A Curvy Girl for the Cadet: A Perfect Fit Novella by Sugar Jamison Page A

had turned nasty. And it wasn’t until five years ago that Clayton learned why. His sweet, kind, gentle mother had had an affair while his father was gone. He couldn’t believe it. It just didn’t seem like something she would do. But his father had always been gone back then. Bosnia. The Gulf. Always on some secret mission. Always out of reach, unable to be contacted. Clayton had thought something over there had changed him, but it turned out it was something big on the home front that completely altered who he was.
    “I will never be okay with the way you treated her, but I understand why you were so angry for all those years. I don’t hate you, sir, but if you ever talk to her or any woman like that again I’ll put your head through another wall and next time no one will be there to stop me.”
    “Fair enough.” He shrugged. “Oh! The drinks are here. Mine has an umbrella.”  
    *
    Clayton was just getting out of his car that evening when he saw Daisy’s Mustang pull up. He knew he should have kept walking into his house, but something made him stop. Maybe he wanted to get a glimpse of her, or maybe he wasn’t ready to go inside his house yet and think about the strange dinner he just had with his father.
    The man was trying. Trying to be a better person. Trying to spend time with him to make amends. Once a month they would meet and spend time together. Most of the time it was at a local sporting event. Minor league baseball, hockey or college football in the fall. His father wanted to spend time with him now. He was gone a lot when Clayton was a kid. And then Clayton was gone. They were practically strangers. His father seemed to want to change that, but Clayton had very little to say to the man. That’s why he liked to go to sporting events with him. They didn’t have to talk, but going to dinner with him was harder. Something from the past always came up. Something he’d rather not remember.
    “Hi, Clayton.” Daisy stepped out of her car wearing tight jeans, a cut up concert tee-shirt with one of her buttery-looking shoulders exposed and black heels. Her hair was loose and kind of wild. She looked like a total badass. A badass florist, carrying a bag full of groceries.
    “Hey.”
    “Hello, Mr. Calhoun.” The little girl, Aubrey was her name, waved at him, giving him that shy smile she always did.
    “Hi.” He waved back but didn’t go any closer. Daisy had come storming at him, pissed off and ready to spread his body parts across the state. He was pissed at first, but he admired her for being on guard and doing right for her kid. She hadn’t had it easy, a widow of a vet raising her sister’s kid alone. It was a lot for anyone.
    Maybe that’s why he kissed her. After she left he had searched his mind for a reason why. Normally he stayed away from women who had wild mood swings. And women with kids and definitely widows of vets, but he had kissed her and kissed her for a long time. She was beautiful and sad and she just looked like she needed to be kissed. And maybe he needed to kiss her. It would have felt wrong to let her walk out the door without doing so.
    “We’re going to have ice cream sundaes. Come join us.”
    “No thanks. I have some stuff to do.”
    Daisy walked over to him. “What do you have to do on a Saturday evening? Unless there is a woman involved I think you’re lying to me.”
    He couldn’t stop looking at her lips as she spoke and now he remembered why he had the overwhelming need to press his to hers. They were plump and smooth and the way she formed words with them was enticing and distracting.
    “Why do I need a woman to have plans? Maybe the stuff I’m doing I can do alone.”
    Those pretty eyes of hers narrowed slightly and a grin curled her lips. “You’ll have to tell me these plans.” Her voice went softer, quieter, sexier. “Or better yet, let me imagine them. I’ll need something to think about before I go to bed.”
    “You’re crazy. You know