LITMIR.BIZ

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Daisy.”

      “Hello, lover boy.”

      He winced. “Nice January day, huh?”

      Daisy laughed. “You’re cute when you’re nervous.”

      “I’m not nervous.” He drew himself up. A navy SEAL did not get nervous over brunettes who ripped up the road on motorcycles and tried to tie you down.

      Okay, maybe a little nervous. Just because of the tying down thing.

      “If you’re not nervous, kiss me.”

      She gave him a sultry look that singed his toes. He felt his boots smoking. “I’d better not. It’s probably bad luck to kiss before the big swim,” he said.

      “If you don’t want to get lucky, fine by me.”

      His throat dried out. He could practically feel sweat pouring out from underneath his hat, when it was a perfectly frigid twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside. “I’m late to meet Squint and Sam. See you, Daisy.”

      “Hey.”

      He stopped and, looking at her, his heart wadded into a knot. “Yes?”

      “If you change your mind about getting lucky, I’ll be around.”

      He tipped his hat, hurried off. Her motorcycle roared, and she headed in the opposite direction. Relief ran all over him as he went to find Sam and Squint.

      His buddies were parked in Sheriff Dennis McAdams’s office, kicking back, having a good jaw with the sheriff. Sam and Dennis grinned hugely at him, while Squint glared.

      “We saw you accosting Daisy out there,” Sam said. “Squint’s jealous.”

      “Yeah, that’s what I was doing.” Cisco tossed himself into a chair. “Did you also see me chatting up Suz?”

      “No, we didn’t see that.” Dennis looked pleased, lounging behind his wide wood desk that had seen many, many years of boot heels resting on it. “Well, we might have seen you trying to get very close to our Suz, but from here, it looked to us like she backed away in a hurry. A real, real hurry.”

      The men laughed—except for Squint. “Hey, brother,” Cisco said, “if you want Daisy so badly, please take her off my hands. By all means.”

      That would allow him to concentrate on Suz, which was his preeminent goal.

      Squint frowned. “She seems to prefer Frog legs.”

      Frog legs, nothing! He held up a hand. “Cisco is the name, boys.”

      “Since when?” Dennis palmed through some papers. “I don’t have any paperwork here stating such.”

      “Can’t a man change his name because a beautiful woman wants him to?” Cisco was pretty proud to brag on the fact that he alone had been newly anointed by one of the town’s most awesome, sexy bachelorettes.

      “Daisy?” Squint glared some more. “Daisy wants you to go by Cisco? Because I’m going to have to tell her that there’s a reason we called you Frog. Frog legs, for sure. Thin and not much meat.”

      “No, Suz calls me Cisco. And you’re still annoyed that I beat you last month in the Bridesmaids Creek swim.”

      “I had a leg cramp!” Squint’s glare bounced right off Cisco.

      “You’re a SEAL. You should be in better shape. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” He thumped his chest. “You’re looking at the new and improved Cisco Grant. And Suz is swimming to win me next weekend.”

      “Really?” Squint sat up. “Does Daisy know?”

      Cisco frowned. “I didn’t ask. Guess I didn’t care.”

      “Careful,” Squint said. “You misjudge Daisy’s fineness. She comes across evil and devilish, but I’m telling you, it’s true Texas hot sauce that lady’s peddling. And I aim to eat it up, if you’ll get out of my way.”

      “You’re going to have to do better than that,” Dennis observed. “If you want to win Daisy, Squint, win her. Don’t get cramps when the race is hot. You must become the rope if you want to lasso her. Frankly, I don’t think you have it in you.” He shrugged. “Cisco Frog obviously does.”

      “Cisco Frog!” Cisco glared, worried that pseudonym might stick. “Just Cisco is fine, thanks.”

      “Well,” Sam said, having remained silent this whole time, “I can see that the tie is going to have to go to the runner.”

      They stared at Sam. Cisco was a bit suspicious. Sam was known for being many things, being clever and underhanded chief among them. In other words, he liked to be in the middle of everything, and turn it inside out just to watch everybody whirl around in different directions thanks to him.

      “What runner? We’re swimming,” Cisco pointed out. “Actually, the girls are swimming.”

      “Yep.” Sam got up and stretched. “And I’ve entered as a prize.”

      The men gawked at Sam.

      “You can’t do that. It’s my turn! The ladies want to win me. Well, Daisy does. I’m pretty sure Suz is operating out of pity, but I’m not picky,” Cisco said.

      “Sheesh,” Dennis said. “Have some pride, Frog.”

      Cisco sighed. “Okay. Sam, you can take my place.”

      The sheriff’s office went silent for a moment.

      “Did you give up that easily when you were a SEAL?” Dennis demanded. “Just throw in the towel at the first sign of difficulty?”

      “No.” Cisco looked around the cramped, dark room. A small lamp sat on Dennis’s desk. The jail was down the hall, but it was empty now. Dennis’s wife, Shirley, had put some potpourri on his desk under the lamp to make it a more “homey” place, she’d said, and it did smell sweet in here. He breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. “You’re right. I don’t have any pride where Suz is concerned. My brain twirls like a pinwheel when she’s around. And she won’t kiss me. Says I might be a sloppy kisser.”

      His best friends thought that was a real thigh-slapper. They roared with laughter. He shrugged, undeterred.

      “I’ve been thinking,” Cisco said when the snickers and guffaws died down, “maybe I don’t really belong in BC.”

      They booed that raucously.

      “You belong with us,” Sam said. “You, me, Squint, we’re a team. We were a team in Afghanistan and other places that sometimes felt like hellholes, and sometimes felt real good. But we’re a team, and we stick together.”

      Cisco shook his head now that the words had traveled from his brain to his mouth and hit the atmosphere. “I’m pretty sure the BC rigmarole and fiddle-faddle is beyond me. I’m not cut out for these small-town shenanigans.”

      “That’s right.” Squint nodded. “Because you’re from a small town in Virginia that grows her boys strapping and proud. No high jinks in those small towns, either.”

      “It’s hard to explain.” It wasn’t too hard to explain—it had to do with what his friends had observed about Suz: she just wasn’t into him.

      And he was totally into her.

      If Daisy won the race, he was a gigged Frog. Two times won and for sure the Bridesmaids Creek charm would kick in. “I don’t think Suz is all that motivated to get in shape to win. She was heading off to eat some four-layer cake.”

      The men didn’t laugh like he’d expected.

      “Look,” Squint said, “Dennis is right. We’re going to have to bait your trap better. We’ll help you.”

      “I said nothing like that,” Dennis said. “Suz is hometown-grown. She’s

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