Dan All Over Again: Dan All Over Again / The Mountie Steals A Wife. Barbara Dunlop
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on the wavelets. A seagull bobbing in the water took flight as they approached, squawking its protest. “That tabby’s got your feminine willies. She rubs against my legs and curls up in my lap, and makes that same little meowing noise you made when you—”
“Coughed up hair balls!” she interrupted. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“I, uh, don’t quite recall you coughing up hair balls, Cass.”
She turned away and murmured, “I tried to keep it to myself.”
Interesting that she didn’t want to discuss anything relating to sexual bliss. “I see.”
“Well, good for you. Now stop seeing and look where you’re going, will you?” A few minutes later, she nodded at Dave’s boat nearby, dotted with beauties already trying to grab sun in their colored strips some might call bathing suits. “So, you really have a rule about no women on the boat during a tournament?”
“One of my few rules in life.” He glanced at her. “Too distracting.” Though he’d hesitated on letting her aboard strictly for show.
“I’m not distracting.” The women gave Dan cute little finger-wagging waves. He returned the wave, wondering if they realized he was mocking their cutesiness. He glanced at Cassie, in her cotton shirt and shorts that came down to her knees.
She followed his gaze. “See, nothing distracting here.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You forget I know what you look like naked.”
“Dan, puh-leez!” She fiddled with the notepad.
She thought he was kidding. He shook his head, focusing again on the parade of boats all around him. The problem was, he remembered way too well. She used to have a hang-up about her legs being too skinny, but he couldn’t find one fault, not a single one. He loved the way she felt in his arms, the way she went nuts when he kissed the spot behind her ears. Shoot. The wind was definitely picking up.
“Did you bring a bikini?”
She furrowed her eyebrows. “Dan, I didn’t come along to be your bow ornament. I came to learn about fishing lures.”
He laughed, which strangely enough made her grin. “Bow ornament, huh? Yeah, that about sums them up.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have one or two yourself.”
“They’re for the boys who come out here to play. Thor’s my only ornament. He’s a lot easier to maintain.”
“You sound like Hal. I always wondered if you’d end up like him.”
At first he focused on the fact that she’d wondered about him. Then the disappointment in her face forced the rest of the sentence into his mind. “I’m not like Hal.” Except for the beer drinking, the fishing every spare moment, the perpetual bachelorhood. Well, at least he had been married once.
Why was it when he looked at her mouth, he thought of all the times he’d kissed it? When he looked at her body, he remembered the way she’d fling herself into his arms or hop on his back and wrap her legs around his waist, just for the heck of it. He’d loved that, loved her spontaneity. And he could hardly wait for that massage, even if, when she learned he owned the tackle company, she was likely to be pretty ticked.
“So, besides tournaments, what do you do with yourself?” she asked.
“A little of this and that, organizing tournaments or entering them.”
“Oh. So how does this work? This whole tournament thing, I mean.”
“We all have to stay within a certain area. This is a catch-and-release tournament, meaning we register the fish with the judge, and then he tags and sets them free. At the end, the totals are added and the trophies and prize monies are given out.”
“And Lure ’Em In sponsors the tournament.”
“Yep. So, of course, everyone uses their lures, and each contestant gets two with his or her entry. And a nifty T-shirt.” He nodded to a plastic bag on the bench.
Cassie pulled out the shirt featuring the Domino. “From what I could tell of Roger’s notes, their new one is the Big Bopper,” she said, folding the T-shirt and looking in the bag. “It’s not one of these.”
“They haven’t released it yet. Everyone’s pretty excited about it.”
“They are?”
He laughed at her disbelief that anyone could get excited over fishing lures. “This lure’s supposed to have some intriguing features, like a special kind of wiggle that’s sure to lure the fish in.” He winked at her. “Women aren’t the only intriguing things with wiggles, you know.”
“I’m ignoring you,” she said in a singsong voice. She turned the lure package around, studying it. The Domino, not surprisingly, was white with black polka dots sprinkled on top. “Sure to lure…do you use Lure ’Em’s lures?”
“The question is, who doesn’t?” He shrugged. “At least in this area. It’s a regional phenomenon. They say the guy who started the company knows more about the way a fish thinks than even a fish.”
“Oh, brother. Hey, wait a minute. Who uses the Big Bopper? The question is, who doesn’t? Sure to Lure. Hmm.”
“Do I get a cut if you use my words?”
“I’ll buy you a year’s supply of worms if I win the campaign.”
“Worms. How thoughtful.” But she was madly scribbling down notes. “Why’s it so important to you, Cass?”
She met his gaze. “I want to prove to myself that I can stick with something, not walk away without a fight.” Something bittersweet flashed in her eyes. “I’ve left too many things unfinished.”
He watched her sink into her thoughts. Was she thinking about their unfinished business? He hadn’t made any plans when they got married, enjoying living and loving by the seats of their pants. But he had planned on staying married to her for a long, long time. Before he knew it, they’d soared, plummeted, crashed and burned before he’d even learned to fly the damned plane.
Had he changed enough to make it work this time? Or had she changed too much to even try?
UNFINISHED BUSINESS. The words echoed in Cassie’s thoughts after she and Dan lapsed into silence. One minute they were crazy in love—and just plain crazy—and the next, they were married. Admit it. You were a flake. You ran away in a full-blown panic.
Her compatibility list would ensure that never happened again. She rubbed her notepad as though it were a magic amulet.
Sammy huddled in the tote bag. She had to admit the bows and bells were a little flaky, but she couldn’t seem to eradicate that last flake. She picked him up and leaned against the helm again. Thornton braced himself in the walkway between the two seats, his head up and lips flapping in the wind. He and Dan had similar poses—well, except for the flapping lips, thank goodness—and she found herself smiling at them. She’d looked into Dan’s eyes: he had the heart of a poet, too.
“Thornton likes being out on the boat,” she said.
“Thor,” he corrected in that deep voice. “Sammy did, too, until you sissified him.”
“Oh, pooh, I did not. Dogs aren’t trapped in the macho male syndrome like men are.”
Sammy barked, and his bell jingled.
“Oh, is that what we are? I was wondering what it was. Goodie, I can break out my pink bows.”
“You’re just jealous of Sammy’s ability to express his feminine side without compromising his male values. He has no qualms about his maleness, despite the lack of, er, certain male appendages. But you, on the other hand, feel that expressing your feminine side would expose your vulnerabilities and lessen your manhood, which is obviously in question.”
He