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“Do I need to?” Cisco came out with three glasses and a full bottle. “Anybody joining me this cold evening?”
“Sure. We’ll toast your doom,” Sam said.
“Hey! That’s my girl you’re talking about,” Squint said. “Daisy is not doom. She’s a radioactively hot baby.” He smacked his lips after taking a shot. “I wish I was the prize so she could win me.”
“Take my place.” Cisco shrugged. “Everybody wins.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Sam looked pleased. “Don’t you think Suz can steal Daisy’s crown? Daisy was in here, madder than a hornet. She seems to think you’re giving Suz tips—SEAL tips—on how to win.”
“Suz can’t steal Daisy’s crown yet.” Cisco raised his glass to his buddies, took another shot. “But I have faith.”
His friends grinned at him. “You’re being dishonest,” Sam said. “Your eyelid always jumps when you’re deviating from the truth.”
“Otherwise known as lying like a rug.” Squint held out his glass for a refill. “It’s okay. We get it. But just know my girl was awfully PO’d. She’s going to make some noise about your gaming the holy BC system. And I don’t know what happens then.”
“All hell breaks loose. Who cares?” Cisco shrugged. “There were no tips given. Since Suz can’t swim, it’s not like I can give her a SEAL tip, although I appreciate Daisy’s faith in our navy.”
Sam and Squint looked startled. “Can’t swim?” Squint repeated, sounding dumbfounded.
“Not a stroke.” Cisco eyed his glass, appreciating the amber liquid. It was smooth, as smooth as the slick wet suit that looked as if it had been spray-painted on Suz, much to his appreciative gaze. “It’s okay. She’s got the race in the bag. I’ll be saved, and then you can press your case on the unsuspecting Daisy.” He stared down Squint. “If Daisy’s ‘your girl,’ as you call her, why hasn’t she figured that out?”
Squint shrugged. “It seems her gaze is caught on your ugly mug.”
Cisco laughed. “You are a rather homely dog.”
“Thank you.” Squint leaned back in the sofa. “You want me to help you teach Suz how to swim? I really need her to win this race, for the obvious reason.”
“You?” Sam laughed along with Cisco. “Leg Cramp Man? Mr. Last Place?”
Squint looked devastated. “Never happened before.”
“You’ll redeem yourself one day.” A bright, shiny idea illuminated Cisco’s brain. “Have you told Daisy how you feel?”
“No, dude, that’s not smooth.” Squint didn’t look optimistic.
“It’s because he came in last place in the swim last month,” Sam said, filling in the missing pieces Squint didn’t want to admit. “We overheard Daisy telling someone that she would never date a man who came in last place, behind her gang. That man, of course, was our buddy.”
Squint’s face mapped misery like a human Etch A Sketch. “It was a muscle spasm! People get them!”
Cisco looked at the ceiling, wondering how to salvage the dilemma they found themselves in. “We’ll figure it out. All for one, and one for all, the way it’s always been.” He looked at his friend speculatively. “You believe in all this hocus-pocus around here?”
“Ty swears by it. He’s the one who would know,” Squint said. “He’s born and bred BC.”
“You?” Cisco asked Sam.
“Hell, I don’t care.” Sam grinned. “I’m always going to do whatever I want, and no charm’s going to change that.”
“The selfish bachelor.” Cisco nodded. “But not as selfish as you,” he said, looking at Squint. “If you have such a hot thing going for Daisy, why don’t you just tell her? It could change everything for all of us. Take me out of the boiling pot.”
“But frogs belong in boiling pots,” said Squint, clearly unbothered by his best friend’s dilemma. “I can’t tip my hand. I’ll just wait, as I’ve said, until she’s done chasing after what she doesn’t want. Women do that, you know. It’s all part of the dance.” He relaxed into the sofa cushions, a look of contentment on his face. “I do wish you wouldn’t get my girl all stirred up, though. Makes me sad to see her unhappy.”
Cisco scoffed. “Let’s get on with the planning of this escapade. It’s time for teamwork.”
“What escapade?” Sam asked.
“Like last time, when we all swam the race together to achieve a unified goal. Teamwork. That’s what we’re good at.”
His good buddies looked blank as new sheets of paper.
“No plan here,” Sam said. “I’ve even changed my mind about participating in the race. No reason to since Daisy’s going to win. So, just call me No Plan Sam.”
“I’ve got nothing,” Squint agreed.
Suz blew in on a gust of cold air, warming Cisco. She looked fresh and invigorated from their lesson: hair dry and spiky, foxy smile on her face, roses in her cheeks to match the pink scarf around her neck. He was definitely warm for this woman, in all the right places.
“I brought pumpkin chocolate chip muffins,” Suz said, and the men cheered.
“Just the thing to go with whiskey.” Ever the dog, Sam hopped up to help himself first to what Cisco considered his spoils.
“My work, my prize,” Cisco said, snatching the cute basket with the blue-and-white patterned napkin away from Sam. “Sit down and stay a second,” he said to Suz, guiding her to a seat far away from Sam and Squint.
“Yes, do.” Sam gazed at Suz, waiting his turn at the basket, which Cisco now passed around grudgingly. “We’ve been hearing about your lesson this morning.”
Suz glanced with some annoyance at Cisco, which he felt was ill-deserved. “That should be a private topic.”
“Yeah, well,” Squint said, pawing the basket with his big hand. “Daisy came by to throw a hissy about Cisco cheating. She’s filing a complaint, or squawking to someone.”
Suz frowned. “Let her complain. We did nothing wrong.”
Cisco perked at the sound of “we” on Suz’s sweet lips, very much liking the “we’re in this together” medley. “Besides which, I have a plan to completely neutralize our town tattletale.”
“Watch it,” Squint reminded him, “again, that’s my girl we’re talking about.”
“Precisely. And I have a thunderbolt of inspiration about your girl,” Cisco said. “Squint, Mr. Leg Cramp Extraordinaire, is going to take my place on Saturday.”
The room went dead silent as everyone stared at him.
“To what end?” Squint demanded.
“If Daisy needs to win someone, then it should be you. That will undo the curse—”
“Charm!” everyone reminded him.
“And Squint will then be the object of this matchmaker-created charm.”
“How do you know that’s how we got the charm?” Suz asked. “It’s top secret. Only a few people know.”
Cisco looked at Suz. “What’s top secret?”
“Never mind,” Suz said. “Continue with your idea.”
“His explosion of brain cells is top secret,” Sam said.
“His deviation from the norm,” Squint said. “I don’t like how you’re trying to cheat my lady out of her win.” He wagged a finger at Cisco. “I know when you’re trying to think up an outside-the-box strategy, watched you do it many times in Afghanistan. And this feels like that.”
“It always worked, didn’t it?” His friends nodded. Cisco took great pride in his ability to strategize when things look bleak—and right now, they were bleak. “Daisy will win Squint, because he, not I, will be at the finish line. The charm will ricochet on to Squint, and he will get the woman of his dreams, and I’ll be free. Happy ending for all,” he said cheerily, settling back with a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin clutched in one hand and his whiskey in the other. “Let the applause begin.”
Suz hopped to her feet, not applauding. “You don’t think I can win.”
Cisco hesitated. “Now, I didn’t say that—”
“Yeah, you did,” Sam said. “Pretty much you did.”
“It’s implied,” Squint said, “and it’s a bit sad, if you ask me.”
He wasn’t about to bring up Suz’s lack of swimming prowess, but wasn’t it obvious he was trying to save her from embarrassment? And holy hell, he didn’t want anywhere near this top-secret whatchamagig charm thing, just in case it did work. He was not winding up at an altar with Daisy Donovan, thus losing the woman of his dreams, and taking Squint’s, which would mean losing a good buddy.
This called for clear digestion of cold, hard facts. “Suz, beautiful, you really don’t swim. It’s more of a dog paddle that goes sort of circular. It keeps you from drowning, but that’s its main utilitarian function.”
His buddies drew in sharp breaths, gave him the no-no-no slashing signs to signal him to silence himself before it was too late.
It was too late.
Suz went to the door. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. Squint, be at the finish line. Be sure you have a warm blanket waiting for me, and get your pucker ready.”
She went out as cold gushed in the door, slamming it behind her.
“Smooth,” Sam observed.
“Oh, boy,” Squint said, “you’ve stepped in a big ol’ pile of steamy trouble you are never getting off your boot.”
Cisco ate his muffin in silence, dreading Saturday even more, now that his sweet ’n’ petite dollface had mentioned puckering to Squint. She’d talked about a pucker once to him, saying kissing him would force her to pucker like she’d bit into a grapefruit.
But she hadn’t said that to Squint. In fact, she’d sounded like the pucker she had waiting for him was going to be served up with a smile.
Chapter Four (#uaf50636d-5501-55fc-a8d3-f39fef44eae1)
In the end, Suz won the race handily, due to Daisy coming up with a leg cramp in the last fifty yards—a Squint-styled leg cramp, Cisco presumed, realizing now that the fix had been in, thanks to his dumb bright idea. With a couple hundred people posted along the banks of Bridesmaids Creek with hot cocoa, pompons and enthusiastic yells for both wet-suit-wearing women, Daisy must have calculated enough effort to put in a great show, then pulled up—because she didn’t want Squint.
She wanted Cisco.
Surprised by how many folks turned out for this event—both in-towners and out-of-towners, Cisco realized BC had their charmed ways, which made them money and made them special. It didn’t matter whether the charms were real or not, but what did matter was Suz giving Squint the kiss Cisco wanted.
Realizing he was now double-cursed—double-charmed, call it how you saw it—Cisco knew he had one option left to him. So he packed up his stuff, turned his notice in to Justin Morant, Suz’s sister Mackenzie’s husband, tossed his duffel into his truck and headed to the rodeo circuit.
Just plain ol’ Frog now. “I apparently am the frog that got put back in the pond,” he said, turning on some country-western tunes to commiserate with him as he sang his way into New Mexico. He’d start off in Santa Fe, work his way into shape.
Thought about Suz’s swimming skills a lot on the way, and how happy she’d looked rising out of the water, victorious. The blue-haired sylph had put a lot of effort into refining her stroke over the week, and a little shame crept into him that he’d doubted her.
That was not hero material. No wonder she’d not even glanced his way at the finish line.
So tonight was his first ride. Frog got his number pinned on, went to shoot the breeze with the fellows. It wasn’t going to be easy to establish the kind of friendships he had with his team back in BC. But when you were a renegade persona non grata, you bucked up and moved along.
“How you doing, buddy?” Someone clapped him on the back, but Frog didn’t see who it was as they went by. He waited for his name to be called, rode a respectable ride, but without a decent enough number to make it into the next round he pushed on to the next rodeo.
Two weeks later, the blue-haired angel of his dreams appeared beside the chute in Arizona where his bull was about to be loaded. “Suz!”
She nodded. “Yes. You big chicken-hearted weasel.”
“I suppose I deserve that.”
“You do deserve that.” She glared at him. “After you ride, I want to talk to you, buster.”
Gladly was what he wanted to say. His eyes ate her up. “Okay. I’ll be out in eight,” he said, posturing a little.
She scoffed and went to the grandstand. He grinned. “Things are looking up, ol’ buddy,” he told the bull being loaded. “Look out for me. My name is all over you.”
The bull thought little of his comments, and tossed him in under two seconds—well, maybe two seconds, but the guys later said it was doubtful—and stomped him a little just to make his point. Frog writhed in the gritty arena, helped out quick by a couple of bullfighters.
Suz met him, her eyes huge. “Are you all right?”
“Except for a missing gizzard or two, I should be fine. Maybe my stomach muscles are papier-mâché, but they should strengthen back up eventually. A year from now,” he said, falling with a groan into the chair the bullfighters steered him to. A rodeo doctor ran over, checking him out, proclaiming he just needed rest and TLC and maybe some kisses for his ouchies.
Nobody laughed. Even Frog knew it had been a near thing.
“Come on, you big baby.” Suz helped him to his feet. “Where’s your room?”
“I sleep in my truck,” he said, feeling pain radiate from the roof of his mouth to the soles of his feet.
“Well, we’re getting a room.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said, meaning he could use a lengthy lie-down in a real bed to try to get his innards back to 3-D shape and regular form rather than smashed flat as peanut butter.
“Settle down, cowboy. I’m going to nurse you back to health, and that’s it.”
“Thank you,” he managed to gasp out as she folded him into a human accordion into his own truck and drove to find a hotel. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you. I came to bless you out for being such a faithless knucklehead. I’m not surprised at all to see you in this shape. You’re clearly a man who doesn’t learn easily.”
“This may be true.” He caught a whiff of perfume and something else sweet, like sexy woman, something he hadn’t smelled in his truck in a long time. “That’s the only reason you’re here? You could have blessed me out by cell phone.”
“Not near as satisfying as in person.” She stopped outside a cozy B and B and looked at him. “Looks like doilies for drapes. Can you handle this much toile and chintz?”
“All I do is toil and whatever else you said.” He felt like he was time traveling out of his head a bit. “Good luck finding a room.”
“Be right back.”
He sighed when she left because the intoxicating scent went with her. God, he was glad to see her. Shocked as all get-out, but glad.
