Chapter 7
“I could make this old freight car into the dearest little house, with beds, and chairs, and a table—and dishes—”
—Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Boxcar Children
As luck would have it, Watch had bad memories of cars.
“He’s going to bite me!” Dancy exclaimed the next morning as she tried to wrestle him into the back seat of Clint’s Range
Rover. “I swear to God, if you bite, you’ll regret it forever.”
“I hope you’re talking to him and not me.” Clint rested his elbow on top of the driver’s door, observing the struggle and
doing nothing to help.
She tried to pinion the writhing dog in her arms and got scratched in the face as her reward. “Stop it! This face is my fortune.”
She restrained his flailing hind leg. “Let me drive. You handle him.”
“And miss watching you wrestle Cujo? Not a chance.” Clint crossed his arms over his chest, openly enjoying himself.
“As God is my witness, I’ll never again be a good Samaritan!” She and the dog finally collapsed into the back seat. She glared through the open car door at Clint. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
A big-ass grin spread over his stupid jock face. “A stand-up guy like me enjoying his cheating ex-girlfriend’s misery? I’m
deeply offended.”
“Just drive. Let’s get this over with.”
He gave her a mock salute, climbed behind the wheel, and threw the car into reverse so hard that she barely managed to avoid
being dumped on the floor.
“Asshole!”
He chuckled.
She refused to talk to him for the rest of the trip.
The animal shelter was a white cement-block building with a cheerful mural of happy animals painted on the front. A rabbit
noodled in the grass next to a tortoise munching a dandelion leaf. Puppies frolicked with kittens, a hamster peeked from its
burrow, and herding dogs raced through a meadow where terriers chased butterflies in the sun.
Clint parked out of sight of the entrance. “You’re on your own. I keep a low profile around here.” He raked his gaze over
her shorter hair, makeup-free face, scratched arms, and dog-slobbered Packers T-shirt. “I seriously doubt anyone’s going to
recognize you.”
Fortunately for her, getting Watch out of the car proved easier than getting him in. As she pulled on her mask, he limped
trustingly after her toward the building.
Clint stood by the hood of his car. Watching Dancy Flynn, fashion icon, Hollywood wife, Bond girl, wrestle that pathetic dog into his car might have been the highlight of his summer so far.
He pulled out his phone and made a couple of calls. Afterward, he scrolled through IG to check Dancy’s feed again, but it
had been wiped. Before her marriage to Roth Hardy, media sites loved to show her ringside at NBA games with a rock star or
lazing around a Spanish beach with a high-profile soccer player. She still believed he held a grudge from high school, but
the sting of betrayal had faded years ago, although not his distrust of her.
It had been tough during his college days when he’d see her popping up in some slick ad or on the screen in bimbo parts no
woman with her brains should have had to play. But by the time she’d appeared in the Bond film he was impervious, although
he had enjoyed watching 007 kill her with his trusty Walther PPK. After marrying Hardy, she’d retired from the screen, but
photos of her still popped up everywhere, always dressed in the latest fashions, with perfect makeup and that beautiful hair
tumbling around her immaculate face. Now here she was, hair chopped off, face no longer quite so immaculate, and dressed in
souvenir shop clothes. The icing on the cake was seeing her stuck with a mutt she’d rescued from a ditch.
Although he hated admitting it, having her around wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. She generally kept to herself,
plus her self-deprecating sense of humor was new. He was also clear-headed enough about who she was not to have any complicated
emotions. Like his ex, Ashley Hart, Dancy would only ever be out for herself.
She finally appeared, stomping around the side of the building, those ugly green, white, and gold Packers slides slapping her heels, the bedraggled dog right behind her. “Not a word,” she hissed, as she threw open the back door and climbed into his car. “Not one word.”
The dog stood outside the open car door gazing in at her. She crossed her arms, spine stiff against the back of the seat,
staring straight ahead. The dog cocked his head, waiting for her. She ignored him. Finally, Clint gave in and picked up the
mutt. “Mommy’s having a bad day. You need to be patient with her.”
“I hate you both,” Dancy growled.
He stroked the dog’s head and scratched behind his tan ear before setting him in the back seat. “Be good or Mommy will start
nasty rumors about you, too.”
Unfortunately, his jab rolled right over her. “They scanned him for a chip!” she exclaimed in outrage. “As if the degenerate
who dumped him on the road would have chipped him first.”
He had to ask. “You didn’t leave him inside because . . . ?”
“They were full,” she muttered, not making eye contact.
“I see.” And he did see. Thanks to some quick research, he knew Wisconsin law prevented a shelter from turning away an abandoned
animal. The only reason this dog could still be with her was because she hadn’t had the heart to leave him.
His amusement faded. Only moments earlier, he’d been congratulating himself on how well he understood her, but Dancy’s inability
to leave the dog at the shelter didn’t fit the self-centered girl he’d known.
The dog rested his head on her leg. “They checked him over,” she said. “You need to stop someplace where I can buy dog food.”
She waved a sheet of paper he assumed contained instructions for the dog’s care. “And I have to watch him for worms!” She sounded as offended as if she were the one who might have them.
He climbed in the front seat. “Anybody recognize you?” he asked, just to cause trouble.
“Not a single person. I’m not exactly looking my best, as you so rudely pointed out.”
He thought she looked great—like a real person instead of a fake-sexy, plastic bimbo.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. “There’s a Walmart about ten miles from here. They should have dog food.”
“Walmart?”
“It’s this chain of stores where—”
“I know what Walmart is. Can’t we stop somewhere there won’t be so many people?”
“Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with pet food stores in the area.”
“So you’re saying none of your baby girlfriends brought their kitty cats with them when they slept over?”
“Only their blankies.”
She snorted.
They rode in silence for a few blessed miles, but she wouldn’t let it go. “Explain to me why you’re dating teenagers. What’s
wrong with you?”
“They’re not—”
“You’re like the definition of a family guy. Ethical, dependable. The pinnacle of American manhood. You should have an American
flag tattooed on your ass. You probably do.”
He was getting more than a little pissed with the way she kept acting like he was some kind of paragon, and his inner bad
boy surfaced. “I also don’t have a drinking problem plastered all over the internet.”
“I’m serious, Clint. There’s something fundamentally wrong here. You should be married by now with a couple of kids and an age-appropriate wife who rubs your feet when you get home from practice and fixes homemade meals in her Instant Pot.”
“Instant Pot? I’m having a little trouble following you.”
“She has to use an Instant Pot, dickhead, because of her busy volunteer life. While your kids are in school, she organizes food drives
and works with the Special Olympics and visits hospitals and, I don’t know, cleans graffiti off underpasses. All in your name,
of course. That’s who you should be married to instead of screwing kindergartners.”
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Not to be shallow or anything, but is my imaginary wife hot?”
“Of course she’s hot. Do you think I’d stick you with an ugly wife?” She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Really, Clint.
You’re holed up here like some kind of recluse. I’m disappointed in you.”
The dog mewed in the back seat as if Clint had also disappointed him. The feeling of disappointing people was all too familiar,
and he did his best to shake it off. “I’ll take your comments under advisement.”
“You will?”
“Hell, no.”
She sighed. “It’s so much easier pointing out other people’s flaws than thinking about your own.”
There it was again, that unsettling openness. The Dancy Flynn he remembered didn’t believe she had flaws.
She’d been lucky at the animal shelter, but with all her bad publicity, someone was sure to recognize her, and considering the number of freaks in the world, he couldn’t risk it.
He parked at the far edge of the Walmart lot and pulled on a ball cap.
He was going to have to do what he’d been able to avoid ever since he built the lake house.
He gritted his teeth. “I’ll go in. And you owe me big time. ”
Instead of thanking him, she said, “Buy whatever I need to paint the inside of the caboose while you’re there.”
He stared at her.
“I want a soft yellow,” she said. “Nothing bright. Not dandelion. Not lemon. Nothing that jumps out. More like custard or
pale butter.”
He couldn’t believe he’d heard her right. “You want to paint my caboose?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“You’re only going to be here four more days.”
“It’s amazing what I can do when I set my mind to it. Unlock your phone and give it to me.”
“You want my phone?”
“You weren’t exactly the brightest kid in high school, and you still seem to have trouble keeping up.”
He whipped off his ball cap. “I graduated in the top five percent of my class!”
“A miracle considering I didn’t stay around to tutor you.” She held out her hand. “Phone.”
Suppressing the urge to defend both his high school and college GPAs, as well as protect the interior of the caboose, Clint found himself unlocking his phone and handing it over.