A Curvy Girl for the Cadet: A Perfect Fit Novella (5 page)

“I should apologize to you. I didn’t realize that I had overstepped. I’m sorry. I won’t give her anything else.”

“Her name is Aubrey,” she told him. “She’s a sweet girl. But she’s my niece. Her mother died when she was two and we lost Danny. I just get a little crazy when it comes to her. Please continue to wave to her. She likes you. She thinks you’re nice. It would hurt her feelings if you stopped because of me.”

“Okay.” Her grasped her chin and set his lips on hers. It was the last thing she had expected, but it was exactly what she needed. His lips were warm and smooth and they had something special about them that made her want to close her eyes and just be kissed. His breath was warm. His beard was soft, his body was solid and comforting. She thought about what it would be like to go to bed with him, what it would be like to strip off all her clothes and lay naked beneath him while he worked. She didn’t think about that fast paced, headboard banging sweaty kind of sex as he deepened his kiss, but that slow lazy, smile causing, toe curling kind of sex. Clayton Calhoun seemed like he would be mighty good at that.

He broke the kiss and studied her face with those beautiful icy eyes of his. “I don’t know why I did that. I just know that I really wanted to.”

“I’m not complaining.”

He smiled then. Not a full smile, just a flash of teeth, a slight curling of the lips, but she found it delicious anyway.

He shook his head and leaned down to kiss her again. It was a much shorter kiss, but it still managed to send tingles through her body. Tingles she hadn’t felt in years.

“Get out of my house, Daisy.”

“Goodbye, Clayton and thank you.”

She walked back over to her house, feeling better and calmer than she had all day. “Mama?” Aubrey was popped up as soon as she stepped back inside. “Are you okay? You were gone for a long time.”

“I’m fine, baby,” she said truthfully as she bent to kiss her forehead. “Let’s see what movie you picked out for us.”

*

“Is this place okay for you, son?” Clayton’s father asked just after the hostess seated them in the local steakhouse that next evening.

“Yes, sir. It’s fine.”

“How about you call me Dad instead of sir? Since I’m your father, I’ll get a kick out of it.”

“You made me call you sir when I was growing up. That’s how I think of you.”

“I was a dick then, wasn’t I?” he asked, shaking his head with a self-deprecating smile. “A total dick.”

Clayton stared at his father in a state of semi shock over what he had just said. His buttoned down, straight-laced, humorless father had called himself a dick, and he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with jeans and sandals. And his ear was pierced. This transformation wasn’t new. He should be used to it by now, but he couldn’t figure out what the hell had happened to the man.

“It’s all right, Clay. You can admit it. I was an asshole. Come on. Call me an asshole. You’ll feel better. My therapist says that it’s unhealthy to bottle up your feelings because they will manifest themselves in unhealthy ways. I know you think I’m an asshole, so call me one.”

“I won’t. You are my father and I respect you.”

“No, you don’t.” A waiter came over to take their drink orders and to Clayton’s surprise his father ordered a pina colada. He had never seen his father order anything other than whiskey or bourbon when they were out. “I learned some things about myself. One of those things is that I don’t like hard liquor. Never have. Just drank it because I thought it was the manly thing to do. I love fruity drinks. I don’t care who knows it. They’re delicious. They make me happy and I’m not less of a man because of it.”

Clayton just blinked at his father not sure how, or if he should respond to that. “I respect you, sir.”

“You’re a good soldier. You respect your elders and your commanding officers. Maybe you respect me out of duty, but I know you hate me.”

“I don’t,” he said truthfully.

“You tried to me kill me. You put my head through a wall.”

He had lost control then. It was one of the few times he had. He could still feel his mother trying to pull him off. He could still see the trickle of blood that ran down his father’s face. “A man should respect a woman. I didn’t like the way you were treating my mother.” For years Clayton watched as his father debased their mother. Criticizing everything that she did, and the way she looked, and how she acted. And for so long Clayton never understood why. They had been happy once. He remembered them being happy, but something had changed. One day his father had turned cold. He had turned nasty. And it wasn’t until five years ago that Clayton learned why. His sweet, kind, gentle mother had had an affair while his father was gone. He couldn’t believe it. It just didn’t seem like something she would do. But his father had always been gone back then. Bosnia. The Gulf. Always on some secret mission. Always out of reach, unable to be contacted. Clayton had thought something over there had changed him, but it turned out it was something big on the home front that completely altered who he was.

“I will never be okay with the way you treated her, but I understand why you were so angry for all those years. I don’t hate you, sir, but if you ever talk to her or any woman like that again I’ll put your head through another wall and next time no one will be there to stop me.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “Oh! The drinks are here. Mine has an umbrella.”  

*

Clayton was just getting out of his car that evening when he saw Daisy’s Mustang pull up. He knew he should have kept walking into his house, but something made him stop. Maybe he wanted to get a glimpse of her, or maybe he wasn’t ready to go inside his house yet and think about the strange dinner he just had with his father.

The man was trying. Trying to be a better person. Trying to spend time with him to make amends. Once a month they would meet and spend time together. Most of the time it was at a local sporting event. Minor league baseball, hockey or college football in the fall. His father wanted to spend time with him now. He was gone a lot when Clayton was a kid. And then Clayton was gone. They were practically strangers. His father seemed to want to change that, but Clayton had very little to say to the man. That’s why he liked to go to sporting events with him. They didn’t have to talk, but going to dinner with him was harder. Something from the past always came up. Something he’d rather not remember.

“Hi, Clayton.” Daisy stepped out of her car wearing tight jeans, a cut up concert tee-shirt with one of her buttery-looking shoulders exposed and black heels. Her hair was loose and kind of wild. She looked like a total badass. A badass florist, carrying a bag full of groceries.

“Hey.”

“Hello, Mr. Calhoun.” The little girl, Aubrey was her name, waved at him, giving him that shy smile she always did.

“Hi.” He waved back but didn’t go any closer. Daisy had come storming at him, pissed off and ready to spread his body parts across the state. He was pissed at first, but he admired her for being on guard and doing right for her kid. She hadn’t had it easy, a widow of a vet raising her sister’s kid alone. It was a lot for anyone.

Maybe that’s why he kissed her. After she left he had searched his mind for a reason why. Normally he stayed away from women who had wild mood swings. And women with kids and definitely widows of vets, but he had kissed her and kissed her for a long time. She was beautiful and sad and she just looked like she needed to be kissed. And maybe he needed to kiss her. It would have felt wrong to let her walk out the door without doing so.

“We’re going to have ice cream sundaes. Come join us.”

“No thanks. I have some stuff to do.”

Daisy walked over to him. “What do you have to do on a Saturday evening? Unless there is a woman involved I think you’re lying to me.”

He couldn’t stop looking at her lips as she spoke and now he remembered why he had the overwhelming need to press his to hers. They were plump and smooth and the way she formed words with them was enticing and distracting.

“Why do I need a woman to have plans? Maybe the stuff I’m doing I can do alone.”

Those pretty eyes of hers narrowed slightly and a grin curled her lips. “You’ll have to tell me these plans.” Her voice went softer, quieter, sexier. “Or better yet, let me imagine them. I’ll need something to think about before I go to bed.”

“You’re crazy. You know that?”

“I do.” She sobered. “I still feel like crap. Let me apologize. Let me feed you ice cream. We’ve got all the fixings and two cans of whipped cream.”

A thought of him licking whipped cream off her lips entered his head as well as an unexpected surge of desire. It had been a long time since he felt anything like that. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman made him feel anything close to that.

“We’ve got bananas too,” he heard a small voice say. It was then he remembered he wasn’t alone with beautiful Daisy. There was a kid watching everything they did.

“She wanted me to invite you over for dinner. She said it was neighborly. Come over for dessert. Twenty minutes. I promise I’ll be sane.”

“Okay,” he said, knowing he should have said no. “Ice cream sounds good.”

Her house was very similar to his in size and layout, but unlike his, it hadn’t been updated in the last fifty years. The windows needed to be replaced, the floors re-sanded, the baseboards totally redone, but the way Daisy had it decorated was a throwback to another time. She had 50s style replica appliances in her kitchen in a shiny white with chrome accents. Her kitchen cabinets were painted baby blue and a large rustic table that looked perfect for family meals.

“Cool refrigerator.”

“You like it?” She smiled at him as she set her groceries on the island. “I’ve always wanted a kitchen like in
I Love Lucy,
but more colorful. Danny, my husband, thought it was a huge waste of money, but when me and Cookie moved here I decided to get what I wanted. Because life is too short, you know?”

“I do. Can I help you put away anything?”

“No sit. You are our guest. Cookie, grab the ice cream bowls.”

“Okay, Mama. What color bowl would you like, Mr. Calhoun?” Aubrey asked him sounding like a small adult.

“What colors do you have?”

“We have the rainbow. Mama likes things in color. She says black or white is never an option.”

“Okay, I’ll take blue then.”

She nodded and then climbed on a stool to retrieve to bowls. “Please have a seat. Mama usually picks blue. She says blue makes her feel calm, but since you’re our guest you get to have it. Mama can have red this time. That’s the color she picks when she’s feeling feisty.”

He looked up at Daisy then who was smiling bashfully. “Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not. What color do you pick, Aubrey?”

“Green.”

“Green is the color of balance and harmony. Is that why you picked it?”

“No. I just like green.” She shrugged as she set the bowls and spoons down on the table and took the seat across from him.

“Okay, Mr. Calhoun.” Daisy walked back over to them her arms full, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors. “We take our ice cream very seriously here. We have dulce de leche. Mexican chocolate, avocado coconut, or if you’re really feeling adventurous we have plain old vanilla.”

“I want to taste them all.”

“Ah,” she sighed. “The most perfect words in the English language.” She handed him a spoon. “We’re not fancy people here. Dig in.”

Chapter 6

She had only asked him to stay for twenty minutes, but an hour and a half later Clayton was still sitting in her kitchen. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed until Aubrey yawned and stood up.

“I’m going to get ready for bed, Mama.”

“You can stay up late. There’s no school tomorrow.”

“I know, but I’m ready to go to bed.”

“You need me to tuck you in?”

“I can do it.” She kissed Daisy’s cheek before she turned around to face Clayton. “Goodnight.” She extended her hand and Clayton shook it. “Thank you for coming.”

“Goodnight, Aubrey. Thank you for having me.” Clayton smiled again. It was a shame that his beard covered up so much of his face because she wanted to see more of it. He had one of those smiles that made his eyes crinkle in the corners. It was a very good smile.

“Why do I feel like I’m talking to a fifty-year-old professor when I talk to her?” he asked when Aubrey had gone.

“I ask myself that same question. She’s just like my sister was. Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to Jane.” She left the table and grabbed her handbag where she kept a small photo album and a million other things. “That’s Jane.” She handed him the last picture she and Jane had taken together.

“You two look nothing alike.”

She glanced at the picture she had looked at a thousand times. “She’s my exact opposite. Beautiful and brilliant and classy. She was perfect. She looks like Grace Kelly there. Hard to take your eyes off of, huh?”

“She’s not your opposite,” he said in his deep quiet voice. “Opposite would mean that you are ugly and stupid and classless. I don’t know you well, Daisy, but I know that you are none of those things.”

“You’re smooth.” She smiled at him, even though she felt kind of exposed in that moment.

He looked away from the picture and locked eyes with her. “I’m not trying to be. Your sister is not the one I can’t look away from. I think the girl with the wild hair and the happy smile on her face is more beautiful than the one who is barely smiling at all.”

“Oh.” She went around to the front of his chair, staring down at him for a moment before she buried her fingers deep into his thick mop of hair. It was an intimate thing to do to a man she barely knew, but she couldn’t stop herself. She pushed the hair out of his face and looked down into the icy blue eyes that crinkled when he smiled. “I would like to kiss your cheek, but your face is covered with a beard. I have the kind of lips that aren’t satisfied unless they feel skin beneath.”

He said nothing as she leaned in closer to him. He just closed his eyes as her lips came in contact with his forehead. She let them linger there, probably a little longer than she should. But he smelled good, clean, like shampoo and fabric softener. It was in direct contrast with how one might think a man who looked like him would smell. There was something undeniably sweet about Clayton Calhoun. She had gone to bed thinking about him last night. How he gave her permission to cry. How he soothed her.

She had never been soothed before. She had to keep it together when Jane died for Aubrey’s sake. She had to stay strong after Danny had passed for his mother. But a stranger had seen her at her most vulnerable. He made her feel safe enough to be vulnerable.

She pulled her lips away from his skin, prepared to step away from him, but he grabbed her hips, slid his hands up beneath her shirt to her waist, and just stroked her there. His rough thumbs scraping across her smooth skin. Her nipples tightened unexpectedly, tingles rushed along her nerves, heat spread throughout her limbs.

“I had dinner with my father tonight,” he said, taking a breath. “He’s changed a lot in the past couple of years. I’ve always heard that people can’t change, but he’s like a stranger to me now. Like somebody else’s father.”

“And you don’t like the man he’s becoming?”

“He’s a better person. My entire life people have told me that I was just like him. I look like him, and walk like him, and sound like him. I joined the army to be like him. I went to war like him. But I didn’t like him.”

“Why not?” she asked as she lightly scratched his scalp.

“Because he was a dick. A miserable unhappy dick.”

“Those are the worst kind of dicks if you ask me.”

The corner of his mouth curled into a half smile. “I don’t want to be one of those.”

“You won’t be. Just find something that makes you happy.”

“I’m trying.” He ran his hand across her stomach. She stiffened slightly. She had never been comfortable with anyone touching her there. Her stomach wasn’t flat or toned. She would never feel comfortable in a crop top or a bikini, but Clayton’s hands felt good, felt soothing and he had a way of looking at her that made her feel like she was beautiful. “I only told you that to stop myself from kissing you.”

“Maybe I would like to be kissed.”

“I wouldn’t be able to stop if I started. I want you. More than I thought was possible. More than one man should want a woman he barely knows. But you have a kid here and responsibilities and I might be moving away soon. I’m thinking I shouldn’t start something that I might not be able to finish.” He stood up, once again towering over her. “I’m going to go home now.”

“Okay,” she said feeling disappointed but understanding where he was coming from. “Let me walk you to the door.”

They made the short trip in silence, but Daisy could hear her heart pounding in her ears. He opened the door to leave, pausing for a moment and turned around. “Goodnight, Daisy. Thank you for the ice cream.”

“Goodnight, Clayton.” Looping her arms around his neck, she stepped forward and kissed him. She could taste his surprise, but it melted away into something sweet and he opened his mouth beneath hers and his arms came up and pulled her body into his. It was one of those kisses that made her forget herself, forget her name, and who she was and where she had been. It was one of those kisses that she didn’t want to stop, but it had to and she stepped away from him and extended her hand.

“Thank you for coming.”

*

“Thanks for letting me borrow some of your tools. I really wanted to make these cradles for the babies,” Alex said to him as they walked down the stairs that led from his apartment to the bakery.

“You can keep those. I have three of everything at this point. You sure you don’t want any help making those cradles? I know you’re better in the kitchen than you are in the tool shed.”

Alex shot him a look. “Just because I’m a pastry chef doesn’t mean I’m not good with my hands. I was there right alongside you working for my father every summer. I could build a house with my bare hands if I wanted to.”

“Okay, cake boy. I just know it’s been a while since you’ve done it. Call me if you need help. You can’t work if you smash your hand with a hammer. You’ve got my sister to take care of now.”

“She takes care of herself,” he grumbled. “I want her to quit her job and lay around all day, but I’m not a stupid man, so I keep that thought to myself.”

“Yeah. If you want to keep your balls, you keep your opinion to yourself. My mother never worked while we were growing up so she was totally dependent on my father. Maggie never wants to be dependent on a man.”

“I know. I don’t want her to be dependent on me, but I want to take care of her. A man wants to take care of the woman he loves and I don’t like it when she comes home exhausted with her feet swollen.”

“Maggie will decide when she’s had enough,” he said. “Don’t push her. She’ll just dig her feet in.”

“I know. She’s stubborn as hell. Just like you. Why didn’t you want me to tell her that my father wants to give you his company? You’re practically running things as it is. And the company is doing great. You’re crazy not to take it.”

“I’ve never wanted to own my own business. But I’ve been offered another job where I would be making more than double what I’m making here.”

“Really?” Alex paused. “Where?”

“Overseas,” he said not wanting to give his brother-in-law too much information.

Clayton saw the concern grow in Alex’s eyes. “You’re going back, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I might not take either offer.”

“I’m not going to tell you what I think. But I’m going to tell you that it would kill your sister if you weren’t here for the birth of our kids. So don’t be a selfish dick and think about her.”

“I haven’t even made a decision yet and even if I go back, I’ll be there when the kids come.”

“If you aren’t, I’m tracking you down and Army Ranger or not, I’m kicking your ass.”

“I’m not going to let my sister down. I told you I wasn’t. I’m a man of my word and I have never done anything for you to think that, so back off.”

“She’s my wife now. You know I have to think about what’s best for her,” he said as they reentered the bakery. “Speak of the devil. There she is.”

She was talking to a customer and for a moment Clayton didn’t recognize who it was until he heard her laugh.

Daisy.

He hadn’t seen her for a few days now, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t crossed his mind on more than a few occasions. There were few kisses that Clayton remembered. His first, that time the girl with the braces bit his lip and made him bleed, and Daisy’s. She had tasted like ice cream, warm melted ice cream and with the way she brought that soft body into his and made those soft breathy moans made it even sweeter. It made him feel like he could live in that kiss.

“I wonder what she’s doing home so early,” Alex said to himself, a worried look on his face. He left Clayton and crossed the room to his wife.

“Are you okay, Mags?” He took her face in his hands and kissed her, ignoring Daisy completely. “Why are you home so early? Are you sick?”

“No, silly. I’m fine. I just took a half day off.”

“You sure?” He kissed her face a few more times. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m fine, but if you really want to do something you can feed me lunch.” She looked back at Daisy. “I’m going to have to cash in on this doting thing while I can. Once the babies come I’m going to be chopped liver.”

“Hi, Daisy,” Alex said. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Really? You must be in love, because I’m kind of hard to miss.”

Clayton walked up behind her then. Her hair was up today in some kind of messy bun that looked sexy on her. She wore a sundress it was black and from far away it looked like it had white and pink flowers on it, but as he got closer he could see there were tiny skulls along with the flowers. He might not have liked that dress on anybody else, but on her it worked.

He was about to call her name to say hello, but the little tattoo at the base of her neck distracted him. It was a tiny pink butterfly with the letters AG beneath it. “I didn’t know you had a tattoo here,” he said to her as he brushed his thumb across it. She caught his hand and held it on her neck as she turned around. “Those are my kid’s initials,” she said with a shy smile. “I got it because she kind of just flew into my life.”

“I like it. You got anymore tattoos in places I haven’t seen?”

“I’d bet you would love to find out.” Again his eyes went to her lips. Those pretty soft lips that he thought about more often than he would like to admit. Those lips he thought about kissing other places on his body.

“I’m guessing you two know each other?” He heard Maggie ask. It was then he realized how close they were standing, with her breasts nearly brushing against his chest. His fingers were curled around the back of her neck and they hadn’t looked away from each other once since he touched her.

“We do,” he said, still looking at Daisy.

“Clayton is my next door neighbor.”

“Oh? You didn’t tell me you lived next door to my brother.”

“I had no idea he was your brother until about a week ago or so.”

“But you moved here six months ago. It just came up?”

“I guess neither one of us is very neighborly.” She looked away from him to Maggie. “We’ll have to work on that. My kid tells me I should make an effort.”

“We’re getting there.” He unwillingly dropped his hand from her neck and took a step away from her. He felt Maggie’s eyes on them and knew he shouldn’t let his sister get any wrong ideas about them, but he didn’t really care what she or his brother-in-law thought. Ever since he kissed her that first time his body didn’t want to stay away from her, even though in his mind he knew all the reasons he should.

“I just stopped by to get biscuits for tonight’s dessert.”

“Biscuits for dessert?” he asked.

She nodded. “I warm them up and serve them with homemade sweetcorn butter and the best damn marmalade on the planet. Come by and I’ll give you one.”

The way she described it made him hungry, but he wasn’t sure if it was for food or just another taste of her lips. “Okay. I didn’t think I would like coconut avocado ice cream but you made me a believer.”

“That’s me.” She gave him a smile so sexy that his groin tightened. “Queen of converting the unwilling.”

“I’ve got about a half dozen biscuits in the back that were just made,” Alex said. “They’re on the house for the flowers you replaced for my mother-in-law. She loved them. Come with me and I’ll box them up for you.”