“When she wakes up,” Eve said in defeat. “Let me know where you’re staying. I’ll send the sample over when I’m done.”
“I’ll wait.” Dylan took a seat. “Not that I don’t trust you to give me Daisy’s real DNA, but would you?”
“Would I trust you? Do I trust you?” Eve let out a derisive snort. “Not in this or any other lifetime.”
“Finally,” Dylan said. “We agree about something.”
“Mark the date,” Eve grumbled. “Chances are, we’ll never see it happen again.”
▲ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▲
CHAPTER THREE
▲ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▲
ONCE DYLAN HAD the sample of Daisy’s DNA in his possession, Eve was sure she wouldn’t see him until the results of the test came back. She was wrong. For the next four days, he was everywhere. She couldn’t turn around, in the grocery store, at the laundromat, without running into his annoyingly well-build body.
Dylan even showed up at Miller’s Dairy where she mucked out stalls twice a week. He didn’t stay long.
“Can’t you find a better job?” he asked looking fresh as a spring meadow in his designer jeans and leather bomber jacket.
Without looking up, Eve accidentally sent a shovel of manure sailing in his direction. Dylan might have possessed an athlete’s superior reflexes, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the plop of cow poop that landed with a splat on his fancy high-top sneakers.
Grimacing, Dylan shook the shit off his foot and walked out of the barn. Certain she’d finally won a round in their ongoing battle of wills, Eve returned to work, whistling a happy tune.
Several minutes passed when Eve heard the familiar sound of a shovel scraping cement. Frowning, she stopped and looked over into the next stall. Her eyes widened in shock when she found Dylan cleaning out the next stall.
“I thought you left.”
“Put my jacket in the car and borrowed a shovel and a pair of gloves from Mr. Miller.” He held up his hands. “Nice man.”
“I… You…” Frustrated by her sudden lack of vocabulary skill—a deficiency that continued to worsen the longer Dylan was around—Eve barely controlled the urge to stomp her feet. “I thought you wanted to spend time with Daisy.”
“We took a walk in the park for an hour this morning. Well, I walked, Daisy rode in my arms. And before you blow a gasket,” Dylan said. “Mrs. Dowd was with us the entire time.”
Eve understood the benefit of Daisy growing accustomed to having Dylan around, though she knew without a doubt he was her uncle, he was still a stranger.
Eve wanted to believe Dylan would keep Daisy safe; she couldn’t be certain. Visits with his niece had to be supervised by someone she trusted. The list was short. Just her and the Dowds.
“You’re right not to trust me,” Dylan said as though reading her mind. “I’m a good guy, Eve. I would cut off my right arm before I’d let anyone harm a hair on Daisy’s head. But you only have my word.”
Eve considered herself a good judge of character. However, she learned a long time ago that some people are born liars. Because they rarely told the truth, they became experts at fooling others.
Until Eve came to Trident, until Daisy wiggled her way into her heart, her relationships were transitory. By choice, she lived and traveled with no one to worry about but herself, careful not to let anyone get close enough to hurt her.
Sneaking a glance into the next stall, Eve suppressed a sigh. Dylan worried her. Not because she thought he was a bad man. Just the opposite. Deep down in a place she thought no longer existed, he sparked a glimmer of hope that maybe good men do exist.
For Daisy’s sake, Eve hoped Dylan was everything he seemed to be and more. As for her? Hope was a wonderful thing, but she would be better off if she smothered the spark he ignited before it turned into a flame.
“You don’t need to try so hard,” Eve said as she shoveled the last bit of manure into a pile that would be turned into fertilizer.
“What do you mean?” Dylan asked as he matched her shovel-for-shovel.
The work was hard. Some might say backbreaking. When the cows were in the field, Mr. Miller turned off the system that regulated the temperature. By the middle of the afternoon, the barn felt like a furnace.
“Getting sweaty and ruining your fancy clothes won’t make me like you any faster than if you sat on your butt and watched.”
“Do I look like I’m sweating to you?” Dylan asked with a wicked twinkle in his dark eyes.
No, Eve admitted to herself. While she was a mess, her clothes sticking to every inch of her body, Dylan looked cool and collected with barely a light sheen of perspiration on his forehead.
“I cleaned out three stalls before you arrived,” Eve pointed out, unwilling to admit the reason Dylan was unaffected by the hard labor was his amazing physical condition.
“By yourself?” Dylan frowned. “What the hell is your boss thinking?”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“Gender has nothing to do with it. The work is too much for one person,” he said, giving in to the heat and wiping his forehead on his sleeve.
Dylan wasn’t wrong. Eve was about at the end of her energy reserve. But the pay was good. Plus, she always felt a sense of accomplishment—and relief—when she finished.
“If you’re worried about me, don’t be.” Eve shrugged, hiding a wince when her muscles protested. Knowing she would stiffen up if she didn’t keep her body in motion, she moved to the final stall. “Thanks for helping. No need to ruin your nice clothes. I can finish on my own.”
“I already smell like the back end of a cow,” Dylan grimaced, then laughed. “Besides, my clothes aren’t that nice.”
“Right,” Eve scoffed. “How much did you pay for your sneakers?”
“Okay, the shoes were pricey,” Dylan admitted. “But my jeans are
