Daisy's Back in Town

by Rachel Gibson

  “. . . I swear, I about died. You would have laughed your behind off, if you’d been there,” Gina said.

  Jack, having missed the joke, smiled. “You’re probably right.”

  “What’s Buddy doing in town?” Gina asked.

  “He’s here on business.” He settled his weight on one foot, one hip slightly higher than the other, and his gaze returned to Daisy and Tucker Gooch on the dance floor. The smooth glide of their steps kept perfect time to Toby’s song about a sugar daddy and his young thing. Jack had always disliked Tucker. Tucker was the kind of guy who bragged about how often he had sex and who he was getting it from. As far as Jack was concerned, a guy who was getting plenty didn’t have to talk about it.

  “Working for you?”

  “Yep.” From Jack’s position across the bar, all he could really see of Daisy was a flash of her shiny hair and a glimpse of that white dress of hers. He didn’t need to have a front-row seat to know what she was wearing, the picture of her walking through the door of Slim’s in that dress was imbedded in his brain.

  A cowboy in a ten-gallon hat moved in his line of vision, and he couldn’t see anything at all.

  “Damn,” Buddy said as he came to stand beside Jack, “I almost lasted two minutes that last time, but I came down on my left nut and couldn’t get upright for a few.”

  “Were you up on Twister?” Gina wanted to know. “Twister set on high is a real wild ride.”

  “It was the one closest to the door.” Buddy took a drink of his beer then said, “You should give it a go, Jack.”

  Buddy was a real nice guy, but sometimes Jack wondered if he wasn’t a couple sandwiches shy of a picnic. “As a general rule, I avoid anything that’s gonna smash my left nut.”

  “Yeah.” He shook his head and looked out over the crowd.

  Gina laughed. “I’m going in the back. Are you going to be here for a while?” she asked Jack.

  “I’m not sure.”

  She placed a hand on the front of his denim shirt and raised up onto her toes. “Well, don’t leave without saying goodbye,” she said against his mouth. She kissed him, her lips lingering just long enough to let him know she was interested in leaving with him. “Don’t forget.”

  “Are you and Gina seeing each other?” Buddy asked as she walked away.

  “Sometimes.” Jack didn’t know if he was all that interested in having her leave with him. Two weekends in a row tended to give her ideas.

  “Look who’s sitting at that table over there all by her lonesome, Lily Brooks. I thought about giving her a call yesterday, but I don’t know her married name.”

  Jack glanced at Daisy’s sister sitting by herself. “Why would you give Lily a call?”

  “To see how she was doing, after that fight at the Minute Mart, and all. I figure, since she’s going through a divorce, she might need someone to talk to.”

  Jack raised the Pearl to his lips, “You want to talk to Lily Brooks about her divorce?” Right.

  Buddy grinned. “Those Brooks girls are nice-looking and built too.”

  Jack took a long drink then sucked a drop of beer from his top lip. Buddy would get no argument from him. If he hadn’t already seen for himself that Daisy was as hot as ever, that outfit she was wearing tonight would have settled the issue. Even from across the bar, he could see that her dress was so tight, it looked like she’d taken a spray gun and painted herself.

  Buddy set his beer on the bar. “I’m going to ask Lily to dance before someone beats me to it.”

  Jack watched him weave his way through the crowd and wondered if life wouldn’t be easier if he could be more like Buddy Calhoun. Nothing seemed to bother him much, not even racking himself on a mechanical bull. Maybe there’d been a time when Jack had been like that, more laid-back, but it had been so long ago, he’d forgotten.

  He took his hand from his pocket, and his gaze slid to the dance floor and the flash of white. A smile lifted the corners of his mouth, and he wondered how Lily and Daisy felt today about their public brawl in front of the Minute Mart. Jack had seen women fight each other, but he’d never seen a woman take on a man. Especially a man that had to outweight her by a good hundred or so pounds.

  Jack turned and placed his forearms on the bar. The morning of the fight, he’d just been standing there at the Minute Mart, minding his own business, leaning against his Mustang while it filled with fuel, when he heard yelling. He’d glanced across the parking lot and recognized Lily. She was swearing like a truck driver, and when the man she was yelling at shoved her, Jack headed in her direction. About halfway there, the store’s door flew open and Daisy charged Ronnie like a defensive linebacker, ramming him with her shoulder. She was a streak of black T-shirt and blond hair, and as Jack picked up his pace toward her, she curled up her fist, socked Ronnie in the eye, then kneed him.

  Jack grabbed her from behind to keep her from getting hurt, but he hadn’t expected the confusing mix of anger and protectiveness that had slammed into his chest. Growing up, Daisy had been a walking contradiction, both afraid and fierce at the same time. And just as he had while growing up, he’d wanted to shake her and hold her, to yell at her even as he wanted to smooth her hair.

  But he had held her, he reminded himself. He’d held her with her back pressed to him, her butt smashed against the front of his fly. He’d touched her and he’d smelled her hair and the scent of her skin.

  He raised his gaze past the beer spigots to the animated Budweiser sign. Red neon tubes outlined Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR. The tires spun on the legendary number eight, as if Junior was doing one-eighty on the straightaways at the Texas Motor Speedway.

  Daisy had been gone fifteen years, but one thing had not changed over all that time. No matter how much he hated to admit it, he wanted her. Still. Now. After all this time. After everything she’d done.

  It didn’t make sense, but he couldn’t deny the proof. Just a glimpse of her in that dress tightened his scrotum and gave him a semi, right there in Slim Clem’s. He wanted her with the same mindless craving he’d had when he’d been eighteen. A hot ache that remembered the taste of her mouth and wanted to get reacquainted with the soft curves of her body. But he was no longer eighteen. He had more control, and getting hard didn’t mean he had to do a damn thing about it.

  Nope, he was going to stand right there and watch the Bud sign behind the bar. That was all. He was going to finish his beer then go home. If Buddy didn’t want to leave, he could catch a ride with someone else.

  As the band struck up Kenny Chesney’s “No Problem,” Buddy and Lily joined Jack at the bar. Just as he turned to tell Buddy he was leaving in a few, his gaze landed on Daisy and Tucker walking toward him. The closer she got, the more he wished she’d just stayed the hell across the room. She wore some sort of dark smudged stuff around her eyes, her lips were a dark red, and her hair was big and curled and wild, like she’d just got laid. She looked a little smutty, which normally was his favorite, but not tonight. Not on her.

  “Hey there, Jack.” Tucker offered his hand. “How’s it goin’?”

  Jack shook it, then raised his beer to his mouth. “I can’t really complain,” he said just before he took a drink. “How’s your hand?” he asked Daisy.

  She made a slow fist. “It’s better than it was yesterday,” she said.

  “I heard about you and Lily getting into a fight with Ronnie Darlington and Kelly Newman,” Tucker told her.

  “Ronnie’s a rat bastard and Kelly’s a skank,” Lily said.

  “Where did you hear about it?” Daisy wanted to know.

  “Fuzzy Wallace was driving by on Vine and saw you two.”

  Daisy closed her eyes and swore.

  Jack’s gaze slid from her face, and he got a good look at that white dress. He could see the outline of her bra, and she must have been tan all over, because he could see the straps and the smooth edges cupping her breasts and pushing them up. His gaze slid over the little row of snaps closing the dress over her b
reasts, down her flat abdomen to the belt around her waist and that big silver buckle suspended right above her goodie box. The bottom of her dress hit her just about mid thighs, and when he glanced at her feet, he about choked. She was wearing red boots with white hearts. He remembered those boots. She used to wear them all the time. There’d been several times when he’d made love to her while she’d been wearing those boots. Usually when she wore a skirt, or a dress like she was wearing tonight, he’d just slip her panties off and not bother with the boots.

  “If you have any more trouble, give me a call,” Tucker offered, and Jack looked up as Tucker slipped his arm around her shoulders.

  “Okay, I’ll remember that,” she said. She stepped forward and grabbed Jack’s hand. “Jack promised he’d dance with me.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Didn’t you?”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  He figured he had two options. He could leave her to Tucker or dance with her. He set his beer on the bar and slid his hand up her wrist to her elbow. “I guess I have a bad memory,” he said. He took her arm and led her across the room.

  The band broke into a slow smoky rendition of the Georgia Satellite’s “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.” Jack stopped in the middle of the dance floor and placed Daisy’s palm against his. He placed his other hand on her waist and moved with her to the beat of the music. Through her thin dress, he felt the warmth of her skin. “You going home with Gooch?”

  “He asked me.” She set her hand lightly on his shoulder. “But no.”

  Her answer pleased him more than it should have, and he didn’t like that one bit.

  “I don’t know where he got the idea that I’d actually consider it.”

  They moved past the stage and pink light shined in her hair, slid over her smooth forehead and cheeks, and dipped between her softly parted lips. “Maybe because your dress is so tight.”

  “It’s not that tight.”

  He spun her then pulled her closer without missing a step. An inch of empty space separated her breasts from his chest, and he told himself that he held her there so he could hear her better. He brushed his thumb across the soft material of her dress and said just above her ear, “It’s so tight, I can see the outline of your bra.”

  “Why are you staring at my bra, Jack?”

  “Bored I guess.”

  “Uh-huh.” She pulled far enough back to look up into his face. “You’re trying to imagine what I look like naked.”

  He smiled as the band sang true love and sin. “Buttercup, I know what you look like naked.”

  Within the dark shadows of the dance floor, she blushed. A pink flush that rose up her throat to her cheeks. “Funny, I don’t remember what you look like naked.” Her eyes stared into his for less than a second before her gaze slid away and she focused on something beyond his shoulder.

  She’d always been a bad liar. He didn’t remember it ever bothering him before. For some reason, it did now. “Did you know I was going to be here?” he asked her.

  She returned her gaze to his. “No,” she answered and he didn’t know if he believed her. “Are you going to be home tomorrow?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m coming over.”

  He stared down into her face, with her sexy-as-hell eye makeup and full lips. “I don’t remember inviting you.”

  “You just said you have a bad memory.”

  “Perhaps for some things. Other things I’m real clear about. Like I remember those boots.”

  She smiled and her hand slid to the back of his shoulder. “I know,” she said. “I can’t believe they still fit. Remember when I used to wear them with my purple Wranglers?”

  Purple Wranglers? He spun her a few times and hoped she got dizzy. While he’d been thinking about her bra and couldn’t get rid of the memory of those boots up around his ears, all she could think about was shit he didn’t care about and didn’t want to discuss.

  He brought her back close to his chest and she said, “And remember the hot-pink prairie skirt? Lord what a fashion nightmare.”

  Prairie Skirt? What the hell? Just for that, he should spin her until she puked. She was talking about stupid shit on purpose, just to make him insane. As if she wasn’t thinking of hot sweaty sex, too. As if the sexual desire between them was all in his own head, when he knew, he just knew she had to feel it too. “Ah yes, the hot-pink prairie skirt,” he said even though he wasn’t even sure what a prairie skirt was. He brought her so close, her breasts brushed his chest, then he said, “I remember how it looked shoved up around your waist.”

  Her steps faltered as she pulled back and looked up at him. She licked the corners of her mouth. “I don’t want to talk about sex.”

  Usually, he didn’t either. Usually he was more of a doer than a talker. “Too bad.” He slid his hand from her waist to the small of her back. “You want to talk to me, I get to pick the subject.”

  “There are more important things in life than sex.”

  He supposed that was true, but at the moment he couldn’t think of anything. “Name one.”

  “Friendship.”

  “Right,” he scoffed. “Spoken just like a girl.”

  “No, spoken like an adult.”

  Now she was really pissing him off. Until she’d blown back into town, he’d moved on with his life. He’d taken on a big dose of adulthood at an early age. He’d finished raising his brother and had single-handedly rescued the business after his father’s death. Now, here she was, in her red boots and white dress, digging it all up again. “Sex was a big part of our past, Daisy, but you don’t seem to want to talk about that.”

  “It wasn’t that big a part, Jack.”

  “Bullshit.”

  The song ended and she stepped back from him. “Maybe for you. But it wasn’t that big a part for me,” she said, then turned on the heels of those red boots and walked away.

  Daisy tucked her chin and headed for the lady’s room. Once inside, she wet a paper towel and pressed it to her cheeks. Her heart pounded in her throat and she looked at herself in the long mirror above the sink. Her eyes shined a little too bright. Her face was a little too flushed. Her skin was ultra sensitive, every cell responding to Jack’s touch. He’d pulled her hard against him, and it had felt so good to feel the wall of his chest pressed against her breasts. It was a dang good thing she was leaving soon, because Jack reminded her of things better left forgotten. Like just how long it had been since she’d been with a man, and what it was like to feel the raw ache of lust, hot and vital, tugging at her breasts and between her thighs. And it wasn’t just his talking about sex, it was him. It was the touch of his hands, his thumb brushing her waist, the deep timbre of his voice in her ear, and the smell of his skin. She was afraid if the song hadn’t ended when it did, she would have combusted right there in the middle of the dance floor.

  A woman in a T-shirt with black fringe joined her at the sink and she scooted over to make room. “It’s really hot out there,” she said as a way to explain her flushed cheeks.

  “A little.”

  Daisy tossed the paper towels in the trash and opened the door.

  Jack stood with one shoulder against the opposite wall, and when he saw her he straightened. “When are you going home, Daisy?” he asked and stepped in front of her.

  She looked beyond his left shoulder toward the crowded bar. “When Lily is ready to leave.”

  There was a hard edge to his voice when he clarified, “When are you going home to Seattle?”

  His lids were lowered over his green eyes as he looked down at her. She took a few steps backward so she wouldn’t have to strain her neck looking up. “Sunday.”

  He followed. “Day after tomorrow, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “That’s why we have to talk tomorrow.” She took another step back.

  Again he followed. “Because you want to be friends and chat about the past.”

  “Am
ong other things.” Her shoulders hit the back door and he reached beside her right hip and turned the knob. The door opened and he forced her outside. The warm breeze touched her face and neck and picked up the ends of her hair. He let go of the door and it slammed shut behind them.

  The light above the door shined through his hair and lit up his green eyes and his knowing smile. “You don’t want to talk any more than I do.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She moved away from him and somehow ended up pressed against the wood shingle siding of Slim’s. They stood within the deep shadows of the building and a big blue Dumpster. Thank goodness the bar didn’t serve food, and the only smell coming from the closed Dumpster was stale beer and dust.

  Jack planted one hand on the building beside her head, trapping her between him and the Dumpster. “You always were a bad liar.” He lowered his mouth to hers and said just above a whisper, “You can deny it all night, but I know what you want, Daisy.”

  She put her hands on his chest to stop him and instantly knew it was a mistake. Through the soft denim of his shirt and the hard muscles of his chest, she could feel the strong beating of his heart. It warmed her palms and spiked her blood pressure at her wrists. She turned her face to the side so she could breathe, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to lower her hands. Not just yet. “I don’t think you do.”

  He placed his fingers on her jaw and gently turned her face back to him. “You want me to take you home, or take you to the backseat of my car, or take you right here against this wall.” His lips touched hers, and her breath caught in her throat. “Just like old times.”

  Her finger curled into his shirt and she held on. Oh, yes. She wanted that very much, but she wanted chocolate cake every day too. “That would be bad, Jack.”

  “No, Daisy. That would be good.”

  For one brief second, it occurred to her that she’d had the same thought not long ago. Then his lips brushed hers and she shuddered. She couldn’t help it. Neither could she seem to help what followed. Her palms slid up his chest, over his shoulder, then back down to his flat stomach and the waistband of his jeans. His face was so close, his nose touched hers. She couldn’t see his eyes clearly, but she could feel his hot gaze on her. Then he kissed her. A gentle press of his lips that she felt in the backs of her knees and the soles of her feet. She opened her mouth beneath his and his tongue touched hers, warm and wet and that’s all it took to trip her senses into overload. Heat and need and greed rushed through her, too much, too fast, and she couldn’t stop it. All she could do was hold on.