Free Clean Slate by Holley Trent Page B

behind her, shaking his head at what he was
about to do. When he got close enough, he saw Jerry’s sly wink, and in a
synchronized maneuver, wrapped his arms around Daisy’s waist at the same time
Jerry wrapped his around Trinity’s. Before they could react, they rolled as
units into the full, deep ditch.
    He held his breath as he fell back into the water with
Daisy’s backside pressed to his front. It all happened so quickly that she
didn’t struggle until they’d been in the water a moment, at which point she
scrambled to sit up. He pushed her upright, and stood behind her, bracing
himself in the waist-high water as she turned around to face him.
    Her expression was one of shock. Dismay , even.
    He thought perhaps she’d slap him, but before she could
conduct herself in that way, they were both distracted at the sight of Jerry
and Trinity, out of the ditch and now wrestling in the muddy grass several
yards from where they stood.
    Jerry knew his woman. Knew how she’d react. Knew that
eventually she’d come around, and she had already, judging by the way she
laughed and tried to press his face against the drenched soil.
    Ben scrambled out of the ditch and extended his arm to
Daisy.
    She grasped it and accepted his aid back up into the yard.
Once steady, she took a deep breath and started toward the house.
    “Daisy, I…”
    She turned around and pelted him in the face with a mound
of soft mud. “You were saying?”
    He nudged dirt from his eyes and slowly opened them to
find her standing hands on hips, staring at him with her lips set in a tight
line.
    Ouch.
    He put his hands up in a consoling gesture. “Sorry, I was
saying sorry. It was childish of me. I’m getting better.”
    The tension in her face eased and her shoulders relaxed
from their high position near her ears. She blew out a breath and nodded. “I
don’t like being taken off-guard,” she said. She opened her mouth to elaborate,
but a flash of lightening crashed to the Earth very close to the property and
suddenly Jerry and Trinity were blurs passing them.
    “I think the storm’s moving this way!” Jerry shouted back.
    Ben took off after him, grabbing Daisy’s arm and pulling it
on his way past. It was as if she’d been rooted to the ground.
    Halfway to the house, one or both lost traction on the
soft soil and tumbled into a particularly large mud hole.
    “ Verdomme !” he
murmured, struggling up onto hands and knees, then onto his feet. He pulled
Daisy, now shivering beneath her muddy coating, up to her feet and pulled her
along.
    Yeah, this was a bad
idea.
    Although it was thirty yards farther from the house, his
instinct was to pull her to the garage apartment he’d been making his home for
the past couple of months. They pounded up the exterior stairs and he
shouldered the unlocked door open. He pulled her into the pristine lodging and
shut the door against the sideways rain.
    They stood there, muddy, dripping on the terra cotta tile
floor for a moment until he found his wits and nudged her toward the bathroom.
He urged her into the shower with her clothes on and turned on a warm stream of
water.
    “We’ll have to get you something to wear, but at least
you’ll be warm,” he said, stepping in behind her and readjusting the nozzle so
the spray was from higher up and water showered down onto both of them.
    She scrubbed muck off her face and turned around to tip
her chin up so the front of her hair got wet.
    He took off his shirt and twisted it between his hands to
wring out muddy water. “Do you want some shampoo? It’s probably not as good as
you’re used to. I buy the dollar stuff. Works fine on an inch of hair or less.”
    She nodded.
    He tried to ignore the bright blue of her bra through her
sodden shirt as he reached around her, but it was hard to miss. It was his
favorite color. He grabbed the bottle out of the shower hanger and handed it to
her.
    “Thanks.” She turned her back to him and began to work the
hair sticking to