“I know, honey, but I love your dad and it does work until something reminds me of her.”
“I know.”
“Enough about me, Win. Use this time wisely. Your dad is planning to drive up with me in about a month to see you when he gets back from Tokyo.” My parents in one car was nothing to get excited about because it could go south before they even made it upstate, but it was something.
“Love you.”
“Love you back.” I hung up the house phone, trying to remember what it was I needed my phone’s password for. Oh well. I figured I would remember it later.
The dogs broke the tender silence, chasing squirrels through the window, and I was heralded in ten different directions all over again.
Four
CHASE
I finished charts from the last two appointments in my office when my cell phone buzzed across my desk. “Hey, baby K.” My younger sister Kristen called often and usually when she wanted something. I signed off on the scripts for Mrs. Schwartz’s Pomeranian and Donnie DeLuca’s Pit Bull mix who was suffering from an enlarged heart condition.
“Are you coming to Mom’s Fourth of July barbeque?”
“That depends,” I told her, sitting back in my office chair and spinning toward the window.
“On what?” Kristen snapped.
“Are you going to have another throw-down food fight with Damien Hart this year?” I could literally hear my sister rolling her eyes through the phone. Those two had been involved in something chaotic over the years. I would have done my big brother duty by kicking Damien’s ass, but I knew not all of what happened was his fault for the animosity between the two of them. It stemmed back to sixth or seventh grade, and I couldn’t keep up the drama.
“Seriously?” Tapping sounds through the phone meant Kristen found a pen to click so she could annoy me. “You’re going to leave me high and dry with Mom?”
“She’s going to hire a catering service. What’s the issue? And for the love of God, get rid of the pen.” I heard her toss the pen and get whinny.
“Chase.” My sister had the unique ability to whine worse than a non-housebroken puppy trying to get upstairs in your bed.
“Is everyone else going?” I asked carefully, contemplating who I could bring to run interference on my mom’s piss poor matchmaking attempts. The perils of being Judge Catherine Calloway’s unmarried son.
“If you mean your ex, no, Bec is not invited.” Well, thank God for small favors. She dumped me right after my career ending injury in college and every once in a while, Becca would try to come crawling back with the help of my mom, a case of beer, and old high school prom videos.
No thanks.
“Who else? Spill it, KC.”
“Um, Taylor, Hunter, Damien, and some chick with a tramp stamp. Oh yeah, Whit and this new girl he’s seeing. I think her name is Amy or Leah. It’s something like that, but I haven’t met her yet.”
“So basically everyone is paired up and you want me to come so Mom can hassle me.” My sister was such a little witch sometimes.
“I’m not going alone so she can pick out all the wrong things if I bring some guy I just met.” My sister loved her bad boys and made my life as her older brother a living hell. My parents should have stopped with one. I was pretty awesome even if I didn’t make it to the NFL like Dad hoped I would.
“I know you, Kristen. You’re going to ask Evan to come at the last minute so Damien can blow a fuse again.” Her silence was an obvious omission of guilt.
“Not true.” Raising her voice defensively, I laughed. We could go around in circles for hours about this until one of us, usually me, cracked and relented.
“Liar. When are you going to stop doing tit for tat to each other?” I had to give Damien credit. My sister was a huge pain in the ass most of the time. A loveable one, but still a pain in the ass.
“When he stops dating girls who have misspelled tattoos and uneven clit piercings.”
“Ahh, enough. I don’t want to know anything!” If there was a line in the sand for appropriateness, my sister was a dust storm.
“Sheena totally showed it to me. That dude botched the whole thing and the hood—”
“Enough! Jesus Christmas, Kristen! I’ll go, but I’m bringing a date. You, dear sister, are navigating Mom and her interning court clerks on your own.” I was going to have to go through my phone contacts and fast to find a victim. I mean, a date for this fiasco. I wondered why I didn’t move far away after finishing vet school.
“Oooh…so I get to meet her? Like an actual woman and not a blow up doll sitting in your car?” Yet another teasing memory from my lovely sister and her younger friends.
“Yeah, that day. Now leave me alone so I can finish these charts and get home sometime tonight.”
“Fine, spoil sport. Remember to jerk off so your woody doesn’t scare the poor girl away!” Kristen hung up the phone, and I was blissfully at peace again with my charts. I didn’t know how Mom raised two completely different kids under her ruling judicial thumb. She still worked as lawyer with her own law firm in town and was recently appointed as a municipal court circuit judge. Mom had high standards for everything, including her kids, and yet we both veered wildly off the path. Kristen with her desire to not go to law school like Mom, and me with my failed football career since my injury. What a pair we made doing everything but what our parents envisioned for us. It was a good thing Dad was there to balance all this out, even if he still wasn’t speaking to me. It was hard being the high school football coach’s son with a career ending injury. He acted as if my life had been over before it even began. Thank God for good friends and annoying sisters.
Five
WINNIE
I stared at the red numbers glowing back like evil eyes summoning me from sleep. The alarm clock buzzed obscenely early at nine in the morning, and I smacked the small black box twice to turn it off. I’d been sleeping in the guest bedroom the past week, shacking up with someone different each night.
Last night was a real doozey. I stretched my arms over my head, letting the muscles pull, lengthening, and my neck popping, releasing pressure. Three at once was way more than I could handle even in my wildest days clubbing in the village. I wasn’t slutty. I had gone through my girl phase mostly unfazed and unscathed. So when I rolled over looking at the face covering the pillow next to me, shaking my head with a groan was the only acceptable response. I didn’t know how I got through the night with his horrible breath trailing to my side of the bed. I looked down and saw deep brown eyes with wild whiskers boring into me accusingly. He was definitely no Franggy Yanez.
“What? I don’t even know how you got up here, Pumpkin. The hound dog bellowed, causing Roswell to yap from his spot next to me. The snaggle-tooth pierced between his doggy jowls as he ran over my back.
“Wooo-Wooo.” Bailey let me know she was present, dancing at my feet and stepping over my legs.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re all hungry. Let’s go.” I helped Pumpkin off the bed and let the other two follow me to the kitchen. I was pretty sure the doggy smell mixed with my Coco Channel was now my new perfume since I couldn’t escape them.
I poured dry food into dishes and headed into the bathroom to get a shower before Bailey’s vet appointment. I tried to shut the door, but Roswell eyeballed me, growling. “Seriously?” I looked the pug up and down, wondering what I did in a former life to deserve this kind of censure and left the door open, stripping down naked. If he wanted to see tits and ass, who was I to say no. I looked back to see him watching me intently before licking his chops.
“You must have been a dirty old man in another life.” Pointing my finger at the dog, he barked at me and lunged for my ankle. “Okay, fine, but the show is over!” I turned the water on and was about to step into the shower when I heard yelping behind me.
To my horror, Roswell the little shit was humping my clean clothes. “No! Bad dog!” Roswell barked and growled, forc
ing me to back up naked as the day I was born while he became territorial about my no longer fresh undergarments. So much for saving them for Dr. Doolittle. Huddled behind the shower curtain, I took water from the spray, trying to scare him off. Damn dog just shook the water off and went back to pleasuring himself on my pile of clothes.
“I give up. God, take me now.” Tossing my hands up, I got into the shower, hoping to scrub the visual of doggy peen from my mind, but failing miserably. He was definitely staying home with Pumpkin the fumigator when I took Bailey to the vet.
* * *
“You can come back in now,” Dr. Calloway-Doolittle as I thought of him called to me from the open door of the exam room. His too gorgeous eyes scanned my body, causing me to overheat in a sticky bun delicious dessert sort of way. The thick head of messy sleep rumpled hair shouldn’t have looked that good as I fisted my trembling hands to keep from reaching out to touch him. I scanned the room, which was free of acupuncture torture devises, and let my eyes settle on his large muscular hands that held the door open for me.
“Thanks.” Sheepishly I entered the room and found Bailey eyeing me suspiciously. I couldn’t blame the poor dog either because I had left her to get a shot while I stayed safely out of the faint zone in the waiting room.
“No more dizziness?” He held on to my arm, guiding me into the exam room. My arms felt like fire where his bare calloused hands touched my skin. I wasn’t dizzy, but the sudden hormone overload had my stomach doing circus acrobatics while I stared down at his fingers brushing against my skin.
“Not right now, Doctor…” I gulped back, trying to control my unsteady voice. I was never like this with boys I liked, but I felt thick tongued and stupid around him. Maybe the difference was that Chase was obviously not a boy, but a man and everything south of my gray matter responsible for logical reasoning recognized this hot hard fact.
“Chase, Winnie, you can call me Chase.” He smiled kindly and my face flushed while other parts of me swelled, causing me to shift my stance. I should have worn yoga pants today and not a flirty little skirt.
“Right, okay.” I pulled back from his grasp, and he let me go gently, giving me space he must have thought I needed. “How is Bailey girl?”
“She did fine. I doubt anyone likes getting poked, animal or human.”
Yeah, I’d like for him to poke me, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate to ask.
“Of course not.”
“It’s a routine vaccination so just watch the injection site for any unexpected swelling or if she shows signs of a fever. She’ll be back to barking and jumping as usual.”
“Okay, thanks.” I took Bailey’s leash from him and his hand lingered over mine, forcing me to look up into his face. Pausing, I checked out the fine sculpted features and his broad chest emphasized under the white lab coat he wore. His name was embroidered over his chest, and I had a weird fascination to trace it with my fingernail looping over each cursive letter. It seemed criminal a man this beautiful was living up here in the middle of nowhere when I would be leaving in a few weeks. I mean, who would appreciate his hotness the way I could?
“So I’ll see you next week?” His voice broke the silence, and I snapped myself back to the reality of the sterile office.
“Uh?” Houston, we have a problem. My brain knew I was bringing Pumpkin back for his acupuncture, but the words didn’t connect to my mouth as I watched his own lips speaking. What the hell was wrong with me? I was acting like a lovesick girl with a guy I didn’t even know.
“Pumpkin’s acupuncture,” he repeated.
“Oh, of course.” I tried laughing it off, but typical Winnie, it came out as awkward and forced.
“Actually, I was kind of hoping to see you before then.”
“Really?” If there was a mouse in the room, I think I stepped on it squeaking.
“Don’t look so surprised.”
Chuckling to hide my discomfort, I was wondering if he was asking me out. Oh, please, let that be the case. My radar was off lately, and I wasn’t in the mood to work very hard at this dating thing. Especially not with my mom’s ultimatum of get your shit in order.
“What did you have in mind, Chase?” There was one movie theater in town that featured a double movie, but I saw potential in a few of the restaurants considering this was a college town nestled between mountain ranges ice ages old.
“I have a Fourth of July barbeque to attend, and I was hoping you might like to accompany me.”
“Barbeque?” Good job. One-word sentence structure, he was definitely into me now.
“I’m hoping you’re not a vegan or something. The ribs will be fantastic.”
I looked at his chest and wondered what his ribs would look like. Damn it. Wandering brain strikes again.
“Oh, yeah, no, I like meat. Any kind of meat really.” I should have shut up while I had the chance. One-word responses were better.
Think.
One.
Word.
“Well, that’s great because there will be plenty of that.”
“Of what?”
“Meat. Because you like it.”
“Right, I like good meat.” Holy fucking awkward. Would it be rude to smack my own forehead?
“Okay then, I’ll pick you up on Saturday around noon? The address in the chart is yours?”
“Yes, my aunt’s house, where I live right now.”
Bailey started barking and pulling on the leash, jerking me out of the door. Thank God I left the other two at home.
“I’ll see you Saturday!” Chase watched me leave, and I bumped into the wall exiting the room. My shoulder and elbow stung, but Bailey kept pulling and off we went.
“Bye!” I called out and everyone in the office waved at me as I chased the dog out the door. My mortification was complete.
Bailey stopped the second we got outside, prancing around a bit before she pulled me down the street excited to be away from the office of torture.
“Damn it, dog, next time can you do that before we start talking about meat, please?”
Bailey barked and kept going, her tail a happy wag. I would have been happy too if the heat in my cheeks subsided, then we’d be just dandy.
Six
CHASE
I thought all week about my date with Winnie, nervously shifting in my seat as I drove to her aunt’s house the day of the barbeque. Kristen would be her usual nosey self, sure to ask inappropriate questions. My mother would give the inquisition and probably try to pry her social security number out of her to have a background check run. I was surrounded by boundary-less females and my hope of getting at least a kiss out of today’s encounter was slim to none.
Knocking on the door, I heard commotion from inside the house. “Hello?” I called out, but no one answered unless you counted the barking dogs and who I assumed was Winnie yelling at one of them. Twisting the doorknob in my hand, it clicked open, and I slipped inside, following the loudest of the sounds into the living room.
Stepping inside Helen Moody’s house was like stepping into a time warp. Antiques and strange items filled the space with museum like quality. A gilded mirror and a suit of armor decorated the hall while the walls held oil painted portraits and samurai swords. It was interesting and something to ask Winnie about later. My Date, though, was wrestling what I assumed was her dress from Roswell. Bailey and Pumpkin barked wildly, their tails wagging and bodies jumping in the way.
“Damn it, Ros, you little pervert!”
I cleared my throat, not wanting to scare the shit out of her. Winnie’s back was facing me and what a glorious sight it was. Forget getting a kiss, seeing her ass cupped in bright red lace was the equivalent of two full ripe Empire apples at the height of picking, the bottom of her cheeks peeked out teasing…and that was a better treat at the moment. Seeing her in yoga pants with strategically stitched lines was nothing compared to peach skin in the flesh. My eyes followed the line of her spine
from the dainty swirl of a tattoo that rested on her right shoulder to the crease where her panties began dipping down, it was more like a fucking cherry on top of what promised to be an interesting afternoon to say the least.
“Heel, Ros!” My command to the dog startled everyone in the room. The dogs all backed off, hunching low. Pumpkin let out a nervous whine, followed by an obvious stream of gas from his overactive intestinal track.
“Oh, shit!” Winnie glanced over her shoulder at me wide-eyed, pitching forward as Roswell let go of her dress, causing her to fall backward. I stepped forward to catch her, but found myself tripping over the step down into the living room on the hand-woven carpeting. We both collided as soft skin landed against me and my hands grabbed around her to keep her from hurting herself. We were a tangle of limbs and wet slobbering kisses by the time we stopped moving and rolling over on the hard floor. I ended up on the bottom with Winnie on top of me at the tail end of it all.
We stayed like that a solid minute, just looking at each other awkwardly as the heat built between us and our breaths mingled there on the floor in a house filled with trinkets that was sure to haunt me years from now. I was wearing too many clothes for this as I felt the perspiration build between my shoulder blades with Winnie’s pliant body nestled perfectly against me. My dick was responding in kind and there was no hiding that on my part.
“Um, hi. I guess I was running a little late.” Winnie bit the bottom of her lip, looking uncertain. Maybe I was wearing enough clothes after all that she wouldn’t notice that huge rod of mine creeping up toward her. No amount of kinky surgical cones could excuse the rise in my pants because I wasn’t just happy to see her, I was seriously attracted to this girl.
“I was a little early, so maybe it was my fault. It’s okay if you want to blame me.” Chuckling together, the moment ended on an awkward little sigh. Damn, she smelled good and the little wiggle of her hips definitely didn’t help.