The Wingman

by Natasha Anders

  Daisy didn’t have a response to that. She felt immeasurable loss at the thought of never seeing him again.

  “And you may want to find out who the hell really told Shar about our agreement,” he advised, his tone harsh. “Because it sure as hell wasn’t me.” He slammed the door behind him, and Daisy released the shuddering breath she’d been holding and sank down onto the bed as her legs gave way. She curled up into a ball, feeling wounded and broken as she tried to keep the tears at bay. She hugged a pillow to her chest; it smelled like him, and her throat ached as she continued to fight her tears.

  The door opened, and for a wild moment she thought it was Mason returning, but it was Daff, the spare key card in her hand.

  “Mason stopped by my room on his way out,” she said softly. “He gave me this and told me you needed me.”

  Oh God. There was no holding back the tears after that, and—thanks to Mason—Daff was there to hold her and comfort her.

  “Mason? What are you doing back so soon? Isn’t the wedding tomorrow?” Spencer stepped aside, and Mason stormed past him furiously, pausing only to greet his ecstatic dog.

  “Lia called it off,” Mason told his brother, and after another affectionate hug for Cooper, he made his way to the kitchen and straight to the fridge. “Is this all the beer you have?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re going to need more.”

  “There are a dozen beers in there,” Spencer protested, and Mason glared at him, before taking both six-packs out of the fridge and carrying them into living room. After placing the beers on the coffee table, he sat on the nearest lounge chair and then shook his head.

  “That’s not enough beer.”

  “What the fuck, man? What happened? And what do you mean Lia called it off? Like the whole wedding?” Spencer sat down too and reached for a beer.

  “No, only the ceremony and the reception and the bit where they throw the bouquet,” Mason retorted sarcastically. He was in a seriously black mood, and the long, lonely drive back hadn’t exactly helped. “Of course the whole wedding.”

  “But why?”

  “Because her fiancé is a piece of shit.”

  “So you and Daisy came back early? Isn’t there a lot of crap to take care of? I would have expected Daisy to want to stay and help with that.”

  Mason grabbed one of the beers and popped the tab. He took a long, thirsty drink before feeling ready to answer his brother’s question.

  Daisy.

  He was furious with her, but beneath the fury was an underlying feeling of hurt and betrayal. Yes, she had hurt his feelings, and he felt like a pussy for even admitting it to himself. He was pissed off that she’d had so little faith in him, and right now he couldn’t even think about her without wanting to break something. He drained the rest of the beer and then crumpled the can in his fist, before thumping it onto the coffee table and reaching for another.

  “Whoa, easy on the beers, Mase,” Spencer cautioned, still working on his first can. Mason ignored him and had half of his second beer consumed before talking again.

  “Daisy didn’t come back with me. She told me to leave.”

  “Oh.” There was a wealth of confusion in the sound. “And you’re angry about that?”

  “She thinks I told Shar about our . . . arrangement.”

  “Did you?”

  “Fuck off, Spence.”

  “So you didn’t?”

  “Of course I didn’t. But apparently Shar knows, and the only other people who knew about the whole stupid scheme were you and Daff.”

  “I don’t talk to Shar,” Spencer hastened to assure him. “Or rather, Shar doesn’t talk to me. Ever. I’m not classy enough for her.”

  “And I can’t imagine Daffodil McGregor telling anybody, so I have no clue how Shar managed to find out about it. Did you speak to anybody else?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  Mason moved on to his third can of beer, his mind in turmoil. He wasn’t sure how he felt any more; all he knew was that he would miss that crazy armful of neurotic femininity more than he cared to admit. She was funny, intelligent, insanely sexy, and sweeter than any other woman he had ever met, and he felt like he’d lost something unique and special. Hard as it was to admit, no amount of beer would fill the hole she had left in his heart.

  “Daddy, have you ever seen that car before?” Daisy asked one Saturday afternoon on the way back from their clinic day.

  “What car, sweetheart?” her father asked absently, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Behind us.” She had her eyes on the rearview mirror, checking out the dark sedan with its tinted windows directly behind them. “I’ve seen the same car on our last three visits to Inkululeko.”

  “That’s nothing to worry about,” her father said with a smile. “They’ve been escorting us to and from the clinic every week for the last month.”

  “What?” The word was a whisper, and she doubted that her father even heard it.

  “Mason insisted. It was part of his donation to the clinic.” Mason had made an outrageously generous donation to the clinic, enough for them to buy new equipment and a bigger mobile clinic. He had also sponsored a full scholarship for Thandiwe’s current and future studies. The girl was ecstatic and enthusiastic about the future. “In addition to the money, he insisted on providing security for as long as we needed it.”

  “We don’t need security,” Daisy insisted, feeling a little lightheaded that he had actually gone ahead and done this. It was more than a month since the wedding and at least six weeks after he had first brought up the need for security.

  “I feel better knowing that they’re there. They’re very discreet. You haven’t even noticed them until recently, and they’ve been escorting us on our last eight visits.”

  “Why would he do this?” Her father’s eyes flicked from the road to her face and back again.

  “He’s a good man. And he cares about what happens to you.”

  “You once thought Clayton was a good man too,” she pointed out. It was a low blow and she knew it, but her father took the hit with nothing more than a smile.

  “I never thought Clayton was a good man, but I had hope that Dahlia saw something in him that I didn’t. I trusted her good judgment, and in the end my trust was warranted.”

  “I suppose it was nice of Mason to arrange this,” she said quietly.

  “More than nice, I think.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Daisy, I don’t know what happened between the two of you . . .”

  “Yes, you do, Daddy. Everybody knows it was all fake. We were pretending to be a couple.”

  “You like him, he likes you. No pretense there,” he said with a shrug.

  “No, he did what he had to because I forced him.” Her father laughed at that, the sound so genuinely amused that Daisy was a little offended by it.

  “Sweetheart, you can be difficult and stubborn and a little crazy at times, but nobody on God’s green earth, especially not a lightweight like you, can force a man like Mason Carlisle to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

  “I blackmailed him.”

  “He came to that wedding because he wanted to,” her father dismissed.

  Daisy didn’t respond to that, but her eyes drifted to the side-view mirror, and she watched the other car for a long moment. Mason had been out of her life for a month; she hadn’t seen him or heard from him at all in that time. And she knew it was her fault; she had leaped at the excuse to drive him away. At times she was sure she’d made the right decision, but then at other times—like right now—doubt crept in and she wondered if perhaps she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her life. She often wondered who had really told Shar about their scheme. Not that it really mattered anymore; the damage had been done. But she was still curious.

  Straight from the horse’s mouth.

  How could Shar possibly have found out about their deception unless she had heard it from one of the parties involved? Could it ha
ve been Spencer? He was the only other person who knew about it.

  “I’ll tell you what I told my brother,” Spencer said, when Daisy went by his house later that evening to pose the question to him. “It wasn’t me.”

  “Mason asked you about it?”

  “He’s been trying to figure it out too.” He handed her a beer, not offering her a choice, and she took it with a nod. Beer wasn’t her drink at all, but he was trying to be civil.

  “Daisy”—Spencer’s grave face mirrored his tone of voice—“I deserve your doubt and your ill will. I haven’t been . . . kind to you, and I’m very sorry for that. I’ve treated you badly in the past, but I want you to know that the night I asked Mason to distract you while I chatted with Daff was only because I wanted a chance to speak to her and she’s always been very protective over you. So I—stupidly—thought if she saw that you were happily preoccupied, she’d be more open to relaxing and talking with me. Mason was reluctant to go through with it, not because he had anything against you but because he’s a good guy and he thought it might hurt you if you found out his interest wasn’t genuine.” He shook his head. “It was a stupid, ill-advised, and flawed plan. And it failed miserably . . . for me. Mason, on the other hand, my brother liked you from the beginning. And this entire fucked-up situation has messed him up more than he’s willing to let on. He’s miserable.”

  “He is?” Daisy hated the thought of Mason being miserable. Especially if she was the cause of it.

  “Do you know that he punched Edmonton?”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t tell me about it; I heard it from one of the guy’s groomsmen. Apparently Clayton was spouting off some shit about you, and Mason punched him and warned the groomsmen if they ever mentioned your name again he’d lay a world of pain on them.”

  “Oh.” Daisy’s hands went to her mouth, and her eyes flooded with tears. Nobody had ever done anything so sweet and romantic for her before. Mason had always been kind, gentle, and protective of her. And Daisy had simply thrown it all away because of her own stupid insecurities. Mason was right; she was so hung up in the past, in what people used to think of her, that she’d allowed it to color her vision of the world and herself. And then he’d come along and had seen something completely different, and because his image of her didn’t gel with hers, she had dismissed it as fantasy. As part of an elaborate act.

  What a fool she was.

  The following afternoon Daisy nervously rubbed a damp palm over the denim of her jeans before lifting her hand to ring Mason’s doorbell. There was a faint answering bark inside. The barking grew closer and closer until she could hear Cooper just inside the door. She cast an anxious glance around. Mason’s Jeep was parked outside, but she couldn’t see his bike or BMW and she wondered if he was out. The possibility filled her with both relief and disappointment. She needed to apologize and to know if they could still have something real between them. She hoped so, because she had stupidly—and against every ounce of her better judgment—gone and fallen in love with the man.

  Cooper was still kicking up a fuss, and when she heard Mason command him to be quiet, her heart started up a frantic rhythm in her chest, and for a fraught moment, she insanely considered dumping her peace offering and making a run for it. But then it was too late, the door swung inward, and there he was, staring down at her from his great height. And he was really . . . dirty?

  Her eyes fluttered over him. He wore a pair of dirt-streaked jeans, boots, and a ripped T-shirt. His clothes and face were streaked with grime and sweat.

  Daisy blinked and wondered if she were dreaming because he looked like he had just stepped out of one of her favorite erotic fantasies. She licked her lips, searching for something to say, more than a little wrong-footed by his appearance.

  “Uh . . . you’re really dirty,” she pointed out, wincing at the inadvertent sexual ambiguity of the statement. Instead of jumping all over the unintentionally provocative words, as he would have in the past, he shrugged, causing the muscles in his shoulders and chest to flex impressively.

  “I’m busy,” he said, his voice flat and unencouraging.

  “So this is a bad time to talk?”

  “What do you want, Daisy?”

  “To talk,” she said again.

  “I figure we’ve said everything that needed saying,” he muttered.

  “May I come in?” she asked doggedly. He sighed, the sound impatient and explosive, and stood to the side. He held on to the door, while his body shifted to allow her to pass him, forcing her to duck beneath his arm in order to gain entry. He smelled wonderfully earthy, of soap and good, healthy male sweat. None of that expensive, sexy cologne she liked as much. He slammed the door behind her once she was inside and brushed past her as she bent to pat Cooper, who was greeting her with a happily wagging tail and a grinning face. She followed Mason into the kitchen, where he twisted the cap off a beer and took a long drink. He lowered his arm to stare at her and, unlike his brother the day before, refrained from offering her one.

  “I brought you something,” she said shyly, holding up the wrapped package in her hands. He didn’t respond, which forced her to elaborate. “It’s a bacon, cheddar, and zucchini bread. Freshly baked.”

  “What do you want, Daisy?” he asked again, his voice so cold it sent a shudder down her spine.

  “I wanted to apologize. I know you didn’t tell Shar about us.”

  “Who did?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I’m shocked you changed your mind without definitive proof,” he sneered, and she carefully placed the bread onto the center island and braced her hands on the countertop.

  “I knew you didn’t almost from the beginning, but I was freaking out a little about us, you know? It was all a little overwhelming, and maybe I jumped on the whole Shar thing as an excuse to—to drive you away.” She was babbling, she knew she was, but his face was just so cold and impassive. It was making her nervous. “Anyway, I should have spoken to you about my fears. I shouldn’t have dealt with it the way I did.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  “Mason, I’m truly sorry.”

  “Fine.” He took another sip of his beer, before looking at her again. “You’re forgiven.”

  “I was wondering if maybe we could try again?”

  “Try what again?” God, this was really hard. This Mason was a far cry from the warm and easygoing man she knew. He was cold, callous, and calculating. But she knew the other Mason was in there, and it was up to her to find him and appeal to him.

  “Us.”

  “We’re not an us. There’s never been an us.”

  “I would like there to be.”

  “Yeah?” He slammed his bottle down on the counter between them and leaned toward her, his entire body vibrating with tension and unmistakable fury. “It’s not going to happen. Go play your high school games with some other idiot, Daisy. I’ve done my time. You don’t know what you really want. I was your first fuck, and you think that means something, don’t you? Little Daisy with her teen dream fantasies about the perfect boy. The one who will love her just the way she is, right? That’s what you want from me? I’m through role-playing. I won’t be your fantasy man—the guy too impossibly perfect to exist in real life.”

  “I don’t want that,” she denied. “I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. But I wanted us—”

  “There’s that word again,” he sneered. “Get it through your head, Daisy. There’s no fucking us!”

  “I love you.” It was a desperate cry, and she knew saying it was a mistake.

  “You don’t love me. You love some fictional being. You’ve only ever been with one guy, Daisy. How can that be love?”

  “And when did you suddenly become such an expert on love, Mason? You who once asked how we’d know if we were ever really in love? You’re always looking for the next best one, right? Because the one you’re with is never good enough. I suppose holding you to a higher standard was a ridiculous
pipe dream, wasn’t it? Yes, I’ve only ever had one lover, and maybe it makes me naïve and stupid and ridiculous to think that I’m in love with him.”

  “Maybe?” The haughty sarcasm in his voice proved to be her undoing, and she blinked, forcing back her tears, before straightening her spine and meeting his mocking gaze head-on.

  “Anyway,” she said softly. “I wanted to apologize. For everything. And to thank you for what you’ve done for the clinic. I won’t bother you again.”

  She picked up the bread, and he made a sound in the back of his throat. When she threw him a questioning glance, he shook his head, his face still that awful blank mask.

  “Leave it.” The barked command was unexpected, and Daisy carefully put the bread down again.

  “I’ll see myself out.” She didn’t wait for his response before she turned and left.

  Mason remained still as he listened to the quiet sounds of her departure, a soft whispered good-bye for Cooper in the hallway, the snick of the front door handle being turned, a slight soughing sound as the rain-swollen wood of the door resisted her initial attempt to tug it open. The wind rushing into the hall, carrying the faint scents of wood smoke, wet leaves, and soil all the way into the kitchen, and then finally the door closing. Her car door opening and closing, and the engine of her small car firing to life. He didn’t move, even when Cooper padded into the kitchen to sniff out some snacks, didn’t move until the sound of her car was finally swallowed up by distance and the rising wind . . . and then when he did move, it was slight. Just a release of tension, his muscles relaxed—shoulders slumping—and his head bowed as he stared down at her offering on his kitchen counter.

  “Jesus.” A prayer? A plea for help? An exclamation of regret? Even Mason didn’t know. All he knew was that he had hated seeing her, hated speaking with her, hated hearing her say those fucking words. She didn’t have the faintest idea what love was. What being in love felt like. How could she? She hadn’t really lived her life. Hadn’t experienced enough of the wrong people to know when the right one came along. Because if all these years of coming close to falling in love had taught Mason anything, it was how to recognize the real thing when it came along.