Frisky Business

by Tawna Fenske

  The dogs scampered along beside them, thrilled to be heading off on a new adventure. Rosco dropped his tennis ball and picked up a pinecone, prancing like he’d just discovered the holy grail. Polly scooped up the abandoned ball and bounded ahead before turning back to check on Omar.

  “She’s such a good girl,” April said.

  “What?” Will asked, his eyes still fixed on Marley.

  “Polly. Your dog? I love how she’s always looking out for Omar,” April said. “Like she knows he can’t hear, so she wants to make sure he doesn’t wander off. Such a lovely gesture.”

  Will nodded, barely hearing her. They were ten feet from Marley now, and Will could see her gloved thumbs working the remote control in her hand.

  “Like this?” she asked, blinking up at the burly man beside her in an orange parka.

  The man grinned and nodded. “You’re doing great. Good call picking the SkyScout. It’s a great little plane, isn’t it?”

  “I love it!” Marley said, her face upturned to watch the small aircraft arc across the sky.

  “Hey, guys!” Bethany called. Marley turned at the sound of her voice, her face registering surprise as she spotted Bethany, then April, then Will.

  Her eyes lingered longest on Will, and he couldn’t help feeling glad about that.

  He also couldn’t help noticing Marley’s date register that detail.

  “Watch out!” he said, pulling the remote control out of Marley’s hands. “You’re going to hit the tree with it.”

  “What? Oh… sorry about that.” Marley looked at the man’s hands for a moment as he worked the controls on the plane. Then she turned back to Will. “Josh, I’d like you to meet Bethany, April, and Will Barclay. Guys, this is Josh Johnson.”

  “Josh Johnson the plumber?” Bethany said. “I see your ads all over town.”

  “That’s me,” Josh said proudly, smiling at Bethany before turning his attention back to the model airplane. “I’m also president of the Deschutes Oregon Radio Control Society.”

  “DORCS,” Will said slowly, sounding out the acronym. Josh glared, then looked back at the sky, dismissing Will as insignificant.

  Will didn’t blame the guy.

  Bethany shot Will a warning look before flashing Josh a peacemaker smile. “Cool plane,” she said.

  “So lovely,” April exclaimed, beaming up at the sky.

  “Marley thought so, too,” Josh said, looking fondly at Marley. “Never met a woman so fascinated by small-scale aviation, but when I told her about this, she was really into it.”

  Will raised an eyebrow at Marley, who refused to meet his eyes. Or maybe she really was fascinated by remote-controlled airplanes since her gaze was fixed heavenward. He watched her for a moment, trying not to be distracted by the flashes of silver in her eyes.

  “Marley certainly has varied interests,” Will agreed. “Golf, mountain biking, plastic planes—”

  “It’s not plastic,” Josh said, frowning at Will as he lowered the remote control. “This here’s the SkyScout P2GO with a multiplex airframe offering the precision of Hitec electronics in a protected-top mounted outrunner motor with optional ailerons.”

  “Of course,” Will said. “I stand corrected.”

  “It’s a wonder of modern technology,” Josh said, still frowning at Will.

  “In that case,” April said, “is it less likely to break if it hits that tree?”

  “What?” Josh snapped his attention back to the sky in time to watch a small yellow plane smack nose-first into the trunk of a massive ponderosa.

  “Goddammit!” he screamed, hurling his radio controller to the ground and stomping it under his work boot. He stomped it a few more times before turning to Will. “Look what you made me do.”

  Will stared at Josh, unsure whether to apologize or to point out the fact that the person holding the remote control was in charge of the aircraft’s flight path. He was saved from making either statement when Marley laid her hand on Josh’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I didn’t mean to distract you with—”

  “What’s the first rule of radio-controlled aviation?” Josh barked.

  Marley blinked. “Um, don’t take it too seriously?”

  Josh growled, not amused. “Always keep your eye on the sky.”

  Bethany folded her arms over her chest and leveled a cold stare at Josh. “I need to point out here that the only two people who didn’t have their eyes on the sky were you and Will. And since Will wasn’t in control of an aircraft at the time, let me go out on a limb here and say the rule doesn’t apply to him.”

  “He distracted me!” sputtered Josh. “With his stupid comments about radio-control aviation and Marley paying attention to you people instead of the job at hand.”

  Marley grimaced. “You know, maybe the job at hand isn’t the right fit for me.”

  Will pressed his lips together, fighting hard to control the urge to make a hand job joke. It was best to let Marley handle this on her own.

  “Fine,” Josh huffed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry I overreacted. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Let’s just go get dinner.”

  Marley blinked, then forced a smile. “Actually, I’m really tired. I think I’ll skip dinner and call it a night.”

  Josh snorted. “You women and your diets. Fine, we’ll skip dinner. Do you want to go catch a movie then? There’s that new one about Amelia Earhart. You’ll like that, being an aviation fan and all.”

  “Actually, I think I just want to go home.” Marley’s voice was still calm, but Will could hear an edge to it.

  Josh kicked his remote control again. “But what about your plan? You said you wanted to learn more about remote-control aviation.”

  “Maybe some other time.” Marley wore her donor relations smile like a shield, but her eyes flashed in warning.

  Josh scowled. “You broke my goddamn plane for nothing.”

  Will watched as something snapped in Marley’s brain. She crossed her arms over her chest and leveled him with an icy look.

  “Actually, you broke your goddamn plane,” she snapped. “And to be perfectly honest, I’m not interested in continuing a date with a grown man who throws tantrums over a toy. And FYI, that orange coat makes you look like a pylon.”

  The words hung in the air for a moment, and no one spoke. Beside them, Rosco barked once. Marley looked down at the ground. “A simple ‘thank you for the lovely date and have a nice night’ would have been better, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not really,” Will said.

  Marley looked up at him, and he saw something pleading in her eyes. “Would you mind giving me a ride home?” she asked.

  Will looked into those hazel depths and felt something twist in his gut. Part of him wanted to tell her she deserved to stay here with Josh. That this was the inevitable result of feigning interest in something she had no interest in.

  But most of him just wanted to take her into his arms and tell her she deserved better.

  “Come on, Marley,” Bethany said, grabbing her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Marley bit her lip, then looked at Josh. “I’m really sorry about your plane.”

  Josh gritted his teeth as a vein pulsed in his forehead. He was trying to control his anger, but not doing the best job of it.

  “Have a nice life,” he snapped in a tone that said he hoped she wouldn’t. He bent to pick up the broken pieces of his remote control.

  April grabbed Marley’s other arm and steered her away. “Lovely to meet you, Josh!” she called over her shoulder.

  Will hesitated, then trudged after them feeling like a third wheel. Or was it a fourth wheel?

  “Fourth wheels are functional,” he muttered. “What the hell am I doing here?”

  Bethany turned and grabbed his arm, pulling him into the line be
side them. “What are you mumbling about?”

  “Nothing,” Will said, glancing at Marley. “You okay?”

  She nodded and shot him a sheepish look. “Sorry you guys got dragged into that. He seemed like a nice guy when he asked me out.”

  “Not everyone turns out to be what they seem,” Will said.

  He watched April wince on the other side of Marley and felt bad. Nothing he was saying was coming out quite right. Beside him, Polly whimpered and dropped a stick at his feet. Will stooped to pick it up, and Bethany let go of his arm.

  Will straightened and tossed the stick, then caught up with the girls. “Why don’t you let us take you to dinner,” Will said. “Since you’re missing out on your meal with Josh.”

  “That’s a lovely idea,” April said.

  “Burgers!” Bethany shouted. “Pilot Butte Drive-in.”

  Marley laughed, a warm and musical sound that made Will want to keep her laughing forever. “Sure, I’m game. But I’m buying. Seriously, thanks for rescuing me, guys.”

  “No problem,” Will said. “I’m sure you’ll find we’re much more amicable dates than Josh, though slightly less likely to put out.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Bethany said as she looped her arm through Will’s again, pulling him close enough to smell blueberries in Marley’s hair.

  ***

  Marley wasn’t sure how things had gone so wrong on her date with Josh, but she was glad about one thing.

  “So we saved you from having dinner with the plumber’s parents?” Bethany asked, popping a fry into her mouth. “Seriously? The guy was taking you to meet his mom on a first date?”

  Marley shrugged and took a bite of her burger. The patty was thick and juicy and tasted like heaven coated in bleu cheese. “His mom was making meatloaf,” Marley said. “It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time.”

  “If that’s your idea of reasonable dating behavior, remind me to invite you to help repave my driveway,” Will said. “It’s romantic, I swear.”

  “Be nice to her, you two,” April said, daintily dipping a fry in a perfectly round pool of ketchup. “She said she’s spent most of her adult life dating a different sort of man. She just didn’t know what to expect.”

  Marley felt a rush of gratitude toward April and wondered, not for the first time, what her marriage to Will had been like. Did she regret those years of being someone she wasn’t, or did it take a relationship with the absolute wrong person to recognize right when you saw it?

  She smiled at April, who smiled back and gestured to Marley’s ears. “Those are lovely earrings, Marley. Where did you find them?”

  “My mother made them,” Marley said, squelching a pang of sadness by popping a tater tot in her mouth. “She used to be a jewelry designer. She owned a jewelry store in Portland for almost twenty years.”

  “Where does she live now?” Will asked, shifting on the bench seat to lean back into the corner. The movement tipped Marley toward him, and she shivered as she felt her thigh brush his.

  “My mom lives in Guatemala,” Marley said. “She and my dad divorced years ago.”

  “How is your dad, anyway?” Will asked, shifting the subject from one subject Marley didn’t want to discuss to another she wanted to discuss even less.

  “He’s fine,” she said, and took a bite of her burger.

  “How’d he feel about your date with the plumber?” Will asked.

  “He didn’t send me to my room and ground me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Will grinned and reached out to steal a tater tot off her plate. “You do seem like you could use a good spanking.”

  “Time out!” Bethany yelled, waving her arms. “If you two are gonna do it on the table, can I at least move my food out of the way?”

  Marley felt heat creep into her cheeks, and April looked equally uncomfortable. She was struggling to come up with a good way to change the subject when a waitress approached the table with four large takeout boxes. She set them on the table in front of Will, who thanked her and handed one to Marley.

  “I took the liberty of ordering an extra burger for Magoo,” he said. “I hope the bacon cheeseburger is okay. That’s what my three are getting.”

  “Thank you,” Marley said, taken aback. “That’s very sweet of you.”

  “I can be sweet when I try.”

  Across the table, April sipped her diet Coke and smiled at Marley. “How was work for you today, Marley? Are you settling in okay?”

  “Work is… well, mostly fine.”

  Not a word to the family members. Susan’s warning echoed in Marley’s ears as she reached for the saltshaker.

  “I’m settling in really well,” Marley amended, adding an extra note of perkiness to her voice. “I really enjoy working with donors.”

  “Even Aunt Nancy?” Bethany snorted.

  Marley felt a chill slither down her spine, and she forced her smile to stay in place. “I get to work with a very diverse group of CHSWS supporters, and Ms. Thomas-Smith certainly keeps me on my toes. I spoke with her today, as a matter-of-fact.”

  “Did she tell you about the new study she’s doing on the long-term health effects of nipple clamps?” Bethany asked.

  Marley grimaced. “I tried to change the subject, but she just kept talking.”

  “Welcome to our childhood,” Bethany said, taking a sip of her strawberry milkshake. “I’m having lunch with her tomorrow. She wants me to go with her to New York next week to meet with her attorney.”

  “New York is lovely this time of year,” April said.

  Bethany smiled and turned back to Marley. “Is she making you nuts with demands about the rock cocks? Honestly, those things have been her pride and joy for decades. I couldn’t believe she finally decided to donate them.”

  “Wanting to leave a legacy is a lovely gesture,” April said. “I admire her for doing it.”

  “Any word yet on what they’re worth?” Will asked.

  Marley swallowed hard, wondering if it was a piece of sesame bun or just her conscience lodged in her throat. She looked down at her plate and began to dissect a piece of tomato with her fingernail.

  “We’re taking our time and making absolutely certain we handle this donation correctly,” Marley said, ignoring the twist of guilt that grabbed hold of her small intestine. “Finding the right appraiser, having the figurines properly cleaned and handled—”

  “Of course,” Will said, shifting again on the bench seat so Marley fell against him. “Because nothing’s worse than a granite wanker that’s dirty or improperly handled.”

  Marley flushed and looked up at Will. His mismatched eyes bore into hers, and for a horrifying moment, she worried he knew everything. About her mother, about the lost figurines, about the way she imagined tearing off his shirt and sinking her fingernails into his chest as he devoured her throat with his mouth.

  She swallowed and scooted back on the seat. “I have everything handled,” she said, knowing nothing could be further from the truth.

  Chapter 13

  Friday evening, Marley was standing by the door ten minutes early waiting for Brian to pick her up. She glanced at her watch, not sure why she felt so nervous. True, her date with Josh hadn’t gone very well.

  But she had high hopes for Brian the bike guy and his delightfully sexy smile.

  “What kind of car does he drive?” her father asked, joining her in the foyer and peering out the window.

  “A bike,” Marley replied with another glance at her watch.

  “Is that a joke?”

  Marley shrugged. “The restaurant isn’t too far away, and Brian lives less than half a mile from here. He offered to pedal his tandem bike over here by himself so we could ride together to dinner.”

  Admittedly, Marley had been surprised at the suggestion. How many first dates involved both
parties riding the same bicycle? But she told herself it was a quaint and charming notion, not to mention practical. This way, no one had to operate a car after a couple glasses of wine.

  “Tandem bikes are romantic,” Marley told her father, pretty sure that was true.

  “So is not fracturing your skull on a first date. Promise you’ll be careful, Marley.”

  “I’ll be careful, I promise. See? I have a helmet and everything. I even left my hair down so I don’t end up with helmet head.”

  “Please say this man at least owns a motorized vehicle.”

  “He owns a motorized vehicle. Now cut it out, Dad. How do I look?”

  “Very beautiful,” her father said, studying her from head to toe as he took a sip from his glass of bourbon.

  “Thank you. I wouldn’t normally go for capris and sturdy sandals on a first date, but I’ve never had a first date on a bike. It’s nice to be fun and casual for a change.”

  Her father sighed. “In my day, a man wouldn’t ask a woman out and expect her to dress like she’s going hiking.”

  “I asked him out,” she informed him. “And I’m paying, too. It’s a thank you for a speedy repair on my bike.”

  Her father frowned. “You’re positive this is a date?”

  “Yes,” said Marley, not entirely certain.

  She smiled as Brian came wheeling up the driveway, his magnificent—albeit, hairless—legs pumping the pedals. He braked at the top of the driveway, pulled off his aviator sunglasses, and gave her a slow, sexy smile as she walked down the front steps.

  “Marley,” he said. “You look hot.”

  “Thank you,” she said, stealing a glance at his legs. “You too.”

  He laughed. “Looking at my legs?”

  Marley flushed. “I just—”

  “It’s okay. I’m used to it from non-cyclists. Competitive bike racers keep their legs shaved.” He turned one calf to the side to give her a better look. “It’s a safety thing. Makes wounds easier to clean if you crash and end up with road rash.”

  Marley strapped on her helmet, delighted by the invitation to stare openly at his legs now. “But competitive bike racers don’t shave their arms? Aren’t they just as likely to get road rash on an elbow or forearm or something?”