Wild in the Moment

enough for a car down payment by now-had to be close to leaving. So the Hummer…well, it was a long way from the cool sports cars she’d likely driven in France, but the thing was, he’d driven with her. She needed to be surrounded by steel. She didn’t need cute; she needed a vehicle that could get itself out of ditches, that could go uphill when nothing else could go uphill. He fully realized that Daisy wasn’t worried about issues like that. It was his problem, that she drove like a bat out of hell.

Her issue, though, was that she wasn’t an exotic flower. He knew she wanted to be-that she’d always wanted to be. But the truth was, his Daisy was no-nonsense to the bone. She loved working. Real work. She loved making something out of nothing, loved feeling challenged, loved getting her hands all messy in stains and varnishes, loved cooking herself rather than being waited on.

Teague couldn’t imagine telling her that her self-image was goofy, that her dreams didn’t fit her at all. But he thought, really thought, that the Hummer was perfect for her. She could go anywhere in blizzards or storms. Carry tools or wedding cakes. Daisy, being a doer in every way, didn’t need a sports car that required constant attention, but a vehicle that enabled her to take off on any wild ambition she had.

Besides which, a Hummer so wasn’t ordinary.

He smiled in the dream. Hell, it was hard not feeling high as the sky. When he’d gone to bed, his whole world looked precarious, the fear of loss hanging over his heart like a lead pendulum…but now everything was coming right.

Daisy’d quit talking. The warm body snuggled next to him made him smile all over again. He could feel her slow, soft tongue. Licking his cheek. Then his nose. Then his mouth.

She was hot for him. Really hot. It seemed like all his life he’d been dreaming about her warm, lithe body, about her warm, wet, lithe tongue. Almost like this. Not exactly like this, but almost.

Suddenly the “almost” part of the dream struck him as a tad disturbing. Because a cold, wet nose suddenly nuzzled his cheek.

And Daisy sure as hell didn’t have a cold, wet nose.

His eyelids shot wide-open. The daylight pouring in the windows almost blinded him. From somewhere he could smell fresh coffee. And the affectionate female body lying in bed with him wasn’t Daisy, but a dog. A young, scruffy mutt with black-and-white fur and brown eyes and no heritage to brag about-or several heritages to brag about, depending on one’s point of view. The instant she discovered he was awake, her long, feathery tail started thumping at several thousand miles an hour. Someone had put a bushel basket next to his bed, filled to overflowing. Teague saw a powder-blue collar, a powder-blue leash, balls, pull toys, carpet cleaning products, kibble, and…he squinted…a powder-blue bowl with HUSSY II engraved on it.

“What the hell?” Teague muttered groggily, which made the puppy respond with ecstatic enthusiasm, leaping on him to lavish his entire face with kisses. “Aren’t you a darling? But whoa, baby, take it easy, take it easy…”

Only one person in the universe would have given him a pup named Hussy, and he promptly forgot the dog- because his real-life hussy was suddenly standing in the doorway.

Some guys fantasized about a woman in corsets and black lace. His fantasy woman was dressed in overalls, no shoes, thick floppy socks, and her thick, elegant hair looked determined to escape a ponytail. He couldn’t speak for a second, because she was so darn beautiful she stole his breath. When it came down to it, she was so beautiful she was probably always going to steal his breath. Today, though, it was more than those gorgeous bones and lush mouth and exotic, sexy eyes. It was the vulnerability in her expression, the anxiety she couldn’t quite hide-although God knew, she tried.

“You’re in trouble up to your eyebrows, Larson,” she said sternly.

“I’m in trouble? I’m in trouble?! What is this dog?!”

“Your birthday present.”

“It’s not my birthday until October.”

She cocked a foot forward. “This is relevant to what? You put up those giant Happy Birthday banners for me all over Main Street, and my birthday isn’t until August.”

“What day?”

“The thirty-first.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t distract me. You’re going to take that car back.”

“The hell I am,” he said amiably. “Just for the record, is the dog house-trained?”

“They said she was, at the rescue place, but…” When Daisy opened the balcony door, the pup leaped down from the bed and galloped outside, only falling over its feet once. “My take is that she’s well people-trained. If you let her outside every ten minutes, she doesn’t go in the house.” With the pup safely in the fenced yard, Daisy turned back to him and started up her rant again. “Nobody gives me a car, Teague. I don’t want to owe anyone, ever again. You know I’m not rolling in money, but I’ve saved almost every dime since coming home. I can do without until I’ve got it together. I don’t need charity.”

“Well, of course you don’t. But I figured you knew I was nothing like Jean-Luc. You would never worry that I was trying to buy your affection or trying to con you. Right?”

“Well, of course that’s right, but-”

God, it felt good, hearing her say it. So he forged on, “So I knew you’d understand this was completely different. I’d never do anything to undermine that fierce pride of yours. I just honestly thought you’d need your own car if we were married.”

That vulnerable expression intensified times ten. She sucked in a breath, and then, as if she still couldn’t get enough oxygen, sank on the far edge of the bed.

“You don’t want to get married, remember? You can’t seem to work with other people, you said. You’d given up on relationships, you said. It’s not that you wanted to be alone, but you figured you were too ornery for anyone to survive living with you, you-”

“Yeah, I know what I said.” He crooked his finger, urging her to come closer. “But didn’t you notice the strangest thing happening? That we were working together? Really well?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say really well. I bossed you around that one day in front of your customer-”

“You did. And I was astounded how much I liked that.” He crooked his finger at her again, since she still hadn’t budged from the foot of the bed. “Who would have guessed it could be so much fun to work with someone else? Since I’m as mean as I always was, I realized the difference had to be you. You were the one who made it fun. And I figured if you could work with someone as pigheaded as me, marriage would be a piece of cake. You’d like it. We could have sex a couple of times every day. And we could eat together and work together and fight together. I could teach you to run a planer and a band saw. You could take me to a nude beach on the Riviera once a year. We could have kids. Have all our families together at Christmas. We could add and subtract from that general list, but doesn’t it sound like a good basic plan?”

His Daisy didn’t cry. Ever. But suddenly her eyes welled up and were glittering like crystals, making him pretty sure-not positive, but pretty sure-she thought it was a good basic plan. He started breathing again. His heart was still scared, but not as gut-scared, soul-scared, aching-scared as it had been the night before.

“But what about all those things you said, Teague-”

“We already talked about those. So how about if we talk about all the things you said?” Since she seemed to be frozen in place, he sat up, reached over and tugged her over the comforter to his side. And when she was there, on his down pillow, all tangled up in sheets and comforter, he pinned her down, first by kissing her left temple, then her left ear, then her left cheek…very, very tenderly. “You said White Hills made you feel stifled.”

“That used to be true,” she affirmed.

“So, just for the record, if it’s still true, I don’t give a damn if we live in Timbuktu.”

“I think right here in White Hills might just be perfect,” she said, and then closed her eyes, when he finished kissing the whole right side of her face and then honed in on her mouth. He had to linger over that kiss, because it wasn’t funny, how afraid he’d been that he might never hold her again, that she would leave him, that it was an impossible dream that she could ever love him.

“You’re not bored here?”

“I haven’t had a second to be bored.” Her fingertips traced his jawline, and although he knew he was out of his mind with hope, he could swear he saw both lust and wonder in her eyes. “You know what? I used to think that the place you lived mattered. But the place isn’t the source of excitement. You are, Larson.”

“Me? I’m as ordinary as they come. And that’s an honest problem, I realize. You’re exotic and rare and an