The Longest Ride

more nervous than she already was. She’d vetoed three of Sophia’s outfits, had lent her a pair of gold, dangly earrings and a necklace that matched, and as she skipped toward Sophia, she didn’t bother to hide her excitement.

“He’s here. I’m going downstairs to meet him at the door.”

Sophia let out a long breath. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

“No, you stay in the room for a few minutes. You don’t want him to think you were watching for him.”

“I wasn’t watching for him,” Sophia said. “You were.”

“You know what I mean. You need to make an entrance. He needs to see you coming down the stairs. The last thing you want is for him to think you’re desperate.”

“Why are you making this so complicated?” Sophia protested.

“Trust me,” Marcia said. “I know what I’m doing. Come down in three minutes. Count to a hundred or something. I’ve got to go.”

She fled, leaving Sophia alone with her nerves, her stomach feeling topsy-turvy. Which was strange, since they’d talked on the phone for an hour or more the last three nights, picking up each conversation exactly where they had left off. He would usually call around dusk, and she’d talk to him from the porch, trying to imagine how he looked at that moment and replaying their day together endlessly.

Spending time with him at the ranch was one thing. That was easy. But seeing Luke here? At the sorority house? He might as well be visiting Mars. In the three years she’d lived here, the only guys who’d ever come to the house – aside from brothers or fathers or boyfriends from back home – were either frat boys, or recently graduated frat boys, or frat boys from other colleges.

She’d gently tried to warn him but wasn’t sure quite how to tell him that the girls in the house would probably regard him as an exotic specimen, a subject of endless chatter as soon as he left. She’d suggested meeting him off campus, but he’d said he’d never been to Wake and wanted to walk around. She fought the urge to race downstairs and hurry him out the door as quickly as possible.

Remembering Marcia’s insistent advice, Sophia took a deep breath and gave herself the once-over in the mirror. Jeans, blouse, pumps: pretty much what she’d worn the last time they’d been together, but upgraded. She turned first one way and then the other, thinking, That’s all I can do. Then she gave a coy smile and admitted, But not bad at all.

She checked her watch and let another minute pass before exiting the room. During the week, men were allowed entrance only to the foyer and the parlor. The parlor, which boasted couches and a gigantic flat-screen TV, was where a lot of her sisters liked to hang out. As she approached the steps at the end of the hall, she could hear Marcia laughing in an otherwise silent room. She walked a bit faster, praying that she and Luke could escape without being noticed.

She spotted him right away, standing in the center of the room next to Marcia, hat in hand. As always, he was wearing boots and jeans, his outfit completed by a belt with a shiny, oversize silver buckle. Sophia’s heart sank as she realized that he and Marcia weren’t alone in the parlor. In fact, it was more crowded than usual, but eerily silent. Three frat boys, dressed in cargo shorts, Polos, and Top-Siders, gaped at Luke in the same way Mary-Kate did from the opposite couch. Likewise Jenny, Drew, and Brittany. Four or five more girls huddled silently in the far corner, all of them trying their best to figure out the unexpected stranger in their presence.

But as far as she could tell, their scrutiny had no effect on him. He seemed at ease, listening as Marcia chattered on, her hands gesturing flamboyantly. As she reached the entrance to the parlor, he glanced up and saw her. Breaking into a grin, his dimples flashing, he conveyed the impression that Marcia had vanished and that he and Sophia were the only two people in the room.

Sophia took a deep breath and stepped into the parlor, feeling everyone’s attention swing to her. On cue, Jenny leaned toward Drew and Brittany and whispered something. Though they’d naturally heard about her breakup with Brian, it was clear that none of them had heard about Luke, and she wondered how quickly Brian would find out that a cowboy had come to pick her up. On Greek Row, word would get around fast. She could already imagine any number of them dialing their cell phones, even before she and Luke