Sugar Daddy (Travis Family #1)(8)

"Well, boy, what's your excuse?"

"I got too busy."

"If you show up late, Hardy, it's only decent to come up with a colorful excuse." Her attention turned to Hannah and me. "Hannah, who is that girl with you?"

"This is Liberty Jones, Miss Marva. She and her mama just moved into the new trailer on the loop."

"Just you and your mama?" Miss Marva asked, her mouth pursing like she'd just eaten

a handful of fried pickles.

"No, ma'am. Mama's boyfriend lives with us too." Prodded by Miss Marva's interrogation, I proceeded to explain all about Flip and his channel-changing, and how Mama was a widow and answered the phone at the local title company, and how I was here to make peace with the pit bulls after they'd run up and scared me.

"Those rascals," Miss Marva exclaimed without heat. "More trouble than they're worth most of the time. But I need 'em for company."

"What's wrong with cats?" I asked.

Miss Marva shook her head decisively. "I gave up on cats a long time ago. Cats attach to places, dogs attach to people."

Miss Marva steered the three of us into the kitchen and gave us plates heaped with red velvet cake. Between mouthfuls of cake Hardy told me Miss Marva was the best cook in Welcome. According to Hardy, her cakes and pies won the tricolored ribbon at the county fair every year until the officials had begged her not to enter so someone else could have a chance.

Miss Marva's red velvet cake was the best I had ever tasted, made with buttermilk and cocoa, and enough red food coloring to make it glow like a stoplight, the whole of it covered with an inch-thick layer of cream cheese frosting.

We ate like ravenous wolves, nearly scraping layers off the yellow Fiesta ware with our aggressive forks, until every bright crumb had vanished. My tonsils were still tingling from the sweetness of the frosting as Miss Marva directed me to the jar of dog biscuits on the end of the Formica counter. "You take two of those for the dogs," she instructed, "and hand 'em through the fence. They'll warm up to you right quick, soon as you feed 'em."

I swallowed hard. Abruptly the cake turned into a brick in my stomach. Seeing my expression. Hardy murmured, "You don't have to."

I wasn't eager to confront the pit bulls, but if it allowed me a few more minutes of Hardy's company, I'd have faced down a herd of rampaging longhorns. Reaching into the jar. I closed my hand around two bone-shaped biscuits, their surfaces turning tacky against my damp palm. Hannah stayed inside the trailer to help Miss Marva pile more handicrafts into a liquor-store box.

Angry barking littered the air as Hardy took me to the gate. The dogs' ears were flattened against their bullet-shaped heads as they pulled their lips back to sneer and snarl. The male was black and white, the female light tan. I wondered why they thought harassing me was worth leaving the shade of the trailer overhang.

"Will the fence keep them in?" I asked, staying so close to Hardy's side that I nearly tripped him. The dogs were full of coiled energy, straining as if to leap over the top of the gate.

"Absolutely," Hardy said with comforting firmness. "I built it myself."

I regarded the irritable dogs warily. "What are their names? Psycho and Killer?"

He shook his head. "Cupcake and Twinkie."

My mouth dropped open. "You're kidding."

A grin flitted across his lips. "Afraid not."

If naming them after dessert snacks had been Miss Marva's attempt to make them seem cute, it wasn't working. They slavered and snapped at me as if I were a string of sausages.

Hardy spoke to them in a no-nonsense tone, telling them to hush up and act nice if they knew what was good for them. He also commanded them to sit, with mixed success. Cupcake's rump lowered reluctantly to the ground, while Twinkie's remained defiantly aloft. Panting and openmouthed, the pair regarded us with eyes like flat black buttons.

"Now." Hardy coached, "offer a biscuit to the black one with your hand open, palm up. Don't look him directly in the eyes. And don't make any jerky movements."

I switched the biscuit to my left palm.

"Are you a lefty?" he asked with amiable interest.

"No. But if this hand gets bitten off, I'll still have my good one to write with."

A low chuckle. "You won't get bitten. Go on."

I pinned my gaze to the flea collar that encircled Cupcake's neck, and began to extend the dog cookie toward the metal web that separated us. I saw the animal's body tense expectantly as he saw the treat in my palm. Unfortunately, it seemed in question as to whether the attraction was the biscuit or my hand. Losing my nerve at the last moment. I pulled back.

A whine whistled in Cupcake's throat, while Twinkie reacted with a series of truncated barks. I darted a shamed glance at Hardy, expecting him to make fun of me. Wordlessly he slid a solid arm around my shoulders, and his free hand sought mine. He cradled it as if he held a hummingbird in the cup of his palm. Together we offered the biscuit to the waiting dog, who gobbled it with a gigantic slurp and wagged a pencil-straight tail. His tongue left a film of saliva on my upturned palm, and I wiped it on my shorts. Hardy kept an arm on my shoulders as I gave the other biscuit to Twinkie.

"Good girl," came Hardy's quiet praise. He gave a brief squeeze and let go. The pressure of his arm seemed to linger across my shoulders even after it was withdrawn. The place where our sides had pressed together was very warm. My heart had lurched into a new rhythm, and every breath I drew fed a sweet ache in my lungs.