haven’t heard word one from him since yesterday. Which sounds pathetic,” she admitted on a gusty sigh, leaning back into her chair. Try as she might, she couldn’t make herself click on the email’s reply button. She should have been thrilled to receive it, but she wasn’t. How could she be thrilled about anything when she was invisible not just to the men of Bitterthorn, but to Ry? “Just listen to me, Lucy. I’m so desperate for Ry to acknowledge my existence that I get all freaked and insecure when I don’t hear from him within a twenty-four hour time span. He should probably consider himself lucky that I haven’t broken down his front door because I’m so starved for attention.”
“I suppose anyone would start feeling that way after being ignored,” came the thoughtful reply, and her tone was so distracted it brought Celia’s gaze to her. “I don’t know, though. You’ve always had fairly high standards in the people you’ve dated in the past.”
“Yeah, but like you said—that was the past. I’m now so pathetic I’d probably get hot and bothered by anyone paying attention to me, even if he were a cross-eyed hunchback with chronic halitosis.”
“Hot and bothered,” Lucy repeated, amused. “Is that what Ry makes you? Hot and bothered?”
There was no point in lying. “Like a nuclear power plant in mid-meltdown.”
“But you think it’s because you’re starved for attention, and that any other man you came across would have the same effect on you?”
She opened her mouth to reply, only to have the image of the post office guy, Brad and his flirtatious smile, drift through her mind. “I’m...not sure that’s entirely true.”
Lucy didn’t look all that surprised. “Why’s that?”
“Because I have had a few opportunities to get busy with the opposite sex, and the prospect left me cold.”
“Considering how lonely you’ve been, why do you think that is?”
“For the record, I know what you’re doing,” Celia said, then sighed when Lucy merely grinned at her. “You want me to go ahead and say the truth out loud, right? Okay, fine. Let’s play it your way. Not just any man can get my girly parts tingling the way Ry does. And the reason for that is the same reason I grabbed his butt all those months ago. I don’t know how he does it, but Ry makes me hotter than the surface of the sun without even trying. And it pisses me off no end.”
“Wow, that was such an unexpected turn I think I got whiplash.” Lucy rubbed her baby bump, looking like she didn’t know whether to frown or laugh. “Why get pissed off because you’re attracted to Ry?”
“Because it’s me grabbing his butt all over again, except this time I don’t have the excuse of being under the influence of too many strawberry margaritas. At least then I could blame my grab-ass behavior on alcohol, but now here I am, cold sober and wanting to jump his bones every time he’s near. I have zero control when it comes to him, and I have no clue how to get that control back.”
“My guess is, you’ll never get what you’re calling control back,” came the calm reply. “Whether you like it or not, a part of you—your needs and your wants—is attached to Ry, and that’s something you have no control over. You also don’t have any control over him, so that’s double the craziness.”
“So what do I do?”
“My advice is, don’t try to control everything, Cel. You’ll just make yourself nuts. Instead, try going with the flow and see where it takes you. You might wind up in a place where you’re very pleasantly surprised.”
“The only place I want to wind up is out of this town,” Celia muttered, turning her attention back to the email that needed to be answered. “That is still within my control, so that’s what I’m going to focus on. Not on Ry, and not on how he makes my panties melt. I don’t need that distraction, especially since that’s all I seem to be to him—a distraction.”