But things had felt…different. In her heart, she’d believed that he cared for her and it was only a matter of time before Wendy was brave enough to tell him that they should just end the pretenses. That she’d been wrong to keep pushing him away.
She’d made the biggest mistake of her life.
Not in falling for him.
But in keeping him at arms’ length.
Hallie glanced over her shoulder. “Look, they serve tea at that food truck. You like it, right? Tripp said?—”
“No.” Wendy’s response was a strangled cry. “It’s fine. I don’t need tea.”
Hallie’s frown deepened. “But?—”
“Water? Can we just get some water?” Wendy would never be able to explain that the tea Tripp brought was special. Hallie wouldn’t understand what exactly it had meant to her heart. It was just a drink for heaven’s sake.
Her friend still stared at her like she was worried something would happen to her. The frown between her brows remained even as she offered a small smile and nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll get you some water and then we have to hurry. Jacob is up soon.” Her eyes brightened just talking about him. “He’s trying the bareback event for the first time today and I told him I’d come to watch.”
“Bareback? Like riding a horse without a saddle? How does he stay on?” There was no way to hide the fact that Wendy didn’t know much about the rodeo. She’d lived in the area and come to the fairgrounds plenty, but she hadn’t been interested in the competitive events that everyone flocked to. The food and music were enough for her.
“There’s this handle thing that they put on the horses. It’s like holding a suitcase and that’s all the rider gets.” Hallie tossed the explanation over her shoulder as she hurried toward the nearest food truck for a bottle of water.
Wendy glanced around the immediate area and sighed. This was a bad idea. She didn’t want to be here.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. She would have been happy to be here if she were here with someone else. Someone she’d managed to give her heart to before she’d even realized what she was doing.
Dang it all!
The entrance to the rodeo grounds wouldn’t be too hard to get to if there weren’t so many people milling around. If she took off running right now, Hallie wouldn’t go chasing after her, would she? Hallie didn’t like drawing that kind of attention and she’d probably look a little crazy.
Scratch that, they’d both look crazy.
But at this point, Wendy didn’t care. Right about now, she was more than tempted to just call Tripp up and tell him to meet her somewhere so they could talk. There were only two things holding her back.
The first was that she didn’t know what she’d say. She didn’t know if she could put her feelings into words without sounding desperate. And Tripp was the kind of guy who didn’t do serious, so why would he want some girl desperate to ask him to be just that?
The second reason was that she was terrified about the official rejection.
Right now, she could pretend that nothing had come between them. Nothing about their agreed upon friendship had changed. Not technically, anyway. She could call him up and make some excuse, and they’d fall right back into the status quo.
Her heart would die a little if she did that, but at least she could still squeeze out a little more time with him before he found someone worth fighting for.
Wendy wrapped her arms around her stomach, suddenly queasy. She didn’t like thinking about him with anyone else.
And that was the truth of it.
This whole thing happened because she was a stubborn coward.
“Here.” Hallie thrust a plastic water bottle in front of her. It was dripping as if it’d been pulled from a cooler. “Drink up. I can’t have you getting heatstroke before your date. This is going to be good for you.”
Wendy stared at the bottle, not allowing herself to meet Hallie’s eyes. Hallie might be well aware that Wendy wasn’t ready for this date, but she wasn’t a bad friend. If Wendy told her outright that she needed to back out, Hallie would let her.
Unfortunately, Wendy wasn’t that kind of person. She’d made a commitment. She would follow through with the date if it was the last thing she did.
“Okay,” Wendy finally said with a fresh wave of determination. “Let’s get this over with.”
Hallie bit back a smile. “It’s not like you’re expected to fall in love with the guy. This is just so you can dip your toes back into the dating scene. It’s supposed to be fun.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I know.” Straightening her shoulders, she nodded. “Now, let’s go watch your boyfriend compete.”
