Declan #2
We hang up. I propel myself into the guest bath and take a look at myself in the mirror. Winona will be here in a half hour. I run my hand along my jaw. Does she like the stubble or a clean shave? I want to know.
I take the elevator up and shower, change into a fresh set of workout shorts and a Thunder T-shirt.
By the time I’m back on the couch with my leg up, the front doorbell sounds. I check the security app on my phone.
Winona is standing on the porch.
With a goat.
“Sorry!” she shouts into the ring camera. “Sally was running late. I had to bring Jenny.”
I chuckle to myself, grabbing my crutches and propelling to the door.
The agency’s got Winona on a schedule. She has to submit my vitals before a certain time or this medical app starts beeping on both our phones.
Winona’s still talking to the doorbell camera. “Can I walk her around back?”
Her question doesn’t register until I’m already opening the door.
The goat lets out a loud “Maaahhahhhaahhhhaaahhh,” looks me in the eyes and rams forward, head down for a full-fledged butt toward my thighs.
In one swift movement, I plant my crutches and propel myself backward.
Winona yanks the leash. “Declan! Jenny! No! Oh my gosh! Jenny! Stop!”
Winona’s face goes red from holding the goat back. The goat hyperextends Winona’s arm with the force of trying to reach me. Winona’s digging her heels in and the goat is bucking toward me.
I’m cracking up so hard I might not get away.
I start propelling down the hallway.
“Run, Declan! Run!” Winona screams from behind me. “Stop! Jenny! … Stay! … Down! … Sit!”
Jenny yanks Winona along by the leash. When I turn to look over my shoulder, I catch the goat’s weird unfocused gaze zeroed in on me.
“Take the elevator!” Winona screams.
I hit the button, but Jenny’s coming for me.
I propel away from the elevator doors, down the hall toward a back bedroom.
Winona’s still shouting. “Jenny! Stop! Treat!”
Jenny skids to a stop and turns her head toward Winona, tilting it slightly as if to say, You’ve got treats? Why didn’t you say so?
“Declan! Quick! Get vegetables or a piece of fruit! An old tire! Something!”
Winona’s arm is still taut with exertion. She’s going to need a massage at the facility.
I pivot, heading toward the kitchen.
Jenny lets out a loud, “Maaahhhhahahhhhhaaaaaahhhahhahh!” and takes off after me.
“She’s chasing you again!” Winona shouts. “I’m so sorry!”
I pull the fridge open, grab an apple out of the fruit bin, prop my armpits on the crutches and hold the apple out in Jenny’s general direction. Jenny jerks away from Winona and the leash flies out of Winona’s grasp.
Jenny leaps toward me in bounds that are more fit for a field than my chef’s kitchen.
She aims straight for the apple. Her head butts it out of my hand and it rolls.
She turns, following the fruit and leaning down to take a bite.
Winona jogs toward Jenny, grabbing the leash.
She’s out of breath, brows raised in concern.
“What was I thinking? Sally said she wouldn’t be home for another half hour. I came so I could send your status to the agency on time. I brought her thinking she could stay in your back yard. She can’t be left alone for a second.”
Jenny looks up as if she knows we’re talking about her. Then she returns her attention to the apple.
I chuckle. “Never a dull moment.”
Winona looks at me sheepishly. “Is that a compliment or a judgment?”
“Definitely a compliment,” I assure her, staring into her eyes with the small hope that she’ll read what I’m feeling for her.
Winona’s phone pings with a text.
“It’s Sally,” Winona says. “She’s home. Let’s get Jenny back into my car. We can turn vitals in late today.”
After a five minute struggle that involves another carrot, Jenny is secured in the back seat and we’re pulling out of my driveway. I insisted on riding along.
“I think she likes you,” Winona announces, glancing back in the rearview mirror.
Her hair is askew from wrestling a goat—her cheeks still pink. When she smiles over at me and wags her brows playfully, all I can think of is the kiss I imagined.
“You didn’t have to come with me, you know,” Winona says. She glances at me and then back at the road. “Are you getting cabin fever?”
Yes. But that’s not why I want to come along.
“I think it’s best you have help when it comes to Jenny,” I tell her.
“I can’t believe she did that,” Winona says, shaking her head and closing her eyes briefly.
“What can I say?” I wag my brows. “It’s my natural animal magnetism.”
She laughs and the sound fills my chest like helium.
“This was my second, and possibly last, time watching Jenny,” Winona says with a soft laugh.
“Did you have pets growing up?” I ask.
I want to know everything about her—everything I’ve missed all these years we were in the same town but separated.
“We had dogs. And I brought in random wildlife at times.” She shakes her head, biting a side of her lip, looking up at me briefly and then glancing over at Jenny who is innocently chomping away at the apple.
“Wildlife, such as … ?” I ask her.
She glances over, blushing slightly. “Frogs. Bunnies. Caterpillars. Lots of caterpillars. Once I brought a field mouse. It got out of the cage and Cass was freaking out that a mouse was going to creep into her bed at night. I secretly hoped it would sneak into mine. I named it and everything—Fluffball.”
I smile.
“What?” she asks.
“You’ve always been you.”
“I don’t know how to be anyone else.”
We drop Jenny back home and get back in Winona’s car.
“What are you doing the rest of today?” I ask.
“After I check your cast?”
“Yes.”
I’m trying my hardest to act neutral. Inside I’m practically chanting, “Say you don’t have plans! Say you don’t have plans!”
Delaney and Linc would have a field day right now. They’d have every right. No woman has ever been my undoing. I’m so out of my depth here.
“I’m not doing anything,” she says. “You?”
“I thought I’d eat this chicken and scalloped potatoes meal Claudette left. She made an apple pie too. Of course, there are two portions …” I glance over at Winona. “And the game is on.”
“The game!” Her face lights up.
“Want to stay? Eat and watch the game?”
She looks over at me. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
She looks back at the road too quickly for me to get a read on whether that hoping was platonic or if it’s the kind of hoping that’s been waking me up in the middle of the night to thoughts of her.
“I’m really looking forward to this game,” Winona says.
“The Chiefs. They’re great in third-down situations.
And their defense is versatile. I bet you experienced that in person.
But their offense is their weakness. Inconsistent.
They need a stronger left tackle this year.
They could use you, since you’re so strong in both defense and receiving. ”
She keeps driving as if she just sang a nursery rhyme instead of reciting a game day analysis that has me wanting her to pull the car over so I can finally kiss her. My jaw is on the floor.
She glances at me. “What?”
“What do you mean, what?” I smile, my brows dipping low as I try to figure this woman out.
Will she always be a puzzle, surprising me at every turn? I kind of hope so.
“Oh, that? Well, I’ve been watching some sports talk things. Did you know there’s even whole talk shows on the radio just about sports?”
“I actually did,” I say with a soft chuckle.
“Well, you would. Anyway, I listened to some of those—and I watched some highlights of the upcoming game. Then I just Googled what I didn’t understand.
It’s pretty interesting. Strengths and weaknesses match up differently every game.
That keeps you on your toes, doesn’t it?
You can’t just go out there playing the same way with every opponent. You have to know what to anticipate.”
“Exactly. That’s why we watch film.”
“Huh. I always wondered what the film was. I thought it might have been more like YouTube tutorials.”
I laugh. One minute I’m imagining her taking Tony Romo’s place as a game analyst, and the next, she’s back to being the woman who picks her favorite team based on whether the mascot is cute.
Thunder is not cute, according to Winona.