The Wingman

by Natasha Anders

  “Oh, come on!” she seethed and muttered a few choice words under her breath. She glared at the back of the car and frowned when the brake lights came on as it slowed down. When the reverse lights flashed on, she had a moment’s panic as she imagined a psychopath kidnapping her before the car got close enough for her to recognize it as Mason Carlisle’s Jeep.

  The feeling of relief didn’t last long as she faced the reality of seeing him again. While looking like a drowned rat. Lovely.

  The Jeep drew abreast of her. The passenger window lowered, and she stared into the adorable face of a yellow Labrador retriever mix. The lolling, grinning face distracted her for a brief moment before Mason’s voice drew her back to reality.

  “Daisy?”

  “Oh, Mason, hey.” She strove for casual, difficult when she knew she probably looked completely ridiculous.

  “What the hell are you doing out here in this downpour?” He was incredulous.

  “Just taking my dog for a walk. It wasn’t raining when we left.” She watched his eyes drop to her feet and then continue searching.

  “What dog?”

  “Uh . . . Peaches.” She drew her tiny dog out from beneath the protective cover of her coat, and the shivering animal immediately snarled at the bigger dog. The Lab’s reaction was comical; he yelped and dove to the floor in front of the seat and cowered beneath the dashboard.

  “Jesus, Coop. Stop embarrassing me.” Mason sounded so completely disgruntled that Daisy couldn’t help grinning as she tucked Peaches back under her coat.

  “Anyway . . . I’ll see you later,” she said with an insouciant little wave and started to wade off in the direction of her house.

  “Daisy, get in the car,” Mason commanded.

  “We’re nearly home.”

  “Coop, in the back,” he ordered, and the Lab complied without hesitation. Daisy was impressed by the dog’s level of training.

  “Daisy, get in the car,” he said again, in the exact same tone of voice that he had just used on his dog, and she immediately bristled.

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Seriously? You’re going to be pointlessly stubborn? Why?”

  Good question. Daisy heaved a sigh and acknowledged that she really had no reason not to get into the car other than her own pride and vanity, and Mason Carlisle cared about neither. He was just an acquaintance offering her a lift home, and she was turning this friendly, meaningless gesture into a thing.

  “I didn’t want to inconvenience you,” she said as she opened the car door. He seemed to accept her half-truth.

  “Nonsense, we’re headed that way anyway.” Daisy clambered into the seat gracelessly, and when her half-frozen fingers fumbled with the seat belt, he reached over to help, enveloping her in his warmth and masculine scent. As he fastened it for her, Peaches’s wet little head popped out from beneath Daisy’s coat, and she took a nip at Mason’s fingers while he clipped the belt in.

  “No!” he growled at Peaches, and her dog reconsidered her attitude and licked his knuckles instead. He raised his startling green eyes to hers, eyebrows raised quizzically. “Is this thing really a dog? It looks like a half-drowned hamster to me.”

  “Sh,” Daisy hissed. “You’ll hurt her feelings. She’s a toy Pom. Give her a break; she’s drenched and not looking her finest right now.” The same could be said for her owner, and his eyes seemed to warm with laughter as he acknowledged her unspoken words.

  “Coop’s wet too,” he pointed out. “And he still looks like a dog.”

  “Well, Coop has natural good looks; sadly it doesn’t come that easily to Peaches.”

  “Well, she’s a feisty little thing, so hopefully she knows that a big personality is as attractive as all the other surface fluff.”

  Daisy wasn’t at all sure they were discussing the dogs anymore, and she wasn’t comfortable with the perceived subtext. She loathed being told that she had a good personality, and that was what it felt like Mason was doing here. Girls with “good personalities” never got the guy. They were never the romantic leads. They were always just the comic relief and the best friend. Daisy was so sick of being that girl, and she would rather not hear that Mason Carlisle saw her in the exact same light as everyone else.

  Then again, she could be reading too much into his words, and he could just be talking about Peaches.

  “She’s cold,” she said, changing the subject abruptly. “We should get her home and dried off.”

  “Of course,” he said after a weighty silence. “We’ll have you home in no time.” He pulled away from the curb, and the short drive to her house was conducted in silence. When he slid to a stop in front of her gate a couple of minutes later, she smiled at him.

  “Thank you so much. In this weather, it would probably have taken us much longer to get back home.”

  “Always a pleasure.”

  “We’re lucky you came along.”

  “I’m sorry about splashing you back there; I wasn’t expecting any pedestrians out in this downpour. I wouldn’t have seen you if not for all that pink.”

  “Why were you out in this?” She couldn’t contain her curiosity anymore, and the question just slipped out.

  “Cooper and I went for a run on the beach. We would have gone earlier, but I decided to wait until the rain let up a bit.” He went jogging in this weather? On the beach? Who did that? Even if it wasn’t raining, it was still cold and windy. Conditions weren’t ideal.

  “Jogging on the beach? But it must have been pretty rough out there.”

  “Yeah, there’s a helluva storm surge. I cut our run short because I was concerned Cooper would try to take a dip and be pulled out to sea.” Daisy shuddered at the thought. “He stayed well away from the water’s edge, though. I mean, he usually loves the ocean, but I think it freaked him out today. Still, I wasn’t going to take the risk, so we left just before this downpour started.”

  “Well, Peaches and I both thank you for your timely rescue.”

  “Coop and I are always happy to rescue pretty damsels.” She screwed up her nose at that.

  “Cooper’s been hiding from Peaches since the moment we climbed into this car,” she pointed out, glancing back at the dog. He was pressed as far back as he could get and giving her some serious whale eye. As if sensing his fear, Peaches poked her tiny black nose out and kept up an unrelenting series of kittenish growls. Poor Cooper looked terrified.

  “Peaches, behave,” Daisy admonished. “I’m sorry, she’s usually a lot friendlier than this. She loves other dogs and loves people, but she must be in a bad mood because of the weather or something. I’ve never seen her behave like this before.”

  Mason looked skeptical but refrained from commenting.

  “So, I’ll pick you up tonight at seven?” he suddenly said, and Daisy blinked at him for an uncomprehending moment.

  “Uh . . .” She was aware of her mouth opening and closing and knew she probably looked like a fish out of water. “About that . . .”

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” he interrupted, his voice mild despite the profanity, and her mouth snapped shut. “No backing out, Daisy.”

  “But it . . .”

  “Seven. Let’s see how tonight goes and reevaluate after that, okay?”

  “It was a stupid idea.”

  “Maybe. But I’m still happy to do it and make it convincing. If nothing else, we’ll have a nice evening out and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “Okay.” It was far from “okay,” but she’d set this whole stupid thing in motion, and now it felt like a runaway train that was building momentum as it headed toward a brick wall.

  “Great.” He watched while she climbed out of his stupidly high car. “See you later.”

  He continued to observe as she walked up the path and unlocked the door, and when she turned to wave at him, he drove off with a cheerful honk of the horn. It was only when she was inside that she realized that she should probably have insisted on driving herself tonight. That way sh
e would be in control of what time she left.

  Just another stupid mistake to add to the long list of colossal mistakes that she had made over the last twenty-four hours.

  After blow-drying Peaches and taking another shower to warm herself up, Daisy finally succumbed to the inevitable and called Daff back. Her sister’s messages hadn’t let up at all, and having her phone buzz every five minutes was aggravating.

  “Daisy?” Daff sounded out of breath when she answered her phone, and Daisy frowned.

  “Are you jogging?” What was it with people running or walking in this weather today?

  “What? In this, are you crazy?” Her sister was still puffing slightly.

  “So why are you out of breath?”

  “I was doing Pilates. Stop trying to distract me and tell me what happened between you and Mason Carlisle last night.”

  “Nothing. We talked and he gave me a ride home. He’s a nice man. Very gentlemanly.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “What did you expect me to say? He brought me home and we . . . we did it like monkeys all night long?” Daisy blushed when, after pausing for a beat, her sister roared with laughter.

  “Did you really just say ‘did it like monkeys’?” Daisy’s jaw lifted defensively. Daff could be so obnoxious sometimes.

  “I said what I said,” she muttered, her voice brittle, and Daff, sensing her embarrassment, tried to tone down her amusement.

  “You need to lighten up, Daisy Doodle,” she teased, using the family’s embarrassing nickname for Daisy.

  “I would if I wasn’t the constant butt of your jokes.” Okay, Daisy knew she was being a bit unfair; Daff didn’t usually make fun of her. At least not maliciously. It was always just good-natured sibling ribbing.

  “I was just teasing you,” Daff said, wounded.

  “I know.” Daisy sighed. “I’m sorry, Daff. I’ve been a little oversensitive lately. PMS probably.”

  “So what was all that with you and Mason Carlisle last night?”

  “We chatted for a bit, I said I was going home, and he offered me a lift. That’s the extent of it . . .” She paused again, thinking she should embellish on that, especially since she was about to be seen in public with the man again in just a few hours’ time.

  “Oh.” Daff—bless her heart—sounded disappointed. “He seemed really into you.”

  “We are going out to dinner later,” she informed reluctantly and winced when Daff squealed.

  “Oh my God! Seriously?”

  Daisy shifted uncomfortably before reiterating, “It’s just dinner.”

  “Dinner with Mason Carlisle! Shar is going to absolutely shit herself with envy.”

  “I don’t care what Shar thinks.”

  “What are you going to wear?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, but it does! Lia and I will be over in half an hour to help you get ready.”

  “No!” Daisy snapped. “It’s not like that. It’s nothing romantic. It’s just dinner. Between friends. I don’t want you and Lia blowing this out of proportion. I’m wearing jeans, and that’s that.”

  “Half an hour, Deedee.” Yet another nickname—an abbreviated, equally horrific version of “Daisy Doodle.”

  “Daff, no!” She should have known her sister would make a big deal out of this. “I don’t need your help.”

  “See you later,” Daff said cheerily and hung up before Daisy could protest any further.

  “God.” Daisy squeezed her eyes shut and resisted the urge to throw her phone across the room. She settled on shaking it instead and screaming in frustration, surprising Peaches out of a snooze. Maybe if she changed out of her comfy sweats and into something dressier before her sisters got here it would dissuade them from once again trying to “pretty her up.”

  The thought spurred her into action, and she leapt up from the sofa to dash into her bedroom and frantically throw something on.

  When Daff, Lia, and their mother showed up exactly half an hour later, Daisy was hot and flushed but dressed and ready for her dinner.

  “You all wasted your time,” she said by way of greeting. “I don’t need your help. I’m dressed already, see?”

  “Darling, if there’s one thing I have told you time and time again, just because a woman is dressed does not mean that she is ready,” her mother admonished, leaving a trail of Joy in her wake as she swept past Daisy.

  “What she said,” Daff said smugly, leaving her own expensive vapor trail to mingle with her mother’s as she also brushed past a bemused Daisy.

  “Hi, Daisy,” Lia greeted with a warm hug. Her middle sister had always been the sweetest, most eager to please of the three daughters. She never saw the bad in manipulative people like Shar and Zinzi and allowed them to walk all over her. Lia’s sweet naïveté was also why Daff, and even Daisy, despite being the youngest, felt protective over her and had tried to curtail the whole Clayton thing back in its nascence.

  “Hey, Lia,” Daisy greeted, returning the hug.

  “Sorry about this,” Lia whispered. “I tried to stop them, but you know how they get.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thank you again for the boots. They were my favorite gift. I don’t think I’ll use any of the other stuff,” she confessed with a blush.

  “Not even that gigantic green dildo?” Daisy asked, raising her voice slightly.

  “Sh!” Lia covered Daisy’s laughing mouth with her hand as she darted a frantic glance around to see if their mother had overheard, but the older woman was busy fawning over Peaches. The dog was doing her crowd-pleasing, guaranteed-to-get-her-cuddles, two-legged jig. Daisy’s mother, Millicent, was eating it up with a spoon. The older woman adored animals. She didn’t even mind dogs and cats shedding all over her designer dresses.

  “Oh, aren’t you too precious for words,” her mother enthused and played right into Peaches’s manipulative little paws by scooping her up and giving her a cuddle. She turned to Daisy, Peaches’s fluffy face squished up against her left cheek, and was immediately back on task.

  “So, it’s probably too much to hope that you’ve bought yourself a dress or two recently,” the older woman said with a resigned little sigh.

  “I have the dress I wore to Nana’s funeral, but I’m not changing. I think I look okay for dinner with a friend.”

  “Daisy, don’t be difficult, and Nana’s funeral was five years ago; that dress will be both dated and too small.”

  “Ouch, Mom,” Daisy retorted without much heat.

  “I don’t see why I have to pull any punches; you’ve put on a few pounds since then.” Daisy wasn’t going to argue; she had gained a couple of inches around the thighs and bum, but she was pretty much the same weight she had been since high school. She had always been plumper than her sisters, and her mother tended to focus on that a little too much sometimes.

  “Jeez, Mom, she still looks exactly the same,” Lia said, and Daisy could have hugged her.

  “Which isn’t necessarily a good thing,” their mother stated, and both Lia and Daisy sighed. There was just no winning with her. “A woman’s look needs to evolve, become more refined and more mature.”

  “Mom, I’m a vet. My clothes suit my way of life.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re not a vet twenty-four seven, no matter what your father says. You’re allowed to have a life.”

  “Look, save this intervention business for a worthier cause than dinner with Mason Carlisle. The guy’s just a friend. I promise, when I find someone I’m romantically interested in, you’ll have free rein”—she paused a beat as she thought about that and then added—“within limits. But this is really not the right occasion on which to waste all that makeover mojo.”

  “At least run a comb through your hair.”

  “A comb can’t get through this mess,” Daisy snorted, and both Lia and Daff giggled.

  “Oh, for goodness sake!” Their mother handed Peaches over to Lia and forcibly grabbed hold of Daisy’s elbow. />
  “Ow! That hurts,” Daisy protested as her mother dragged her toward her bedroom. The older woman—despite being as thin as a rail—was at least four inches taller than Daisy’s five three, and she used that height difference to her advantage. Her other two daughters had inherited her height and her body, while Daisy took after her paternal grandmother.

  “Sit down, Daisy,” her mother said as she pushed Daisy down toward the bed. She was using her no-nonsense “Mom voice,” and Daisy knew arguing would be futile. Her sisters had trailed them into the room and were both watching with interest as their mother picked up a brush and dragged it through Daisy’s thick curls.

  “Ow!” Daisy winced again when the brush snagged in her hair. Her mother gentled her movements and began to soothingly stroke the brush through Daisy’s hair. Her mother had always known exactly how to handle Daisy’s uncontrollable curls, and the gentle tug of the brush brought her back to her childhood.

  “You have such lovely hair,” her mother said softly. “But you never do anything with it. Braiding it or tying it up does it a disservice.”

  Daisy shrugged. “It’s an uncontrollable mess. And it takes way too long to fix it, so it’s easier to just put it up. I need it out of my face for work anyway.”

  “Yes, but you’re not going to work now, are you?” Daff piped up, and Daisy glared at her. As far as she was concerned, her oldest sister had committed the ultimate sin in calling their mother, and Daff knew it too. She returned Daisy’s glare with an unrepentant grin, and Daisy—refusing to be charmed—focused her attention on Lia, who at least looked sympathetic.

  “So tell me more about this young man of yours,” Millicent McGregor said as she continued to brush Daisy’s hair with long, hypnotic strokes.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. He’s not my young man,” Daisy muttered. Her mother tugged one of her curls sharply, and Daisy sucked in a pained breath.

  “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” the older woman reprimanded.