The ice cream truck song rang out from the front of The Milked Duck. Dahlia’s jaw clenched. Mikey hadn’t been in yet today, which meant—
Yep.
It meant he was here now. One week from the tasting.
“Afternoon, sweet pea,” he said, exactly as he had every other day. He strolled right up to the counter, all lanky grace and annoyingly confident swagger, a hoodie covering all but the bill of his ever-present ball cap, and that leather jacket over all of it. “Don’t suppose you need a taste tester for that Sin on a Stick you’re serving next week?”
A young mother with a toddler whipped her head toward them from her seat in the corner.
“You are sin on a stick,” Dahlia muttered.
“Billy’s looking forward to coming.” Mikey plopped two bills on the counter. “Asked me to get us both tickets.”
Dahlia’s heart thudded to her toes. “B-Billy’s coming?” she squeaked.
“Suppose that depends on how good these adult flavors are.” Mikey winked, prompting Dahlia to process the other meaning of coming.
The woman in the corner covered her toddler’s ears, but she leaned closer, listening.
Heat flooded Dahlia’s face. “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she hissed.
Mikey’s grin was completely unrepentant. He rocked back on his heels. “Told him he’d be doing me a mighty big favor. Lucky you, he owes me a favor or three.”
Holy ducks.
Billy Brenton was coming—making an appearance at Dahlia’s Risqué Flavor Tasting.
“And he’s—and you’re—and should I—”
“You leave all the details to me, sweet pea,” Mikey said.
She wanted to hug him.
She wanted to leap over the counter and throw her arms around him and squeal and thank him and hug him and kiss him.
Because this—this was so much better than giving her money. This was helping her earn it herself rather than taking a handout. Having Billy Brenton show up was a handout in its own way, but still.
It meant more than money that Mikey asked Billy for her.
Maybe he did get it. Maybe he cared in his own way, and he was slow to show it. Maybe—
The ice cream truck song rang out again, and a tall, slender brunette with either one hell of a great head of hair or the best stylist in the world walked in the door. She slid her sunglasses off, loosened her ivory knit scarf, and narrowed her sights on Mikey.
Who promptly left his money sitting on the counter and beelined to her. “Hey, sweet pea.” He wrapped her in a hug, then pressed a kiss to her cheek. “How is it that you look even better today than you did in September?”
She patted his cheek, then returned the welcome kiss. “You are my absolute favorite person. Have I mentioned that lately?”
He put his hand to the small of her back and steered her to a table. “Hey, Dahlia, a couple Cookies ‘N’ Creams over here. In waffle bowls.”
Dahlia’s belly rolled like it was freezing a sour batch.
She never learned, did she? Mikey Diamond didn’t need her.
He had a hundred million other put-together floozies at his disposal.
She scooped out two large servings of Cookies ‘N’ Cream, dumped them into waffle bowls, and then overcharged him. For both the ice cream and the tickets.
He didn’t blink.
He was too busy laughing with his newest sweet pea.
Dahlia stormed back to the back, blinking back tears. Which was utterly ridiculous, because things were looking up for The Milked Duck. Billy Brenton was coming to her adults-only tasting. She’d leak that out on Facebook and Twitter, and then all she’d have to worry about was making enough ice cream and not exceeding the shop’s capacity.
And then she could worry about getting Mikey Diamond out of her life. Out of her life, out of her head, out of her heart.
Forever.
MIKEY HAD gotten twenty-nine phone numbers since arriving in Bliss, and he had zero interest in using any of them.
Were it not for the fact that his dick twitched every time he caught a whiff of ice cream, he would’ve worried about himself.
Worried more, that was. He was plenty concerned that his attention span for one woman had exceeded his previous record for an infatuation with a woman who wasn’t Mari Belle by a good five days. But he definitely wasn’t having any performance anxiety concerns.
So when Dahlia still hadn’t left her bedroom by lunchtime Sunday, the one day of the week The Milked Duck was closed, he took it upon himself to get to know his hostess better.
Purely in the interest of getting close enough to kiss her again.
He knocked on the door.
Then knocked again. And this time, he waited.
But he still had to knock a third time before the door flung open.
“What?” Dahlia said.
Mikey clamped down on the urge to say what he really wanted—he was far from a genius about women, but he had a notion Dahlia wouldn’t appreciate Wanted to see if you wanted to make out—and instead, went against every instinct he had. “Do you sing?” he asked.
She blinked. “What?”
“Been writing songs with Will—with Billy—since we were kids, but I don’t sing. He always covers that part. But I got this song I’ve been working on, and I need to hear it out loud. And”—he held his hands out—“I don’t sing.”
Her head tilted, and the tips of her red-streaked hair brushed one shoulder. “You—you need me to sing?”
He nodded.
She used both hands to push her hair back while she looked down at the floor and toed the carpet. “I’m more of a shower singer,” she said shyly.
Which was the darned most adorable thing he’d seen all day.
Adorable.
Mikey didn’t do adorable.
“Me too,” he said. “Between the two of us, we might could almost make it sound better than if your cats sang it.”
She lifted her face to him and pushed her glasses up her nose, a new light growing in her pretty eyes. “I can probably do a little better than that.”
He grinned back at her. “Then let’s hear it.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He pulled a folding chair he’d dug out of the garage into the living room for her, not all that optimistic about the song itself, but feeling pretty dang good that she was out here. With him. With a real smile blooming on those lips.
And turned out she could read music. Could laugh at herself when she hit a sour note, could laugh at him when he picked the wrong chord on the guitar—was a reason he preferred sitting at a drum kit. And she gave him what for over some of the lyrics she said were disrespectful to all of womankind, which she didn’t suppose a guy like him cared about.
He didn’t tell her he put the lyrics in to get a rise out of her. She glowed when she got good and spun up. Sight to behold right there.
Been a long time since Mikey laughed so much over a song. And danged if Dahlia didn’t turn a shade prettier every single minute. Even the minutes she was chewing out his ass.
So he changed a few more lyrics until he had to rename the song “Dahlia,” and watch her trip and giggle every time she tried to sing her own name until she finally tossed all the papers in the air. “I’m calling uncle,” she declared. “You’re not really going to use this song.”
“Better than anything else we got for the next album,” he told her. “God’s honest truth. Bet you a dollar Will puts this one in.”
Her nose wrinkled. “You call Billy Will.”
“Who he is. Wasn’t Billy until his first manager suggested a stage name.”
“Are you two fighting about the fire? Is that why you’re not writing with him today?”
Mikey’s shoulders bunched. He wasn’t ever the guy in the direct spotlight, but he’d learned not to say the wrong things to the wrong people. Got back eventually, and Will’s team didn’t much like cleaning up messes. Didn’t happen a lot—Will was one of the good g
uys, and in most parts of his life, Mikey tried to be too—but nobody was perfect, and public opinion was fickle.
Still, this was Dahlia. And Will being Will, he’d blown off Mikey’s apologies over the fire, said it wasn’t anybody’s fault, and they’d both had most of their focus on writing new songs for the next album.
But only most of their focus. And Mikey still didn’t like where the rest of Will’s focus was going. “How much do you know about that divorce lawyer chick from here?” he asked Dahlia.
She went stiff. “Lindsey? Not much. She grew up in Bliss, went to college, came home, and now she kinda does her own thing over in Willow Glen. Why?”
Her cheeks had gone rosy again, her words stilted.
Like she was hiding something.
“What else?” Mikey said.
“I’m not from around here. That’s all I know.”
Mikey propped an arm over his guitar and looked at her.
She stared back.
With cheeks so rosy they looked as though they had lava flowing under them, and her fingers fidgeting like she wanted to pick at her nails.
Mikey lifted an eyebrow.
“Well, if nobody else has told you, I’m not going to,” Dahlia said.
Mikey shoved to his feet. “If she hurts Will again, I’ll—”
He’d what? He didn’t make commitments to women, but he didn’t threaten them either. And he wasn’t real big on not being able to do anything.
And it pissed him off like nobody’s business that he couldn’t protect Will from being a dumbass about her. Again.
Mari Belle needed to get her pretty little ass up here yesterday.
“Will?” Dahlia’s cheeks crinkled. “This is about Billy? I thought you meant—” She clamped her mouth shut.
“Thought I meant what?”
Her pulse fluttered at the base of her neck. She pulled her legs into her chest and hugged them. “You said again,” she said. “Why did you say again? And why would Lindsey hurt him?”
“You first, sweet pea,” he ground out. “What do you know?”
Dahlia’s pupils dilated. Her lips twitched, but she sealed them tight.
“What did she say?” Mikey pressed.
Dahlia shook her head.
Mikey drummed his fingers on the guitar. Lindsey’s messing with Will sucked donkey eggs. Lindsey’s messing with Mikey wasn’t going to happen. Crazy as it was, the divorce lawyer lady had a thing for matchmaking on the side. And Will bought into it. Almost made Mikey feel normal about his own relationships—but hell if Mikey would let his own love life be her business.
“She say something about me?” he said. Because he was starting to get the feeling Dahlia didn’t give a horse’s patoot about Will.
“You first,” she said. “What’s your problem with Lindsey?”
This was why Mikey didn’t do relationships with women. They got all emotional and couldn’t answer a simple question without making demands in return. “Ain’t really any of your business,” he said.
She shrugged. “If you say so.”
And there she went, doing that I know something you don’t know thing. Like it was a trump card.
Aw, hell.
“She go and tell you we’re a good match?” he said. Damn meddling woman. She’d been there that time Mikey met Dahlia before the fire.
Dahlia’s eyelashes twitched. She hugged her legs tighter. “If I heard that rumor,” she said, “that would make your problem with her my business, wouldn’t it?”
“Nope.”
“Then it doesn’t matter what she did or didn’t say about you or me or anyone else, because you’re too stubborn and self-absorbed to consider the possibility that you could make someone else happy by letting her make you happy too, despite the very reason we might be together.” She unfolded herself from the chair and stood. “Good luck with your song.”
He blinked at her retreating backside. “Wait a minute. What the hell, Dahlia?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated, still walking away. “You, obviously, are not in a place to consider a serious relationship with anyone other than yourself. I can’t fix you if you don’t want to be fixed, and I shouldn’t want to. I’ve learned my lesson.”
And while Mikey stood there feeling like he’d taken a right hook to the gut, which didn’t make much sense since she wasn’t making any sense, she snagged her coat from the coat closet, then slipped on her shoes.
He took two steps toward her. She was leaving. He didn’t even know if he had her, and he was losing her. “Where are you going?”
“The shelter. Because real animals know how to show a girl some love.”
The door clicked shut behind her, leaving Mikey not only confused, but confused and lonely.
He really needed to fix that. If only he could figure out how.
Chapter Six
DAHLIA WAS beginning to hate the sight of her house. She sat outside in her car, the temperature inside dropping as quickly as the light was fading from the evening sky, staring past the bare brown elm branches at the warm glow coming through the living room curtains.
The empty, burnt shell of Mikey’s former rental house was still a gaping hole in the neighborhood. Tonight it gave her chills from thinking about how lucky he’d been to not be inside sleeping when the fire started.
She hadn’t actually heard anything about anyone speculating on her relationship—or whatever it was—with Mikey, but the rumors said Lindsey knew that sort of thing. And Dahlia had thought that maybe if Mikey had heard something, it might give her some clue as to why he’d gotten under her skin.
And if he liked her back, or if he was just amusing himself with her.
If he liked her enough to not care who did or didn’t think they’d make a good couple.
She watched her breath crystallize over the steering wheel. A few snowflakes drifted down from the rapidly darkening sky.
Mikey wasn’t a bad guy. Under all the innuendos and the swagger, he had a sweet side.
He hid it well, but it was there.
She could bring it out of him. He wasn’t asking for money, he didn’t need her to watch his pet, nor did he truly need her house to stay at. There was nothing about him that screamed user.
He simply needed to be loved.
No, she thought that’s what he needed. What he thought he needed, she had no idea. Men were so complicated.
Her front door opened, and the man himself stepped out into the flurries in the fading evening light. He was in a jersey-style black and gray Henley, jeans that did all the right things for his lean hips and long legs, cowboy boots, and the ever-present Billy Brenton ball cap over his shaved head.
Smokin’ hot, put together, and edgy on the outside, hiding a wounded soul in need of saving on the inside.
She dropped her head to the steering wheel.
He’d be even worse than Ted. Because what he took wouldn’t be something replaceable like money.
Mikey knocked on the car window. She rolled her head to the side and popped open one eyeball. His hands thrust deep into his pockets, and he fidgeted on his feet.
The longer she sat here, the colder they would both get. She, at least, had a coat.
She reached for the door handle.
He must’ve taken that as a sign, because he grabbed the handle from the outside and pulled her door open quicker than she could finish herself. “Nice afternoon?” he asked.
His voice was warm and rich, with no hint of innuendo or hidden agenda. Like hot chocolate without the marshmallows, because the hot chocolate had finally figured out it was pretty spectacular on its own and didn’t need the extra filler.
Yep, Dahlia had a problem.
He offered a hand, and even though she was perfectly capable of climbing out of the car herself, she took it. “It was,” she said.
She stood and pocketed her keys.
Mikey didn’t drop her other hand. Instead, he studied her, eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his cap.
Her pulse kicked up.
“Will and Mari Belle saved me,” he said. “From myself. I was a hell of a kid. My daddy worked hard, my momma did her best and spent most of my childhood taking care of my sick grandmama, but I wanted to have fun. Being friends with Will, having Mari Belle fussing over both of us—they got me out of a lot of trouble. Kept me from finding even more. And now I’m watching him do the dumbest thing he’s ever done. This time he knows better, and I want to stop but, but I can’t. Can’t anybody else either.”
Despite the freezing temperatures outside, everything inside Dahlia went soft and melty.
He did have a sweet side.
“Mari Belle?” Dahlia said.
Mikey winced, but there was something more there too. Something sad. “His sister. She’d hit this place like a hurricane. Saw it all go down the first time, when Will met her.”
“Lindsey.”
“Yeah.”
Dahlia had speculated as much while she was playing with the kitties at the shelter all afternoon.
“She broke him,” Mikey said. “Met on some spring break trip. Made him think she was falling in love with him, then dumped his ass hard. He wasn’t the same after that. Not for a long, long time.” He slid her a look. “You watch a friend get that tore up over a girl, makes you think twice about not letting yourself be dumb enough to care about somebody who’s gonna let you down.”
She didn’t know why he was telling her this, but her heart went sappy-gooey at the thought that he might think Dahlia was special enough to risk getting hurt over.
She squeezed his fingers. “You can’t find the real highs if you don’t risk the hard falls.”
“Breaking a bone, getting scraped up, having a finger freeze off, that don’t scare me.” He tapped his chest. “But this ol’ heart? It ain’t so tough.”
“It wouldn’t work as well if it were.”
His lips hitched into a lopsided half-grin. “Can’t say I ain’t real suspicious of Lindsey’s motives. Don’t have any need of her butting in on my love life. But you—you’re special on your own. No matter what she did or didn’t say.”
“I didn’t really hear anything. If that helps at all. And you’re pretty special too.”
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