The Wingman

by Natasha Anders

  The doorbell woke her, and she blinked in confusion before swearing when she realized that she’d fallen asleep again. Peaches was up and heading for the front door, yapping all the way, and Daisy leapt up and yelped when her feet hit the cold tiles. Jeez, she should really get some underfloor heating installed. She slid her feet into her comfy slippers and shuffled toward the front door where Peaches was putting up a tremendous fuss. She hissed at the dog to be quiet, but Peaches ignored her and continued to do her best watchdog impersonation.

  A quick glance out of the front window confirmed the identity of her visitor, and she dragged open the door, only in that instant recognizing that she wasn’t looking at her best.

  “Seriously?” he commented drily when he saw her. Peaches appeared to recognize him and stopped barking immediately. Mason stepped into the house, smelling of wind and rain and bringing a gust of seriously cold air in with him.

  “I’m sorry. I fell asleep again,” she muttered defensively.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an adult in a onesie.” She flushed bright red. She should really have dragged on a robe before answering the door.

  “It’s warm,” she retorted.

  “It certainly looks warm,” he agreed. He prowled—it was the only word she could think of to describe that predatory walk of his—toward her, and she backed up defensively, but he dodged to the left and circled around her.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed, turning to face him.

  “Getting the full three-sixty effect. Love the bunny tail and the matching slippers. Very avant-garde.” She covered the tail with her hand, seriously embarrassed. She should have gotten up and dressed after his call; she had only herself to blame for this humiliation.

  “I’ll get dressed,” she muttered, and he grinned.

  “You do that. Peaches and I will make some coffee.”

  “Uh, do you mind letting her out into the yard; she needs to do her business.”

  “No worries.” He stooped to pick Peaches up and ambled into the kitchen, looking way too at home for a man who had only visited once before. He made her small house feel even smaller, and she hurried into her bedroom, feeling awkward and unsure of herself.

  She brushed her teeth and dressed as quickly as she could, not comfortable with the idea of him roaming around freely in her home, and when she rejoined him less than ten minutes later she scanned her living room and kitchen anxiously. Sure enough, there was a balled-up pair of socks in the corner of her sofa and—worse, so much worse—a bra draped over the back of the same sofa. The very piece of furniture on which Mason had chosen to make himself comfortable, and if his self-satisfied grin was any indication, he had placed himself there deliberately.

  He had one arm stretched out on the back of the sofa—his long, elegant fingers inches away from her lacy pink bra—with an ankle crossed over his knee and a mug of steaming hot, deliciously fragrant coffee resting on one hard, denim-clad thigh. God, he was absolutely gorgeous as he sat sprawled on her couch looking way too confident and way too sexy.

  She watched as his fingers began to tap rhythmically against the upholstered fabric of the sofa, and her eyes darted up to meet his. His grin widened. He seemed to know that her gut reaction was to snatch up her underwear, and his eyes were challenging her.

  “The coffee smells good,” she said, striving for insouciance and failing.

  “Plenty more where this came from,” he said, nodding toward her kitchen, and she headed for the coffeemaker and poured a mug of the rich brew while she told herself that it was just a bra. Mason had surely seen more than his fair share over the years. Still, she was sure he was used to dainty little A cups. Hers were C heading into D territory, embarrassingly big for someone of her height. At times she looked and felt like an overstuffed pigeon.

  “So, what’s the plan?” she asked, taking an appreciative sip of the fabulous coffee. Why couldn’t she ever seem to get her coffee to taste like this? She very carefully sat down on the edge of the couch, putting as much space between them as possible, while desperately trying to figure out how to remove her bra from his line of sight.

  Mason could tell how much Daisy longed to snatch up her pretty pink bra, but to her credit she was doing an admirable job of restraining herself. She was trying very hard to be casual about it, but her fiery blush betrayed her, as well as the constant shift of her eyes back to the fetchingly draped undergarment. She would be horrified to know that he had picked it up from the seat, catching a whiff of her sensual fragrance as he did so, and arranged it over the back of the sofa, fully intending to unsettle her. She was charmingly easy to embarrass. Most women wouldn’t be at all perturbed by something as innocuous as a bra on display, but Daisy McGregor had enchanting old-world sensibilities, and Mason was enjoying them to the fullest.

  “Before I answer that,” he murmured, “I want to know what those are.” He nodded toward a small display cabinet in the corner. It was filled with the oddest collection of ornaments. Weird little caterpillars: glass, ceramic, porcelain, wood, and plastic worms. Most were dressed like people, tiny wormy people smoking pipes, reading books, even dancing. It was more than a little strange.

  “My caterpillars,” she supplied awkwardly.

  “What are they for?”

  “I collect them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like caterpillars. I started collecting when I was thirteen, and honestly . . . I think I actually bought only twenty of them myself.” Twenty too many, if you asked Mason. “The rest are gifts from family and friends.” Jesus, there were well over a hundred creepy little people caterpillars in that cabinet. Talk about enabling someone, her family took the cake.

  “So where are we going?” she asked, deliberately shifting the topic back to what it was before, and recognizing the stubborn glint in her eyes, Mason allowed it. The caterpillars were a bit out there for him, and he was happy to let it go.

  “You don’t want to be surprised?” he asked, answering her question with one of his own, and if her narrowing eyes were any indication, she didn’t appreciate his evasiveness.

  “I don’t really care for surprises.”

  “You don’t? That’s too bad. What if I told you I had a surprise for you in my pocket?” Her eyes widened, and she made an incredulous half-laughing, half-snorting sound as her gaze drifted south. Mason burst into laughter as she projected her thoughts as clear as a bell. His laughter startled her eyes back to his, and he grinned at her.

  “Not the pocket I meant, but I like the way you think,” he teased and watched as her face did that slow burn thing again. He patted his chest, and her eyes were drawn to the breast pocket of his plaid flannel shirt. “This pocket.”

  She seemed to forget her embarrassment as her eyes flared with interest.

  “What kind of surprise?” she asked, her voice steeped in skepticism.

  “The good kind.” Her teeth worried her succulent-looking lower lip while she eyed his pocket with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. God, that lip . . . the more she nibbled at it the fuller, pinker, and more moist it became. He longed for another taste of those plump lips but viciously tamped down the urge to drag her into his arms and kiss the holy hell out of her.

  “Show me,” she said, after a great deal of deliberation. He leaned toward her, close enough to smell the fresh fragrance of her shampoo.

  “Come and get it.” He expected her to retreat at the challenge, but she surprised him when—after one last nervous nibble at her lips—she reached out toward his pocket. His breath snagged and his heart stuttered in his chest when he felt her questing fingers hesitantly dip into his pocket. The first tentative foray didn’t yield any results, and she dug in a little deeper, creating friction on his hypersensitive nipple. He unsuccessfully bit back a groan, and her eyes snapped up to his, her face so close he could count each individual freckle on her nose and see the pale-blue striations in her gray eyes. He shifted his coffee
mug a little to the left in an effort to conceal the growing bulge in the crotch of his jeans and fought to keep his face impassive and his breathing even. Her eyes dropped from his, back to where her small hand was fumbling around in his pocket, and the tip of her tongue crept out as she focused on what she was doing. There was an adorable little wrinkle of concentration between her eyes as she managed to snag what was in his pocket, only to drop it again. She finally managed to get a proper grip on it and dragged it out with a triumphant whoop.

  Daisy stared down at the item in her palm in confusion. She still felt hot and flustered by his nearness and that damned delicious scent of his, so her brain was a bit delayed, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was she had in her hand. It looked like an earring, a really ugly earring. It was spherical in shape, weighty, and seemed to be made of lead. She turned it over and bent her head to examine it more closely.

  “It’s a sinker.” Mason’s warm breath stirred her hair as he spoke, and she repressed a shiver at the intimate sensation.

  “What do you use it for?”

  “Fishing.”

  “Fishing for what?” she asked stupidly and looked up just in time to catch a grin flirting with the corners of his mouth.

  “For fish.”

  “I don’t . . .” Her words faded as comprehension dawned and horror replaced confusion. “No.”

  “The blacktail are really biting at Kleinbekkie this week,” he said, and his complete butchering of the Afrikaans word, which meant “small mouth,” momentarily distracted Daisy. It was endearing how bad the pronunciation was, and she guessed his grasp of the language was probably as terrible as hers. Kleinbekkie was the smaller river mouth just outside town, and it was a popular local spot for fishing, picnicking, and surfing. “I thought we could catch some for lunch.”

  “No. This is why I hate surprises, see? This is the worst surprise ever.”

  “It’s actually more an IOU at this point,” he confessed, and she glared at him. He wrong-footed her at every turn, and she had given up on understanding him.

  “What?”

  “You’re right, the weather is too damned terrible for fishing today. I was hoping it’d clear up a little overnight, but—while I wouldn’t mind going out there today—it’s not ideal for a novice. So I figure we’d take a rain check on the fishing and do it some other time.”

  “Try never.”

  “Come on, Daisy, you’ll like it.”

  “Doubtful. And if you knew the weather was too bad for fishing, why did you drag me out of bed at this ungodly hour anyway?”

  “I thought we could do something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Dunno.”

  “You’re a very frustrating man.”

  “So I’ve been told. What do you want to do today? And don’t say go back to bed.”

  “Well, I’m awake now, aren’t I?” she pointed out huffily.

  “Want to go somewhere for breakfast?”

  “Nothing’s open yet,” she groused, and he shrugged.

  “Not here, but I know this great place about forty minutes away.”

  “That’s pretty far; if we just waited forty minutes, we could go to MJ’s.”

  “We were at MJ’s last night.” He looked a little annoyed by her suggestion, but Daisy definitely did not want to be confined in a car with him for that long. Not with the crazy awareness and tension simmering between them. Okay, so the tension and awareness were probably totally one-sided, but why put herself through unnecessary stress?

  “I thought the point was to be seen around town together.”

  “People will see us coming and going together, and they’ll wonder. That is the point. We want them to speculate. If we’re always out at MJ’s putting on a performance, it’ll start to look unnatural.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she conceded, and he reached over to tweak a curl, but his hand lingered and he wrapped one of the strands around his finger, his knuckles brushing across her cheekbone in the process. She stilled at his touch, telling herself that it wasn’t a big deal. Still, the gesture felt alarmingly intimate, and he must have thought so too because he quickly withdrew his hand and resumed tapping the back of the sofa.

  “Trust me, Daisy.”

  “I’m trying.”

  They were quiet for a long moment, the only sounds coming from the howling wind and rain outside and Peaches’s light snoring from one of the armchairs. Daisy finished her coffee as quickly as she could and reached out to take his empty mug before getting up to carry them to the kitchen. In the process she “accidentally” pushed her bra off the back off the couch. She ignored Mason’s knowing chuckle and rounded the couch to pick up the bra before retreating to the kitchen with mugs and underwear safely in hand.

  “We should hit the road soon,” he said, stretching lazily as he spoke, and she nodded, shoving her bra into the junk drawer to retrieve later, before rinsing the mugs. “I hope you’re not scared of bikes,” he said, as he leapt agilely to his feet. Daisy paused in the act of drying her hands on a tea towel and stared at him in dismay.

  “What?”

  “Motorbikes. I hope you’re not . . .” His voice tapered off, and a snort escaped. His shoulders started shaking before he started to guffaw, huge “heeyucks” that had him folding his arms over his middle and doubling over. If he started slapping his thighs, Daisy would have to find a way to comprehensively kick his ass. “You . . . you should see your face.”

  “Glad I amuse you,” she said stiffly. Not like she hadn’t been the butt of someone’s stupid joke before. He sobered almost immediately and took a couple of steps toward her.

  “Hey, come on. I wasn’t . . .”

  “I take it you weren’t dumb enough to ride a motorcycle in this weather?” she asked, and he shook his head.

  “Daisy.” He lifted a hand as if to touch her, but she stepped out of reach and turned away.

  “I just have to see to Peaches’s food. Feel free to wait in the car.”

  “Daisy, come on . . .”

  Shit. He hadn’t meant to offend her; he just liked her prickly and prim reactions sometimes. But this wasn’t prickly or prim; this was something else. He’d hurt her . . . again. And he wasn’t entirely sure how. He watched her gracefully move around the tiny confines of her kitchen and felt awkward as hell. Did he really need this kind of grief in his life? Why the hell was he putting up with her shit anyway? He couldn’t figure it out. He couldn’t figure her out.

  “Look, I was joking, okay? I didn’t mean to offend you or upset you.” She stopped moving, her back still to him, and sighed before throwing back her head and staring up at the ceiling. For some kind of divine intervention perhaps? Who knew with her?

  She turned to face him, her pretty eyes strained.

  “I may have overreacted a bit, it’s just . . .” She paused, and he gritted his teeth in exasperation.

  Just what? Jesus, and she called him frustrating.

  “I’ve been the butt of someone’s joke too many times to count.”

  “Oh.” Oh. Fuck.

  “I’m stupidly oversensitive sometimes. I just thought you were . . .” Different. She didn’t have to say it. The unspoken word hovered between them, and Mason swore beneath his breath.

  “I’m an asshole,” he muttered, trying—and failing—to keep the defensive tone out of his voice. “I told you that last night. But in this case the assholery was unintentional. Daisy, I didn’t mean to make you the butt of my lame joke. I enjoy your reaction to my teasing; you’re cute when you get all grumpy and righteously indignant.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “So the fishing thing wasn’t serious?”

  “Nope. That was totally serious. We’re going fishing as soon as the weather clears.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I think you’d like it. And when we go camping, you and Peaches will love roughing it in the wilderness.” Her eyes widened, but something in his expression must have c
lued her in because her face cleared almost immediately.

  “You’re teasing me again. Right?”

  “Only partly. No way in hell will we be taking Peaches camping with us.” Another small frown from her, but by this time he was openly grinning, and a shy, sweet smile blossomed at the corners of her mouth.

  “Stop that,” she grumbled good-naturedly.

  “Now you’re getting it, babe.”

  They left a few minutes later, and despite knowing that he’d only been pulling her leg earlier, Daisy was relieved to note that he had indeed arrived by car. The BMW. He wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders as he hustled her to the car, keeping her shielded from the wind as he opened the door for her.

  “Hell of a day,” he said breathlessly when he slammed his way into the driver’s seat. He switched on the ignition, and she winced when hard rock immediately blasted from the speakers. It was so loud, she could practically see the windows vibrate.

  “Shit. Sorry.” He turned down the sound to a less glass-shattering setting, and she was able to recognize the guitar solo from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” The guy had good taste. “You can change the playlist if you want to.”

  “That would be sacrilegious!”

  He shot her a shocked glance before refocusing his attention to the road. “You appreciate a bit of classic rock, then?”

  “Who doesn’t like ‘Free Bird’?”

  “Only all of my ex–lady friends. I think it was a little too old for them.”

  “Great music never ages. Pick your ladies more carefully next time,” she advised. She curled up in the huge seat and gazed out as they passed through Main Street. It was after eight by now, and most of the businesses were just opening. She spotted a few familiar faces, and Mason was driving well below the speed limit, which allowed pedestrians to pause and admire his car before glancing up to check out the occupants. Luckily the rain had let up enough to allow them all a good, long look. She grinned and waved saucily at a few of the stunned faces that recognized her.

  “Having fun?” Mason asked, and she nodded enthusiastically.