Page 3 of Guard Dog

My sister always has a plan. Romy’s the reason I wasn’t a complete mess when Keith died. I was born twelve months before her, but she’s always acted like the older sister and taken the lead. She was the one who first went against my father’s expectations that women should be trained to be homemakers and support their husbands, not go out into the world and take their jobs. I didn’t think fighting his old-fashioned attitude was worth the effort.

The month after I graduated from high school, my dad finally consented for me to get a part-time job at a family friend’s restaurant where I might meet a nice man. I did. I waited tables, met Keith, and married him three months later. I’d needed somebody to take care of me since I’d never done it for myself, and Keith needed somebody who needed him.

My little sister, on the other hand, swore me to secrecy about her plans for the future. The day after she graduated, she enlisted in the navy. Having just turned eighteen, she didn’t need my parents’ permission, which was good because she never got it. Even then, she still kept taking care of me.

Romy was the one who had given me my wake-up call. She’d dragged me to self-defence classes when she realized that I was living alone while Keith was away on assignment. Then she pushed me to take some online classes, so I had something to do other than wait for my husband to come home. I finished my bookkeeping program the month before I delivered Peony. I’d taken the course to get Romy off my back and, honestly, because I was bored. I had no idea I’d be using it to support my daughter less than two years later. Romy fully approves of my move to Lonesome to start my new job. She says that I’ll get more support from Keith’s old team than I ever would from our parents, and I know she’s right.

I’m considering my own breakfast when I hear tires crunch on the gravel driveway. Deke is back. Part of me wishes he’d stay away. I can handle dealing with him at the office, but it would be too easy to get used to seeing him at home. I don’t need to lean on him. I just know that I’d get addicted to being with him.

“No truck yet?” he calls as he walks toward the house.

“Less than an hour away. I was just confirming Romy’s arrival this weekend too.”

“How is Rosemary?” Deke asks when I join him on the front steps. “Did she re-enlist?”

“Nope. She is out of the navy and on the hunt for a place to start her new career.” My sister is a fucking marvel. Not only did she serve her enlistment period until her honorable discharge, but she also took advantage of every single opportunity available to expand her knowledge and skills through work while taking other evening classes at the same time. “In the four months she’s been a civilian, Romy has finished enough aesthetician classes to be able to offer her own services. She just needs to build a client base.” I’m hoping she finds one in a salon near Lonesome.

“Aesthetician? How did she go from logistics to hair and nails?”

“Through night school.” I flash my hand at him to display my French manicure that has survived three days of packing boxes and sixteen hundred miles of literal bad roads. I hope he notices I’m not wearing my wedding ring anymore.

Deke takes my hand to study my fingers. His touch shoots electricity up my arm. He’s dangerous. He’s reminding me of everything I’ve been missing, and everything I want. I know it can’t be with him. But he keeps putting himself right there and the temptation is getting harder to resist.

“I took the day off to help you unload and unpack,” he says. “If we can kick ass as Team Cornhole, Team Unpackers will betwice as good. You will be sleeping in your own bed tonight, and that’s a promise.”

Goddammit, there he is, being all sweet again. The man is a fucking menace to my sanity.

Then the moving truck arrives, and Deke works up a sweat moving boxes. I nearly swallow my tongue when he takes off his shirt half an hour into the day. I don’t have much time to appreciate the view since the movers want to be gone as soon as possible. We fill the house with boxes and furniture, and they leave.

Deke and I set up the living room first and get Peony settled on the sofa with the television streaming cartoons to keep her busy. Then we move to her small bedroom and put it together. We move her dresser and toy chest against one wall and her little girl bed against the other. It’s one solid frame, so we lay the mattress on top and find her sheets, which I brilliantly separated into three different boxes, so I’d be able to find at least one set right away.

The afternoon is drawing on, and I already feel bad for monopolizing Deke’s day, even if he did volunteer. “How about you help me assemble my bed frame, and then you’re free for the day?” I suggest after he puts his shirt back on. I need Deke’s help, but I also need him to be gone. It’s too easy for my imagination to run wild while he is here. I’m not setting up house with him. I can push the rest of the furniture around on my own, and the stuff that I can’t move can wait till Romy gets here. I have plenty that I can unpack alone in the meantime.

“It's no trouble,” he insists.

Having Deke in my bedroom is a special kind of torture. I hold pieces of the metal bedframe while he bolts them together. We wrestle the boxspring on to the frame, then flop the mattress on top of that. He helps me make the bed, then steps back.

“I guess that’s it,” he says.

I shimmy around from the far side of the bed, and my foot gets stuck on a ball of crumpled packing tape. I pitch forward, only to be caught in Deke’s arms. My momentum pushes me against his chest. I gasp at his warmth and look up into his sparking green eyes and stop breathing when I see his mouth coming toward me.

His lips burn, and I’m starving for the flame. Goddamn, it’s been too long since anybody has kissed me like this, and the fact that it’s Deke is using up all my oxygen.

Then it’s over.

He pushes me away, but I wobble because my feet are still caught in the tape, so he doesn’t let me go. “I am so sorry, Vi,” he says. “That was an accident. It was never supposed to happen. I swear it won’t happen again.”

Is he fucking kidding me? I finally get a hint that months of daydreams might have a sliver of reality to them, and it was an accident? I want an accident of my own. So, I throw myself forward, grip his T-shirt like he might disappear in a puff of smoke, and slip my other hand over his shoulder around the back of his neck.

And I kiss him with everything I’ve got. I barely make contact when he groans. I nibble on his lip. My hands run over his chest, feeling every defined muscle. Deke lays a hand on either side of my face and takes control of the kiss, of me, stealing my breath and giving me life at the same time.

When we finally break apart, I blink once and come back down to earth. “That was not a mistake,” I whisper.

“You’re vulnerable. Your husband just died.”

“My husband’s been gone for over a year,” I say. “I know what I’m doing.”

“He only died six months ago.”

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