Page 28 of Shadowed Rubies
I glanced up at her, hoping to see a softening in her expression, but not finding any. Instead, she narrowed her eyes further. “Oh, so you are attracted to me now that I’ve lost some of the extra weight, but you’re right there with the jerks who wanted to make fun of me for being pudgy in high school.”
It was as if she was having an entire conversation about something that I hadn’t been included in. Holding up my palms, I said, “I’ve always been attracted to you, Dani. I didn’t ridicule you in school or any time since then. I wouldn’t do that.”
The sincerity evidently didn’t come through in my voice because she scrunched up her face in disbelief before saying, “I heard you and your firefighting brothers making fun of my lifeguarding photo today.”
“I don’t know what you think you heard, but I was admiring your photo. As soon as I realized it was you in the skimpy bathing suit photograph they were showing me, I shuffled the other guys out of there because I didn’t want them gawking at your curvaceous teenaged body.”
Dani was shaking her head, obviously not quite daring to believe the truth in my words. “But I heard you say ‘Oh my God’ when you saw it. You were disgusted by it.”
“Disgusted?!? Dani, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It was more of an ‘Oh my God, she’s hot, and I’m getting hard just looking at this old photo of her’ kind of thing.”
I could see the wheels turning in her mind as she processed my version of what had happened. Evidently deciding that she believed me, she lunged into my arms and pressed her lips against mine.
Relief flooded my system as we stood in the doorway of her family’s home and made out like horny teenagers. Just as I was wondering how I was ever going to be able to stop kissing her, a terrified scream erupted from inside her house.
31
Dani
Kissing Max on my front porch was like a dream come true, until we heard my mom’s frightened screech. We broke apart and I froze there, so terrified that I was unable to move or react. If something happened to my mother, I didn’t know how I would survive it. Losing Dad was horrific enough. Losing Mom as well was not an option.
I stared at Max with wide eyes for a long moment. When he moved to lunge past me to go inside, my body finally began to react appropriately. Yelling as I ran toward the kitchen, I called out for my mom. “Mom! Are you okay?”
Max and I reached the kitchen at nearly the same time, and we both screeched to a halt. My mouth fell open as I gaped at the sight before me. Our friendly and protective black lab, Jasper, had the fur on the back of his neck standing at attention as he bared his teeth at something in the corner of the room.
Mom and Mimi Dawson were sitting at the kitchen table gawking at whatever was hiding in the corner.
“What is it Dr. Waters?” Max asked.
My mother sounded flustered when she answered in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “We’re not sure. Jasper brought in something through the doggy door. I think it might be some kind of wild animal.”
Being the big, strong fireman that he was, Max said, “Everyone stay calm. I’ll take care of it.”
With those reassuring words, he crept toward the corner of the room to take a closer look. Just as he was leaning in to determine what we were dealing with, Jasper let out a deep, threatening growl. Bruiser chose that moment to come tearing into the kitchen like a pint-sized Tasmanian devil. He yipped and barked and twirled in circles, trying to intimidate the much larger animal.
The sudden noises startled Max, making him jump back toward me. Obviously trying to play it cool, yet failing, he said, “We should probably call some kind of animal control office because they will have the proper equipment to deal with this.”
I couldn’t stop the wide smile that spread across my face. It seemed that big, brave Max was frightened of animals that were much smaller than him. He stood beside me and busied himself with scrolling down through his phone, obviously looking for someone to call for help.
All three of us gawked at him. I was all for equality and women’s rights, but this still felt like something that the man in the room should deal with.
After looking for a moment, he turned to me and said, “Don’t we have an animal control office in Brunswick Bay Harbor?”
I shook my head. “Nope, I think the fire department takes care of anything like that. We should call them.” After pretending to think it over, I said, “Oh, wait… You’re already here.”
A noise from the animal’s corner of the room grabbed our attention. I’d been so enjoying my light banter with Max that I hadn’t noticed when Mimi got up and crossed the room to get a closer look at the animal.
When she turned around, we all let out a collective gasp because she was holding up the animal by its tail.
“It’s just a possum,” she informed us.
“It’s an opossum,” my mother corrected her.
“Possum, O-possum, whatever. The poor thing shouldn’t be this far north. It probably nearly froze to death out in the elements these past few nights.” Shrugging her shoulders, she added, “In any case, it’s dead now.”
I gaped at the spirited woman before asking her, “Haven’t you ever heard of playing possum––err, opossum?”
Mimi looked bewildered by my question before saying, “Oh, yeah, that’s when animals pretend to be…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes bulged to the size of quarters as she said the word, “dead.”
