Chapter 10
Chapter 10
The shirt smelled like him. Daphne tried to ignore it, but it was a soothing, masculine kind of scent that made her dizzy. She needed to get it off before she actually started thinking Calvin Flint was attractive. Between her checking out his butt and now wearing his clothes, they were getting far too intimate with each other. Next thing she knew, she’d be getting along with the man, which would be some kind of betrayal of teenage Daphne’s memory.
This was the guy who’d almost made her lose her scholarships. The guy who wouldn’t leave her alone, who made fun of her for caring about school. He’d made it his mission to annoy her for her entire senior year. So what if he smelled good? That didn’t make up for him being an irritating jerk.
Calvin parked outside Daphne’s apartment building and cut the engine. When he slid out of the truck at the same time she did, Daphne narrowed her eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t abscond with my spare shirt.”
“I can promise you, I won’t abscond with anything of yours, Flint.”
“I’ve only got the two, and I’ve had enough women ‘borrow’ hoodies to be suspicious.”
Deep offense struck in the middle of Daphne’s gut. “You’re putting me on the same level as women who try to be cute and steal your clothes?”
“There’s nothing cute about it, Davis. Now you can either let me in so I can get my shirt, or we can stand here and argue about it.”
“You know what?” She huffed and started unbuttoning the top. “Here.”
“Wait. Hold on—”
“Abscond with this, Flint.” She pushed the top into his chest, not even caring that her breasts and stomach were being kissed by fresh, cool air. His hands came up to catch the shirt, brushing her fingers in the process. Little shivers danced across her skin at the contact, which was probably a sign that she needed to get out of the cold and warm herself up. The sides of her own shirt, which she’d left on unbuttoned underneath his, were fluttering in the cold February breeze. “I’ll see you back at the station. And stop staring at my chest, you perv.”
His eyes snapped up to her face. “I wasn’t staring at anything.”
Scoffing, Daphne spun toward her door and fumbled with her keys for a few moments. Why were her hands trembling? Why did she feel flushed and strange? It wasn’t because of the expression on Flint’s face when he was looking at her breasts. She was cold—that was all. It was chilly out, and she was hardly wearing anything.
The key finally slid home, and she unlocked the lobby door. Once she was safely inside, she heard Flint’s truck rumble to life, and Daphne let out a sigh of relief.
What a disaster.
The disaster continued late into the evening. Following an afternoon spent at the sheriff’s department sorting through old financial records to figure out whether Jerry Barela had been telling the truth—and doing her best to avoid the sheriff—Daphne said her goodbyes, made herself dinner, then headed out to Mickey’s Bar.
It was Friday night, and her dad’s band, Old Dog New Trick, or ODNT for short, would be playing for their regular packed crowd of local fans and friends. Daphne walked into the dim, not-quite-a-dive bar and scanned the room for familiar faces. Her dad and his band were setting up onstage while music played on the speakers. She spotted her sister sitting at the bar with her best friend, Wynn, and cut across the old floorboards to join them.
When Daphne was a few feet away, Wynn saw her and smacked Ellie’s shoulder.
Spinning on her barstool, Ellie looked at Daphne with an expression of such pure glee that Daphne froze.
“What?” Daphne demanded.
“You,” said Ellie with a devilish smile on her lips, “are very naughty.”
“What are you talking about?” She slid onto the stool next to Ellie’s and hung her jacket and purse on the hook between her knees. She made eye contact with the bartender, who was busy pouring someone else’s drinks but nodded as if to say he’d come by in a moment.
“I’m talking about you and Calvin Flint.”
Daphne’s neck cracked as she whipped around to meet her sister’s gaze. “What?”
Wynn laughed. “Everyone’s talking about it.”
“Talking about what ?”
Ellie cackled. “I think a better question is, ‘What were you doing with him during work hours this morning?’ Naughty, naughty Daphne.”
The bartender ambled over and leaned his palms on the bar. “Daphne,” he greeted. “What can I get for you?”
“Gin and tonic, please.”
“And will the sheriff be joining you tonight?”
Daphne jerked back. “What? Okay. Someone needs to tell me what the hell is going on here.”
The bartender laughed and made her drink while Ellie sipped her beer, then smacked her lips in a distinctly self-satisfied way. “You were spotted, Daphne.”
“Talking to Jerry Barela? That was work related.”
Wynn arched her brows as her eyes sparkled. “Not from what we heard.”
A drink glass thunked against the wooden bar top, and Daphne glared at it, then at the bartender, then at the two women beside her. “Enough. What have you heard?”
“Oh, only that you showed up at your house around eleven o’clock this morning wearing the sheriff’s shirt, which you then stripped off in the middle of the street to flash him your boobs.”
“ What? ”
Ellie threw her head back to laugh so hard she nearly fell off her stool. “Your face, Daphne!”
“That’s not what happened!”
“So you weren’t wearing Calvin Flint’s uniform?”
Daphne blinked. “Well. Yes. I was, but—”
Wynn wheezed, and Ellie leaned her head on her best friend’s shoulder as she laughed.
“Stop that,” Daphne hissed. “My shirt ripped, and he gave me his spare uniform. Nothing happened.”
“You didn’t strip down to your bra in the middle of the street?”
Heat prickled on Daphne’s cheeks. She took a gulp of her drink and glared at the ice clinking in her glass. “He was being a jerk, so I gave him his shirt back to stop him coming up to my apartment.”
“Uh-huh,” Ellie said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“So,” Wynn started, leaning in, “is he any good?”
“Good at what?” Daphne screeched.
The two other women wiggled their brows. It was Ellie who said, “You know.”
“Good at police work?” Daphne filled in, baring her teeth at them. “Debatable. Good at being a pain in my ass? Absolutely.”
Ellie clicked her tongue and shook her head. “You better get your story straight, Daphne, because this has already spread all over the island.”
The bar door slammed open, and Grandma Mabel and the rest of her gang strode in. Without a moment’s hesitation, they made their way to Daphne at the bar.
Grandma Mabel crowed, squeezing Daphne’s upper arms. “Good girl,” she said. “I knew you had a little fire hidden in there.”
“Grandma, you’ve got the wrong idea. This is all getting blown out of proportion. Nothing happened between me and Flint.”
“So you weren’t wearing his clothes this morning?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“How do you feel about a joint wedding? You and your sister, together?”
“What? No!”
Grandma Mabel nodded. “You’re right. You should each get your own time to shine.”
“Shame about his family,” Harry cut in. “You think Calvin would want to invite them? Maybe you can elope.”
“We aren’t getting married!” Daphne shouted, then sank her head between her shoulders as half the bar glanced over.
“Good for you,” Greta said, patting Daphne’s hand. “Better to have fun while you’re young. Why should men be the only ones allowed to sow their wild oats?”
“Exactly,” Grandma Mabel said with a decisive nod. “Now. How was it?”
“It was nothing,” Daphne hissed. Her face was so hot she was sure it was beet red. Her hands were clammy, and the speed of her pulse couldn’t be healthy. “Nothing happened.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Greta said with a frown. “He didn’t get you off? Even after you flashed the whole street for him?”
“ That’s not what happened! ”
“That’s not what I heard,” Grandma Mabel said, blue eyes gleaming.
Meanwhile, Ellie and Wynn were choking on their laughter, doubled over as each clung to the other’s shoulders for support.
Daphne buried her face in her hands and groaned, then straightened her spine. “We were talking to Jerry Barela. My shirt ripped. The sheriff offered me his spare uniform. I gave it back before heading inside.”
“Rhonda told me you were wearing some very risqué undergarments, honey,” Grandma said, then slung her arm around Daphne’s shoulders. “That makes me happy. Every woman ought to have beautiful underthings. The fact that Calvin Flint is the lucky guy who gets to see them is beside the point.”
“He doesn’t ‘get to see them,’” Daphne protested. “He saw them due to unforeseen circumstances. And wait. Rhonda? Is she the one who’s been spreading lies about me?”
Rhonda Roberts owned the most popular ice cream shop on the island. She was a lovely woman, but Daphne wouldn’t hesitate to give her a piece of her mind for spreading malicious lies.
“She saw your bra from her living room window,” Grandma Mabel said. “Can you blame her? She said the sheriff looked thunderstruck. Red lace will do that to a man, though.”
“I’m going to kill her,” Daphne said through clenched teeth.
“Shame he’s so bad at making love,” Greta added. “I wouldn’t expect that from such a strapping young man.”
“No?” Harry asked, brows arched high on her wrinkled forehead. “The pretty ones are always the laziest.”
“We didn’t have sex,” Daphne hissed, then pushed her stool back and stood. “I need some air.”
She stomped across the bar, feeling the patrons’ eyes on her back, ready to march across the island, find Flint wherever he was, and demand that he fix this, and fix it right now .
But she didn’t have to march far. Halfway to the door, Daphne watched it swing open to reveal the sheriff himself standing in the opening, a thunderous expression on his brow. And when his eyes landed on Daphne, his lips pinched into a thin line.
The bar was utterly silent. Someone had even turned down the music, which put one more person on Daphne’s shit list. Everyone in this bar would hear every word between her and the sheriff, and their gossip-addled brains would twist it to suit their purposes.
She would kill him. She’d kill him for being such a jerk about the uniform, for making her act out to the point that she’d stripped it off in the street. She’d kill him for making her feel off balance all the time, for pushing her off the foundation of safety and stability that was her happy place.
He was the cause of all this. With all his dark-haired, hazel-eyed good looks. With his stupid, glorious return to the island that had absolved him of all his teenage sins. With his authority and his uniform. He was the reason everyone on the island was talking about her.
And all he said as he stood in the doorway was “We need to talk, Cupcake.”