by Ruby Laska
“Yeah, radium,” Mud repeated, making more adjustments to her feet by wedging his knee gently between her legs. “Important stuff. Sounds important, anyway. But what the heck did old Crowfoot-Hodgkin do?”
Without warning he suddenly stepped back. Dorothy, twisted in an unnatural position, thought for a second she might plummet backwards. Not only was the club way past what seemed like a reasonable place for it to be, her limbs seemed to have lost their ability to act independently of his manipulations.
But there was no way was she going to give him the satisfaction. He’d probably run dozens of women through this routine. A fairway seduction! Dorothy would bet most of them reacted the same way she had, melting into his skillful arms.
Well, even if she was the kind of girl who went for this whole dumb jock routine, she wasn’t here for seduction. Hardly.
“Any time now,” Mud called, his voice innocent, indifferent.
Practically bored.
It was bad enough that she’d almost fallen for his smooth moves. But for him to act like he was totally unaffected by their touch—
Dorothy brought the club crashing down toward the hapless ball with all the force she could muster. It glanced off the ball, lodging into the turf instead. A clod of dirt flew a couple of feet, while the ball only rolled lazily to the left a few inches.
Dorothy whirled around, jamming a fist to her waist. She bit her lip in frustration and embarrassment. Mud, on the other hand, seemed to be trying hard to contain a smirk.
“Not that you would be able to comprehend this,” she sputtered, “but Dorothy Crowfoot-Hodgkin used x-rays to determine the structures of biologically important substances.”
“Yeah? Well, she probably couldn’t hit worth beans either.”
“That was my first shot,” Dorothy protested.
“First of many,” Mud said, placing his hands on her shoulders and spinning her around. “Back in position. We’ve got two days, and we’re going to make the most of it. This is a seven. Say it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Say ‘seven iron’,” he repeated.
“I don’t see how—”
“Who’s in charge here?” Mud closed his hand on her wrist, and his hand slid lightly down her forearm. The breeze gusted slightly, and Dorothy could feel the fine hair on the back of her neck stand up again. Deep inside something melted even as her nipples hardened in response to the breeze.
Or to Mud. Heaven help her. She yanked her arm away from his grip. “Seven iron,” she managed.
“Better. Now. Like this...”
As he guided her again through the motion of the swing, Dorothy vowed not to notice the warmth of his skin next to hers, the tantalizing brush of his denim-clad hips against her bottom.
Right. It was going to be a long morning.
“Hey, Pops, we’re nearly out of register tape.”
Mud grimaced as the door creaked slowly shut behind him, the dim cool of the shop a welcome shift from the heat he hadn’t been able to shake since the driving range.
“Hey there, Tony.” The rangy teen looked genuinely happy to see him. Wednesday afternoons usually weren’t a particularly busy time; poor kid was probably bored out of his mind. “It’s ‘Mr. Taylor’ to you,” he added in mock severity.
“Hah! That’s a good one,” Tony hooted, pushing a stack of mail across the counter to him.
“Yeah, well, ‘Pops’ makes me feel about a million years old.”
“Sounds ‘bout right. Give or take a few years.”
Mud shook his head. “Smart-ass,” he sighed. “I’ve just about given up making a dent in that thick skull of yours.”
In truth Tony had been a God-send. Mud’s permanent staff consisted of himself and Gus Weaver, who’d spent the first half-century of his career selling shoes. Gus was a good old guy, but by the time afternoon rolled around, he needed to put his feet up in the office and take a nap.
There’d been other kids who helped in the shop after school over the years. Nice kids, mostly—Mud still heard from them from time to time. But Tony was special.
“Any calls?” he asked, fishing around under the counter for the box of register tape rolls. A cloud of dust drifted up from the stores of office supplies and other junk stored haphazardly there.
“Yeah, I wrote ‘em all down. Uh, Sheila Ruiz called. She said to tell you ye-e-s.” Tony sing-songed the last word in a falsetto, then let a beat go by. “She’s pretty hot, you know, for a mature lady.”
“Out of your league, boy, at any age,” Mud growled, grinning a little despite himself. Getting a call from Sheila was a coup—but not because he hoped to date the gorgeous news anchor. “Well, make sure you put her on the list.”
“Done, boss.”
“What are we up to?”
“Lessee...” The boy deftly swiped a notebook from the murky under-counter depths and ran a finger down the page. “Sheila makes eighteen.”
“Okay,” Mud nodded. Not bad. His goal was twenty-five celebrities, twenty-five big names to auction off for the golf tournament. People would pay all kinds of cash to go a round with the likes of Sheila, and it went to a great cause: with luck the town would soon have enough money to start work on the Vietnam War Memorial. It had been Mud’s dream for years, and now it seemed as though it might finally be realized.
“What’s this,” Mud demanded, noting the gaming magazine the boy had folded up beside the register. “Are you done with your homework?”
He could sense more than see the boy stiffen up. Tension arced between them.
“Who are you, my father?”
For a moment the lightness of the banter evaporated, and a dark cloud passed over Tony’s face. Mud knew that look well, had seen it on so many of the kids he’d recruited from the troubled high school on the west side of town.
He held the boy’s gaze, refusing to look away. They both knew Tony had never had a father, not since the man disappeared when Tony was an infant. Mud kept his voice even, but when he repeated his words there was a note of hardness in it. “I said, are you done with your homework?”
The boy dropped his gaze. “Yeah, just about,” he said quietly, sliding the magazine aside and reaching for his battered backpack.
“I’ll let you go early so you can get over to the lab, if you want,” Mud offered. Tony practically lived in the school’s computer lab, when he wasn’t at the shop. The boy would do okay—if he could just stay focused.
If Mud had anything to do with it, he would.
Mud let his hand graze the boy’s shoulder as he headed back to the office. Focus. Now, that was ironic. Far be it for Mud to give anyone a hard time when he could hardly manage to put one foot in front of the other. On the way home from the driving range he’d run a red light, not even noticing until he was in the middle of the intersection and a blaring horn snapped him back to attention.
Dorothy couldn’t swing a club to save her life. But that wasn’t what worried him. No, it was the way her narrow waist sloped gently to her hips, making a perfect spot for his forearm to rest as he guided her swing. It was the way her scent dizzied him when the breeze lifted it in his direction, something complicated, not the least bit flowery. Like...water, somehow, and leaves. Clean and dusky all at once, so that he wanted to inhale deeply and shut his eyes and figure it out.
But he couldn’t. He was supposed to be turning her into a golfer. So for four hours he’d repositioned her hands on the club, bending those stubborn thumbs and fingers while he tried to keep his own hands steady. She was unmoved, it was clear, never a tremor even as ball after ball dribbled lamely off at a forty-five degree angle down the slope.
He couldn’t blame her. They’d been kids together. Of course she didn’t think of him that way.
But as she shifted her weight so that one long leg pressed against his, sending an alarming jolt up his calf, along his thigh, he felt the unmistakable stirrings of hunger for her.
He wanted to put his hands on her waist and shift her
gently around, take the club from her hands and let it fall in the soft grass. He wanted those legs twined among his own, wanted to deepen the contact until the length of her body was pressed against him.
He wanted to kiss her, like he’d done once before.
She might not remember, but he did. It hadn’t been his first kiss—though he suspected it might have been hers, the way her lips brushed his so tentatively, the way her pulse raced beneath his fingers at her wrists.
It didn’t last long, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. He remembered the way her lashes had fluttered against his cheek. He forgot to breathe, even after she’d pulled away and run barefoot back up the dock, never looking back.
Dorothy pressed her nails into her palms under the white linen tablecloth, her head pounding with the effort of thinking.
“Uh, Beef Wellington,” she said. “And—and cauliflower.”
Miranda’s perfectly-shaped brows arched. “Really, my dear? Walter was fond of Beef Wellington, too. Men and red meat, you know. But I could never get the dear man to touch cauliflower.” She shook her head and made a note with her slender gold pen.
“Now, does Dempsey have a favorite dessert?”
Dorothy took a deep breath. Originally she’d thought she might convince Mud to go by his given name for one weekend. Now she wasn’t so sure. The man was as contrary as ever.
“Miranda, did I mention that nearly everyone calls Dempsey by a nickname?”
“Oh, is that right?” The older lady’s eyes blazed with curiosity. She was clearly enjoying planning the weekend.
She’d barely touched her lunch, and was making columns of notes in her flowery script.
But Dorothy hadn’t anticipated all the details she would be called on to provide, the questions about Mud’s likes and dislikes and—well—everything. It was a little overwhelming.
“Yes. It’s...you see, believe it or not, it’s ‘Mud’”. She gave a little laugh, one that she hoped conveyed a sort of crazy-I-know-but-I-can’t-help-loving-him tone.
“‘Mud’? That’s unusual. Where on earth did that come from?”
“Well...” She knew the story well, of course. How as soon as Mud could walk, he was out the door, in the garden, digging and uprooting and generally making a mess of things, so that he always seemed to be covered in...mud. “It was a childhood name that just stuck.”
“How intriguing! All right...so we have the meals planned, and I’m going to give you two the cottage. I’ll have Robert look over the place, make sure everything’s working. Haven’t had guests in a while, you know. Daphne will see to the linens...”
As Miranda prattled on, Dorothy drew her breath in chagrin. The cottage! She’d never imagined that Miranda would make sleeping arrangements that put the two of them in the same quarters.
“Miranda,” she interjected, “I would be happy to—that is, wouldn’t it be more appropriate, if I stay in the house and Mud could stay elsewhere?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Miranda clapped her hands together and regarded Dorothy with a sly smile. “You’re in love! Enjoy! Besides, as hard as you’ve been working lately, the two of you need a little time together, I’m sure. The cottage is nice and private, and we’ll have it all ready for you. It’s such a darling little place, I hate to see it standing empty all the time. You’ll bring life back to it.”
“Wonderful,” Dorothy managed. It would look too odd to argue. After all, what woman wouldn’t jump at the chance to steal away to a romantic retreat with Mud?
That is—with her fiancé. Dorothy shook her head to clear her mind. It could be anyone. He was just playing a part, after all, and Dorothy would muster the enthusiasm about being with him for this weekend. For Miranda. For her future.
“Yes, it will be a lovely weekend,” Miranda sighed happily. “And if all goes well, soon we’ll be welcoming you two into the Finesse family.”
Dorothy slowly exhaled, a smile frozen on her face.
Miranda frowned slightly, and reached for Dorothy’s hand.
“I hope this, er, interview isn’t all too awkward, dear,” she said. “It must seem like a strange way for me to do my recruiting, but I simply must see for myself that you and your young man are the right ones to begin taking over. As you know, I made that promise to Walter before he died. He wanted the company to go to a couple just like us, two people who would think of Finesse as more than just a place to work.”
“I remember,” Dorothy said, smiling despite her nerves at the romantic notion coming from the otherwise tough-as-nails businesswoman. Whenever she spoke of Walter, Miranda’s eyes misted over a little and her voice smoothed out, as though it were an echo of the young woman she’d once been.
“Started from nothing, you know. For fifty years we used to talk about that company over toast in the morning and in bed at night. It was everything to us. And I’m determined that it shall stay that way.”
Shame flicked Dorothy’s conscience, and she lowered her eyes. Well, Finesse would be her life. She’d just have to work twice as hard, to prove to Miranda that she could do it with or without a mate.
Miranda gave Dorothy’s hand a squeeze. “Oh, I have a good feeling about this!”
CHAPTER THREE
“Here’s to...” Mud paused, glass of cabernet aloft, and frowned. Idly he toed the ground with his sneaker, and the glider rocked gently.
Dorothy lifted her own glass, leaning back against the soft pillows as the glider’s motion seemed to stir the evening breeze into releasing the scent of the lilac that grew in her hedge. She loved her little patio, even though she didn’t use it nearly enough, squeezing gardening in between her business travel and work-at-home weekends. The glider had been an impulse purchase, irresistible with its seductively slow, easy swing. But it was so obviously made for two, and somehow Dorothy could never bring herself to use it.
Until now. Now she was nestled in it, inches away from Mud, having a celebratory toast of sorts the night before their grand deception was to begin.
“I was going to say your success,” Mud continued. The glow of the hurricane lamps burning on Dorothy’s small patio table illuminated his face in a most appealing way, but left the depths of his eyes dark, unreadable. “But seeing as this is our last night together before our debut, I suppose a better toast would be...”
He brushed his glass against her own, the contact so slight as not to produce even an audible clink.
“To us.”
Us. Dorothy merely nodded, no appropriate response coming to mind. They both drank, regarding each other across the gulf of a few moon-shined inches.
“To us,” she finally murmured. But she wasn’t at all sure who “us” was. Because the lines, despite her best efforts, were becoming blurry, and she was feeling an awful lot like the twelve-year old whose heart raced at the mere thought of being close to Mud.
“You worked hard,” Mud said softly.
“I did.” It was true. It had been grueling, like studying for graduate school entrance exams, or staying up all night in the lab when they were on the verge of something big. In two days Mud had drawn her through hell, a hell populated with little white balls and fiendish metal implements that never did what she intended. A hell where each infraction was met with demands to try again, again, again until every muscle in her body ached and her mind was numbed beyond rational thought.
He’d taken her through that, and in the end made her into something new, a woman who could drive and putt and chip and bogey.
But there was more. Somehow in the last forty-eight hours or so, something else had changed forever. She didn’t know where or when, exactly: on the golf course that had become nearly as familiar as her own back yard, maybe. Or over cheeseburgers and onion rings in the greasy spoon nearby, discovering that ketchup tasted better licked from her fingers. Or maybe last evening, when Mud walked her to her car, the September evening drifting down like a cool gossamer scarf.
He’d reached a thumb out to the corner of he
r mouth. “Ketchup,” he’d chided softly, but his touch had lingered.
Dorothy felt a flush creeping onto her face and dropped her gaze. She stared hard at the crisp cotton of Mud’s shirt, and then, as the silence increased her discomfort, concentrated on counting the buttons.
She couldn’t help noting that the shirt was freshly pressed. Mud had either figured out how to operate an iron or visited the cleaner’s. Either way, he’d made an effort tonight.
The thought sent a delicious little shiver spiraling down her spine. Mud wasn’t one to make an effort for anyone unless—
“Hey, anyone home? Dot?”
“Mmm, yes, I worked hard. We were saying that we worked hard.” Dorothy bit her lip and frowned. She had no business second-guessing his motives. So he’d cleaned up—she’d asked him to, after all; practically pleaded with him. The only person he needed to impress was Miranda.
And though Mud had begun minding his p’s and q’s, there was a disheartening possibility that it wasn’t going to be enough. Not enough to impress Miranda. One night in a decent-looking shirt didn’t exactly make up for the tattered old T-shirts he’d sported all week. Who knew what he planned to pack for the weekend?
And even if he let her dress him, Dorothy doubted she could do anything about that dumb cowlick right smack over his left eye. Nothing about Mud ever managed to stay in its place. Too-long hair tumbled over his forehead. A lone dimple decorated only one corner of his mouth. The nose was a lost cause. It still went off in the wrong direction, but it was her own fault—after all, she was the one who broke it nearly two decades earlier when she knocked him off his dirt bike.
Not that he cared how he looked. And why should he? The effect, inexplicably, illogically, and utterly beyond reason, was mesmerizing.
“Why go to all the trouble?” Mud asked, regarding her thoughtfully, snapping her back.
