It’s night, and I am alone in the house again. Because Daisy is off with Tom again. That complicates things. I should have spoken to her at dinner and made it clear that I needed her here tonight. This isn’t going to work if she has Tom as her alibi.
It’s already not going as planned. Liam was due to arrive long before night fell. He’s called three times with excuses.
My last meeting ran late.
Just heard from a client. Need to make one more call.
Grabbing dinner and heading out.
A few minutes after that last text, Tom’s pickup sounds in the drive. Voices follow as they unload the truck. I glance through the window and see that it’s only starting to get dark, and chide myself for my nerves. I can still do this, even with Tom around. I’ll invite him in for a beer and tell Daisy she’s welcome to join us.
I throw open the front door with an invitation on my lips. The yard is empty save for a window propped in the garden. I step onto the porch. The pickup is dark, engine off, no sign of its owner or Daisy.
I listen, frowning. Voices come from the side of the house, with a comment about the overgrown state of it. Daisy must have spotted something that needs repair, and she’s showing Tom. I’ll head back inside and start the popcorn. The smell is sure to add appeal to my offer.
When I return, they’re still around the side of the house. Murmured voices slide through the still night.
I trot down the steps. My earlier nerves have flitted away as the prospect of a pleasant evening dances before me. In another life, I couldn’t have imagined anything so dull—or Floridian—as sitting on the front porch drinking beer and chatting with a prison-tattooed mechanic.
No, I could have imagined one thing worse: if the mechanic made my pulse race…and I was stuck on that porch sharing him with a mousy young woman who he’s decided needs a big brother. Right now, though, it seems like the perfect evening. I can enjoy Tom’s charms and smiles with the safety guard of Daisy keeping my thoughts from galloping where they shouldn’t. That will still leave plenty of time to launch my plan after he’s gone. I just need to make sure Daisy doesn’t leave with him.
Maybe I’ll break out the scotch. I smirk at the thought of Liam showing up to see me sharing his gift with a mechanic who won’t know the difference between eighteen-year-old single malt and fresh-from-the-still moonshine.
That’s what you get for showing up late. And if you don’t show up at all…maybe I’ll find my company elsewhere. I really didn’t intend to sleep alone tonight.
Even as I smile at the thought, my gut twists. No, I can imagine the outcome of that, and it is not what I want. Not at all. I have plans for tonight. Big plans, and I cannot afford distraction.
I head to the side of the house. The voices have gone silent, and I slow. If Daisy and Tom are around back, I don’t want to take this route. It was impassable the last time I tried.
As I draw near, though, I see Tom has hacked a path. Enough moonlight shines for me to make out two figures standing very close together. I catch voices then, low and intimate.
Hair on the back of my neck prickles.
They are standing close enough to touch, and when I follow the curve of his arm…
Are his fingers resting on her hip? I can’t tell from here, and I’m sure it’s just the angle. When I look at their faces again, they’re still talking, Tom’s head bent, his hair hanging to shield his face. Daisy, though, is looking straight ahead, not up at him. He’s speaking, and she’s listening, and it seems like something she doesn’t want to hear.
Sorry, Daisy, I just don’t think of you that way.
Possibly, but I’ve seen no sign that she thinks of him that way. Her voice warms when she speaks of him, and she will smile, but it’s in the way one does if one finds a friendly face in a forbidding world. Nothing more.
I’m about to call a hello when Tom steps closer still, his face right above hers as she looks up into his.
He’s going to kiss her. He’s lured her into this hidden corner, said a few sweet words, and now he’s taking advantage of her vulnerable state.
Except she’s not so vulnerable, is she? Not the girl I thought she was. In fact, Tom might be the one in danger here.
She’s playing him. I see that now. Her body language had been screaming “No” a moment ago, and now he’s moved closer, saying more, and she’s looking up at him like a trapped deer, caught in the tractor beam of his charm.
He lowers his lips to her ear and whispers something, and I tense, ready to march down there and—
And what? Rescue her? She doesn’t need it. Rescue him? I doubt he does, either.
No, the only thing in need of rescue is my plan, which will be screwed if they decide to slip off into the night together.
When Tom leans in again, I barrel forward and stop a few feet away. I clear my throat, and they both jump.
“Did I interrupt something?”
Daisy laughs softly. “Just Tom trying to lure me into doing more work around his shop with the promise of orange soda and cheese puffs. It almost worked, too.”
Tom grins. “What can I say? I know how to tempt a lady. I will raid the store, lay a trail of sweets from your door to mine and trap the wild carpenter in my lair, where she’ll work off her sugar high fixing my workbench.”
“Wait,” Daisy says. “Your workbench is broken, too? Is anything there in good shape?”
He flexes a bicep, and she rolls her eyes at me. Either I misread Tom’s signals, or he was just idly flirting, more reflex than intent, and she understands that.
Daisy picks up a decrepit bicycle leaning against the house.
“Dear Lord, is that a banana seat?” I ask.
“It is. Tom rescued it from the iron grip of those vines.”
He flexes again with a cartoon-bodybuilder grunt. She shakes her head and starts wheeling the bike toward the back of the house.
“I’ll take this to your truck,” she says. “Fix it for me, and we’ll talk about your workbench.”
“And that shelf?” he calls. “Before it collapses?”
“Lay a trail of candy bars, and we’ll discuss it.”
“I will,” he calls as she disappears. “Believe me, I will.”
He turns back to me, his grin fading into a crooked smile. “I know it looks like I’m stealing your handywoman, but I promise I won’t interfere with her work for you. I just…” He makes sure she’s gone and then steps toward me, voice lowering. “I want her to have the bike for mobility.” He pauses. “If that’s all right with you.”
“It is.”
“I won’t take up too much of her time. I just know she won’t let me fix the bike for free.”
“You’re good to her.”
He makes a face. “She’s not a charity case. I just…” He shrugs. “I like to help people. It feels right, you know?”
I don’t, and regret stabs me at that. I always want to seem like a good person, a caring person. That’s useful. But for once, I feel genuine regret that I can’t experience whatever pleasure comes from helping another person. I’ve lived a life where that isn’t an option. Pause to help someone who’s fallen by the roadside, and I’ll be mowed down by the life choices I’m trying so hard to outrun.
I open my mouth to agree with him, but instead find myself saying, “I wish I could do more of that.”
“You are, by giving her a place to stay.”
Real guilt heats my cheeks then…until I remind myself that Daisy is no innocent victim. I’m no longer preying on a young woman backpacking through Florida. I’m getting in the first strike in a fair fight.
Tom steps closer and touches my arm and says, “You’re helping her a lot. Thank you.”
I look up. Earlier, I’d mentally remarked on Daisy being caught in the tractor beam of his charm. It’s not Daisy who’s in danger. I’m trapped in a web he wove without meaning to, and I’m not sure why I’m so ensnared. I’d thought it was the bad-boy vibe, but the more time I spend with Tom, the more obvious it becomes that there’s no “bad boy” here. Mistaking those prison tats for a sign of edgy criminality is like my old teenage friends expecting a pot-smoking dad to know how to hire a hit man.
No, what Tom has is a quality that I never thought I’d find attractive in a man. A quality I’ve taken advantage of many times. Kindness.
“I should probably go,” he murmurs, still touching my arm, and there’s a reluctance in his voice that makes my knees weak.
“You don’t have—” I begin, my voice a little breathy before I clear my throat and say, lightly, “If you do, you’ll miss out on some very fine scotch. That’s what I came out here for—to ask if you’d like to share a glass of eighteen-year single malt with me.”
“Eighteen years old? Ah, so you’re in a hurry to get rid of it, before it goes bad.”
I hesitate.
He laughs. “Joking. I know that means it’s very fine scotch, but it would be wasted on me. I thought I caught a whiff of…” He lifts his nose. “Is that popcorn?”
“It is. Scotch and popcorn, then. Perhaps Daisy will join us.”
“Or perhaps we could just not invite her.”
His lips twitch, letting me take this as a joke, if that’s what I’d like. My choice.
“She has had a long day,” I say.
“And we ought to be considerate of that.”
His eyes dance, and I find myself leaning his way, drawn to him in spite of myself.
In spite of myself? No, I think we’re past those games. I want Tom, and if he wants me back, well, we’re both consenting adults, aren’t we?
“So Liam isn’t coming over tonight?” he murmurs.
Reality taps icy fingers on my shoulder, but I shove it aside and reach out to touch Tom’s arm. I run one finger over his bicep. His gaze lowers, and he looks at me through long, dark lashes.
“A cold drink sounds good,” he says.
“For a start?”
An easy smile. “Sure, a cold drink for a start, and then we’ll move on to popcorn.”
He’s telling me to slow down, and it is delightful. Those lowered lashes. The hair on his arm rising as I run a finger over it.
You’re a little shy, aren’t you, Tom?
Not what I expected. Not normally what I like. But it shifts me into the control seat, and I do like that.
I rub my finger over his forearm. “Scotch and popcorn it is.”
Undergrowth snaps behind me. I turn to see Liam step through. His gaze falls to my hand, still on Tom’s arm.
“Should I back up and announce myself first?” Liam says, his lips quirking in a humorless smile. “It seems someone didn’t expect me to show up tonight.”
Tom doesn’t jerk his arm away. He only lifts a level gaze to Liam’s. I run a finger down a tattoo that looks like a stylized rabbit.
“I was just asking Tom about this one,” I say.
“Ah.”
Liam’s lip twitch calls me a liar, but he seems more amused than jealous, which puts me on guard.
“And what did he say?” Liam asks.
“Nothing yet,” Tom says. “I was about to say it’s the trickster, from Seminole stories.” He turns to me. “I’ll take that cold drink to go, if it’s still on offer.”
“A cold drink?” Liam says. “Is that what she offered?”
The two men lock eyes, and I have to resist the urge to kick Liam. He’s not annoyed with me for flirting with Tom. His attention is entirely on the other man, the trespasser.
“Nah,” Tom says. “She offered me scotch, but I told her not to waste it on me. I’m guessing that’s more your speed.”
“It is.” Liam puts out a hand. “Liam Garey. I’m not sure we’ve formally met.”
“We have. You just don’t remember me.”
Tom steps forward and takes Liam’s hand, and Liam’s arm muscles bunch under his sleeve as he squeezes hard. Tom’s muscles don’t even twitch. He sees the game, and he’s not playing it.
Tom introduces himself to Liam and then turns to me. “I should be going.”
“No, not at all.” Liam thumps Tom on the shoulder, and I wince, throwing Tom an apologetic look. Before I can speak, Liam says, “Why don’t we all head inside for that…cold drink, was it, Tommy?”
“Tom, please. And I really should…” His gaze shifts, and I spot Daisy coming around from the front.
“Hey,” she says, looking across our faces uncertainly. “I heard voices. I was just coming to tell Tom that the bike is in his truck.”
“Daisy!” Liam says, arms outstretched as if she’s just returned from a month-long hike in the Andes. “Just who I wanted to see.”
Her gaze flits to us. Tom’s jaw sets, and he rocks forward, but Liam continues. This isn’t going as planned. But can I use it? Maybe.
“I was just asking Tommy to stay for a drink,” Liam says. “Now that you’re here, Daisy, we have four hands for Friday night poker.”
Daisy’s brows start to rise, as if certain he’s kidding, her gaze going to Tom for confirmation that she’s walked in midjoke.
“I should really be going,” Tom says, brushing past Liam, who claps a hand on his shoulder.
“Oh, come on,” Liam says. “Stay and play with us.”
Tom looks at Liam’s hand. Liam only grips tighter and continues in that false hearty tone. “Fine, go on. We’ll find a three-handed game.”
Daisy demurs, but Liam insists. Tom’s gaze cuts to her, and then he says, “Sure, let’s play a little poker.”