Muffin Top (Page 15)

She turned in her seat and flashed an ornery smile his way. “You wrecked your car checking out my ass while I was crossing the street.”

Yep. Lucy would have her revenge for him paying for the fuel pump. Had he expected her to react any differently? That would be a big nope.

“How can you say something like that about Scarlett?” he asked as he smoothed his palm across the dashboard. “She can hear you.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “You are such a pain in the ass.”

“Why don’t we stick to the truth as much as possible,” he said. “Makes things easier to remember.”

“Good point.” She pursed her full red lips together and looked out at the endless fields of corn or soybeans or wheat or whatever in the hell it was that people grew out here. “We met because your brother is dating one of my best friends.”

“And you couldn’t keep your eyes off me and decided to make it your mission in life to have you wicked way with me.”

She shook her head and put her sunglasses back on, pivoting in her seat so she was looking out the front windshield. “No way. You pursued me. I turned you down four times before I finally agreed to go out with you—just for coffee.”

A coffee date? Really? Women loved him, they didn’t make him go the is-he-a-serial-killer route with an afternoon date. “I’m not sure my ego is going to survive this trip.”

“Your ego is the only thing bigger than you are. It could use a little downsizing,” she said with a chuckle. “Now back to it.”

“Obviously our coffee date lingered into dinner after you realized that you had a thing for devastatingly hot firefighters.” Nice recovery, Hartigan.

“More like you intrigued me with stories about your extensive My Little Pony collection.”

It was a good thing the road in this part of the world was flat, straight, and uneventful because he had to turn his head, his mouth gaping open a bit, to stare at her. My Little Pony? Oh, she was getting mean now. He’d never thought of himself as the testosterone-filled caveman type, but yeah, that plus the coffee date was getting to him. He was about to open his mouth when he saw her lips twitch. The woman was busting his chops, and she was doing it on purpose. He clamped his piehole shut and turned back to the highway.

“Don’t hate on Sparkle Nose.”

She let out a laugh that filled the car. “That’s not a real My Little Pony horse name.”

“It should be, and I’m sticking to it.” Oh yeah. She may have started this ridiculousness, but he was running with it. Never challenge a Hartigan. “Sparkle Nose is the best. I think I should get a temporary tattoo.”

“I agreed to a second date because you made me laugh, and that was all she wrote.”

Not what women usually said about him, but wasn’t that a big part of why he was here in the middle of the farm belt right now? “How long have we been together?”

She tapped her red-tipped nails over the inner seam of her jeans, obviously thinking over the options. “Six months. Enough time to really get to know each other but not so much that we’ve gotten past the cow-eyes thing.”

“Cow eyes?” he asked.

“You know when you get that goofy smile on your face when you see the person?” She must have realized he had no clue what she was talking about, because her eyes widened. “Oh my God. You haven’t really crushed on someone before? With all of the women you’ve dated, you haven’t gotten the stupid cow eyes because just looking at the person makes you all gooey and happy on the inside?”

Frankie didn’t have to think about it. “No.”

“So what, you just banged ’em and left ’em because they were totally interchangeable?” she asked, her astonished tone taking some of the sting out of her words.

“Not even close.” He loved women, all of them. He’d just never been in love with one woman. Maybe it was a defect, a character flaw that had kept him on the field so much longer than almost anyone else in his orbit. He was the player who couldn’t retire even though it was way past time.

“Explain it, then.”

There wasn’t any judgment in her words, just an honest, straightforward curiosity that had the words coming out of his mouth before he could consider whether he should.

“I like women. I like the women I’ve dated. I was attracted. They were attracted. Sure, the physical had something to do with it, but the why of the attraction was different for each one. It could be their laugh, their weird drink order, or the way they saw the world. So, we’d go out a couple times, have sex, and everyone was satisfied. No one got hurt. End of story.”

Silence hung between them, filling the inside of the car like a third passenger.

About two miles later she broke it. “That was enough for you?”

“It was.” The last word being the operative one.

“And now?”

He let out a sigh. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

And he had miles and miles of road ahead of him to do that. Too bad that by the time they pulled off what seemed like the thousandth highway they’d been on that day and onto the darkened streets of small-town Antioch, he hadn’t figured out a damn thing. After an extra-long day on the road, the only sound in the car was the GPS as it took him through the sleepy streets until he pulled into the driveway of a two-story blue house with white shutters and a wraparound porch, complete with flowers hanging in baskets and a swing. Light streamed from the house’s windows, and Lucy’s shoulders relaxed, a small smile that looked a lot like relief curling her lips.

“I should warn you about Gussie,” Lucy said after they’d parked and he’d grabbed his duffle and her two suitcases from the trunk. “He’s a little excitable.”

Frankie was still trying to figure out who Gussie was—he’d thought her dad’s name was Tom—when the front door opened. A blur of black flew out from inside, making a beeline straight for him. By the time he realized the streak was a dog, it was already leaping into the air and going straight for Frankie’s balls.

Chapter Seven

There were many benefits to growing up as a Hartigan. One was the fast reflexes a person developed when they were one of seven kids. Dodging a dog who thought he was a missile was nothing compared to getting out of the way of a flying towel or book aimed at his oversized noggin by one of his siblings.

“Oh my God,” Lucy yelled. “Gussie, no!”

In a move of incredible dexterity, she intercepted the dog, scooping him up in midair and pressing him to her chest. The dog, which Frankie could now identify as a French Bulldog, since it was no longer gunning for his family jewels, must have realized who held it because he let out the happiest of yaps and began licking her face.

Frankie was still watching her when a man who looked like he’d just walked out of The Dad Catalog hustled out of the front door and down the porch steps.

“I am so sorry about that,” he said. “Gussie is convinced that we are in a state of siege, and he’s actually a German Shepherd charged with protecting us against any and all strangers.”

“Translation,” Lucy said as she did her best to avoid Gussie’s tongue. “He’s a spoiled dog who’s half evil.”

The somewhat-evil dog in question was still slathering his attention on Lucy with total love and devotion, oblivious to the insult sent his way by the woman holding him. She wasn’t helping her cause of getting the dog to stop at all, either, because she kept making kissy noises and talking baby talk to it in a low tone.