Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
TATUM
W ren’s eyes go saucer wide, while her lips open and close without making a sound.
“I take it you’re as surprised as I am,” I tease, thanking the bartender as he sets two Pabst Blue Ribbons—the tasty beer of people perpetually on a budget—in front of us on the polished wood.
I slide him eight bucks, enough for both beers and a tip.
Thank you, happy hour.
Wren emits a soft squeak and shakes her head, making her long, black ponytail swish around her shoulders. She’s still wearing pale pink nurse’s scrubs, but looks adorable, and it’s not like she’s the only one still in work gear. There are two other nurses at a table in the back and an entire fleet of firemen in uniform just settled at the other end of the bar, near the dartboard.
Usually, a fleet of firemen would be all the reason I need to thank the happy hour gods for their blessings, but tonight I barely notice all the bulging muscles and sexy, close-cropped hair.
All I can think about is Drew and how amazing he looks wearing nothing but me stuck to him and a smile…
“I can’t believe it,” she says. “What are the chances? I mean, Bad Dog isn’t a big town, but it isn’t that small, either. And Drew hardly ever goes out. I bet that was the first time he’s left the house after dinner in months.”
“I know. It’s rotten luck,” I agree, taking a sip of my ice-cold draft, hoping it will numb my heart on the way down. “I almost fell out of my car when he stepped out onto his porch.”
Wren shakes her head again. “Oh my God, I can imagine. Especially after the night you two had. It wasn’t like it was a normal one-night stand without a nurse involved.” She winces. “I know I promised never to mention it again, but I forgot. I was distracted by the craziness of it all.”
I wave a hand. “No worries, it’s fine. And yeah. It wasn’t a normal one-night stand. It wasn’t going to be a one-night stand at all, actually. He’d already asked me out for dinner on Wednesday before I showed up this morning.”
“Oh, well that’s good,” Wren says, her features lifting. “Maybe you guys can work things out over dinner, find a way to make dating and being his nanny work at the same time.”
I shake my head. “He cancelled. He said he can’t date his daughter’s nanny and her happiness and stability comes first so…” I shrug. “It’s over.”
Wren’s brow furrows with empathy. “And you don’t think you can change his mind? I don’t usually put my oar in with things like this, but you guys seemed really great together. I don’t know many married couples who could have handled what happened to you Saturday night with as much grace and humor as you did. A connection like that doesn’t come along every day.”
“Har har,” I say.
She grins. “I know, but seriously. I’ve been looking for something like that for a long time.”
I sigh and take another swig of my draft. “I know. It was special. It feels like I’ve known him way longer than a couple days. We just had this, like you said, this…connection.” I’m tempted to tell her about the note I put on my fridge, the one about missing Drew even if we’d never met but decide that’s too personal.
And too sad.
So, I sigh and say, “But those are the breaks, I guess. And I get it. Dating your employee can be tricky and complicated. Most of the good guys I know wouldn’t want to do it, either.”
Wren slumps and sadness creeps into her expression. “I know. Dating your boss would be hard, too. Especially if you really love your job and there’s nowhere else in town you can do that job. If the romance failed, you’d lose everything and have to move and look for work and that would be so stressful.”
I lean forward on my stool, making a “come on give it up” motion with my fingers. “Spill.”
She blinks and reaches for her beer. “Spill what?”
“You’ve got the hots for Drew’s brother, don’t you?” I ask, as she chokes on her first sip. “Your boss? Barrett? Isn’t that his?—”
“Shush!” She leans in, covering my mouth with her hand as her eyes do an anime expression once again. She glances back and forth before turning to search the space over her shoulder. Only when she’s certain I haven’t been overheard, does she set my lips free.
And because I’m me, I can’t resist grinning and finishing, “Barrett McGuire, the OB-GYN of your dreams? The one you want to give you a private, after-hours exam?”
“Shut it, woman.” She mimes zipping her lips. “Your cookies are fantastic, and I got a strong ‘we should be friends’ energy from you when we met, but I’m serious. No talking about stuff like that in public.” She glances over her shoulder again. “There are McGuire eyes—and ears—everywhere. As long as you’re in Bad Dog, you’re never more than ten feet away from a McGuire, a McGuire cousin, or someone who’s known one of them since they were in elementary school. And I would die if he found out.” She shudders. “Just shrivel up and die. Someone would mistake me for a raisin, throw me in a salad, and that would be that.”
I shudder with her. “A salad? What kind of monster puts raisins in salads?”
“Better than raisins in a cookie.”
I grunt. She has a point. But she’s also potentially making a big mistake. “You don’t think B returns your feelings?”
She shakes her head. “No. He doesn’t think of me that way. Melissa, his little sis, and I were best friends in middle school, when I was in my even more awkward phase. He saw me giggling over boy bands in my kitty cat pajamas and crying in the bathroom because I was scared of the horror movies the other girls were watching in the basement. The damage is done. In his head, I’m perpetually twelve years old.”
I take another thoughtful sip of my beer, scanning Wren up and down. Even in her shapeless scrubs, she’s a hottie, but she does look young. A hazard of being only five feet tall and wearing her hair in a ponytail for work. “Have you tried to do anything about that?”
She frowns. “Like what?”
I lift a shoulder. “Like find some low-cut scrubs and ask him to happy hour? Help him see that you’re a gorgeous, funny, fully grown woman who’s a total badass?”
She giggles before reaching for her beer. “I’m not a badass. I’m the girl voted most likely to become an accountant in high school.”
“But you didn’t become an accountant. You became a nurse who doesn’t blink an eye while separating two people joined at the crotch and totes a shotgun around to protect herself from killer poultry. That’s a badass in my book.”
She sags on her stool. “Ugh, don’t remind me. Kyle was in rare form this morning. When I looked out the window, the yard was empty, so I thought it was okay to head to work without the shotgun. But as soon as I stepped off the porch steps, he rushed me from behind. The jerk was hiding in the holly bush. He pecked me in the bottom twice before I made it to the car.”
“Jeez.” I wince. “You poor thing. Can’t you call animal control? Get them to do something?”
“I could,” she says. “But Tim, the head of animal control, is crazy about turkey hunting. He’d get a depredation permit and kill Kyle, even though spring turkey season doesn’t start for months, and I can’t do that. Kyle’s a terrorist, but I don’t want him dead, just far away from me and my front door. And my butt.”
I tap my chin, brain whirring. I have zero experience with feral wild turkeys but dwelling on Wren’s problems is highly preferable to pondering my own. My situation is hopeless. Hers might not be…
“What if we relocate him?” I ask.
She snorts. “How? He’s huge and mean and really fast. You should have seen him run the other day when I started throwing tennis balls at him through the car window. He’d beat us in a 5K any day. Then he’d wait at the finish line to peck our eyes out.”
“That’s why we don’t try to outrun him. We outsmart him. I may not be a nurse with a master’s degree, but I’m smarter than a turkey. And you’re clearly a genius, getting through all that school and becoming head nurse at your practice by thirty. If we can’t Big Brain a solution to this, who can?”
She takes another thoughtful sip of her beer. “If we do this, will you promise to stop trying to get me to make a move on B? I know you mean well but I’m not a ‘get a makeover and win the guy’ kind of girl. I like sports bras and loose scrubs and too much makeup makes me feel like I’m suffocating. I also love being an OB-GYN nurse and B’s is the only practice in town. If I made a fool of myself and couldn’t bear to show my face in the office again, I’d have to move, and I would hate that. Bad Dog is my home—gossipy neighbors, killer turkeys, and all.”
I extend a hand. “Agreed. I’ll brainstorm turkey traps and we can meet up this weekend to buy supplies and plot Kyle’s relocation.”
“Sounds perfect.” She takes my hand, shaking it with a grin.
“In the meantime, I’m following you home tonight,” I say, draining the last of my beer. “I can throw empty coffee cups at Kyle while you run into the house.”
“Really?” Wren’s expression brightens. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all. What are friends for? And I was raised in the woods. I’m not afraid of animals unless they can gut me with a swipe of their claws.”
She arches a nervous brow. “Wait until you see Kyle. My friend Brie followed me home once to help and left bleeding from both arms. Now we only meet for jewelry making at her house and her entire family prays for me at church on Sundays.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” I assure her, sliding off my stool. “Come on. Let’s get you home safe, then I’ll head back to my place to cook dinner. A to-go salad sounds good, but I’m on a budget. I need to save up another grand to afford a down payment on an apartment closer to Drew’s place.”
Wren pulls on her coat as she follows me to the door. “But I thought Drew was offering the garage apartment at his place as part of the compensation package?”
“He is. But I’m not about to move in with him. It’s going to be hard enough seeing him every morning before he leaves for work and a few minutes when he gets home. If I had to go to sleep every night, knowing he was only a quick jog across the driveway…”
“You might find yourself sleepwalking over to his bedroom?” Wren asks.
“No, because I wouldn’t be sleeping. I’d be lying in bed, lamenting my cruel fate. It’ll be easier to forget how much I like him if I have to drive to get to his place.”
At least, I hope it will be…
“That makes sense,” Wren says, shivering as we push outside and start down the street to the cute downtown’s parking area. “Jeez. I can’t believe it’s almost March. Winter feels like it’s dragging on forever this year. But at least the ice fishermen are happy. Their season got cut short last year with all the rain.”
Her words remind me of those few bright, beautiful hours when I thought Drew was a sexy ice fisherman—or a lumberjack—and dating him wasn’t a conflict of interest.
But it’s good that he’s a lawyer. I’m sure he does lots of important lawyer-y things for this town. And I remember how stressed he sounded on the phone during the interview. He needs full-time help he can count on when Sarah Beth is sick or needs to go to the doctor or the dentist or gymnastics class. He can’t keep taking off work and he doesn’t want to lean too heavily on his parents or siblings.
And I get that. I really do. I love my family, but the more you ask for help, the more you open yourself up to other people being in your business. As a strong-willed, independent person that can get really old really quick.
Wren and I reach our cars and I promise to only get out of my car at her place if absolutely necessary. She’s adorably concerned for my welfare, proving yet again how lucky I am to have her as my first friend in town. I follow her small SUV through town and out into the surrounding countryside, thoughts turning back to Drew no matter how hard I try to keep them on the task ahead.
But I’m just not that worried about the turkey. I eat turkey. I can hold a turkey’s entire body in my hands and slick it up with olive oil and herbs without breaking a sweat. If Kyle refuses to back off, I’ll give the little clucker a swift kick in the can, tell him to stay away from hardworking nurses, and that will be that.
As I pull into Wren’s driveway behind her, I’m not pondering my defense strategy, I’m replaying every minute of my steamy night with Drew. I’ve just gotten to the part where he said we were beautiful together when Wren swings out of her truck and all hell breaks loose.
The hell beast comes out of nowhere, exploding from the shadows beside the road like he was born from the darkness itself. His massive wings spread like an avenging angel of death and his long neck stretches toward his target, the sharp beak at its end locked on Wren’s cute little backside.
Wren yelps and runs for the front door of her cottage, but she’s not going to make it. She’s slowed by the giant purse slapping against her side and that turkey is clearly part cheetah.
Jolted out of my shock by her second scream, I spill out of my car and sprint after Kyle, not sure what I’m going to do when I reach him but refusing to let him get a piece of Wren on my watch. I’m hoping to get my hands locked around his neck and wrestle him to the ground long enough for her to get inside—figuring I’ll worry about how to get back to my car once she’s secure—when I slip on a patch of ice under the freshly fallen snow and go down hard.
My hands hit the cold ground and I bleat like a startled sheep, wincing as agony flows up my bruised knees into my hip sockets. But I’m not hurt, not seriously, and my squawking stops Kyle in his tracks.
He spins, feather rippling, as he spots me in the snow.
Wren calls out from the porch, “Do you need help? Should I get my gun?”
I call out, “No, I’m fine. I just slipped. Get inside and I’ll call you tomorrow.” I don’t wait to see if she’s going to follow orders. I’m already scrambling to my feet and dashing back toward my car, Kyle in hot pursuit.
He gobbles and gurgles as he closes in, sounding more like an orc unleashed from the bowels of Mount Doom than poultry. Despite the cold, sweat breaks out on the back of my neck and my hands are shaking as I reach for the driver’s side door. I’m shaking so badly; my fingers slip off the handle.
By the time I reach for it a second time, Kyle’s on me.
Literally, on me , his vicious beak latched onto my bottom through my jeans.
I bite down on the inside of my lip, stifling my cry of pain, not wanting Wren to rush outside to save me. I don’t want my sacrifice to be in vain, and I’m honestly a little ashamed of myself. If I hadn’t been deep in sex thoughts, this wouldn’t have happened.
I grit my teeth and ignore the fire flaring from my brutalized bottom as I open the door, reach in for the flashlight I keep in the compartment between the seats, and whack blindly in Kyle’s general direction. I hit my own thigh the first time, but the second, I connect with some part of my gobbling tormentor. By the fourth whack, he lets go and I tumble into the front seat and slam the door.
I sit there, pulling in harsh breaths, as he parades around my car, wings held high, taking his victory lap. I’m sorely tempted to shift into reverse and floor it when he showboats past my bumper, but Wren was clear about wanting a humane solution to all this.
But damn, this jerk really is the worst.
My backside stings all the way home and when I get up to my apartment, I find a hole in my favorite pair of pink jeans and bruised, torn skin beneath. It looks like I was stabbed with a knife—a very small knife, but still!
As I clean the wound and layer three small Band-Aids, the only size I have in my toiletry bag, over the top, I feel terrible for Wren. We have to get rid of Kyle before she’s a prisoner in her own home. Or covered head to toe in turkey fighting battle scars.
The only good thing about the literal pain in my butt is that it keeps my thoughts off Drew for the rest of the night. Mostly. That weird dream featuring Drew as a warrior wearing a coat of turkey feathers while he pleasures me orally and vows to destroy the beast who wounded me doesn’t count.
But my night of tossing and turning does leave me beat the next morning, so beat I don’t take time to clean my wound again, which turns out to be a bad decision.
Very bad indeed.