Chapter 8
“We must be far off before morning, or they will catch us.”
—Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Boxcar Children
Dancy gestured with her head toward the back seat. “Clint, this is Erin.”
As Clint noticed the strange woman sitting with Watch, Dancy’s words came out in a rush. “Erin’s significant other was abusing
her in the parking lot. I suggested she come with me.”
First the dog and now this. When had Dancy started rescuing strays, and where was the girl he used to know? His anger began
deflating like a leak in an overfilled balloon.
“He wasn’t abusing me,” the woman named Erin said with conviction. “He’s run into some problems lately, and that’s given him
a short fuse.”
“Very short.” Dancy tapped him on the leg. “How do you behave with women when you’ve had a bad day?”
He shot Dancy a cold-ass glare. “I guess it depends on the woman.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, sending him a silent message to stop messing with her and get serious. Giving up, he glanced
into the back seat, not sure exactly where he was supposed to go with this conversation. “I’ll bet Erin already knows that
decent guys don’t take out their bad moods on their partners. And I’ll bet she also knows that he’s not treating her right.
But maybe he’s supporting her financially.”
“He’s not,” Erin said defensively. “I have a good job and my own place. We don’t live together.”
“Then maybe she’s lonely or afraid she can’t do better. Or maybe she believes she doesn’t deserve to be treated well? Hell
if I know why women stick with dirtbags.”
Dancy slowed behind a truck hauling a cabin cruiser, and Erin apparently decided she’d been lectured enough. “If you could
drop me off at the coffee shop on Main, I’d appreciate it.”
This new version of Dancy clearly wasn’t happy. “My phone’s not working right now, but if you need help, leave a message for
me at the coffee shop.”
“I’m sure I won’t need help.”
“But if you do. I’m . . . Jessie. Jessie Alden.”
Where had she come up with that name?
“Jessie Alden?” he said, as they drove back toward the house. Dancy had hopped in the back seat to sit with Watch, who kept
trying to lick her face, and Clint was behind the wheel now.
“Literary reference.” She pushed the dog away. “I’ll bet anything she goes back to the creep.”
“Maybe not.”
“Women who don’t feel good about themselves make stupid decisions about men,” she said.
“Like you did with Roth?”
“No. Like I did with you.”
That took him aback, and he had a horrifying thought. “This whole thing . . . you showing up here. Tell me the truth. You’re
not really trying to get me back, are you?”
“I don’t have that much sense.” She sounded genuinely amused. “Plus, I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’m way too old for you.”
He relaxed. “Good. Because I don’t feel anything for you except aggravation. I swear, you could walk in front of me naked,
and it wouldn’t affect me one way or the other.” Truer words than she could ever know.
“Really?” She sounded genuinely curious. “What if I was lying naked in your bed with a pillow over my head so you couldn’t
see it was me? How about then?”
“Would you be talking?” He turned onto the county highway.
“Absolute silence.”
He nodded, getting into the spirit. “So, to clarify, you’d be just a naked, headless woman in my bed?”
“That’s right.”
“Not even then. Those two little moles on your breast would be a giveaway. I’d know it was you.”
She leaned forward, propping her chin on the back of the passenger seat. “How do you know I still even have those two little
moles?”
“Not everything’s retouched, and it’s hard to avoid photos of you in a swimsuit. Or not in a swimsuit.”
“Days gone by,” she sighed.
He glanced over at her. “A few healthy meals, and I’m sure you could still pull it off.”
“I’m sure I couldn’t.” Dancy leaned back in her seat. “Do you have any idea how stressful it is to do a swimsuit shoot?”
“I can’t say as I do.”
“I barely ate anything except lettuce and steamed fish for a month before those Sports Illustrated shoots.” She groaned. “I must have drunk three gallons of water a day, plus at least two hours of cardio, burpees, lunges,
whatever my sadistic trainer threw at me. And then I had to dehydrate for the actual day of the shoot. You think football
players have it tough? Try posing for a camera in nothing but coconut oil and a thong.”
He grinned. “I’ll leave that to you.” Clint was enjoying this conversation way too much, so he tugged in his smile and turned
on the radio, drowning out any more talk of Dancy in a thong.
Clint stopped the car next to the path that led to the caboose. Dancy lifted the dog out of the back seat while he opened
the Range Rover’s tailgate. He hoisted the bag of dog food over one shoulder, grabbed a paint can, and set off for the caboose.
Dancy followed, arms heavy with the rest of his purchases, the mutt at her heels. Clint set the bag of dog food on the rear
platform.
Whatever pedigree the animal’s ancestors had once possessed had been lost to history. There was nothing beautiful or noble
about him: short almost-white hair, tan eye patches, mismatched ears, one flopping, the other upright, and a head too big
for his emaciated body.
Clint liked dogs. He’d always planned to get one when he retired.
A serious dog who could be a workout buddy, like a Dalmatian, a German shepherd, or maybe even a greyhound.
This dog wasn’t good for much of anything.
Still, Clint had to admire the animal’s spirit.
Despite whatever that had been thrown at him, he didn’t seem soured on life.
Dancy set down everything she’d been carrying on the platform next to the dog food. “You still haven’t told me why it was
okay for you to do the deed with Sophie but not with me.”
He gazed up at the heavens. “And . . . here we go again.”
“I’m curious, that’s all.” She braced one hand on top of a paint can, the other on her hip. “I was an easy mark. Totally smitten
with you, and I had almost no adult oversight.”
“Sophie knew what she was doing, and you didn’t, that’s why.” He moved away from the platform. “Believe me, if I had to do
it over again, I’d ignore you both and spend my time playing Call of Duty.”
She moved toward him. “Are you seriously telling me that you, a horny sixteen-year-old boy, had a thing against virgins?”
He crossed his arms. “You really want to talk about this?”
“I need to know, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s too bad because I don’t remember.” He did remember. As lovesick as he’d been, he’d sensed a neediness about
Dancy that had scared him, a bottomless demand for affirmation that he didn’t know how to satisfy. He couldn’t have explained
it at the time, but somehow he’d known that going any further with her would have taken him into waters too deep for a teenage
boy.
“You were smart,” she said softly.
He regarded her quizzically. She stiffened and tilted her head toward the path. “Go away. I’m done with you.”
He didn’t see her or her dog all the next day, exactly what he’d asked for, but it made him uneasy.
If he went out to the caboose to check on her, he’d be violating his own no-contact rule.
Still, he didn’t sleep well that night, and the next morning, after a long, cold swim, he checked the gym.
The shower was wet, so she’d been there, but she hardly had any food. Was she eating anything?
By the time he’d finished his second cup of coffee, he’d come up with a plan.
Dancy emerged from the caboose for fresh air. Watch lounged in his favorite mossy patch with his new toy, a furry brown yak
with soft tan horns that Clint had picked up on his Walmart trip, along with a leash and a few other toys that Watch ignored.
The dog came to his feet, the yak in his mouth, and regarded her accusingly.
“I’ve explained this to you,” she told him. “I don’t want you breathing paint fumes, so you have to stay out here.”
She hopped down from the platform and went to sit next to him. The vodka bottle still lay untouched in the tree roots across
from her. She’d been too busy to think much about it. Up since six, she was surprised how much she was enjoying the early
morning. The birds chirped so loudly, it was as if they had just discovered their voices, and the clean, dewy scent gave her
an energy she hadn’t felt in months. Despite not having a book to read, a phone, or television, she hadn’t been bored. Lonely,
yes, although Watch was proving to be a surprisingly decent companion. But not bored.
She still hadn’t biked into town for a phone charger.
Cowardly maybe, but where was the advantage?
Being confronted with dozens of texts and emails she didn’t want to read?
Watch set his muzzle on her paint-spattered thigh, the slobbery yak brushing her bare skin.
As she nudged it away, she noticed that three of her fingernails were broken and most of the polish chipped.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t stay in this lakeside limbo forever.
She needed a plan for her return to LA, but she couldn’t imagine anyone being willing to take a chance on her, not after the Peacock Gala.
The best she could hope for was a reality show that specialized in either shipping disgraced celebrities off to a desert island and making them eat cockroaches or women being horrible to each other.
She shuddered and stroked Watch under his chin, a place she’d discovered he found especially pleasing. This morning he’d let
her change his bandage without growling at her. She glanced back at the caboose and considered the job she’d volunteered for.
She’d finished the bedroom and started on the living area ceiling. So far she hadn’t messed anything up. It felt good to at
least do this right.
Clint appeared carrying half a dozen long pieces of lumber over his shoulder as easily as if they were matchsticks. Her pulse