Forty Candles

by Virginia Nelson

  “By blunt honesty, do you mean proposing to her, drunk and stupid?”

  “Why you gotta bring that up?”

  “Just wanted to clarify what ‘blunt honesty’ meant.” Dylan’s grin was familiar.

  “Dick.”

  “We’re back to name calling?”

  “Anyway, like I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I’ve decided to go with a bait and switch philosophy.” The idea occurred to Jack one night and he’d not been able to shake it.

  “How’s that work, exactly?”

  Happy to finally reveal his plan, he leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “You know the old adage, boy chases girl ‘til girl catches boy?”

  “I’ve heard it.”

  “That.”

  Dylan didn’t seem to believe a word of it. “How are you going to get her to chase you?” “She has been shooting me the eye.”

  Dylan’s expression remained dubious. “The eye?”

  “There is a look Chloe gets when she wants me…it’s back.” He wasn’t sure how to explain it further than that, he just knew.

  “So you’re psychic as well as psychotic now.” Dylan’s laughter wasn’t mean-spirited, so Jack ignored it and simply continued.

  “Shut up, asshole, and follow me here. The plan is to dangle my very sexy body, and all that I can offer her, in front of her ’til she can’t resist me.” As he’d told her, he was a simple man and he figured a simple plan would work best.

  Dylan practically choked on his drink. “You’re also sexually irresistible. Good to know. Remind me to steer Harp clear of all that animal magnetism. Wouldn’t want my new wife to get caught up in lusting after my best guy pal.”

  “Harper can’t see past your giant ego to notice me. No worries. Chloe and me, we have a connection.” They did, too. Sometimes, he would swear they had whole conversations just with their eyes. He knew her, understood her in a way he didn’t understand most people, and figured she knew him just as well. He might be close to Dylan, but there was just something about his relationship with Chloe unlike any other he’d ever experienced in his lifetime.

  “Says the man who chased her away once.” Dylan’s words weren’t meant to be cruel, but they hurt nonetheless.

  “I’m serious, Dylan.” He might have lost her once, but he didn’t plan to do it again.

  Considering him, Dylan kicked his own chair back, sipping his soda. “So, how am I to help with this plan?”

  “You’re going to help me create opportunities for us to run into each other. Sort of like physical business cards.” Tapping the table, he realized the plan seemed almost too simple when he said it out loud. Still...

  “You mean the idea that if your name is in front of them, they remember you.”

  “Yup,” Jack agreed. “If she is around me, nature will kick in and take its course.”

  “Vaguer than your usual complex plans.” Dylan waved his drink. He didn’t look as against the idea as he had moments before, though, which encouraged Jack a bit.

  “I think that is why it has more of a fail-proof tightness than my usual plans.”

  With the arch of one brow, Dylan’s expression turned devious. “Care to place a bet on whether Chloe falls for this or not?”

  Jack glared, dropping his seat to all four legs with a clank of noise. “I’m not betting on my love life.”

  Dylan shook his head. “Not a bet on your love life, a bet on the success of your plan. If you can convince Chloe to marry you in less than a year…”

  “I get that old convertible you have rusting in your back field.”

  Dylan whistled. “I’m planning on rebuilding that. Just haven’t gotten around to it.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a ’56 ’Vette. I want it. You’ve got it. If we’re betting and the stakes are me getting a pretty wedding ring like yours, I get the Chevy.” Jack rubbed his head and grinned. It sounded a bit like a win-win proposition for Jack, which happened to be his favorite sort of bet.

  “What do I get if you lose?”

  Snorting, Jack shrugged. “What do you want, aside from the right to buy me beers to cry in?”

  Dylan considered his options as he polished off his hotdog. Finally, he said, “The right to speed.”

  Jack choked on his Coke. “Vague much?”

  “You’re a cop. I want the right to speed.”

  “I can’t give you that.” And wouldn’t if he could. If anyone should have the right to speed, it would be Jack. Since he couldn’t grant himself that particular boon, he surely wasn’t offering it to Dylan.

  “Had to try.” Dylan shrugged. “How about you come be my bitch for a period of one year. Basically, any Honey-Do stuff that comes up, you do—and I get to kick back, drink a beer, and throw random slurs your way.”

  Summarizing, Jack ticked items off on his fingers. “So, you’ll help me get the girl, and if I get the girl, I get the ’Vette. If I don’t get the girl, I’m your bitch?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Clanking their glasses together, Jack agreed. “You’re gonna cry when that rusted piece of shit in your back field is all shiny red and white and I am cruising down the road in it.”

  “Yeah, well, my money is on Chloe. She is tough. Even with my help, you’re screwed.”

  ***

  Jack leaned back in his truck to look out at their favorite local swimming hole, letting the memories overtake him. The first time they’d made love, they’d been little more than horny kids experimenting. Due to that youthful fling, Chloe never really responded when he’d propositioned her over the years.

  Except when she was broken, hurting or otherwise feeling like her life had gone to shit.

  He understood the definition of friend-zoned and figured he’d spent his fair share of time in that particular area. The thing about being friend-zoned, though, was that it meant he was her friend. They were close and when things went bad, they leaned on each other.

  He couldn’t think of a much better foundation to build a lifetime upon.

  The trick would be convincing Chloe their relationship could matter—that he was more than the guy she leaned on in times of trouble and slept with periodically. His girl, she was a blockhead. The best way to convince her of anything was to make it seem like the whole matter was her idea in the first place.

  The water was quiet, the night still, and how he wished he could go back in time and never have dated her when they were kids. Maybe they wouldn’t be a second chance romance, then, and instead they would meet each other and fall in love as adults. Life, however, rarely cared for what might be easiest.

  His phone jangled to life—some poppy, chipper song, about a hollerback girl—and he thumbed it awake. “Sis, how many times have I asked you—no, pleaded with you—to stop messing with my ringtones?”

  The snicker on the other end of the line pulled him firmly into the present and shook loose the last dregs of the past weighing him down. His youngest sister, Ellie, could easily claim she was his favorite sibling. “I heard you got a dog.”

  “You mean to say you heard I dropped a dog off over at the vet’s office.”

  “No, I heard you got a dog. Ever heard of big black dog syndrome? You’re stuck with him. I have some gift cards left over from my last birthday, so I ordered you some supplies—dog bed, bowls, stuff like that, and—”

  “I hate to interrupt you, Sis, but—”

  “If you hated to interrupt me, you wouldn’t have just done it.” Ellie went silent and he counted to ten, knowing she’d feel the need to talk again if he didn’t answer. The best part of having sisters was knowing he didn’t have to talk. Women, in his experience, were happy to fill silences with words.

  Well, except Chloe. But he wouldn’t let memories drag him back down that slippery slope.

  As expected, Ellie broke the silence. “Anyway, so I got things for your dog, and I can’t help but notice that in a town with three vet offices, you chose to visit the one where Chloe is finishing off her interns
hip.”

  Jack closed his eyes and leaned back. He couldn’t answer that one without giving too much away. Better not to answer at all.

  His sister wasn’t having it. “Jack Reginald Sparks, don’t you dare go all silent on me. You and I both know you’ve had a thing for her since high school. Don’t play dumb.”

  Again, Jack decided silence was his best option. Besides, he’d liked Chloe before high school.

  “Ma! Jack has something he wants to tell you!”

  “That is low, El.”

  Her giggle was followed by a shuffling noise and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he waited for his mother on the line. “Jackie?” she bellowed. His mom always thought she had to speak very loud so that they could hear her over the cell phone. None of them had managed to convince her otherwise, something he secretly thought she understood but continued just to irk her now-adult children.

  “Hi, Ma.”

  “Ellie tells me you got a dog.” There were three beeps in between the words, probably his mother banging her face into the touch screen on the phone. “Would you stop pushing buttons on that phone and SnapBooking or FaceTweeting or whatever you’re doing? I’m trying to talk, Jack.”

  He didn’t bother to explain she was the one making the beeps. “I didn’t get a dog, Ma. I found one and took it into the vet to get looked over until I find its owners.”

  “Is it a nice dog? We had a dog once, horny thing…he’d make love to couches, pillows—even knocked you down once and caused that cute little scar on your chin. Do you remember that?” His mother’s voice faded for a moment, then he heard her in the distance muttering, “Ellie? This phone is beeping at me. Is it another call coming in?”

  “No, Ma, you’re hitting the dial pad with your face. Here, let me click it to the home screen,” Ellie answered. He heard another beep then his mother returned.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “I don’t remember the chin scar. How old was I when we had the horny dog, Ma?” At least she wasn’t asking about Chloe.

  “Two? Maybe three? I don’t know, you were small enough that he thought you were his type.” Her chuckling laugh still made him grin, even if she was talking about a horny dog.

  “Nope, I don’t remember it. I’ll bring the dog I found by if I end up adopting him. Well, I have to get the horses fed and—” There was a click on the other end of the line, so he asked, “Ma?”

  “I’m in the closet so Ellie can’t hear me. Are you dating her again? Or still just dancing around each other like two moths at a bug zapper?” Her whisper was loud enough that Jack bet his sister could hear regardless of the closet door.

  “Why are you hiding in the closet?” Laughter escaped between his words, although he’d tried to hold it back.

  “Stop laughing at your mother. It’s disrespectful. And Ellie doesn’t need to be gossiping about you, but a mother has a right to know these things.”

  He didn’t bother disputing her logic. “I promise if I adopt a dog, I’ll bring it by to meet you. If I get a wife, same goes. That work?”

  Her snort came right before more beeps. “Damned phone. Did you hear what your sister did?”

  “Which one?” Leaning back, he closed his eyes and let his mother’s familiar voice wipe away his worries about the past.

  Chapter Three

  Seeing Jack’s pickup truck pull in, Chloe snapped the camo-colored leash she’d picked for him onto the large black dog. “Well, Fluffy, time for you to go to your new home.”

  Over the past couple days, the Aussie had grown on Chloe. A sweet animal, if slightly neurotic, the big furry canine would be missed. Better, though, that he was leaving the kennel. Fluffy, as Chloe had been calling him, got really nervous around other dogs as Jack had expected. The search for whoever lost him wasn’t going well. Calling Jack today, Chloe advised he come pick up the animal and take him home until the owner turned up.

  Although, with each day that passed, it looked worse for Fluffy. People just didn’t usually rescue big black dogs.

  “Chloe.”

  “Jack.” Not looking up at him, she worked to control her pulse. It seemed lately, every time he was around, she fought a primal reaction to him. Always a testosterone packed punch to the gut, memories seemed fresher of late, drowning her in remembered glimpses of his flesh against hers and other things better left buried in the past.

  Disregarding her own frustrating hormones, she faked a polite and businesslike tone. “So, I’ve been feeding him the more expensive dog food since it doesn’t contain fillers and he is a chubby guy to begin with. Probably you should stay with that and I recommend you not feed him more than two full bowls a day. Also, try to avoid giving him human food. He just doesn’t need the calories and a lot of human food is bad for dogs anyway. You can Google more on that, if you want. I brought out a fifty pound bag of the food I’ve been giving him if you want to buy it. He’s up-to-date on all of his shots and healthy, though as Meredith mentioned when you brought him in, he’s not microchipped. I even checked to see if it floated into his armpit or something, but nada.” Pausing for air, she shrugged. “I just groomed him this morning, and his nails are trimmed. I’m not charging you for that, since you are nice enough to give him a place to stay until his owners are found, but I want to make sure you understand that there is a really good chance you aren’t going to find them. He really needs someplace that won’t mind giving him a forever home if they aren’t found.”

  Finally glancing up, she saw he wore a tee shirt with the sleeves cut off, emphasizing the tattoos that ran down his arms like dark art writhing on muscle. Most of the time, his uniform hid the tats, but she had this weakness for big muscles decorated with art. Gah, he looks good enough to bite.

  Clearing her throat, she ruffled the dog’s fur and tried to banish the image of that tee shirt pulled tight across his perfectly sculpted chest from her mind.

  “If we don’t find his home, I think I will keep him. Right, Stark?” Bending, Jack came into her peripheral vision as he petted the dog, who seemed to recognize him as he slurped Jack’s shoulder.

  I wouldn’t mind licking that shoulder myself.

  Clearing her throat again, Chloe forced herself to meet his azure gaze. “Stark?”

  “Like the superhero from the movies, the one in the metal suit. Figure he is a strong dog.”

  Nodding, Chloe smiled. “I’ve been calling him Fluffy.”

  “Fluffy is a name for a poodle. Not a big butch dog like Stark, here. Right, Stark?”

  Stark rolled and presented his belly, just in case anyone was interested in rubbing it.

  “Fluffy likes belly rubs,” Chloe laughed.

  “You’re sissifying him, Red.” Jack shook his head. “I’m going to have to take him fishing and look at porn with him. Get him manned back up.”

  The old childhood nickname made her bite her lip. She knew this man, knew him better than she knew herself sometimes. She’d never been as easy with any other guy, but she’d also never kept a friend so long as she’d managed to keep him. It’d be a shame to mess that up. Meeting his smiling gaze, Chloe felt heat pool low in her body as her lady parts reacted to that grin with hyper speed. “If you think you can man him up, please, feel free to try. You’re the guy who wore a tutu to the senior talent show.”

  “You dared me. Not my fault you said hairy legs looked sexy in pink. I’ll take the dog food, and thanks for all the advice.” Lips still upturned in a smile, with his eyes crinkled like that, it seemed imperative she lean over and press her lips to his.

  Which is crazy. He was an ex. And he knew things about her that were better forgotten.

  Licking lips gone dry, she forced legs gone to jelly to straighten, moving away from him. “Any other questions about proper care of your new furry friend, Jack?”

  “Actually,” Meredith popped a head out from the back, “Chloe? Could you pop over and check and see how the animal is settling in some time in the next day or so? I would do it but I am
headed out of town tonight and you’re on call, not me.”

  “Uh—” They were a small town vet, so running out and doing house calls was pretty common. Still...

  “Chloe knows where I live,” Jack inserted before she could come up with a good excuse not to stop by. “I’m not far out of her way. If you head over ’round dinner time, I have a nice pork roast in the slow cooker and you could have some with me and Stark if you’ve not yet eaten.”

  “Perfect,” Meredith smiled at him. “Take care of it Chloe.”

  “Uh—”

  “See ya later, Red.” He mumbled the words in an undertone only meant for her ears, but it meant he got even closer and the scent of him—all man and Jack and delicious—flooded her brain. She had to struggle, actually struggle, to make sense of his words. Surprisingly, her belly was twisted with nervous flutters as if she was some teenager talking to her crush.

  Picking up the dog’s leash, Jack headed out the door after buying his dog food, leaving Chloe wondering how she was going to battle her raging hormones in a private setting when they were going rampant in a public one. She headed to the back of the office, figuring cleaning dog pens for a while might cool her libido. By the time she made it out front again, she’d put Jack and his new dog out of her mind.

  Mostly.

  “Chloe?” The familiar voice knocked her out of her introspection and she turned to see Jack’s sister—which one was it again? Ellie? Stella? It couldn’t be the baby—Mellie was off at school and the oldest, Deena, moved out to Oregon a while back, hadn’t she? They all looked the same—dimples, five foot nothing, like tiny versions of Jack if he hadn’t been shaving the remains of his hair.

  “Yes? Hey, how can I help you?” Since none of Jack’s four sisters usually bothered to talk to her, not to mention recognize her existence, she refused to feel guilty for not knowing which of the Leonard Four she faced.