Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2) (34 page)

“Brainy Beacon,” Liz mumbled.

“Ah, right. And here you are taking all the sordid gossip you’ve heard about Carter at face value? I’m shocked.”

Liz eyed the heart monitor worriedly. “Please don’t get yourself worked up right now...”

“
Pfft
. Then stop being a ninny!”

“I’m trying to be cautious. Being a ninny is what landed me on the front page of the newspaper with my underwear hanging out.”

“Being a ninny is what has you sitting in this chair like a sad sack thinking you’ve run out of options.”

“No, I’ve just run out of plans.”

“Then smarten up and make a new plan.”

C
ARTER STOPPED PACING the moment Liz entered the waiting room. She’d been gone nearly two hours. He’d practically worn a path in the carpet. “How is she? Is she okay?”

“Yeah.” Liz stepped toward him as if dazed, shaking her head, a small, relieved smile tilting the corners of her mouth. “She was just dehydrated. Can you believe it?”

“Dehydrated?”

“I guess too much alcohol and caffeinated coffee and not enough healthy fluids will do that. The doctor thinks the dehydration was triggering mild palpitations and dizzy spells and anxiety made them worse. Trish is taking her home as soon as she’s discharged.” Liz smiled. “I just ran into your grandmother in the hall. She’s headed to the hardware store. It seems she’s convinced a water filter will encourage Aunt Claire to drink more tap water.”

Carter nodded, the relief rolling off his shoulders in waves. Despite their earlier confrontation, he’d hated to see Liz worried. Had felt her concern as if it were his own.

Liz fidgeted with her purse strap and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m sorry to take you away from your work for nothing. I suppose it’s too late for you to get back to your job.”

He didn’t bother to tell her he hadn’t been working. The intermittent rain had been a convenient excuse to spend the morning kicking himself for being so insensitive earlier. He’d acted like a jerk. “It’s okay. I was happy to wait.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at her watch and Carter felt an overwhelming urge to keep her with him. To make it up to her.

“How about an early dinner?” he suggested.

She shook her head. “I don’t feel up to cook—”

“We’ll let someone else do the cooking. You look like you could use a break.”

“I don’t think—”

“Just friends,” he insisted, though why he did he couldn’t say. He didn’t want to be friends with Liz. He wanted to be much more, in fact. “I know just the place.”

Before she could protest again, he was tugging her with him.

L
IZ ORDERED AN ICED TEA and slid into the booth as Elvis Presley crooned in the background.  Aunt Claire was right. Liz had taken the gossip about town at face value, never giving Carter the benefit of the doubt. And here he’d been nothing but helpful, considerate and charming since she’d set foot back in Sugar Falls. Asking her out to dinner was just another example.

Meanwhile, she’d been no better than all those who’d never seen beyond the successful student to the Liz she was inside. Didn’t she owe Carter more than that? She at least owed him her appreciation. She glanced gratefully across the table. “I want to thank—”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make me out to be some Good Samaritan. I didn’t help today because I’m a good person, Liz. I did it because it was
you
.”

Liz folded her hands on the table in front of her. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”

“You always gave me more credit than I deserved.”

Perhaps compliments embarrassed him. Liz let the comment slide and tried to relax. The creak of the vinyl seat as she shifted position and the warm scents of coffee and fried food could almost lull a person into believing you could come home again. Almost. But she wasn’t so naïve as to believe in happily-ever-afters even if she
did
believe Carter deserved the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he wasn’t as wild as everyone made him out to be, but that didn’t really change anything.

She sucked in a bolstering breath and faced him.

“I fly back to Chicago in two days,” she announced.

“To him?”

Liz straightened her napkin. “No.”

“Good.”

She glanced up in surprise. Carter’s eyes were dark as he looked at her, that rare, serious intensity on his face, and she knew she couldn’t pretend indifference anymore. Couldn’t pretend they were just casual friends—or casual lovers even—enjoying a meal. They had shared more than a few nights of pleasant camaraderie. More than physical passion. He deserved to know the truth. And for some reason she couldn’t explain, she
needed
him to know she was being completely honest with him. “You were right,” she admitted. “About Grant. I called him after you left.”

He didn’t say a word, didn’t ask what he was right about. They both knew what she meant. Liz mumbled a thanks to the waitress for their drinks then picked up her menu. She looked back at Carter. “What?” she prompted, embarrassment flooding her as he continued to stare. “No comment? No I-told-you-so’s?”

“Is that what you want me to say?” he asked. “Would that make it easier to walk away? Go back to Chicago?”

“Walk away? Chicago is my home.”

He grunted and picked up his coffee.

Liz sipped her iced tea and let out a sigh. Maybe agreeing to dinner had been a bad idea. Maybe she should have gone...

“
Godammit, Liz!”
The utensils chattered on the tabletop as Carter’s fist slammed down on it suddenly. “It doesn’t end here.”

Liz’s eyes skittered toward the other diners. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“Don’t you? This.
Us.”
He gestured back and forth between them. “It doesn’t end here. I won’t let it.”

“I don’t think it’s—”

“It’s not about thinking!” he cut in, reaching across to grip her fingers in his. “You can’t tell me what happened this weekend meant nothing! You can’t sit there all quiet and calm and tell me you
felt
nothing!”

Her heart hammered in her chest as his fiercely whispered words pounded against her. “What do you want from me?”

“You’re not ‘sort of’ engaged anymore, are you?” he demanded.

“No.”

“Then there’s nothing stopping you from giving us a chance.”

“A chance? You make it sound like—”

“Like we have something good going here? We do. And it’s something worth... exploring.”

“I can’t believe you’re that hard up for sex,” she scoffed.

His eyes glittered, and she felt his fingers flex over her own. “What makes you think this is about sex?”

“Isn’t it?” she countered, slipping her hands out of his, her smile taut as the waitress returned to take their orders. She couldn’t delude herself into believing it was more than that. Not again.

Carter sat back and all but tossed the menus at the waitress. “Two cheeseburgers. Medium. And a large onion rings.”

Liz glared at him as the waitress retreated. “I was going to order a taco salad.”

“Forget the damn food. Now what’s this horse,” he caught himself and lowered his voice, “crap about my wanting you only for sex? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Stupid? I’m sorry. You haven’t exactly been a monk all these years. I figured a zebra doesn’t change his stripes.”

“So you think I’m working this hard just to get laid? ‘Cause let me tell you, I could get laid with a whole lot less hassle if I wanted to.”

“That’s flattering.”

“It should be. I don’t want some easy woman, Liz. I want
you
.” He shook his head and choked on a laugh as he shoved his hand through his hair. “For some reason I haven’t figured out, I like your company more than other women. I like your lists. I even like your crazy, run-for-the-hills-every-chance-he-can-get cat. Sure, I like the sex, and I hope we can have a whole lot more of it, because I haven’t begun to do to you all I’ve thought about doing to you, but—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—even if we
didn’t
have sex, I’d
still
want to spend time with you.”

Liz stared at him, her heart thudding in her breast as she struggled to absorb his words. Fought against her own cynicism to believe them. “You would?”

He reached across and took her hands again. Warmed them. “
Yes.”

She couldn’t look away, couldn’t tear her gaze from his as the energy—the need—coursing into her through their entwined fingers held her in its grasp. “So what do you want from me?” she breathed.

He shrugged. “Six weeks?”

Liz blinked, trying vainly to control her pulse and scattered thoughts. She pulled her hands back and folded them in her lap. “Six weeks?” she echoed.

Carter smiled, a brilliant, intoxicating light, as he leaned across the table again.  “Yeah. Six weeks. If at the end you’re done with me, that’s it. We call it quits. If you’re not—”

“If I’m not?”

“We renegotiate.”

Liz twirled her straw in her tea, stalling for time. “I leave for Chicago in two days.”

“Go back Sunday instead. Give us another weekend together.”

“Even if I could get my flights changed...” She shook her head. “This is crazy. What do you expect to happen in six weeks? I’m not even going to be here most—”

“Just give me a chance is all I’m asking for. Let what’s happening between us happen. Don’t think about the distance or the logistics. No over-thinking. No excuses. Just... enjoy it. ”

She bit her lip and studied him. “What about sex?”

“I’m for it. You?”

She shook her head even as a smile curved her lips, the warm suggestion in his eyes sending electric tingles to her toes—and other places. She doubted she’d ever find equilibrium again. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”

“Then say ‘yes.’”

“I,” she met his gaze and soaked in the promises unspoken there, forgot the humiliation, the rational arguments. Forgot to be jaded. “Fine. Six weeks,” she said.

“Let’s shake on it.”

Liz reached toward him then yelped in surprise as Carter clasped her hand and all but pulled her over the table. “On second thought, let’s seal it with a kiss.”

“I—”

And that was the last rational thought she had as his lips slid over hers, teasing, tempting... until a polite cough intruded on Liz’s consciousness and with her lips still planted on Carter’s, she slid her eyes over to see the waitress who was waiting to deliver their appetizer.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
____________________

“I
WONDER IF THEY’VE HAD SEX YET.”

Ruth gave Lydia a quelling look. They’d arrived at Claire’s house soon after Claire returned home from the hospital bearing food and non-alcoholic drinks to celebrate the fact that Claire wasn’t, in fact, dying. At this age, it was always cause to celebrate when one left the hospital on one’s own two feet.

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable question. I bet they have.”

Ruth pulled the cover off her hastily prepared veggie platter and set to work making chicken salad sandwiches.

Claire sipped the lemonade they’d set in front of her and made a face. “They have. But it’s too soon. Things aren’t going well.”

“Things are going perfectly well,” June disagreed as she set a bakery box on the counter. The smell of chocolate wafted through the kitchen. “I’ve spoken to Kate myself. There’s definitely something brewing there.”

“They’re barely talking,” Ruth said. “Did you see how awkward things were when they left the E.R.? I’d say there’s a definite problem.”

“And I’m saying if he and Liz are having issues it means they mean something to each other. I think things are going swimmingly.”

“I agree with June!” said Lydia as she gathered plates and utensils. “Kate even left town on Jim. Remember that? But that all turned out in the end. Give it time. If the sex is good, they’ll be back together...”

“If the sex is good? Where’d you hear that?” asked Claire. “People have sex all the time without getting married.”

“That’s just everyday sex,” said Lydia, popping a cherry tomato into her mouth. “Over the moon sex is entirely different.”

“How do we know they’re having over the moon sex?” Claire wanted to know.

“I suppose you could ask her,” Ruth said.

“Yes!” said Lydia. “Ask her.”

“Ask her. Right. I’ll just walk up to my grandniece and ask if she’s having over the moon sex with my best friend’s grandson.”

“Or, you could call her, I suppose.”

Claire gave Lydia a look. “And I start this conversation how?”

“Why don’t you ask Trish?” said June. “She’d probably know.”

Claire shook her head. “Listen to us. It’s not fortune telling cards that are bringing these two together, it’s a bunch of meddling old women. I’m not asking anybody anything. Let’s play cards.”