The Cinderella Deal - Jennifer Crusie [44]
“Look,” she said to him when he came down later looking for food. She pulled him out of the kitchen and into the dining room. “You don’t need to stand up by the sink anymore.”
“It’s nice.” He looked around, not really seeing anything. “I like standing by the sink. We talk.”
He looked lonely standing there, and she wanted to hold him, just go up and put her arms around him and comfort him. Stop it, she told herself. He’d just been working too hard. She patted his arm. “We should do more things together. Maybe.”
He brightened at the thought. “Run with me tomorrow.”
“Run?” Daisy said, appalled.
Linc nodded, suddenly enthusiastic. “You don’t get enough exercise. It’ll be good for you. Come on, we’ll go get you shoes and sweats now. The stores don’t close until nine.” He picked up his coat.
“Run?” Daisy tried to stall. “I don’t know, Linc—”
He was already getting his keys. “Come on.” He looked so happy that she followed him out to the car without protest. She’d been thinking more of going to the movies or out for pizza, but she should have known he’d think of something that involved pain and suffering for a good cause. There was a lot of martyr in Linc.
There was a lot of martyr in her too, Daisy thought as she dragged her body out of bed the next morning after only four hours of sleep. The things she’d do to save a fake marriage.
Linc showed her how to warm up and then set off with her at a gentle jog. They fell into a pace in which he would run down a side street, across a block and up the next street to meet her so that he was still getting the workout he was used to but she could keep up. Daisy slowed to a walk every time he got out of sight, trying to keep her heart from exploding. It was on one of these blocks that she met Art coming out of his house to pick up his paper.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Your face looks like a tomato.”
Daisy stopped and tried to breathe. “Jogging. My husband’s trying to keep me healthy.”
Art frowned. “Does he have a lot of insurance on you? It looks more like he’s trying to kill you.”
“No, no.” Daisy leaned on him for a moment to rest. “This is good for me.” She looked up and saw Linc jogging toward them. “Oh, no. I have to run again.”
She meant it as a joke, but Art stiffened as he watched Linc run toward them, and she saw Linc through Art’s eyes, a big, broad, frowning, dark-haired guy in black sweats.
“He’s really nice,” she said, and then Linc came up and said “Wimp” to her.
Daisy nodded. “I am. You’ll just have to face it. This is Art Francis, the vet.”
Linc offered his hand. “Something wrong with Annie or Liz?”
“Annie and Liz?” Art asked.
“Annie and Liz are our cats,” Daisy said.
“No,” Art said. “I’ve got Jupiter.”
“Jupiter?” Linc asked.
Daisy bit her lip. “A dog got hit by a car.”
Linc closed his eyes. “Of course. You would.”
“It’s a very small dog.” Daisy put her hand on his arm, anxious about Jupiter’s future. “He won’t bother you.”
“Daisy, you can have anything you want, including a damaged dog,” Linc said, and his exasperation was so clear that Art took a step closer to her. “Can we finish this run now? You really shouldn’t stop in the middle of exercise.”
“My heart was going to explode.” Daisy clutched at him, panting a little. “I would have had a heart attack right here in the street. You would have had to pick up my stiffening body and carry me home, pretending to be grief-stricken, and then you would have had to listen to Chickie, Pansy, and Gertrude fight over the flowers for the funeral and the color of my shroud. Julia would have cracked corpse jokes, Evan would have said that I looked pretty good although, of course, I was dead, and Crawford would have thought about necrophilia. I just did you a big favor by stopping.”
Art stared at her, and Linc sighed. “She’s not nuts,” he said to Art. “She just has these narrative fits