Barbara Dunlop - Dan All Over Again

“Well then the greasy hamburgers they’re going to serve at lunch, along with those oil-drenched fries should be no problem for a sea man like yourself.” His mouth tightened. “And for dessert, escargots. You know, those snails people dip in garlic butter and eat whole. I’ll bet they’re chewy, like conch.” Roger covered his mouth. “And oysters! Gotta have raw oysters, those wonderfully slimy things that slide right down your throat—”

Roger hunched forward, then raced down into the cabin. Squeak, squeak, squeak!

Hal watched him go, then raised his hands. “Oh, great. He’s already tossed his cookies twice.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You are a menace.”

She blew him a kiss. “Only to a sweet guy like yourself.” She turned to find Dan looking at her. “I suppose you agree with him.”

He grinned. “Well, you might have a lot of different effects on me, but you definitely don’t make me sick.”

“Just what a girl wants to hear.” What kind of effects? No, she didn’t want to know. But of course Dan hadn’t taken anyone’s side. She tilted her head and lowered her voice. “Thanks for your vote of confidence. About the fishing and all.”

He tweaked her nose. “I always knew you could do anything you set your mind to.”

“Even when I was flaky?”

“Even then.”

The contact, combined with those words, sent little shock waves through her. She couldn’t take her gaze from his, focusing on the way the early morning sun highlighted the flecks of gold in his eyes, the way the droplets of water glistened in his hair. She tilted her head slightly, out of some long-ago instinct that invited him to kiss her.

Hal called out, “Hey, Dan! Always remember and never forget, it’s not the size of your rod, but how you use it.” He cranked his motor and maneuvered into a position on the other side of the island, luckily out of view.

“Augh, he is such a creep! That man’s intellect is rivaled only by garden tools!” She regretted her vehemence when Dan removed his arm from around her. Although the recollection that he used to give her breast a discreet squeeze whenever he put his arm around her shoulders did make the removal a good thing overall.

“He looks like a sea slug to me.”

“Not Roger! Well, him, too. I was talking about Hal. That guy is such a jerk. Too bad you’re related to him.”

“Aw, he’s not such a bad guy.”

“He doesn’t like women, you know.”

“Are you saying he’s gay? No way. He’s always got women around.”

“He might like sex, but he doesn’t like women. He doesn’t respect them. I sort of understand why, with your mom leaving the both of you. I was always afraid he’d poison you against women, too.” She could have said more, but why open that can of worms now?

His expression softened at the concern on her face. “I don’t dislike women. For example, I don’t even dislike you, even though you broke my heart.”

She swallowed hard. “But you haven’t been in a real relationship since our marriage.”

“Maybe I haven’t found anyone I wanted to be involved with. Maybe I figured if I couldn’t get it right the first time, I wasn’t meant to get it right at all.”

She took a sip of her water, trying to push away the defensive feeling growing inside her. “Was our marriage so bad that it ruined you relationship-wise?”

“No.”

The bright sun directly overhead and the nearly cloudless sky crystallized the moment. She’d ruined him for marriage. It had been so bad being married to her that he never wanted to be in a relationship again.

“What did I do that was so terrible?” she finally asked, unable to stand her silent recriminations. “I mean, I probably wasn’t the greatest housekeeper in the world, but what did I know, I’d never had my own place before, everywhere we lived belonged to someone else, or was I too flaky, that was it, wasn’t it—”

He reached over and wrapped his hand around her arm. “You’re doing it again. That skimble-scamble thing,” he added at her confused expression.

“Didn’t you hear what I was saying?”

“Cass, it wasn’t your fault.”

She met his gaze, seeing honesty, but knowing he had merely convinced himself of the fact. “Didn’t you ever try to figure out what went wrong in our marriage?”

“I wasn’t in it long enough to figure it out.”

“So that’s what killed you for marriage! I left too soon. I admit it, I panicked. Ran. Told you I was a flake.”

He anchored her chin with his fingers. “You were fine. You just didn’t want to be married to me, that’s all.”

“Don’t be so kind, Dan. It was me, plain and simple. All of a sudden I was married without even knowing who you really were. Or who I was. I looked in the mirror and I saw my mother, looking all in love and happy, just like she always did right after she got married. And I knew that in a few months, I’d get restless like she always did. I didn’t want to do that to you. We talked about buying a place of our own—”

“And I said something about having a kid someday. That’s what started it.”

“Not having a child, per se. I just remembered the way my mom dragged me around all my life, no roots or traditions, and if I was the same way she was, I couldn’t put my own child through that. Getting divorced made me evaluate my future for the first time. Made me make changes in myself. I even took The Supreme Seminar on Being Orderly.” She pulled her legs in tighter when he removed his hand. “Don’t you hate being divorced?”

He looked away. Why wasn’t he able to meet her eyes? Finally he shrugged, still keeping his gaze on a great blue heron stalking prey on the shoreline several yards away. “Divorce is no big deal. Happens a thousand times over every day.”

His words thumped against her heart, and she chomped down on the butter rum she’d been sucking. “So if divorce isn’t any big deal, then marriage must not be, either. Of course, how could I even think it was? We dated for, what, a month? And spent most of that in bed. Then we decided, for whatever reason, to get married. Total impulsiveness. I never want to go through a divorce again. Maybe I did make the decision too quickly, but believe me, I thought a lot about it later. I hate being divorced. I feel used and thrown out.” Her voice went all soft and mushy on her. “Like someone didn’t want me.”

“Cassie, wanting you was never a problem.”

That low, intimate voice rocked her. The impulsive side she’d killed off came alive and begged her to wrap her arms around him and tell him she’d never stopped loving him, never—What was she doing? the Supremely Orderly side of her asked. That was crazy thinking. Of course she was over him. “I’m going to make sure the next man I marry is the last man I marry.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I made a compatibility list.” Did he actually wince? She forced herself to go on. “I got the idea from a quiz in Cosmopolitan on how to tell if the guy you’re dating is right for you. Before I rush into marriage, I’m going to make sure my groom-to-be is well-suited for me, has the same interests and most imporantly, views marriage with a serious eye.” She pulled her notepad out of her bag. “I need to add that to the list.”

He picked up his fishing pole and sent the lure out toward the Gulf. She felt as though she were having a conversation with the rippling muscles and freckles on his back.

“Well, Cass, I hope you find that guy, I really do. But I’ll give you some unsolicited advice from a male point of view: Don’t tell the guys you’re dating that they have to live up to some list. Nothing’ll scare a guy away faster than a set of ideals he has to live up to.”