Clean Slate by Holley Trent Page B

and two of Jerry’s best friends were female impersonators. Nikki had
handed him the N-by-N logo tee with her apologies the previous day during their
covert briefing saying, “Sorry, it’s the only thing left in your size. Maybe
you can find a gray one in Jerry’s laundry.”
    He’d shrugged and tried it on for size then and there.
He’d taken his own shirt off to reveal cobblestone abdominal muscles, a trim
waist, and the strong shoulders of a swimmer.
    Daisy could hardly see straight until he’d put the pink
thing on for Nikki’s assessment for all the blood in her head.
    Dork.
    He didn’t force her into conversation during the drive,
mostly because Nikki kept calling with last-minute tips and instructions.
“Daisy,” she’d scolded. “Don’t let those people bowl you over. Just smile
pretty and try not to blush yourself to death. Let Ben do the talking and if he
has to defer to you, just keep it simple. We’re not trying to win awards for
public speaking, you hear me?”
    Even Nikki thinks
I’m a dork.
    Then as they were setting up their booth, she’d caught
sight of a tattoo between his right third and fourth fingers and had grabbed
his hand to study it without asking. When she realized what she’d done, she
drew back with her apologizes.
    Dork .
    That put them at the current moment, as Daisy stood
paralyzed, watching trade show patrons file into the long rows of vendors.
    He stood in front of her and held out his hand, backside
up, with his fingers splayed. “Go on,” he said with that damned grin. “It’s not
scandalous. Can you make it out?”
    Hands trembling, she held his fingers apart and stared at
the ink. She stared some more. She squinted. Finally, she conceded. “That’s not
quite English, is it?”
    “No.” He drew his hand out of hers, gently, and studied
his tattoo up close to his face. “Dutch sometimes looks a lot like English.
Sometimes you can sound it out and guess. Zwemmen .
Swim.”
    He held his other hand out to her and splayed the fingers.
“That one’s not so easy. Zweven. Float.”
    “I get swim, but why float?”
    He grinned at her and turned his attention away
momentarily as a forty-something woman in a killer skirt suit approached the
table with her map and goody bag.
    “So, what’s new at N-by-N?” she asked, trailing the tips
of her fingers along the freebie soaps.
    “We’re having fun with soap this summer,” Ben said,
handing him one of the folded products sheets Jerry threw together at the last
minute the previous night.
    She pushed her glasses down her nose and stared at him
over them. “You’re not Jeremiah. Jerry’s got South in his mouth and prettier
hair than an eleven-and-a-half-inch fashion doll. Who are you?”
    He held out a hand and she immediately placed hers inside
it.
    Daisy’s core temperature cranked up a tick, and she ground
her teeth at the way the woman beamed at his touch.
    Hag.
    “Ben Thys. I’m that guy’s brother.”
    “Oh?” She clung to his hand long after he stopped shaking.
“Any more where you come from, or is Nikki cloning you?”
    He laughed and carefully extricated his fingers from her
grip. He was so graceful about it, there was no way she could be offended. “No,
just the two of us, although on some days I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having a
clone. Nikki keeps him busy. That’s why I’m here.”
    “More brothers should be so accommodating. Now, tell me
why my shop should stock this new stuff.”
    When she was gone, with a purse full of soap and an
updated catalog, Ben turned back Daisy. “I don’t think that soap’s going to
last long,” he said.
    “The sooner we can leave, then,” she mumbled, shooting
daggers at the departing shop owner’s back with her eyes.
    “So, float .” He
held his hand up again, gesturing to his tattoo with his other hand. “It’s
there as a reminder for me. I was scared of the water as a kid, so floating was
very hard. I couldn’t relax into it, and you know you can’t