winning.
* * *
CISCO WAS BUSILY plotting how to best tempt Suz into putting some real effort into winning him—as much effort as she’d put into going off for chocolate cake—when the familiar roar of Daisy Donovan’s motorcycle disrupted him. The siren brunette with long chocolate locks pulled up beside him and slipped off her helmet. Daisy was a heart attack on wheels and she knew it. The thing was, she had a very dark side, courtesy of her old man, Robert Donovan, who’d haunted this town for years trying to run it into the ground so he could take over the real estate.
Ty Spurlock had brought Cisco, Justin Morant, Squint Mathison and Sam Barr to town on a bride hunt, to help repopulate the town and fortify it against Robert’s manipulations. Justin had fallen first, for Mackenzie Hawthorne, becoming a father to her four darling quadruplet sweethearts. Then Ty had fallen into his own trap—and no one much saw him these days between his deployments and loving on Jade Harper Spurlock and their twin tiny dolls.
The real kicker was that their buddy Squint had a thing for Daisy. He was just positive her brand of wild child needed him for taming. For some reason, Daisy never looked his way. She preferred instead to cast her lure for a frog—well, a Cisco. He looked at the long-legged brunette with the sexy-devil smile cautiously.
“Hi, 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.”
