Shrinking Violet (Colors #2) (6 page)

Good Lord,
how had I let Lana talk me into a girls’ night out?

On the rare occasion I’d gone out since my move to Texas, I’d always been sure to keep it low-key. I’d been to a few bars in the area, but Miller’s was known as the place to be in Grovepoint on any given weekend. For that reason alone, I typically tried to avoid it.

The place was packed, bodies pushing and shoving every which way for a place to sit. The dim lighting created a decent enough ambiance, the scent of beer and a tinge of stale cigarette smoke filling the air.

“Oh, there!” Lana shouted in my ear in order to be heard over the music. “Move your cute ass, Ashworth!” I headed in the direction of the two empty barstools Lana had just spotted.

Oh, sweet baby Jesus in Heaven, thank God!

My feet were on fire. Against my better judgment, I’d begrudgingly allowed Lana to raid my closet for an outfit she thought suitable…hence the skin-tight skinny jeans, shear silk top with a lacy camisole beneath, and five-inch red heels that I was afraid were currently filling up with blood from my poor, neglected feet.

It just went to show how far detached I’d grown from my previous life. I used to
live
for high heels…specifically anything name-brand. For the past several years, if it wasn’t tennis shoes, boots, or flip-flops, I ran a serious risk of plummeting toward the ground, face-first.

“Oh, thank God,” I groaned as my butt hit the cushioned seat of the barstool. Judging from the half-lidded gazes of the men around us, I might have been just a bit too loud.

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Lana laughed, taking a seat next to me. “We were only standing for ten minutes, tops.”

I gave her a flat look. “I’m pretty sure the skin on the bottom of my feet has been rubbed off. These shoes are torture devices.”

“Torture devices that make your ass look phenomenal,” she shot back with a look that said ‘I dare you to argue with me’.

I held my hands up in surrender because she was right. Even I had to admit I had an ass that didn’t quit. “All right, you win this round.”

Lana’s face screamed
told ya so
as she leaned over to flag down a bartender. A few minutes later, a handsome guy in his mid-twenties stopped in front of us, gracing us with what was sure to be his panty-dropping smile.

“Well, hello. I’m Nate. What can I get you two gorgeous ladies started with?”

Lana leaned in closer to the good-looking bartender. “I’m single, and this is available,” she said with a thumb in my direction, making my face go red.

“Lana!”

“Well then, I’d say it’s my lucky night.” Nate smiled, and I might have swooned just a little bit. I wasn’t going to lie—the man was definitely HOT. Even with a certain ranch hand taking up almost every bit of available brain space, I could still appreciate a fine male specimen such as the one standing before me. However, I didn’t get the same little flutters in my stomach with Nate’s smile as I did every time Carson so much as glanced in my direction.

Lana ordered two drafts while I let my gaze roam around the room, finally beginning to relax. She and I talked and laughed as the evening progressed, and before I knew it, my first beer was gone and she was pushing another into my hand.

It had been so long since I drank anything, and just one beer made my head a little floaty. But I was starting to feel lighter than I had in years, more carefree. And as the beer hit my system, warming my belly, I basked in the fact that the weight I carried on my shoulders day-in and day-out seemed to lessen just a bit as the clock on the wall continued to tick.

“Okay, lightweight, go slower with the next one. You’re already looking a little buzzed.”

“I haven’t drank in
years
.” I giggled.

“And you’re only twenty-two. That’s just sad, honey.”

No, what was sad was that I’d only had one beer over the span of a few minutes and my bladder was about to explode.

“Where are you going?” Lana asked as I pushed off my stool and started the treacherous task of walking on the high heels from Hell while buzzed.

“Gotta pee,” I announced loudly. “Be right back.”

Somehow, I made it from the main room into the hallway, only stumbling once or twice. I was a few feet away from the restroom when a door to my right marked “STORAGE” swung open. A curvy brunette came stumbling out, her clothes rumpled, hair in complete disarray. I didn’t bother to try and stifle my giggle at her unkempt appearance, earning myself an evil glare from the woman about to do the walk of shame in a full bar.

Just as I turned away, the door swung open again, revealing the man the brunette had clearly just had sex with. It took my brain a few seconds to realize what I was seeing. Stumbling out of the storage closet, eyes focused on zipping up his fly, was the man who had my emotions in a complete upheaval for the past few days.

“Carson.”

I hated how my voice broke on just that word, my throat clogging with emotion—namely disappointment at the sight of him. I knew I had no right to be upset—he wasn’t even my friend, let alone something more—but that didn’t stop the gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach from snuffing out the carefree buzz I’d had just moments earlier.

His gaze shot to mine, those mossy green eyes going wide. He stood silent for several seconds, his hands on his fly and a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face.

Carson’s lids dropped in a slow blink, and his mouth opened and closed several times before he finally spoke a ragged, “Violet.”

“Cassidy,” I corrected shortly, unreasonably upset at the sight of him post-hookup. I didn’t want to hear his nickname for me just then.

Clearly not appreciating Carson’s attention momentarily shifting to me, the brunette sauntered back up to him, grabbed his face and pulled him down to plant a ridiculously inappropriate kiss on his lips. To his credit, he appeared frozen for the few seconds it took her to pull away.

Pulling a white business card from her clutch, she tucked it into his front pants pocket…but not before groping the bulge behind his zipper.

Her voice was low and husky as she spoke, “Call me when you get off work, baby.” If it had been anyone else standing in front of me, I would have been inclined to roll my eyes—the little show she was putting on wasn’t anything I hadn’t done hundreds of times in my past life. But it wasn’t just anyone, it was Carson…the man who’d invaded my thoughts from the moment he stepped foot on the ranch, the only man since starting my new life who gave me that ‘dragonflies in my belly, weak at the knees’ sensation. Obviously, that stupid feeling had been wasted on the likes of him.

“Vi…uh, I mean, Cassidy. What are you doing here?”

“Girls’ night with Lana. If you’ll excuse me, I just needed to use the restroom.” The smile I pasted on my face didn’t come close to meeting my eyes. Without giving him a chance to say anything else, I turned and shoved through the door, exhaling loudly once it closed behind me.

Four hard years of teaching myself to be a different person—a
better
person—were flushed down the drain in less than two minutes. After relieving my aching bladder and washing my hands, I stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection, silently berating myself for how I was feeling. I was hurt, disappointed, angry…jealous. It was all completely irrational, I knew that. But I’d never been prone to rationality in the past.

As my blue gaze flitted over my features, I told myself one thing: I couldn’t control how I felt, but I could damn well control how I acted.
Feeling
irrational gave me no right to
act
irrational. That was something I’d had trouble controlling when I was younger, but I wasn’t that mean, scared little girl anymore.

I straightened my shoulders and raised my chin, determined not to revert back to how I used to behave. I was going to go back out there, have a drink, flirt with some attractive yet harmless man, and have fun, damn it!

Pep talk complete, I dried my hands and left the restroom, nearly plowing right into Carson’s chest on the way out.

His strong hands wrapped around my upper arms, keeping me from falling and sending a zing of electricity through my system at the same time. “You okay?” The combination of his gruff voice and his touch caused me to shiver involuntarily.

I shook my head to clear it of the lusty haze and stepped back, breaking contact. “Were you waiting out here for me to finish?” I asked, not really sure how I felt about that.

Carson’s cheeks tinged pink just slightly as he lowered his eyes to the floor between us, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck anxiously. It was adorably endearing.

Wait...what? No, it’s
not
endearing it. Snap the hell out of it, Cassidy. He just had sex with another woman in a
storage room
!

“About what you saw—”

I lifted my hand to stop him. “It’s really not my business, Carson. You’re a grown man; you don’t need to explain your actions to me.” I wanted to pat myself on the back for sounding so calm and collected, even though I felt anything but.

His light brown eyebrows dipped down as he studied my expression, and I got the sense he was questioning my sincerity. I cleared my throat and sidestepped his larger frame, feeling the need to escape from his penetrating gaze before he saw right through my façade.

“Well, have a good evening. See you later.”

I could feel his eyes burning into my skin as I walked away, so I shot up a quick prayer to the fashion gods to please keep me from tripping ass-over-elbow in my sky-high heels. I breathed a sigh of relief when I made it back to my stool next to Lana unscathed.

“That had to have been the world’s longest pee! You took forever. Wait.” She narrowed her eyes and studied me. “What’s the matter? Did something happen?”

“No,” I scoffed dramatically. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because you look like someone just told you Nabisco plans to stop making chewy Chips Ahoy cookies forever.”

I gasped. “Don’t even joke about that!”

“Seriously, Cass, what’s with the long face?”

I picked up my beer and gulped it before finally telling her what I stumbled onto in the hallway.

“No way!”

“Yep. He was still zipping up as he walked out of the room.”

“That’s kind of…”

“Skanky?” I asked at the same time Lana responded with “Hot.”

Lana reached over to hit me on my back as I choked on the sip of beer I’d just taken. “You can’t be serious,” I croaked once I could breathe again.

She opened her mouth to respond when a familiar, gravelly voice spoke from the other side of the bar.

“Another round, ladies?”

Lana’s eyes went comically wide for a second before we both spun in our seats to face Carson.

“Well, well. Not just one but
two
sex-on-a-stick bartenders,” Lana teased. “Looks like it’s our lucky night.”

“Looks like it,” Carson replied, one corner of his mouth tipping up in a smirk, but his focus was trained on me. Something flashed in his pale green eyes, disappearing before I could recognize it.

Lana smacked the bar top. “We’ll take two drafts, barkeep. And make it snappy.”

“You got it.” He chuckled, shooting me a little wink as he turned away. Yeah…I was pretty sure I just melted a little bit.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Lana leaned over. “You can’t seriously tell me you don’t think that man is sex personified,” she hissed so only I could hear.

I couldn’t argue with her. I currently had a bird’s-eye view of just how perfect his ass looked in his jeans. “I never said he wasn’t.”

“And you’re not even the least bit curious as to how he worked it back in that storage room? Jesus, I mean, look at those hips.” Of course, once she brought it up, I
had
to look. “They were made to have legs wrapped around them.”

That was certainly one vivid visual she was creating. “Okay! Yes. He’s hot. So what? What’s it matter?”

“It matters because you’re into him!” I opened my mouth to disagree, but she interrupted me. “Don’t even bother denying it. In the time I’ve known you, I’ve never once seen you watch a guy the way you have Carson. You’re totally busted, girly. You
liiiike
him,” she said, dragged out like a teenage girl.