“Listen, no. If you don’t want the cheese, you don’t have to eat it. I’ll have the waitress bring you another bowl.” Max raised his hand to signal.
“No. It’s—it’s all right. It’s just—I do want the cheese.”
The look on Max’s face spoke of total confusion. “If you want the cheese, then why are we arguing?”
“We’re not arguing.” Cara plunged her spoon into her bowl and took a huge bite, then another, and another. That was really good. “See? Delicious. Everything’s fine.”
Max toyed with his spoon on the table. She didn’t notice until her bowl was half gone that he wasn’t eating. “Come on—you said you were starving. Eat up.”
“Cara, what’s going on?”
“I’m just eating my dinner. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I want to know what you want.”
“I think I want some air.” Cara stood up and tossed her napkin on her chair, then wove through tables until she reached the French doors that led out onto the porch. She stepped out into the warm night air and walked over to the railing, looking out across Denver. A few couples sat at tables nearby and she caught the scents of barbecue beef and scones, and now they all turned her stomach. She just wanted to go home.
She felt Max walk up behind her and then he rested his elbows on the railing. “I’m sorry,” he said after a long moment of silence. “I’ve obviously been tweaking some emotions I didn’t mean to tweak. I never meant to upset you.”
Cara wiped her cheeks. Stupid things had tears on them. “It’s not your fault. I’m ruining your special day—you should be celebrating right now, not out here with me.”
“You’re a large part of why I’m celebrating. I can’t enjoy this night if you’re not enjoying it with me.”
She tossed a glance at him. The expression on his face was so earnest, she couldn’t keep giving him the cold shoulder.
Reaching out, she grasped his hand. “No, don’t feel bad. This honestly has nothing to do with you—I’m just dealing with some demons from my past and for some reason, they’re all jumping out at me right now. You’ve been an amazing friend and I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”
“So I’m forgiven?”
“Yes, you’re forgiven.” She smiled at him. “I hope I am too.”
He leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Nothing to forgive.”
Chapter Four
It was late when Cara got back to her apartment, but all three of her roommates were up waiting for her. That really touched her—Laurie and Morgan were both engaged now, and she’d thought they’d be out smooching with Logan and Rory, but they’d chosen to stay home and wait to hear how her recording session went. She couldn’t have asked for better friends.
“Everything was perfect until I went all Cara on Max,” she said, thinking about their dinner conversation with a shudder.
“Oh, no,” Regan said. “How weird did you get?”
“I sort of freaked out when he suggested that I put cheese on my chili.”
Laurie wrapped her arm around Cara’s shoulders. “Did you explain?”
“Only sort of. It’s not like I even know him all that well—he just showed up in our lives the other day, took Morgan to South Dakota to find Rory, and made my dreams come true. He’s like a mysterious fairy godfather or something. Only, not like the Godfather. That wouldn’t be good.”
“Well, you don’t have to open up to him if you don’t want to, but I’m glad you explained a little bit,” Laurie said. “And it’s not like having gastric bypass surgery is anything to be ashamed of. Gobs of people do it, and it’s saved a lot of lives.”
“It’s not the surgery,” Cara said. “I don’t want people knowing I was that messed up as a kid.”
“Uh, it’s your mother who was so messed up,” Morgan said. “And I know messed-up mothers—consider me the expert.”
Cara nodded. Logically, she recognized that her mother’s unrelenting demand for perfection had contributed to her eating disorder and subsequent weight gain, leading to surgery right after high school. But she also recognized that no one forced that food down her mouth—that was a choice she made, and she didn’t trust herself to make the right choices even now. She wondered if an entire lifetime would be long enough to learn to let go and eat the cheese when she wanted cheese and to stop beating herself up over it.
“Look at her—she’s doing it again,” Regan said.
Cara snapped back to reality to see her roommates staring at her. “What?”
Regan chuckled. “You’re psychoanalyzing yourself in your head again, aren’t you?”
Cara’s cheeks flooded pink. “Maybe. Just a little.”
Morgan shook her head. “Yeah, it’s time to get back to talking about the good stuff. What was it like to play in a real recording studio?”
Cara spent the next twenty minutes telling her roommates everything, from meeting Jethro to what it was like to look up at the microphone and know that her voice and her guitar were being immortalized. “And . . .” She reached into her pocket. “I have a surprise.”
Laurie squealed and yanked the thumb drive out of her hand, then scrambled to grab her laptop from where it rested against the couch. A few clicks later, the strains of Cara’s guitar filled the room.
She didn’t know why she was doing this. She grabbed a throw pillow and buried her face in it, not able to look at her friends until it was all over. This way, if they flinched or shuddered, she wouldn’t know.
Her voice sounded like someone else’s, some stranger who wandered into the studio from off the street and happened to be surprisingly good. Cara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. No way was that really her.
When the song ended, no one moved or said anything. Cara peeked up from her pillow, glancing around cautiously, afraid to see everyone’s reactions. Laurie had tears in her eyes, as did Regan. Morgan was tugging on the sleeves of her shirt, something she did when she was trying to hide a deep emotion. Cara didn’t think Morgan was even aware that she did that, but Cara had seen it often enough to recognize it.
“That was incredible,” Regan said at long last. “I’m totally blown away. I could hear that on the radio right now.” Laurie and Morgan both nodded.
“Really?”
“You know I don’t give out praise unless I mean it.” Regan stood and took the two steps between couches, then leaned down and gave Cara a big hug. “It was good when you played it for us yesterday, but the recording is outstanding. I’m so proud of you.”
Cara could hardly sleep that night—the praise and acceptance from her roommates had put her into a high-adrenaline state of euphoria. She’d ended things with Max on a good note too—when he brought her home, he’d kissed her cheek and they’d parted as friends. Someday she’d explain to him why she had her little cheese-induced meltdown. For now, it was okay keeping her past in her past.
* * *
Brennan gave Cara a big hug when she got to work the next morning. Well, all of Brennan’s hugs were big, but this time he squeezed a little tighter than usual. “Don’t ever, ever, ever leave me again,” he said when he finally let her go.
“Okay . . . but why?” He hadn’t even given her a second to set down her purse, so she ducked around the corner and put it on top of the filing cabinet in the back room. He followed her.
“I was so bored, I thought I’d lose my mind.”
“Didn’t Cindy keep you entertained?”
Brennan snorted. “Hardly. That girl’s so quiet, it’s like she wasn’t even here. I was just about to start alphabetizing the rings by last name of the designer when it was finally quitting time.”
“Wow. That is pretty bored.”
“And now that you’re back, we can alphabetize them together.” He took her hand and swung it back and forth, like they were skipping down a path on their way to a picnic.
“That sounds like so much fun, I can hardly stand it.” She looked up into his eyes and saw the fami
liar wanderlust in them. “You’re itching to get out into the mountains.”
“Dying to leave. Jesse has a new tent he wants to try out.”
Cara nodded slowly, pretending to understand the excitement in his voice. “New tents are much better than old ones.”
Brennan gave her a look like he knew she didn’t get it. “He has to know if it’s a good product to carry in the store. It’s research. Trial and error. Testing and retesting. These things are important.”
“Well, we couldn’t have Jesse carrying a defective tent in the store.” Cara slipped between the jewelry display cases and checked the moisture in the plants. Those things got a lot more attention than they needed, but when the carpets were already vacuumed and the new stock was put away and everything was dusted, there really wasn’t a whole lot else to do.
“You realize I need details.”
“Details?” Cara feigned innocence. “Whatever do you mean?”
“The recording session. Denver. The whole shebang.”
“Is ‘shebang’ really a word?”
“Does it matter? Come on. Give.”
Cara perched on one of the padded stools. “Well, it was pretty awesome. I was a little more involved than I’d expected to be—the sound engineer had me lead off into the song rather than Max, and that was terrifying, but you know what, it was also fun. And I think it turned out all right.”
“When do I get to hear it?”
The question she’d been dreading. With a sigh, she pulled the thumb drive out of her pocket. “Here it is. But you can’t tease me.”
“Why would I tease you?” Brennan took the drive from her outstretched hand and glanced around the shop just to make sure that a customer hadn’t wandered in unnoticed, then stepped over to the computer in the corner that acted as a cash register and maybe, just maybe, was also sometimes used for a game of Solitaire on rainy days. He popped the drive into the USB slot, clicked the mouse a few times, and stood back as the soft strains of Cara’s guitar filled the shop.
It was torture, listening to the song and waiting for it to end so she could just get the evaluation over with. She couldn’t decide if this or playing it for her roommates was harder.
When the last notes died out, she expected Brennan to say something, but he didn’t. Her curiosity finally got the better of her and she glanced over to see him looking at her with an odd expression on his face.
“Just spit it out,” she said. “It will be a lot less painful.”
“Painful? What are you talking about?”
Cara shook her head in exasperation. “Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m just wasting my time, that only little girls with silly dreams play the guitar and I should focus on something really important, like my career or getting another degree?”
Brennan crossed the floor and pulled up a stool next to her. “Hey, I don’t know who you’re quoting there, but that’s not how I feel. Not at all. Cara, that was amazing. Honestly, I’ve never heard anything more beautiful.”
She was about to retort, but then she saw the sincerity in his eyes. He meant it. “You liked it?”
He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “I loved it. I had no idea you were so talented, and I can’t wait to see what you do next. But now tell me. Who were you quoting a minute ago?”
“Quoting?”
“Yeah, all that stuff about silly girls and their guitars. Where did that come from?”
Cara ducked her head. She hadn’t meant to say what she had, but now she guessed she’d better explain it. “My mother. She never approved of this ‘obsession’ I have with music. Or with just about anything else I do.” She often found herself telling things to Brennan that she wouldn’t have told anyone else.
“Do you think she’ll change her mind once she hears this song on the radio?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it.” It was hard to imagine her elegant and straight-laced mother even listening to popular radio, let alone being proud of her daughter for taking part in something so common. Then the rest of what Brennan had said sank in.
“Do you really think the song will make it on the radio?”
Brennan chuckled. “What have you been doing all this for? To let it sit on a computer somewhere and never see the light of day? Of course it’s going to make it on the radio. It’s what you’ve always wanted, what you’ve always dreamed about. If I know anything about Max, this demo will be on hundreds of desks by the end of the week.”
Max was pretty determined. He knew what he wanted—had always known what he wanted. And if he was sending this demo out to hundreds of contacts, that meant the possibility of hundreds of rejections. Hundreds of slammed doors. Hundreds of disapproving looks, of being told over and over again that they weren’t good enough. She shuddered without meaning to.
Just then, the door to the shop opened, and Laurie and Logan walked in. Cara was glad to see her roommate—it was a welcome distraction from her cycle of depressing and frightening thoughts.
“Welcome to Marchbanks and Sons,” she greeted them formally, as she’d been trained to do. “How may we help you today?”
“We’d like to pick out some rings,” Logan replied, a grin on his face. “Do you know of any friendly sales clerks who might be willing to help us?”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Cara invited the two of them over to the bridal display case, where they sat down and began to look over the rings in the velvet holders. She noticed Laurie glancing at Brennan. This must be awkward for both of them, her choosing out an engagement ring right in front of him. But he seemed unconcerned. Had he really gotten over Laurie that quickly, or was he just exceptionally good at hiding his feelings?
Cara pulled her attention back to her customers and asked Laurie what kind of engagement ring she’d like. The next twenty minutes were nothing but fun as her friend tried on different styles and metals. Logan didn’t seem at all worried about price, which made things even more fun, but Cara knew that Laurie wouldn’t go for anything huge. She liked pretty things that were also practical. Her very favorite was a marquis, but that cut has a tendency to snag on fabrics, and with Laurie’s job at the bridal shop, that wouldn’t do at all. So she finally settled on a beautiful round diamond with a smaller diamond on each side set in white gold.
“This is amazing,” Laurie said, holding her hand up to the light to admire the sparkle of the gems. The sample ring was a little large, but it wouldn’t take long for them to have hers ready. “Do you like it?” she asked Logan.
“I love it,” he said without even glancing at her hand.
She nudged his arm. “Come on now—I want a serious answer. You’re going to have to look at this on my finger for the rest of our lives. You need to like it too.”
Logan caught her hand and studied the ring. “I do like it. I wanted to get you something bigger, though.”
“I’d never feel comfortable wearing something bigger.”
“Okay, this is the one.” Logan turned back to Cara. “And we definitely need to look at wedding bands while we’re here.”
Cara felt a little guilty, handling this nice sale while Brennan sat there with nothing to do. But a few moments later, a man came in looking for a mother’s ring for his mom’s seventy-fifth birthday, and that made Cara feel a little bit better.
She wondered why Mr. Marchbanks was being so strange about their sales figures all of a sudden. They’d had downtimes in the past, but he’d always been logical about them, citing the economy or the price of gold, and then they’d have another good season and it would make up for the dip. This time, though, there was an edge to his anxiety, and it made Cara wonder if there was more going on than he was saying.
With the purchase of Laurie’s engagement ring and her wedding band, and Logan’s wedding band, that brought Cara up to three rings out of five—thank goodness. She’d be able to quell the slight panic she’d been feeling ever since the goal had been set.
“I’ll give you a call as soon as
your rings have been sized,” she told Logan, glancing at Laurie to include her in the conversation as well. “It will be about a week.”
“That’s great,” Logan replied. “And thanks for your help.” He gave her a quick wink. “But I think I need one more thing.” He turned to Brennan. “I’d like to get a necklace for my mother. Would you help me out?”
Cara spoke to Laurie while the men hunkered down over a selection of chains. “Did you tell Logan about our sales quotas?” she asked.
Laurie’s face was all innocence. “I might have mentioned it. Why do you ask?”
“I just think it’s very nice that he’s giving Brennan a commission too.”
“That’s one of the things I love about Logan,” Laurie said. “He uses his money to help those around him. His mother will get a nice gift, Brennan will get a sale, and everyone’s happy.”
Logan did look happy as he slipped his mother’s necklace into his pocket. “All right, I think we’re set.”
“Thanks again for helping me choose my ring, Cara,” Laurie said as she walked toward the door to join her fiancé. Cara grinned. It wasn’t every day that you got to help one of your best friends pick out the most important jewelry of her life. She wished she’d been able to sell a ring to Rory for Morgan, but she had to admit that the Black Hills gold ring he’d chosen for her was perfect. Cara didn’t have anything in her jewelry case that could create that emotional connection.
She was just locking up the jewelry case when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out to see a text from Max. Played a couple of the rough songs to a producer I met randomly up here at the lodge. He really likes them. Wants to talk to us. Are you free tonight?
What? Cara didn’t think those songs would be played for anyone until Jethro finished working his magic on them. She texted back. A producer? Already?
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