Page 13 of No Kind of Hero
“You don’t dance?” It was too hard to have this conversation over the phone. Beth didn’t know Dakota well enough, not anymore. Maybe not ever.HadBeth insulted her? Dakota had always seemed so wild and free, so tough and sure of herself. Like there was no redneck bar and no redneck that could ever get the better of her.
Dakota laughed. “I dance. But when your boyfriend’s the biggest employer in town, nobody asks you. Plus, Blake can be a little scary when he’s riled. Ten bucks says I don’t dance tonight, unless I do it with you. But all right. Beer, band, and possibly burgers. And if there’s going to be carousing involved, I’d better pick you up. See you at seven.”
When Dakota walked into the cottage, she took one look at Beth and said, “No.”
“Pardon?” Beth asked, startled. Dakota looked good—long dark hair, sparkling brown eyes, high cheekbones, bronzed skin, toned body. Gauzy blouse, cowboy boots, distressed jeans. Exciting, vivid, and alive all the way to her work-short fingernails, whichweren’tpolished, because Dakota didn’t need to be perfect to be sexy. Damn it.
“Were you kidding about the carousing?” Dakota-the-Perfectly-Imperfect asked.
“No. Of course not. What? I’m wearing heels. And tight jeans.” As tight as she could manage, anyway, though she’d had to put them in the dryer on high heat to get them that way. The juice cleanse would have been a bad idea.
“Put sleeves on that blouse,” Dakota said, “and it’s a camp shirt. A camp shirt is not sexy in any way, shape, or form. Even I know that. And your hair’s in a knot.”
“Amessyknot.”
“A knot,” Dakota said again. “No knots at a redneck bar. You’ve been gone way too long. What else do you have in your closet?”
“Not that much. I’m on . . . sort of vacation. I didn’t bring many clothes.” Or you could say that she’d drifted around her condo throwing items into her suitcase at random and having to suppress the urge to leave it all behind, jump in her car, and drive.
Dakota took one more critical look. “Do you want my suggestions? Seriously? Is this a slumming thing for you, or what? I don’t know what’s happening in your life now, so just tell me. What are we doing here?”
Beth laughed, she was so surprised. “Were you always this up-front? I didn’t remember that.”
“Probably not,” Dakota said. “Life lessons, and possibly a little Blake Orbison rubbing off. Call it the power of security.”
“All right,” Beth said. What the hell. It was Dakota, and shelikedDakota. “I need a . . . a guide. I want to try being a different person, or at least pretend to be for a night or two, and it’s been a long time since I was wild.”
Dakota looked dubious now. “Were you ever wild?”
Beth could feel herself flushing. “Once or twice. But it’s been a while since I went to a . . . where are we going, exactly?”
“The Yacht Club.”
“Oh.” Beth swallowed. “Well, yeah. I definitely need some help.”
“The jeans are OK,” Dakota said. “What bra are you wearing?”
Beth lifted her shirt and showed her, then had to laugh. “If this were this book I’m reading, we’d be forgetting all about going out and getting busy at this point.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Dakota said, “but that’s not how I roll. OK, show me what else you’ve got, bra-wise. I can do everything else, but I can’t do the bra, and I can’t do shoes. Tell me you have cowboy boots.”
“Maybe in the house, in my old closet. Unless my mom threw them away.”
“Let’s go,” Dakota said. “And then we’ll head over to my house and work on the rest of it. I have a feeling this is going to be very, very entertaining. Blake’s going to be sorry he missed it.”
Evan might have been grumpy.
Gracie had repaid him, after he’d taken her for that great outing complete with the ice-cream store, by being up half the night fussing. This morning, giving her the first bottle of the day and marginally more awake, he’d realized why. A reddened patch of gum and a hard little white spot beneath it.
“Well, hey, princess,” he told her, lifting her to his shoulder, “you’re getting a tooth.”
In answer, she threw up on him.
He took her to the lake on Saturday afternoon anddidn’tlook for Beth. So he wasn’t surprised when she wasn’t there. But by six o’clock, he’d pretty much had it. Which was when his mom called.
“Hi, baby,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Fine. Gracie’s getting a tooth.” And at the moment, swatting the spoon away, causing a glob of rice cereal to fly through the air and slide down the cabinet before hitting the floor. The one he’d cleaned today just forher. Babies could write the book on ‘ungrateful’. “How about you?”
