“God, you’re gorgeous.”
Madeleine wanted to preen. She flew onto the pier beside him then shook out her tail feathers.
“But I’m pretty sure that’s you in there, isn’t it, Maddie?”
Abruptly, Madeleine froze. She’d ask how the fuck he’d known her from not only her fellow swan maidens, but also the dozens of true mute swans who inhabited the area, but her bill wouldn’t form words.
“I didn’t actually know it was you, but from the startled look on your face, I’m going to guess I was right.”
Dammit!
He laughed, and then his fingers smoothed over her neck. Instead of biting him or squirming away, she lingered. His fingers were divine, finding every pin feather and itching place beneath the soft down. He had agile fingers and a gentle touch for a man who worked on cars and plumbing.
“I wasn’t lying when I called you beautiful. And I’m glad to see you taking a break from your work. Everybody needs a break some time, and you’ll go crazy in there, doing nothing but throwing pots and mass-produced cups.”
His fingers found the base of her wings and slipped beneath them. Lovely, wonderful fingers continued to massage and scratch. Her eyes drifted shut, and it occurred to her that he was being far too forward with the physical contact.
“Your feathers feel like silk,” he murmured, voice a caress against her senses.
And his touch felt like sin.
“So, I’ve been thinking. I know what you are. I’m here to stay for a few weeks longer at least. I’ve seen you watching me on at least three different occasions, so I know you enjoy what you see.”
She made a small noise.
“I’ll assume that’s agreement. You definitely like what you see.”
Damn the smug, arrogant bastard for being right.
“So how does this swan maiden thing work? Can you become you again right now to answer me?” He paused, studying her, eyes so gorgeous amber in his handsome face. “Or is this you more than your two-legged, two-armed self? As much as I like stroking these feathers, I’d like to talk to the human Madeleine.”
Giving herself space, she drew away from him into the middle of the pier. It was safe to be herself and reveal her gifts in the open because every single family who could have seen them was in on the secret that Swan Lake was a haven for shifters of the feathered variety.
She transformed, trading webbed feet for painted toes and long legs. Seconds later, she was no longer a graceful swan, but a woman sitting lotus style on the pier in yoga leggings and a loose tee, her feathered cloak thrown over her shoulders. She peered up at him.
“I’m pretty sure I already know, but what gave me away?”
“Aside from the fact that you, along with eighty percent of the remaining population, look like refugees from Midwich?”
Maddie rolled her eyes and stood. “I wasn’t conceived during a blackout, I have no psychic powers, and my father taught me plenty of empathy as a child.”
His smile faltered. Just for a second, long enough for Maddie to pick up a change in his mood. “Thanks for sharing your secret with me.”
“You guessed. I didn’t share anything.”
“You trusted me enough to come to me as a swan. That counts. Anyway, I heard from Ellie that congratulations are in order.”
“Thanks. I’m excited about it all. I thought having a business partner meant I’d be surrendering to Charlotte’s will on every matter, but she’s pretty hands-off.”
“She’s a businesswoman with no art experience, right?”
“Right.”
“So she’s gonna leave it to the artist to start up a crafting gallery.”
The red and white bobbin on the water dipped below the surface, snatching Dean’s attention back to his pole. He tugged on the line with a sharp jerk, anchoring the hook, and then he hauled a catfish from the water.
While she watched, he caught it around and behind the fins with a skilled grip. He released the hook from its mouth and dropped the slimy fish in a bucket of water.
“First catch of the day,” he said, before turning those amber eyes toward her and flashing a grin. “Maybe you’ll be the second.”
“Huh?”
“Let me throw you a celebratory dinner.”
11
“Dinner?” Madeleine’s voice squeaked up an octave.
“Yeah. You know, the meal that comes after lunch. Usually in the evening a couple hours before you go to bed.”
“I know that, smartass.”
Dean grinned wider. “Then what’s the answer?”
Her expression was the particular deer-caught-in-the-headlights stare that he never wanted on a woman’s face when he asked her out. He prepared himself to be let down gently—or maybe not so gently, considering how straightforward she’d been during all previous attempts to flirt with her.
“Okay.”
With restraint he hadn’t known he possessed, Dean managed not to pump his fist. He gave her a casual smile instead. “Great. See you at seven then?”
“Okay.”
Madeleine didn’t linger after that, practically fleeing back to the glass double doors leading to her kitchen. He watched her go every step of the way, admiring the lush curve of her ass and how the black lycra cupped her cheeks like a second skin.
One she was gone, he baited the hook again and slouched back in his chair.
Ten minutes later, his phone beeped with an incoming text. He glanced down at the screen, seeing Ellie’s name and a bubble asking, Where are you taking her? She’s ripping through her closet trying to decide what to wear.
Three dots appeared as he began typing his response.
Ellie: But I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, so play dumb.
Okay, he replied. I’m not taking her anywhere fancy. Why didn’t she just ask me?
Elle: Shy.
Are you serious? he asked.
Er. No, came the follow-up from Ellie a few seconds later. Shy isn’t right. Skeptical.
Dean: I thought so. Nothing about that woman is shy.
Ellie: Agreed. So, what’s dinner?
Dean: I’m cooking for her. Does she like catfish?
A selfie came through of Ellie giving him a thumbs up. He never would have expected a swan maiden to be a devoted wingman. Wingwoman.
Ellie: Loves it. I’ll let her know to dress casual.
Dean: Thanks. But why don’t you do me a solid and give me her number instead?
Ellie: What? She’ll lose her mind.
Dean started to type out another response, only for his bobber to dip below the water and take off racing across the lake as a fish ran with his bait. He jumped to his feet, pole in one hand while he fumbled the phone into his pocket.
Fishing and texting always carried a risk. A week ago, he’d dropped it in the water, though it was thankfully waterproof and the lake was shallow near the pier.
A few minutes—and four more text message dings—passed while he wrangled in his modest catch and took the catfish off the hook. About five pounds of good eating. Too big and old tasted like gamey lake water and sediment. He cleaned both while sitting on the pier and tossed their meat into an iced cooler.
When he returned from washing his hands, he checked his phone.
Ellie: It isn’t my business to tell, but Maddie doesn’t trust easily.
Okay. Fair enough, he thought, wondering why.
Ellie: I’d give you her number if I could.
Ellie: Are you giving me the silent treatment?
Dean rolled his eyes.
Ellie: You better be catching enough fish for Emma and me too. I’m calling to feel her out.
I was cleaning the fish, and yes, I’ll catch enough for you two. You may as well feel her out. You already put her out there, Dean pointed out. Chewing his lower lip, he considered how much to press it, and glanced over his shoulder in time to catch a white face peering back at him through the kitchen window. Immediately, Maddie dipped away.
He grinned, returning t
o his seat and the conversation. Later, he’d wipe his phone down with some Lysol.
For now, he had a woman to win.
* * *
Texting her best friend for help had been a bad idea. Maddie leaned against the kitchen counter with the phone resting on her palm, aware that Ellie was texting her between customers at the bakery. She worked the early shift opposite the other baker three days a week, arriving at two in the morning to provide hot pastries, doughnuts, and muffins by five in the morning for the correctional officers, nurses, and other folk who blew through Crisis on the way to their early shifts.
Five nerve-racking minutes passed before the next response came.
Ellie: Just text him and find out where you’re going.
I don’t have his number, Madeleine replied. If he wanted me to have it, he would have given it to me.
Ellie: Want it?
Maddie frowned. Do you have it?
Ellie: Yup. Emma got it from him after they played Pokémon Go together with the other kids at the community center. There’s a Pokémon Gym there.
A moment later, the phone rang.
“Do you need a pep talk?” Ellie asked the moment Madeleine answered. “Haven’t you already had dinner with him once? You have this in the bag.”
“Once, and that doesn’t count. It was more of a late lunch.”
“Of course it counts. It’s more of the same, except this time you go into it knowing he asked you to be there because he wants to give you the D.”
Dean had returned to relaxing on the pier with his hook in the water again. As if sensing her observation, his face turned toward her window. She ducked back immediately, almost tripping over her own feet.
“He’s a good man, Maddie. And he likes you.”
“He’s only here for a while. He just wants a quick lay.”
“So? Even better. If the sex is awful, that means you won’t have to see him around for long. And if it’s great, you get amazing sex with an incredibly athletic guy.”
“You’re terrible.”
“I’m realistic. Not that I think it’s going to be awful. Besides, I don’t think he wants a quick lay. He’s cooking for you.” A bell chimed in the background, signaling a customer entering the bakery. “Gotta go. A group of people just came in. Love ya!”
“Love you too.”
Ten minutes later, a text reached her from an unknown number.
Wear whatever makes you comfortable. Catfish dinner at seven. Feel free to add my number.
Fucking Ellie.
* * *
Madeleine didn’t consider herself a skittish woman, but dealing with men after going solo for so long scared her.
I really like him, she thought, eyeballing her reflection critically in the mirror hanging on her closet door. She’d changed outfits five times, sending photographs of each outfit to Ellie for advice then into a Facebook group chat with a trio of college friends. Two of them lived too far away to hang out regularly, and the other had a husband, two children, and a busy career as a lawyer occupying her time.
Jamie: The short shorts for sure.
Veronica: The summer dress with the thin straps. No bra. No panties.
Jamie: She’ll look easy if she wears no panties.
Veronica: Exactly.
Georgia: I gotta side with Jamie. Unless you want to be dicked down on the first date.
Did she want to be dicked down on the first date?
Georgia: No judgment, if you do. I’d kill for rough, raw sex. James is always tired from work. He never makes it in before midnight and by then, I’m beat, too.
Maddie: First of all, the word “first” implies there will be more dates. Second, I burned out the motor in my last vibrator. What do you think?
They flooded her with laughing emojis, then Ellie slid into the chat.
Ellie: Fed Emma and got her into the bath. Now I’m here to jump in and add that the man rides a motorcycle and has a body like a Navy Seal.
In the end, she chose the pale pink maxi dress and a pair of white lace panties. Then she kicked the panties off and changed her mind. Tonight, unless Dean McAvoy became an absolute troll, she would end a dry spell that seemed to last as long as a season in Winterfell.
And because he was making dinner, she made dessert, plucking enough ripening peaches from the tree to make a cobbler to feed a half-dozen men.
Veronica: At least you know he isn’t a serial killer who want some booty like some of them Tinder men you met. He won’t murder you when he’s already met the twins, Martin, crazy-ass Ellie…
Madeleine snorted out a laugh. Chatter with them kept her occupied until the cobbler came out of the oven, perfectly timed to be cool enough to comfortably carry next door by the time seven o’clock arrived.
Then she became a basket of nerves and worries.
Her dinner date awaited her in a folding chair by the door, reading a thick Stephen King novel and dressed in a button-down shirt tucked into fitted jeans, looking finer than any man should on the porch of a weather-beaten trailer home that had been two steps shy of needing to be condemned.
A thing Eleanor and Madeleine couldn’t figure out since his arrival was why a man who so obviously wasn’t poor chose to stay in Martin’s beaten down trailer of all places.
Spotting her approach, he jumped up and put the book aside. “Oh, shit. Let me take that.” But when he reached out to take it, she kicked him in the shin. “Ow! What the fuck?”
“I’m not delicate.”
“I never said you were. Just, the way I grew up, you help a lady when you see her in need.”
Maddie stared at him.
“Sorry. Sorry.” Dean opened the door and ushered her inside.
Inside, the heavenly aroma of fried catfish greeted her. Familiar with the way to the kitchen, she crossed the narrow trailer home’s open living room area and took a left, noticing the differences along the way. He’d torn up the carpet during those two weeks and put down laminate wood boards in rich cherrywood.
Maddie set the cobbler on the counter next to the oven. A basket of deep-fried catfish, hush puppies, and fries sat beside two dark beers. “When did you do the floors?”
“Just last week.”
“Looks nice.”
He eased beside her and popped the caps. He poured one into two ale steins, then slid one of the mugs to her. “Thanks.”
“You didn’t ask me if I drank.”
“I saw the empty sangria bottles out by your trash can.”
She stared. “That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe someone else drank them at my place.”
“And then I asked Ellie if you like beer, and what kind, when I took dinner over to her and Emma. She said you were partial to these stouts.” He looked nervous for a moment, amber gaze flitting from her face to the bottles and back. A crease slid across his brow. “This the right kind?”
Generous and considerate? Both traits were pluses in his favor. Suddenly, it felt wrong to tease him too much, and regret gnawed the pit of her stomach. “It’s right,” she assured him. “These are my favorite.”
“Great.”
They heaped piles of fish and sides onto their plates then settled in his cramped living room. The sofa was old but clean, a remnant of Antonio and Marcus’s time in the place back when they were the inhabitants.
A time when her father had still lived in the cottage next door.
With a plate on her lap, she tore apart the deep-fried catfish and took the first greasy, crispy bite, letting oily fish, salt and spice explode on her tongue.
“Mm.”
“I take it I did a good job?”
“You did great,” she mumbled around her mouthful.
They fell into companionable silence, eating without a need for words aside from requests to pass the ketchup and offers to refill beer.
The man could cook. He had a compassionate streak a mile long, generosity that seemed endless, and a kind heart that loved children. He had abs to die for, eyes she could become
lost in, and a smile she envisioned herself kissing until the end of time.
He was too perfect, and that meant he was also too good to be true.
“So…” Maddie began, dragging a fry through a dollop of ketchup on her plate. “What brings a guy like you out here to Crisis, far, far away from where you belong?”
* * *
Of all the things Dean expected Maddie to say, that wasn’t it. “Huh?” Red flags flew and alarms roared. Carefully, he sipped his beer and tried to tamp down the apprehension swelling in his chest. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re a city boy and most of the time, you really seem to miss home. Wherever home is. What brings somebody from the city out here? You don’t have a job yet, but you’re not hurting for money and clearly skilled. I mean, look at what you’ve done in less than a month since you arrived.”
Since reaching Martin’s place, he’d torn up the floors, replaced tiles, repaired small fixtures, and put up a new ceiling in the living room because he couldn’t bear to look at the old water stains any longer.
“Nah, this wasn’t much work. Anybody with some time on their hands could do it.”
“But why do you have so much time on yours?” Madeleine popped another piece of fish into her mouth after feeling it for little bones. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. It’s just weird to go out on a…I guess you could call this a date, with a guy, and know almost nothing about him. You’re a mystery to everyone.”
“Yeah, I am. And I swear there’s a reason for it.”
“Am I allowed to know?”
If he was absolutely honest with himself, he wanted this woman. He admired her dedication to her future, her hardworking nature, and he thought the world of her closest friend.
As much as he wanted to be home again in Dallas, he wanted to get close to Maddie and to get to know her. He’d known that since the first moment he saw her on her porch in clay-stained shorts.
“No,” he said after a long breath. “You’re not.”
“Oh.” He didn’t miss the way her expression closed off as she reached for her beer. “I mean, that’s fine, it’s your—”
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