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“I’m not that good of a friend.”
“You really want a kiss, don’t you?”
He perked up at these heartening words that seemed to portend a softening in her stance. “I sure do.”
“Hope you get someone to kiss you one day, then. See you around, Cisco. And don’t forget, one week until the swim!”
“Hey!” He stopped her from driving off. “How am I supposed to get you in shape in a week?”
Suz raised a brow. “In shape for what?”
“Winning me?”
She winked. “I’m off to The Wedding Diner to eat a piece of four-layer chocolate cake Jane Chatham promised to hold back for me. I guess you’ll have to cross today off your list for training.”
She drove away, her angelic smile doing nothing to ease his trauma. Suz wasn’t trying very hard, as far as he could tell. Somehow she’d gotten roped into this race—short straw indeed—and obviously had no plans to seriously go for the win.
Which meant his Daisy problem was still alive and well. Frog—no, Cisco, because that’s who Suz decreed he was, and he was fine with whatever she wanted—decided he was going to have to make sure that he was absolutely, 100 percent, the gold buckle of bachelors she just couldn’t live without winning.
* * *
CISCO WAS BUSILY plotting how to best tempt Suz into putting some real effort into winning him—as much effort as she’d put into going off for chocolate cake—when the familiar roar of Daisy Donovan’s motorcycle disrupted him. The siren brunette with long chocolate locks pulled up beside him and slipped off her helmet. Daisy was a heart attack on wheels and she knew it. The thing was, she had a very dark side, courtesy of her old man, Robert Donovan, who’d haunted this town for years trying to run it into the ground so he could take over the real estate.
Ty Spurlock had brought Cisco, Justin Morant, Squint Mathison and Sam Barr to town on a bride hunt, to help repopulate the town and fortify it against Robert’s manipulations. Justin had fallen first, for Mackenzie Hawthorne, becoming a father to her four darling quadruplet sweethearts. Then Ty had fallen into his own trap—and no one much saw him these days between his deployments and loving on Jade Harper Spurlock and their twin tiny dolls.
The real kicker was that their buddy Squint had a thing for Daisy. He was just positive her brand of wild child needed him for taming. For some reason, Daisy never looked his way. She preferred instead to cast her lure for a frog—well, a Cisco. He looked at the long-legged brunette with the sexy-devil smile cautiously.
“Hi, Daisy.”
“Hello, lover boy.”
He winced. “Nice January day, huh?”
Daisy laughed. “You’re cute when you’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.” He drew himself up. A navy SEAL did not get nervous over brunettes who ripped up the road on motorcycles and tried to tie you down.
Okay, maybe a little nervous. Just because of the tying down thing.
“If you’re not nervous, kiss me.”
She gave him a sultry look that singed his toes. He felt his boots smoking. “I’d better not. It’s probably bad luck to kiss before the big swim,” he said.
“If you don’t want to get lucky, fine by me.”
His throat dried out. He could practically feel sweat pouring out from underneath his hat, when it was a perfectly frigid twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside. “I’m late to meet Squint and Sam. See you, Daisy.”
“Hey.”
He stopped and, looking at her, his heart wadded into a knot. “Yes?”
“If you change your mind about getting lucky, I’ll be around.”
He tipped his hat, hurried off. Her motorcycle roared, and she headed in the opposite direction. Relief ran all over him as he went to find Sam and Squint.
His buddies were parked in Sheriff Dennis McAdams’s office, kicking back, having a good jaw with the sheriff. Sam and Dennis grinned hugely at him, while Squint glared.
“We saw you accosting Daisy out there,” Sam said. “Squint’s jealous.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was doing.” Cisco tossed himself into a chair. “Did you also see me chatting up Suz?”
“No, we didn’t see that.” Dennis looked pleased, lounging behind his wide wood desk that had seen many, many years of boot heels resting on it. “Well, we might have seen you trying to get very close to our Suz, but from here, it looked to us like she backed away in a hurry. A real, real hurry.”
The men laughed—except for Squint. “Hey, brother,” Cisco said, “if you want Daisy so badly, please take her off my hands. By all means.”
That would allow him to concentrate on Suz, which was his preeminent goal.
Squint frowned. “She seems to prefer Frog legs.”
Frog legs, nothing! He held up a hand. “Cisco is the name, boys.”
“Since when?” Dennis palmed through some papers. “I don’t have any paperwork here stating such.”
“Can’t a man change his name because a beautiful woman wants him to?” Cisco was pretty proud to brag on the fact that he alone had been newly anointed by one of the town’s most awesome, sexy bachelorettes.
“Daisy?” Squint glared some more. “Daisy wants you to go by Cisco? Because I’m going to have to tell her that there’s a reason we called you Frog. Frog legs, for sure. Thin and not much meat.”
“No, Suz calls me Cisco. And you’re still annoyed that I beat you last month in the Bridesmaids Creek swim.”
“I had a leg cramp!” Squint’s glare bounced right off Cisco.
“You’re a SEAL. You should be in better shape. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” He thumped his chest. “You’re looking at the new and improved Cisco Grant. And Suz is swimming to win me next weekend.”
“Really?” Squint sat up. “Does Daisy know?”
Cisco frowned. “I didn’t ask. Guess I didn’t care.”
“Careful,” Squint said. “You misjudge Daisy’s fineness. She comes across evil and devilish, but I’m telling you, it’s true Texas hot sauce that lady’s peddling. And I aim to eat it up, if you’ll get out of my way.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Dennis observed. “If you want to win Daisy, Squint, win her. Don’t get cramps when the race is hot. You must become the rope if you want to lasso her. Frankly, I don’t think you have it in you.” He shrugged. “Cisco Frog obviously does.”
“Cisco Frog!” Cisco glared, worried that pseudonym might stick. “Just Cisco is fine, thanks.”
“Well,” Sam said, having remained silent this whole time, “I can see that the tie is going to have to go to the runner.”
They stared at Sam. Cisco was a bit suspicious. Sam was known for being many things, being clever and underhanded chief among them. In other words, he liked to be in the middle of everything, and turn it inside out just to watch everybody whirl around in different directions thanks to him.
“What runner? We’re swimming,” Cisco pointed out. “Actually, the girls are swimming.”
“Yep.” Sam got up and stretched. “And I’ve entered as a prize.”
The men gawked at Sam.
“You can’t do that. It’s my turn! The ladies want to win me. Well, Daisy does. I’m pretty sure Suz is operating out of pity, but I’m not picky,” Cisco said.
“Sheesh,” Dennis said. “Have some pride, Frog.”
Cisco sighed. “Okay. Sam, you can take my place.”
The sheriff’s office went silent for a moment.
“Did you give up that easily when you were a SEAL?” Dennis demanded. “Just throw in the towel at the first sign of difficulty?”
“No.” Cisco looked around the cramped, dark room. A small lamp sat on Dennis’s desk. The jail was down the hall, but it was empty now. Dennis’s wife, Shirley, had put some potpourri on his desk under the lamp to make it a more “homey” place, she’d said, and it did smell sweet in here. He breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. “You’re right. I don’t have any pride where Suz is concerned. My brain twirls like a pinwheel when she’s around. And she won’t kiss me. Says I might be a sloppy kisser.”
His best friends thought that was a real thigh-slapper. They roared with laughter. He shrugged, undeterred.
“I’ve been thinking,” Cisco said when the snickers and guffaws died down, “maybe I don’t really belong in BC.”
They booed that raucously.
“You belong with us,” Sam said. “You, me, Squint, we’re a team. We were a team in Afghanistan and other places that sometimes felt like hellholes, and sometimes felt real good. But we’re a team, and we stick together.”
Cisco shook his head now that the words had traveled from his brain to his mouth and hit the atmosphere. “I’m pretty sure the BC rigmarole and fiddle-faddle is beyond me. I’m not cut out for these small-town shenanigans.”
“That’s right.” Squint nodded. “Because you’re from a small town in Virginia that grows her boys strapping and proud. No high jinks in those small towns, either.”
“It’s hard to explain.” It wasn’t too hard to explain—it had to do with what his friends had observed about Suz: she just wasn’t into him.
And he was totally into her.
If Daisy won the race, he was a gigged Frog. Two times won and for sure the Bridesmaids Creek charm would kick in. “I don’t think Suz is all that motivated to get in shape to win. She was heading off to eat some four-layer cake.”
The men didn’t laugh like he’d expected.
“Look,” Squint said, “Dennis is right. We’re going to have to bait your trap better. We’ll help you.”
“I said nothing like that,” Dennis said. “Suz is hometown-grown. She’s stubborn and independent, and no one’s going to make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“Which is why,” Cisco said after a long, deliberate examination one more time of his options, “I’ve decided to head back to the rodeo circuit.”
“Yeah, right.” Sam laughed. “And leave sweet Suz to me?”
“You?” Cisco’s gaze jerked to Sam. “Since when has Suz been sweet to you?”
Sam grinned. “I didn’t say she had been. I’m saying that you and me setting up a side race—or side bet, whichever you prefer—would make things very interesting.”
“Side race?” Cisco was all ears to this.
“Sure. Let’s see which one of us can win Suz’s heart before the big race. Before you throw in the towel and go get killed by a bull.” Sam smiled, glancing around at his brothers before leaning forward to shake Cisco’s hand. “May the best man win. Which will be me—and I won’t even have to change my name to do it, Cisco, my friend.”
Chapter Two (#uaf50636d-5501-55fc-a8d3-f39fef44eae1)
Sam was a trickster beyond compare, which was no shock to Cisco. He knew his buddy too well to fall completely for what seemed to be, at first glance, a spirited race between friends. Sam was without doubt trying to encourage him, rally the forces. This was no different than any of the tactics Sam had used in Afghanistan when rallying was needed. He was known for his good humor and slightly wild—okay, zanily wild—approach to life. Stateside, Sam flirted with all the ladies, usually long enough to make certain whatever buddy of his was in the line of fire walked right into said fire.
The problem was, though Cisco wouldn’t mention it aloud, Suz might have eyes for Handsome Sam, as the brothers-in-arms called him. She certainly didn’t seem all that warm to the newly nicknamed Cisco.
Heck, she hadn’t even liked his official nom de plume, which he’d been called by his serving brothers.
She’d said he might be a slobbery kisser. And followed that up with eww.
There was no point in taking a bet when a man could see that he was on the upside of the teeter-totter. You never knew when your teeter-tottering companion might decide to be funny and hop off, thereby leaving you with a crash landing.
“I don’t know. Let’s head over to The Wedding Diner and see what’s cooking.” Cisco got up to his friends’ hoots.
“Come on, Cisco,” Squint said, “take the bet.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure,” Cisco hedged. “Suz said she drew short straw. And I think she’s pretty proud of her dog paddle, but hasn’t got the stroke part of swimming down yet.”
The sheriff wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. “We haven’t had so much fun in this town for years. I’m really glad Ty talked you boys into coming to BC.” He let out a few more guffaws at Cisco’s expense.
“If you’re so hot for Daisy,” Cisco said to Squint, “do something, I beg you.”
“Nope.” Squint shrugged. “I like to keep my lasso loose. She’ll figure it out eventually, and when she’s gotten nice and tired from running after the wrong Prince Charming, she’ll be more than happy to let me catch her.”
“I’ve never seen your lasso do anything but droop,” Cisco said, sticking the knife in just a little. “I’d like to hear a winning plan.”
“You don’t exactly sound like you’re a cornucopia of options,” Squint said.
“Which is why I’m off to eat cake. Nothing bucks a man up and clarifies his thinking like four-layer chocolate cake.” Cisco slapped his Stetson down on his head and hurried out of the jail to catch up to Suz, not caring that his buddies seemed to find his prompt exit uproarious.
They just didn’t understand the lengths to which he would go to avoid the sexy siren call of Daisy Donovan.
* * *
SUZ SAT IN the booth at The Wedding Diner, sipping hot honeyed tea in a delicate flowered china cup, waiting for Cisco to show up, as she hoped he would.
It had been thirty minutes, and he was nowhere to be seen. Quite possibly, the man either couldn’t take a hint, or he didn’t understand that the proceedings next weekend were quite serious. She was trying to save him from Daisy’s clutches, and this was going to require some skill.
First of all, she didn’t like frigid water. She didn’t fancy swimming in January, though the guys—Squint and Sam, both SEALs—had kitted her out with proper gear so toasty they swore she wouldn’t notice the cold.
All she had to do, they claimed, was hop in Bridesmaids Creek and swim like a water moccasin. And Frog—Cisco—would be rescued.
She hadn’t wanted to admit that swimming wasn’t her forte. Less than her forte. She actually couldn’t swim at all.
“You can do it,” Jane Chatham, the owner of the diner said. “You can stay afloat, right?”
“I’m pretty proud of my ability to bob like an apple.” Suz put her teacup down, glancing at the door. She wondered when Cisco was finally going to come charging in. You’d think the temptation of four-layer cake would have brought him running, but no. The man was a very, very difficult card to play.
