Page 9 of Practice Makes Perfect

“Of course,” I tell her, shrugging a shoulder. “I need to use all my tricks to get in good with that one.”

Maya shakes her head and gives me look. “No. He just needed time to get to know you. He can be a little shy,” she explains. Her gaze moves over my shoulder for a moment. “Not unlike someone else I know.”

My eyes follow hers to where Carter has come in carrying a small rocking chair. He disappears momentarily into the storeroom before appearing once more, dusting his hands off against his jeans. His steps falter slightly when he sees me, but he keeps moving, a smile on his face. “How’s day one of training going?”

“Great,” Maya says a little too brightly. I give her a deadpan look and her expression looks slightly pained. “Well, it’s going at any rate. There are just one or two issues we seem to keep getting hung up on.” One or two issues is putting a pretty face on it, but since I’m already calling myself six kinds of incompetent, I appreciate her going easy on me.

“Like what?” he asks, moving between Maya and me. Warmth pours off his skin and I find myself leaning closer, wanting to bask in it like a lizard in the sun.

It takes me a few moments to realize he’s looking at me, and I shake my head to clear away my strange thoughts so that I can explain the issue. “Oh. Um, anytime someone pays with cash, I get tripped up on what steps are what and then the computer freezes.” Then I panic and start to wonder if maybe I should just smile and try to find a rich husband who wants a trophy wife since there’s nothing else going on between my ears, but I keep that little tidbit to myself.

Carter nods thoughtfully. “That’s understandable. The system is a little tricky until you get used to it.” There he goes being nice again. How am I supposed to not crush on a man who is always trying to put me at ease when my internal freak-out alarm is blaring? “Okay. Let’s go through a pretend sale and we’ll see what happens.” He presses a few keys and gets to the sale screen. Putting his hand on the small of my back, he steers me in front of him, but stays close behind. “Show me what you would do at this point.”

Normally when a guy I want this badly is standing as close to me as he is, what I would do is rub myself all over him like a horny cat, but I can’t do that here. My eyes flick over to Maya, noting the knowing smile on her face. Ignoring it and her, I punch in the keys for a cash sale and the beeping sound happens again. “Ugh. I’m hopeless,” I whine, covering my face with my hands. When I can’t get something as simple as a cash sale right, it’s hard not to feel like anyone who ever thought of me as nothing more than a pretty face was right. Sometimes I wonder how I even got through school before remembering that charm and personality go a long way with professors when you need leniency on missed assignments, but that won’t work here.

Carter grabs my wrists and brings my hands down to the counter. “Not hopeless,” he censures lightly His head is next to mine, and when his breath fans against my cheek, I smell cinnamon and clove. Is that his gum or how he naturally smells? Either way, my mouth starts to water as I think about getting a taste. “You’re just getting the order a little mixed up. Its sale, cash, complete, enter. Not cash, sale, enter, complete.” Completely oblivious to my inappropriate thoughts about running my tongue along his lips, he grabs a post it note and scribbles the order down before sticking it to the monitor. “There. Now you have a reminder until you get the hang of it.”

When I peek over at him, he’s smiling gently at me and even though he helped me with something so simple, I still want to hug the crap out of him for being incredibly patient with me. “Thank you,” I prattle at him. I lick my dry lips and watch as Carter tracks the movement of my tongue.

“Anytime.” His voice is a little rough as his gaze never strays from my mouth.

JJ peeling out of the office making dino noises causes us to jump back from one another. “Hey, Little J.” Carter calls out to his nephew before scooping him up in his arms. The spell that seems to settle between us at times is once again broken, and I am left to wonder why it keeps happening. “I have a few minutes before I have to go back into the workshop. Want to play?”

“Play a-me, Carda,” JJ exclaims. Soon he’s clapping his hands on his uncle’s cheeks and squeezing them tightly. “Bi-wee got me a dino.” JJ takes his new toy and smashes it on top of Carter’s head, causing him to break out in a laugh. The low, melodic sound is nice, and one I wouldn’t mind hearing more often. Seeing the two of them interact is always so sweet, and it’s giving me ideas about a family of my own.

“Well, that was very nice of her,” Carter remarks, looking over at me and nodding. “We still on for that hike later?” When I nod eagerly, he smiles and heads into the office with JJ.

Exhaling slowly, I stare at the space that Carter occupied for a long moment. Maya steps up next to me and I jump, having totally forgotten she was there. “So … you and my brother, huh?” Her open expression does nothing to hide the fact that she is keenly interested in my answer to that question. Luckily, I can be completely honest with her in my response.

A choking sound comes from my throat and I shake my head quickly to dispel any notion of something untoward happening between Carter and me. “No. No, no, no. We’re just friends,” I assure her. Everything in my body is telling me that it could be so much more than that, but Maya doesn’t need to be privy to that information.

Maya hums and nods, but her eyes are bright with mirth. “If you say so.” She heads into the office and joins her brother and her son. As I watch the three of them play, I can’t help but picture a very similar scene from sometime in the near future. Only this time, it’s Carter, me, and a little boy with green eyes and dark brown hair. Reeling from that strange image, I bump into the counter. Where did that come from? The question plagues my mind while my heart tugs at the vision. It would be lovely if it were real, but I’m supposed to be working on finding myself. Putting thoughts of that future aside, I turn around and try to get back to work, but the whole time a question keeps running through my mind. Do I have to be alone to find myself, or could someone I already find myself caring a lot about be part of that journey too? As my eyes once again look over at Carter, I find myself hoping it’s the latter.

Chapter Seven

Carter

Normally when I go hiking, most of my focus is taken up by the sights and sounds of the surrounding area. Gazing up at the sky or into the crystal clear lake water that reflects the white wisps of clouds is something I do often when I’m out here, but today all my attention is being drawn to the woman hiking next to me. Even though I keep trying to convince myself that the reason I’m concentrating on Billie is to make sure she doesn’t trip and fall, I know the real reason. The trail around the lake is one of the easiest around town, and she isn’t having trouble with it, but I am. Billie is … distracting.

Her hiking outfit is comprised of tiny biker shorts that cling to her strong thighs and an even clingier tank top that shows off an ample amount of cleavage. It still gets chilly in the evenings, so I recommended she bring a jacket, but she shrugged off the suggestion and insisted that it would “mess up her look.” Right now I wish she was a little more into function over fashion because I can’t stop staring at all the smooth, olive skin on display. As I once again find myself staring at her, my feet stumble over the nearly obstacle free terrain, but luckily I catch myself before I can face plant into the underbrush near the line of evergreen trees.

Billie reaches over and grabs my arms to help me right myself. “Are you okay?” My cheeks flush with embarrassment and I nod, unable to form words for fear of confessing just how cute she looks with her hair in the long twin braids that rest on her shoulders. Billie’s mouth quirks up into a teasing smile, one that I know well and is quickly becoming one of my favorite smiles of hers. “You know, for someone who goes hiking and camping all the time, you kind of trip up a lot.”

“I’m normally a lot less clumsy.” I rub the back of my neck nervously, hoping that she hasn’t discovered the real reason behind my lack of coordination. “Maybe I overdid it this weekend.”

Billie hums thoughtfully as she gives me a slow once over. As her eyes trail up and down my body, I feel myself tremble despite the heat of the day. “Well, we have been going nonstop for the last twenty minutes. Do you want to take a break?”

“Sure,” I reply quickly. Hopefully a short stop will give me a chance to get my bearings so that I can keep from making a total fool of myself in front of her, the odds of which are increasing exponentially with each passing minute spent in her presence.

We come across a fallen tree that looks out across the lake and take a seat on the soft bark. After digging around my backpack, I pass her a water and take a sip of my own, hoping the liquid will douse some of the flames of desire that flicker in my body anytime I look at Billie. Brushing my reaction off as something that is happening because it’s been so long since I’ve had sex with anyone other than myself is something I could easily do, but I know that isn’t the case. There is some enigmatic quality in Billie that I’m really drawn to. She is bright and effervescent, but it’s more than that. I highly doubt she would go for someone as reserved as I am, but if I can figure out what it is about her exactly that calls to me, then maybe I can get past it and over the crazy crush that I’ve developed. Once that’s behind me, I can go out and find my real person because there is no way it could be her.

Thinking back on what brought her to Starlight Lake in the first place, I turn to Billie and broach the subject. “So, you came here to find out a little more about yourself, right?”

“That was the plan.” Billie turns to me, a wry smile on her face. “I’m not exactly excited at the prospect, though.”

My brow furrows. “Why not? Isn’t that the point of all this?” My hand sweeps across the expansive scene in front of us. “Life is all about finding out who we are and where we fit in the world, our own smaller worlds and the larger one as a whole.”

Billie sighs next to me. “I guess.” Instead of focusing on the gorgeous view of the trees and lake, she studies her hands intently for a moment before her gaze meets mine. “What if I don’t like what I find?”

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