Crazy Dog slept under that particular tree during the day, though there was a doggy door for the house so he could come and go as he pleased. The only time he went inside was to eat and do more sleeping. The vet had assured them that the dog wasn’t sick; all the tests had been done to rule that out. Apparently, Crazy Dog was more Lazy Dog now.
“You’re wearing your uniform,” Claire commented.
Riley hadn’t forgotten he had it on, of course, but he glanced down at it. “I was at the base getting physical therapy and a checkup first thing this morning. I’m healing,” he added so that she wouldn’t ask.
Nor would he explain that wearing the uniform to the appointment hadn’t been necessary. Riley just felt better when he had it on. Not like the ordinary Riley with the head-exploding pain. In the uniform he was Captain McCord, CRO. People saluted him, called him sir and there was the awe factor of being special ops.
Since his comments about the dog and his physical therapy hadn’t generated any safe conversation, Riley went back to an unsafe subject. “What are you going to do about Daniel’s proposal?”
Her lips tightened as if she might tell him it was none of his business, but it was a sigh rather than a huff that left her mouth—which he was still thinking about kissing.
“I don’t know.” She leaned back in the swing, sighed again.
All right, so maybe she had come here to talk this over. It made more sense than Ethan playing with Crazy Dog since there was zero playing going on.
“What would you do?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t marry him, but then I’m straight.” He flashed her a smile that had her rolling her eyes. Riley waited until the eye roll was done before he continued. And here was the six-million-dollar question. “Do you love him?”
“Some.” She screwed up her face and shook her head. “I know, I know. Livvy said I shouldn’t grade love...or sex on a curve.”
Livvy was obviously a font of wisdom. “You shouldn’t.” And, no, that didn’t have anything to do with Daniel himself. Or Claire. “Why would you have to grade sex on a curve anyway?”
“Clearly, you’ve never had mediocre sex. But then you’re a guy. Lucky told me once that for guys, no sex is actually bad. Some times are just better than others.”
Riley was sure he screwed up his face, too. “When the hell did my brother tell you that?”
“Oh, I guess I was about nineteen or so and home from college. We ran into each other at Calhoun’s Pub.” She dismissed it with the flip of her hand.
Riley sure as heck didn’t dismiss it, and the next time he saw his brother, he’d rip off Lucky’s ears—maybe his dick, too.
Sheez. Was nothing sacred with Lucky? Because his brother had obviously been hitting on Claire if he’d broached the subject of sex with her. Of course, Lucky hit on every woman within breathing range, but even Lucky should have had enough brain cells to know that Claire was off-limits.
And Riley really didn’t want to think about why Lucky would know that. He just would.
Claire thankfully missed his little mental implosion because she groaned, scrubbed her hand over her face. “What am I going to do, Riley? There are only three days left on Daniel’s or else deadline.”
Shoot, he might rip off Daniel’s dick, too. “I should probably stay quiet on the subject, but why would you let him give you an ultimatum like that, especially when you only love him some?”
Claire’s attention drifted to Ethan who was now using Crazy Dog’s back as a track for two toy cars.
Oh.
Claire’s drifted attention gave Riley a reminder that he’d been trying to forget. That Daniel was almost certainly Ethan’s father.
Well, shit.
That explained Daniel’s ultimatum. If Ethan was Riley’s kid, he would have wanted to raise him, too. He was an all right kid. Creative, too, since he used the folds on Crazy Dog’s neck to hide one of the cars, and Ethan was doing it gently enough so that Riley knew the boy cared.
“I’ve been with Daniel a long time,” she finally said. “It feels a little like an investment, you know?”
Riley didn’t have a clue, and that only riled him even more, but he nodded anyway.
“Sometimes, I just think...” She paused. “Well, sometimes I wonder if my slogan is just a pile of sugar.”
All right, he really, really didn’t have a clue. “Huh?”
“I say sugar instead of shit because I don’t want Ethan to curse,” she clarified in a whisper. “And I meant my sugary slogan—Making Fantasies Come True. That’s the slogan Livvy and I picked for our business, but...”
“Daniel’s not doing it for you, fantasy-wise?” Oh, he so should have given that some thought before it came out of his mouth. Too bad the new pain meds hadn’t made him comatose instead of just dizzy and drowsy.
A teeny-tiny smile crossed her lips and then vanished. “Do you really want to talk about me and Daniel having sex?”
Yeah, right after he slid down a mile-long stretch of razor blades. Riley hoped his silence, and possibly his wincing, let her know that it was not something on the discussion table.
“Are you sleeping better?” she asked.
Not exactly a safe subject, but they were running out of topics here. “Some.”
And that led him to something else he’d been thinking about lately. He tipped his head to the flowers she’d brought. “How did you deal with the memories of what happened to my mom and dad?”
Claire gave him a long look. “I don’t have a lot of memories. It’s more like little bits and pieces, you know?”
This time, he did know, but bits and pieces could still come together for an ugly picture.
“And the bits and pieces aren’t all of the accident itself. Your father told a joke,” Claire went on. “Your mother laughed. Then the crash happened.”
He knew all of that. It’d been a knock-knock joke.
His dad: Knock knock.
His mom: Who’s there?
Dad: Boo
Mom: Boo who?
Dad: Ah, don’t cry, honey.
Riley hadn’t been there, but Claire had filled him in over the years. Those last moments of their lives were as clear in his head as if he had witnessed every second of it. Heck. He wished he had. Then he could have had the chance to say goodbye.
He looked at her, hoping that her eyes weren’t burning like his. Because if Claire lost it, Riley would have to pull her into his arms. It wasn’t a good time for that to happen. Not with all this nervous energy zinging between them.
But no tears. She smiled when she glanced at the roses.
“You have nightmares about it?” he asked her.
She drew in a long breath. “Not very often. Why are you asking? Are you having a lot of nightmares? Is that what was happening when I woke you?” Thankfully, she didn’t wait for him to answer. Or for him to flub around with an explanation. “Because what helped me was a picture of you.”
Riley had to go back through that to make sure he’d heard her right. “Me?”
She nodded. “You just seemed to be holding things together a lot better than I was. So when I’d have bad dreams and sad thoughts, I’d look at your picture in the yearbook—the one with you in your football uniform—and I’d remind myself that if you could do it, then so could I.”
He definitely hadn’t been holding it together.