Chapter 6 #2
“What’s your major?” she asked. Clint must have been doing some manual labor that morning because she caught the faintest
hint of clean male exertion, the kind that happened when a man had taken a shower before he got down to work. It reminded
her of what it had once felt like to be turned on.
“Accounting.”
“Impressive,” Dancy said as her cowardly ex–high school boyfriend took another step closer to her.
“Accounting is a good career.” His lame addition to the conversation.
Really? All these years of women throwing themselves at him, and he still hadn’t learned to set boundaries?
Jordan shifted awkwardly on her heels, wanting to be anywhere but where she was. “I . . . I’d better go.”
“You drove here, right?” Dancy said. “I’ll walk you to your car while Clint takes his antibiotic.” She patted Clint’s chest.
“You keep forgetting, babe, and it’s important not to miss a dose.” Moving away from him, she looped her hand through the
girl’s arm and said in a confidential whisper loud enough for him to hear. “I have a vag infection. It spread to him. Thank
God for meds, right?”
Clint made a wheezing sound, and Dancy squeezed Jordan’s arm. “This way.”
A red Corolla sat in the drive. As Dancy led the miserable girl to the car, she remembered too well what it was like to be
young and attracted to the wrong man. Her protective instincts kicked in. “A word of advice, Jordan. You’re obviously intelligent,
and you’re gorgeous. You deserve better. Let them come after you.”
Jordan ducked her head. “I thought he really liked me.”
“He likes everyone. That’s his problem. It gives women the wrong idea.” She secured the tie on her robe. “If a man really
wants to be with you, you won’t have to chase after him. And I say this as a woman who’s learned that lesson the hard way.”
She’d also learned the opposite. Too many men believed that basic politeness meant she was coming on to them. “Also, don’t
get involved with athletes, rock stars, or actors. Trust me on that.”
Jordan jerked open the car door. “Guys are stupid.”
“Not the point, but okay.”
The girl settled behind the wheel, but instead of closing the door, she studied Dancy more closely. “You know, you look like—”
“Dancy Flynn’s older sister. I hear it all the time.”
“I was going to say Margot Robbie.”
“Uhm . . . yes. Her, too. If only I had her money, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good luck, Jordan.” Dancy stepped back from the car, feeling as if she’d performed her second good deed of the day, although
she doubted that either the girl or the dog appreciated her for it. As for the man? Definitely not.
The dog, looking lost and needy, greeted Dancy at the door of the caboose. “Stop looking at me like that. I can’t even take
care of myself, let alone you.”
Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have done his business inside, although as dehydrated and starved as he was, he might not have
any business to attend to. Still, she’d better not push her luck. She gave him more food, then changed into clean Green Bay
shorts and a T-shirt. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she opened the door to the rear platform. The dog followed her out.
The boxcar children had a handy tree stump to use for a step when they climbed in and out, but Dancy had to jump. The dog
stood at the edge of the platform, waiting. With a sense of the inevitable, she picked him up and lowered him to the ground.
As he poked around, she sat on her favorite log, near the vodka bottle.
The dog found an acceptable tree, lifted his leg against it, and peed.
“Good dog, Watch.”
“Watch? You named him?”
Clint stepped out from the path just as she remembered that “Watch” was the name Benny Alden had given the dog who’d shown up at the boxcar.
“I got tired of calling him Beelzebub,” she said. “Too many syllables.”
“You cut your hair.” He held a pile of what looked like clothes and set them on the caboose’s platform.
“Irrelevant to the conversation we need to have.” She rose from the log. “That girl was still in college.”
He threw up his hands. “I didn’t touch her. I barely remember meeting her.”
“And yet she found you here.”
“She wormed the address out of one of my friends, the same as you did, something I’m going to put a stop to.” He eyed the
vodka bottle.
She regarded him with disgust. “You should have been up front with her and told her you weren’t interested instead of weaseling
around.”
“I was getting there.”
“When? Eavesdropping was torture. I was embarrassed for you.”
“I’m working on it, okay?”
“You’re thirty-four and famous. You’d think by now you’d have figured it out.”
“It’s tough, that’s all, not coming across like a jerk.” He stepped up onto the train’s platform and examined the frame around
the door. “Were you really naked under that robe? Because it sure looked like it.”
She gazed up at him. “You might remember I have a limited wardrobe.”
“It’s even more limited now.” His smugness told her exactly what he’d done with the Packers clothes she’d forgotten on his patio.
“You had no right.”
He jumped off the platform. “It’s your fault for leaving your crap lying around. And by crap, I mean . . .” He gestured toward
the fresh Packers gear she was wearing. “Fortunately, I found a few more of Rory’s clothes.” He tilted his head toward the
pile he’d set on the platform. “I know you’ll say they won’t fit, so I also brought you a couple of hotel sewing kits. Or
have you lost your skills?”
Dancy used to love to sew, but it had been forever since she’d done more than sketch an outfit for her seamstress. “Watch,
stop it!” He was beginning to chew at the bandage on his leg.
The dog regarded her apologetically and abandoned his chewing. He really was smart for an animal.
Clint observed the interaction and turned his attention back to her. “Remember that dress you made for the winter formal your
senior year? The one that got us kicked out of the dance?”
Dancy sniffed. “I still can’t believe a woman wearing orthopedic sandals and head-to-toe florals had the nerve to judge my
style. That dress was dope. I’d wear it today.”
She watched Clint suppress a smile. “In fairness to Mrs. Tomkins, maybe if you’d added a little fabric across the chest, she
wouldn’t have been so outraged.”
“Don’t even go there. It would have ruined the whole look. Watch, no!” The dog again abandoned the bandage and rested his
muzzle back in the moss.
“I’m sure you’ve got half a dozen great wardrobes waiting for you somewhere that’s not here,” Clint said. “You could always
let me call that car service.”
She waved him off. “It was nice of you to leave the dance with me when I got kicked out. Most guys would have stayed.”
“I was too embarrassed to stay.”
“We’re even. I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was listening to you not being up front with your would-be child paramour
back there.”
He shuddered. “Stop saying that.”
“If she’s an example of the cowardly way you’re dealing with women, you should be ashamed of yourself.” She sauntered closer.
“Here’s how it’s done. ‘Jordan, you’re terrific, but I’m just not feeling a connection.’ Or, ‘Jordan, we’re not the right
fit.’ Or how about, ‘Frankly, I’m looking for someone who’s at least twenty.’”
“She’s twenty.”
“Exactly! Too young.” Just like Roth’s baby carrier. “The bottom line is, you’re too soft. You think you’re being nice, but
you’re not. You need to be more of a hard-ass. Like me.”
Clint forgot about being nice. “From where I stand, you don’t seem like much of a hard-ass these days.”
He was the last person she wanted to feel sorry for her. “I’ll get back to it.” She gestured toward Watch. “You need to get
rid of him. There must be some kind of animal shelter around here. Preferably a no-kill shelter, although . . .”
“Even you can’t be that heartless.”
“Once a bad girl, always a bad girl.”
He shook his head. “You’re incorrigible.”
She wasn’t heartless at all. Watch seemed to be a young dog, and he deserved a good home, but once you were a bad girl in
someone else’s eyes, it was best to stay that way. She gazed toward the small stack of clothing Clint had left on the platform.
“What’s your sister like? I barely remember her.”
He leaned against the platform. “Take everything about yourself and reverse it.”
There was nothing he could dish out that she couldn’t handle. “Uptight, ugly, and boring then. Your poor sister.”
“She’s anything but uptight.” Clint crossed his ankles. “And she might not be a knockout like you, but she’s cute.”
Dancy stuck up her nose. “Not everyone can be born beautiful.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her deliberate baiting. “Rory’s not only a chocolatier. I told you she’s an amazing cook.”
Dancy pursed her lips in a movie star pout. “It’s so much easier to call DoorDash.”
He stood straighter. “She’s a hard worker. Not afraid to get her hands dirty.”
“Manual labor is death on a manicure.”
“And she’s a wonderful mother.”
The pain was knife sharp, a cut straight into her heart. She steeled herself into offering a bored shrug. “Children are germy
little trolls. When are you taking Watch to animal rescue?”
“You’re taking him to animal rescue. You can borrow my car tomorrow.”
“Unfortunately, I left my driver’s license in my other purse.”
“Which is where?”
“No idea.”