by Zoe Lee
Hiding a pleased grin, Dunk clapped Shane on the shoulder, grabbed his plate of veggie deluxe pizza and chips, and declared heartily, “I better go keep an eye on all those puppies. Later, y’all!”
They didn’t even acknowledge him, which only made him smirk.
The puppies were adorable, soft, and the easiest group of animals to help get adopted, Dunk knew. They were all in the fenced-in yard, and Dunk leaned against the five-foot fence as he scarfed down the rest of his lunch. There were two of the hospital’s staff in there, wearing frankly hideous neon green tee shirts, and a bunch of visitors. The puppies were beside themselves, rolling and jumping and nipping. One of the staff was weaving in and out, expertly cleaning up after their messes.
After he threw out his paper plate, he let himself into the yard.
It took a few minutes before the easily distracted puppies noticed someone new in there, but when they saw him, they barreled over and into his shins and shoes, barking wildly. He dropped into a crouch and laughed, just as enthusiastic about petting them as they were about sniffing him.
“Hey, y’all,” he said in a low, soothing rumble. “I’m naming you Scooter,” he told the runt of the little pack around him. “And you’re Pampers, cause you have a big butt and you walk like a toddler in diapers.”
Someone giggled, but when he looked up, the sun was right in his eyes and all he could make out was a pair of slim calves and heels getting slapped by pink flip flops.
One of the puppies made a break for his face.
It was wet and scrappy, and Dunk laughed again as he grappled with the little brown and white body, trying to get it back on the ground. He finally stood up, then set the puppy down. “Damn,” he muttered, looking at the state of his shirt. It was soaked through in patches, streaks of mud around his ribs and up at the neckline. He pulled it away from his skin a little, but luckily it wasn’t that cold out, for January in western Virginia.
“Tugger, easy,” one of the staff called out, striding over and swooping low to grab Tugger’s red collar. The puppy whined and scrabbled his legs, trying to get back over to Dunk. “Hi, Coach,” she said, surveying him, her eyes lingering on the wet shirt. “This is Tugger. He’s a Boxer, maybe six months old. He’s friendly, but I’ve never seen him like this. You like him?”
Dunk wiped his hands carelessly down his sweats as he cocked his head to the side. He grinned when Tugger did the exact same thing, dark liquid brown eyes gleaming over his wrinkly white snout.
“Sure I do,” he told the staffer simply. “But my mama has a dog and I’m not sure either of them would want to share their territory.”
“Fudgesicle is a sweetheart,” the staffer disagreed, “he wouldn’t mind!”
Dunk imagined taking his runs with Tugger, the puppy roaming off the sidewalk and into the woods up at the forest preserve. He imagined being sacked out in his recliner with him sprawled out on his lap.
Easy as that, Dunk was in love with Tugger.
“I’d better call my mama,” he said, winking at the staffer as he fished his cell out of the deep pocket of his sweats. “Excuse me a minute, sweetheart.”
• • •
Daisy
“I’m going to faint right here,” Stephanie whispered breathlessly to Daisy as she wrestled with a Boxer puppy to get a leash attached to its collar.
“What? Why?” Daisy asked.
“Look,” Stephanie practically begged.
“Good Lord,” Daisy exclaimed once she’d turned around.
A chorus of Amens came from a knot of women nearby.
Daisy dragged her gaze down Dunk McCoy, slouched back against the metal wire fence like a cowboy waiting for his turn at rodeo.
His white tee shirt was wet for some reason, streaked with mud. It was tight, but not stretched out, over all of those ridiculous, drool-worthy muscles. The wet patches clung, his skin almost glowing inside the fabric, and the muddy streaks just reminded her that he’d been an athlete. An athlete who got muddy and wet and covered in mud while he used that powerful, well-designed body to catch passes and dodge tackles. His wet biceps lit up in the sharp afternoon sun as he switched his cell from one ear to the other.
“Where’s iced tea when you need it?” one of the women whined.
“I got to tell you, that is not false advertising, ladies,” another purred.
“Ain’t that the truth?” another sighed.
“Y’all need to pick your tongues up off the grass, now,” someone admonished. “He’s going to notice y’all ogling him. Shamelessly.”
“I don’t see you looking away,” the first noted cattily.
Dunk ended his call and looked up, straight at all of them.
Not a single one looked away in embarrassment at being caught. Every single one of them just smiled over at Dunk McCoy as he moved towards the puppy who was straining at his leash in Stephanie’s hands.
His eyes passed over Daisy, just the same way it was passing over all of the other women, his grin crooked and easy.
There was a sharp sense of disappointment in Daisy’s guts.
“Shane’s waiting for me,” Daisy muttered. “See you later, Stephanie.”
“What? Daisy—”
She refused to slink away, but she left the yard and made her way inside to where Shane, one of her brothers, was finishing up.
But damn, did she want to slink away.
Because Dunk McCoy’s eyes had passed over Daisy like there wasn’t a difference between her and any of the women around her.
That meant one of two things. One, he’d hooked up with her at Jamie and Leda’s wedding and it hadn’t meant a thing. Two, he’d hooked up with her at Jamie and Leda’s wedding and he didn’t remember a thing.
“Uh, what’s wrong with you?” Shane demanded as they headed out.
“I’m just sad I can’t have a dog at my place,” she improvised.
“If you’d just moved back in with Mom and Dad instead of getting your own place, then—”
Daisy groaned, actually more like a wail of distress, really. “Come on,” she whined. “I’m twenty-six. I’ve been married and divorced. I’m not moving in with Mom and Dad. Even if I could have Lempicka and a dog.”
“But your apartment is so…”
“None of your business, is what it is,” she said, a slight edge of annoyance creeping into her sweet-sounding voice. “I’ve explained this a thousand times, I don’t know why y’all can’t accept it. I wasn’t making a living with my pottery, so I started to work for Dad and I got an apartment with cheap rent so that I can still do pottery, even if I’m not selling it.”
Shane’s mouth twisted guiltily. “I’m sorry about your pottery.”
With a huff, Daisy shoved him, her dainty execution belying the strength she put behind it, making him stumble for a step. “I tried, and it’s not like I thought I’d become Abe Anjin anyway,” she told him.
He hummed, still a little guiltily. “If you’re sure…”
“What would I do if I weren’t sure?” she asked practically.
That made him laugh and wrap his arm around her shoulder to give her a squeeze. “You’re right, Bouncy Ball,” he encouraged teasingly.
“I hate that nickname, ugh,” Daisy complained, wrinkling her nose.
Shane walked her to her apartment building, half a mile southwest of Maybelle Square, and as Daisy was pulling off her sneakers, her cell rang.
It was Stephanie. “Daisy! You just ran off!”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said, wandering into her kitchen to find a snack.
After a second, Stephanie asked impatiently, “So? Why did you run off?”
Daisy looked down at the sink full of dishes, crusted with the sad leftovers of the meals-for-one she’d been microwaving every night.
Shaking off the self-doubt, she bit her lip and couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. “Um, so, you know Jamie and Leda’s wedding? Dunk and I…”
Stephanie gasped, and then started laug
hing hysterically. “That is so cool,” she said, “you have to tell me everything. Is he as good as they say?”
Heat flashed through Daisy, ghostly imprints of his hands echoing on her waist and ass and inner thighs. “Yeah,” she confirmed simply. When Stephanie growled, like one of the puppies she worked with at the vet’s, Daisy laughed and collapsed onto her futon. “Okay, okay,” she conceded with a small laugh. “I mean, we were pretty drunk, so I might have like… beer goggles. But yeah, it was so good. He was so good. Those hands, Stephanie.”
A melodramatic sigh crackled across the connection.
“And like… he treated me like a woman, Stephanie.”
“Oh,” Stephanie said, sounding more serious.
“I mean, obviously, I am a woman, but you know how the men in this town treat me. Like I’m some princess who’s been locked in a tower. Not that all that many have put their hands on me, but even Tyler—even when we were brand new, and everything was a lot of fumbling and figuring out how things can go—treated me so carefully. As if my body isn’t designed to have babies. You can’t be fragile and push an eight-pound baby out of your vajayjay.”
“Sing it, girl,” Stephanie snickered.
Daisy scratched her stomach lightly through her shirt. “Of course, we were in the back office at Wild Harts, so I’m not talking whips and chains here, but I had a couple bruises.” She heard the words come out, full of smug satisfaction but also awe, because, yeah, she knew she deserved to be treated with passion and concentration, but she never expected it.
“Wait,” Stephanie said after a few seconds of respectful silence, “is that why you ran off? Because he came over and said hi and didn’t…”
“Yep,” Daisy said glumly.
“He must not remember,” Stephanie declared loyally, making Daisy snort. “I’m serious, Daisy. You said you were both drunk. We know he has a reputation for, uh, his skills. But I’ve never heard someone say that he blew her off or pretended it never happened. If he knew he forgot being with you, he’d be so pissed! You’re totally worth at least a next-day text!”
At that, Daisy cracked up. “Wow, thanks, Stephanie.”
“Shut up, I’ve never had to give you this pep talk. Jesus knows I love Karen, but that girl sobs when she messages a stranger on whatever online dating app she’s using at the moment and doesn’t get a reply!”
“Oh my God, stop,” Daisy wheezed, “I’m going to pass out.”
Once they’d calmed down, Daisy thanked Stephanie and hung up, then got up again to get that snack she’d been going for when Stephanie called.
She turned on the TV to a rerun of Supernatural, and settled down.
Her hand slid across her tummy again. If someone were watching her, it would look accidental, just an idle, unconscious movement. But goose bumps rose and she pushed her head deeper into her pillow, fumbling with her other hand to turn the TV back off.
In the quiet, the space heater’s low-grade buzzing the only noise, Daisy’s hand stroked down and into her leggings and panties. A soft whimper fell past her lips as her brain connected with the nerves between her legs and she realized how primed she was just from seeing Dunk in a mud-streaked tee shirt.
Just from seeing the shape of his body and the grin on his face.
Because she’d learned the shape of him under her hands. She’d learned the shape of his mouth and neck and shoulder and bicep with her tongue. She’d learned how that grin felt on her breasts above her bra, on her thighs. Best, she’d learned the shape of him, blunt and searing hot even through a condom, riding her against the wall of the office, his hands under her thighs.
Now she’d learned it, and she couldn’t stop remembering it.
Her fingers were a poor substitute, too short and tiny, no calluses.
“Ah,” she gasped, because her fingers might be a poor substitute, but she had an excellent memory and a fantastic imagination, and it was enough.
Boneless, she slipped into her dreams.
Chapter 5
Daisy
Bookworm’s Delight was the only bookstore in Maybelle, a cute red-brick cottage near the library that was crowded by kousa dogwoods. In winter, it looked a little faded without the pretty white flowers on the trees and the garden around it dormant. But inside it was warm from the fireplace and smelled like books and coffee. Beneath the decorative rugs, the floors were made of thick hand-made dark green tiles. The main floor was mostly bestsellers, greeting cards and journals, school supplies, and tables and chairs for reading and studying. The second level, a wide ring of creaky wood floorboards, housed the rest of the books, mainly the used books.
Daisy loved it in here.
Before she’d put aside her dreams of making a living as a potter, this was one of the places where she felt most at home. Of course, there were always students coming in to get their Penguin classics for English or more pencils. But its regulars were bookworms, teenagers hunched over journals, and art students sketching or leafing through the big art books. Unless she was in art classes, Daisy had spent all of her free time here when she was in high school, usually sharing a table with Tristan Houston while he drafted his dream house.
Now that she was the office admin at her father’s law firm, where two of her three older brothers worked too, she had much less time to come here.
That was why she never missed one of their wine and paint nights.
With a satisfied sigh, she settled at the table where Karen and Stephanie were already setting up their canvases on easels.
“Hey, girls,” she greeted them. “I brought a Malbec tonight.”
“Ooh, fancy,” Karen chirped. “Nice label!”
“You know that’s how I chose it,” Daisy replied with a giggle.
She went over to the supply table to pay her fee and pick up her canvas, easels, paints and paintbrushes. “Hi, Suzie,” she said, handing the instructor the twenty-dollar fee. “I’m excited about the Cezanne landscape tonight.”
“It’s one of my favorites,” Suzie agreed.
They chatted for a little bit, while Daisy perused the paint colors and contemplated if she wanted to try to paint the picture perfectly or use a different palette.
“… and then my older girl—that troublemaker—was…” Suzie let the word go and one of her brows shot up practically to her hairline. “Well,” she sighed in pure female appreciation, as Daisy felt heat lick over the edge of her right shoulder and hip. “Hello, Coach.”
“Evenin’, Suzie,” Dunk McCoy rumbled, the breath of his words sluicing across the back of Daisy’s bare neck. “Evenin’, Miss Daisy.”
“Why, Coach,” one of the other women simpered from nearby, “are you joining us? How fabulous.”
He cast that big, goofy grin out at all of them, warm and appreciative. “Someone told me it was going to be a great learning experience, but I didn’t know I was going to get to be surrounded by such beautiful women.”
All of the other women melted, in their own ways, Daisy saw.
But she was easing away from Dunk, that queasiness pooling low in her belly again because he’d lumped her in with all of these other women.
Because he didn’t remember being with her, when she…
She ducked around Suzie’s table with her supplies hugged to her breasts and belly protectively, and hurried back to her table.
“What’s he doing here?” Stephanie asked indignantly.
“What a… jerk,” Karen tried, but she wasn’t pulling off indignant.
Daisy snapped her easel open and set it up facing Dunk, so that once she’d put the canvas on it, she couldn’t see him at all.
Not that she couldn’t hear him.
No.
That voice… It was like this sub-vocal throb that was perfectly in sync with her nerve endings, making them shiver like plucked violin strings.
“Here, sweetie,” Stephanie said, holding out a very big glass of the wine. “You’re going to need it.” She poured two more for Karen and herself. �
��Us, too. Because if I can’t stare at that criminally fine ass, I’m going to need it!”
Karen giggled and then tried to hide it behind her paintbrush.
Daisy flicked clean water off her paintbrush at both of them.
Suzie began her introduction to this month’s painting, Cezanne’s Landscape of the Jas De Bouffan. Listening to her soothed Daisy, and that plus the strong wine helped her get her mind right, focused on mixing her paints and starting to paint.
She did well enough, for maybe four to seven minutes at a stretch.
Then Dunk’s laugh would boom out. Or one of the women would call across the space to ask him something, or tease him about whatever mess he was making on his canvas. Or he’d lavishly compliment one of the women’s work. Or the women would offer him some of their wine and he’d mmm.
How the hell am I supposed to survive him mmm-ing? she asked herself almost hysterically.
While Cezanne’s impressionist work gave the sense of leaves gently swaying in the wind, Daisy’s brushstrokes were aggressive, so that her trees looked like some pissed-off French scissor-blade-leaves.
“I’ll just have to come back to try again, Suzie,” Dunk’s mournful, flirtatious declaration interrupted Daisy’s fierce study of her canvas.
“Now, now, when was the last time you painted?” Suzie asked.
“Does priming Tristan’s studio walls count?” he asked, laughing again.
Daisy worried that she might’ve whimpered into her wine glass at that. She couldn’t help but imagine it. All she had to do was substitute the mud streaks from the pet adoption day with paint streaks. Or streaks of wet clay.
“Crap,” she mumbled.
“Whoa, Daisy,” Dunk exclaimed.
He was suddenly right next to her.
She bobbled her wine.
He caught it, one of his big rough hands cupping hers to steady it, and his surprised light brown eyes locked on hers, that outdoorsman’s face tightening.
Frozen in a tableau, Daisy’s morbid humor provided.
