Daisy knew she really had to get away from him and away from this stupid pub. If it hadn’t been for Lia’s hen party, she would never have ventured into town tonight. She hated having to deal with people socially.
And sure enough she’d had her stupid feelings trampled as usual. After all these years, one would expect her to have a thicker skin, yet people still managed to upset her with their snide little comments. But Mason Carlisle had hurt her in a brand-new way tonight. He had crept beneath her usually stalwart defenses and made her believe he was genuinely enjoying her company and honestly wanted to spend more time with her.
God, she was such an idiot!
She should have known when he approached her tonight that it was too good to be true, should have known he was getting her out of the way so that his brother could flirt with Daff. It was the story of her life, after all—she was fodder for wingmen. But she had allowed herself a brief moment of fantasy. Mason Carlisle had never been nasty to her, hadn’t really paid her much attention at all, to be honest. They had been years apart in school and moved in completely different social circles.
Naturally all the girls—including her sisters—had had a crush on the Carlisle brothers in high school. Who wouldn’t? They were blessed with an overabundance of good looks, were star athletes, and had the appeal of being just a little too rough and wild for the good girls, which had made them irresistible. It still did. And just once, Daisy wanted to see what it felt like to be the center of a beautiful Carlisle’s attention.
And it had been . . . wonderful, until she’d discovered his true objective. High school all over again.
“Come on, Daisy,” he prompted again. “Let me drive you home.”
“Okay,” she said, reluctantly. He clearly felt bad. He had obviously never meant for her to find out about his deception. Maybe he would leave her alone when he got the guilt out of his system.
“Great, I’m parked just around the corner.”
He had a wholly masculine vehicle; a very rugged Jeep Wrangler, which was caked with mud and looked like it had seen a lot of serious adventuring.
“How’d you get it into such a state?” she asked, struggling to keep the awe out of her voice.
“I’ve been doing a lot of camping and off-road traveling since my return. This baby has been up north to all the major national parks and over countless mountain passes . . . she’s a good car,” he said as he patted the square bonnet of the black Jeep appreciatively.
“So you haven’t really been in town a lot since returning to the country?” That would explain why people hadn’t seen him around much.
“Nope.” He tugged open the passenger door and gave her a hand up as she awkwardly climbed into the aggravatingly high car. She had grown up around similar vehicles but had never really mastered the art of climbing into one with dignity and grace.
“Sorry it’s nothing fancier,” he muttered apologetically as she gave a quick glance around the inside of his car. He shut the door and was in the driver’s seat seconds later. His delicious, clean, and crisp masculine fragrance enveloped her as he shut himself in with her. “And I apologize for the smell.”
She flushed, grateful for the dark. How had he known she was appreciating his scent, and why would he apologize for it?
“No need to apologize,” she said quickly.
“I took my dog, Cooper, for a run on the beach this morning, and he can never resist going in for a dip, even though it’s colder than a witch’s . . . uh . . . boob. That’s why it reeks of wet dog in here.”
Wet dog? All she could smell was Mason, but now that he had mentioned it, she did detect the underlying scent of eau de soaked pooch.
“I barely smell it,” she said honestly, clicking her seat belt into place. He followed suit and started the car without saying anything more.
“You’re going to have to refresh my memory,” he said as he started up the car. “I can’t quite remember how to get there.”
A little puzzled by that statement—why would he ever have known how to get to her house in the first place?—Daisy shrugged and proceeded to give him directions to her small home on the outskirts of town. There were no other words between them for the next five minutes until he pulled to a stop outside her place.
“This isn’t the farm,” he observed lamely as he sized up the neat little house, with its perfectly cut pocket-size front lawn behind a wrought-iron fence.
“God no,” she muttered, self-consciously playing with the zipper of her jacket. “I couldn’t continue living there with my sisters and their constant well-intentioned attempts to dress me ‘properly’ or paint makeup on me while I slept.”
“Wait, they actually did that? The makeup thing?”
“Yep, I once woke up with my left eye glued shut because my sisters had botched up the fake eyelash application.”
“You must sleep like the dead,” Mason observed in a wobbly voice, clearly struggling to conceal his amusement from her.
“I’ve been known to sleep through a plane crash or two.” She nodded.
“So why don’t you just let them get it out of their systems? Let them make you over or whatever?”
“What do you see when you look at me?” she huffed impatiently.
Mason considered her question as he peered at her in the scant illumination provided by the moonlight sifting in through the car windows. How the hell was he supposed to answer that question without getting into a shitload of trouble?
“A woman?” He ventured tentatively after a long pause, and even in the dim light he could see her rolling her eyes.
“A short, dumpy, and frumpy woman. No amount of makeup or clothing will change the first two, and as for the latter . . .” She paused, and Mason thought he caught a glimmer of yearning in her moonlit eyes. “Let me put it this way: I’m a bridesmaid at Lia’s wedding.”