Pinups and Puppies Page 4

  And if Dinah was involved...

  I spotted a group of women sitting at a cluster of tables inside the bar near the window. Dinah was crouched on a seat, waving her arms as she spoke and acting out some sort of interaction. I stopped to watch her for a moment. She had the women in stitches and her energy sucked me in, making me want to move closer.

  I tried hard not to be intimidated by the prospect of meeting these people. I didn’t mind groups of people, usually, but thinking I’d likely have to explain why I’d retired had me nervous. I planned to say, “it was time for something new,” because regardless of my feelings, those words were true. Anything else would lead to questions I wasn’t willing to answer with a group of strangers.

  Dinah noticed me then and waved enthusiastically. I tried on a smile, but it felt super awkward. Dinah gestured to her friends that she’d be a moment, and then all nine sets of eyes turned to look out the window and see what had Dinah trotting outside. No pressure.

  “Hey! You made it.” Dinah stopped in front of me and bounced on her toes.

  I didn’t know whether to stick out a hand for her to shake or—

  Dinah moved first, giving me a light hug and kissing my cheek. “I’m so glad you came.”

  I knew I was red down to the plunging v-neck of my heather-gray t-shirt.

  “Thanks for inviting me out.”

  When I didn’t move forward, Dinah raised an eyebrow. “Did I tear you away from anything important?”

  I barked out a laugh and ran my hand through my long bangs. “Only my family pestering me.”

  “Oh! You have family here?” She seemed surprised.

  “Yeah. My brother and his husband and their daughter. I bought a house with them as an investment, so it seemed like the right place to come after I retired.” I cleared my throat. “You said you live on a farm? With your sisters?”

  “Yeah,” she said, tucking a stray piece of red hair behind her ear. “My uncle sold us his place. My younger sister Cecily left the dot-com world for goats, I waited tables and worked for a vet’s office for years, and our older sister Trudy sells real estate. She only lives there ‘to supervise’ she says, but truthfully, after her divorce, she was pretty miserable. We’re all really close.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know there was still any farmland around here.”

  “Oh, there are a few of us. Back in the hills. Our place is off Norris Canyon just past Castro Valley. You know where that is?”

  I shook my head. “I’m still getting my bearings. I know Hayward and Oakland, where my brother’s gallery is, but that’s about it.”

  A group of teens approached us and we moved closer to the wall to get out of their way, bringing us closer together. God, she smelled good, and the way she was smiling, I thought just maybe she was as nervous as I was.

  “Sounds like you need a tour guide.”

  Feeling cocky, I asked, “Are you offering?”

  She shrugged and tried to sound casual. “Maybe. I bet it looks cool up in your plane, though, yeah?”

  “It does,” I said. “I’ve only been up in her a few times, but yeah. It’s nice to get away from the traffic and the noise. It’s much prettier up there.”

  “I bet,” she said, and then she shivered. She only had on a thin sweater over a halter top and it was a bit chilly outside. I was about to ask her if she wanted to go inside when she spoke.

  “It’s freezing out here. Want to come inside? I promise, they won’t bite.”

  “Well, that’s disappointing.”

  Dinah barked out a surprised laugh at my joke.

  “At least not at first. My friend Martha and her bandmates, Flor, Kat and Stella, will be playing in a little bit. Then there are my friends Tammy—who knows your niece from the shelter, actually—Abra and Stevie, who I met through Martha, and my business partner at the rescue, Carla, and her wife Marnie. Martha, Carla, Tammy, Stevie and I make up the board for Goth Dog. They’re some of the best people I know.”

  “They won’t be offended if it takes me all night to remember their names, will they?”

  Dinah shook her head and reached for my hand. “Nah. They’re all excited to meet you. They kind of think you’re a rock star.”

  Her hand in mine fit just right. It might seem strange, but I always had a good feeling when the person I was with had hands that fit in mine. It was a weird quirk, sure, but it made me feel a little more at ease. Until I thought about what she’d said—and frowned.

  “Then they’ll be disappointed, I’m afraid.” Expectations could make or break a good time. I hoped it was the former and not the latter tonight.

  Dinah led me inside, where I paid the cover charge, and over to the table where four of the women were now standing.

  “Ladies, this is Marianne.” She named all of them again, and I nodded at each one, trying my best to remember who they all were.

  They smiled at me like they were waiting for me to perform or something, as if I was the night’s entertainment.

  “Hi,” I said lamely, and took the chair at the head of the table next to Dinah.

  “Thanks again for flying Prudence and her puppies up here. Your niece is a treasure, by the way.”

  “She is that.” It was nice to hear someone else speak highly of Nell. She’d had a lot of attitude in school, which meant several trips for Matt and Zack to the office for meetings. They’d adopted her when she was thirteen, deciding that offering a home to an older child was even more important than having a baby. They still thought about adopting more, but so far Nell had taken all of their parenting energy, which they were thrilled to give. It had just taken Nell a really long time to realize that they were even more grateful to be given the chance to be parents than perhaps she was to have found them.

  “How is Prudence?” I asked Dinah.

  She glanced at the woman named Carla, and then back to me. “Carla has her and the puppies right now. Her step-daughters are watching them tonight. But they’re going away for the weekend, so I’ll be taking them to my place.”

  I wanted to ask her more, like if Prudence was happy, if the puppies were developing well, whether they’d been seen by a vet yet, but before I could speak, Martha stood and squeezed Dinah’s shoulder.

  “We’re off to get set up.”

  Dinah reached up and squeezed her hand, and Martha kissed her on the cheek, then turned to smile at me. “Great to meet you, Marianne. Have fun tonight.” The four women in the band all said goodbye and left through a doorway at the back of the bar.

  Dinah leaned over. “They play mostly nineties stuff. They’re really good.”

  “I can’t wait.” I winked at her before I thought about it and wondered if I should be so forward.

  Dinah sucked in a breath and seemed to be speechless for a minute. I could relate. I wanted to keep talking to her, but every time we tried, it seemed we’d both get nervous, or excited, or—

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  I wondered what the right answer was here. Were these gals big drinkers? I glanced around the table to see a couple of empty pitchers and several glasses with varying levels of amber liquid. “What are you drinking?”

  Dinah frowned at her glass. “Some IPA, I think. They serve a bunch of local brews here.”

  “I’d love a Guinness or Kilkenny if they’ve got it.”

  Dinah pursed her lips. “She likes it heavy. Okay. Coming right up.”

  I watched her sashay over to the bar. She’d taken off her sweater, and under it was a white halter top that showed off a tattooed midriff. She wore black baggy pants held up with a thick belt and a pair of funky green lace-up boots. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, showing off more tattoos on her back. Damn, she had some beautiful artwork.

  “How long were you in the Air Force?”

  Carla sat with her elbows on the table, waiting for me to respond. She was probably in her early fifties and wore her salt-and-pepper hair in a short style that accentuated her high cheekbones a
nd strong jaw. Her bright red button-down shirt contrasted nicely with her brown skin, and the thick black frames of her glasses gave her an edgy look.

  And if I wasn’t mistaken, she was about to interrogate me.

  “Twenty-four years. Retired two months ago.”

  “What did you fly?” she asked.

  “KC-135s and C-17s. Tankers and transports.”

  “Big planes,” Marnie, the wife, said. “I had an uncle who flew those.” In contrast, Marnie wore a short-sleeved navy-blue dress with small white polka dots. She looked like maybe she’d come from some sort of administrative assistant job straight to the bar.

  I smiled, waiting for more questions.

  “Dinah says you aren’t sure what you’re going to do now.”

  Carla’s statement sounded judgy, but her words made me wonder if there was something else behind them. Dinah said they were business partners...but was there more to the story?

  “I’m weighing my options. Don’t want to jump into anything right away.”

  “Bet you had to deal with a bunch of assholes in the service,” Tammy said with a laugh.

  I shrugged. “There are rotten apples everywhere, right? No more than you, probably. I was pretty lucky for the most part.”

  “Thankfully the cops we deal with at the shelter are all pretty cool, but when I worked for another local department before coming to Hayward? Maaaaan, I tell you. I’ve never been mansplained so much in my life!”

  The women all laughed, and I was content to sit back and listen to their stories. Dinah returned and handed me a pint of Guinness. We clinked glasses and I took a nice long sip. Matt and Zack didn’t keep booze in the house, which I could appreciate, but I’d missed my Guinness.

  “I like the black, by the way,” Dinah said, just before the sounds of guitar tuning alerted us that the band was about to take the stage. “I wanted to tell you earlier. Very hot.”

  I thanked her with a goofy smile, that stupid shy business returning with a vengeance, and turned in my seat, leaning back against the window.

  Dinah pulled her chair beside mine and our shoulders touched. When she leaned in, her breath tickled the side of my neck. I shivered and boldly moved a little closer, making our contact deliberate.

  “Don’t mind Carla,” she said, making me look over to catch Carla staring at us. Carla let her gaze linger a moment, letting me know it had been intentional, and then she turned away. She carried herself as a woman who was used to commanding respect, like a cop, maybe.

  Marnie seemed to notice the exchange and placed a possessive arm around Carla.

  “She seems concerned about you.” I leaned in and spoke close to her ear. The lavender scent tickled my nose and sent tingles through me. Not only did she smell good, but when I was with her, I could forget about decisions for a little while, and that went a long way toward helping me relax.

  “Yeah,” Dinah said, wrinkling her nose, her smile falling. She went back to watching the band, and I watched her, enjoying the feel of our shoulders together.

  The band was actually really good. Martha was fantastic on vocals and really knew how to work the crowd. She seemed to flirt with the men and ladies equally, reminding me I was back in an area where people could be who they wanted and could want who they wanted without having to be too concerned about their surroundings. It was refreshing after years spent in parts of the country where that wasn’t the case.

  A space had been cleared in front of the band so the crowd could dance along to their favorite tunes from No Doubt, The Donnas, and The Breeders, all female-fronted bands from the ’90s. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone dancing. Matt and I would often go when I was home on leave, but that stopped around the time he and Zack adopted Nell. Now seemed like a good time to start doing some of the things I’d been missing.

  I was about to ask Dinah if she wanted to dance when the music stopped.

  “We’re going to do a little older song for one of our best friends tonight. Dinah, come on up here and say hello!”

  Dinah squeezed my arm before skipping up to the front. She waved at the now crowded bar and clasped her hands behind her back. Her youthful presence was all kinds of catnip for me. She seemed like the kind of woman I could have some let-down-your-hair, loosen-your-collar kind of fun with.

  “Dinah, as you may know, is the director of Goth Dog Rescue here in Hayward, and this week, with the help of pilot Marianne Cross—everyone wave to Marianne!”

  I sat up straighter in my chair and gave a lame wave. Was this planned?

  “This week,” Martha continued, “Dinah rescued dogs numbers nine hundred ninety-eight, nine hundred ninety-nine, and one thousand! It’s a huge milestone for Goth Dog, so we wanted to celebrate with a song just for her.”

  Martha handed the mic to Dinah. “Hi everyone. Many of you here have donated your time and money in the past, and I sincerely want to say thank you. The Bistro has agreed to place a donation bin on the bar, so please, tip your servers and bartenders, and with your extra cash, give a little for the pups!”

  She handed the mic back to Martha and did a little curtsy before skipping back to my side. As the band kicked into a familiar tune, Dinah reached for my hand.

  “Is it presumptuous of me to ask you to dance?”

  I took her hand and stood close. “Not when I was sitting here thinking about asking you first.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me and her smile was nothing short of delectable. Dinah led me onto the dance floor with about fifteen other people who were trying not to fall onto the patrons sitting at the tables. Martha was doing her best Siouxsie Sioux and nailing it. The music caressed my senses and soon my hips were moving in the dip and sway motion that was a hallmark of ’80s alternative dancing. My arms swung back and forth past my hips and I let myself go.

  Dinah moved like a temptress. She shimmied and swung her head back and forth, her hair falling from her messy bun in wisps around her face. She was obviously not wearing a bra beneath her halter top, and I caught glimpses of the curves of her breasts every time she raised her arms over her head. She danced with abandon, and it reminded me of scenes from movies with witches dancing in the moonlight deep in the woods, communing with nature. Not that I thought she was a witch, but she certainly had me spellbound.

  The song changed to Garbage’s “No. 1 Crush.” Dinah made lingering eye contact with me and moved closer, into my dance space. She began to circle her hips and dip her shoulders in a seductive show of her sultry side, and I nearly lost the beat.

  Martha came out into the crowd and started to dance close to Dinah, resting her hand on Dinah’s hip and pressing her forehead against Dinah’s as she sang the lyrics. Dinah sang with her, and their voices made a lovely sound together. Dinah rested her forearm on Martha’s shoulder, and the two of them turned to look at me as they sang, “I’d sail ships for you, to be close to you...”

  Martha pulled away as she sang the last line in a lower register, and Dinah gifted me with a sexy smile that had my libido standing at attention.

  Oh yeah, to get her alone...

  “Thank you! We’re Mud and Honey, and we’re going to take a little break, but we’ll be back with more of your favorites.”

  Dinah took my hand, led me over to the bar for two glasses of water, and then to the seating area outside.

  “I haven’t danced in years, that was so fun,” I said, downing half my glass.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed. You were great.”

  “Your friends are great. Damn. I haven’t heard good live music like that in a long time.”

  I rested my hips against the low iron fence and Dinah sat on a table facing me, her elbows resting on her thighs.

  “Did you go to bars a lot when you were in the service? Didn’t you get to see some bar bands?”

  I snorted and moved a little closer, feeling brave. I played with her fingers, linking them with mine. I was delighted she didn’t pull away.

  “A bunch of hairy, swe
aty guys playing country rock. Let’s see, um, a bunch of DJs spinning EDM while sweaty, drugged-out kids bounced in place and waited for the bass to explode, and when it did they acted like it had never happened before ever. A lot of drunk karaoke. I did get to see Ozzfest in Japan a few years ago.”

  “Oh, you like the hard stuff, too?”

  I shrugged. “It’s great to work out to, great for running. But this...this was awesome. Perfect to dance to. Perfect company to dance with.” Too much, too soon?

  “We’ll have to do it again.” Dinah gave me a wicked sexy smile, and then she looked past me toward the bar.

  “Hey, we’re just taking off.”

  Marnie and Carla came out together. Carla glanced between the two of us with a raised eyebrow. Why so judgy?

  “I’ll be over tomorrow to go over the tax stuff with you,” Carla said to Dinah, and she waved.

  “Thank you, see you then.”

  Dinah cleared her throat and offered a nervous smile. “So...it appears we’ve reached the part of the evening when I ask if you want to come back to my place, or the part where you say, ‘this was great, see you around.’ Either of which is fine. I’d just like to know.” She didn’t sound as confident as her words led me to believe.

  “I guess this is that part of the evening.”

  And I froze. I wanted her. I wanted to go home with her. I also knew that I would fall hard for this woman, and that might not be the best idea, since I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing.

  My good mood deflated.

  Once again, my inability to make a decision was mucking things up.

  “Hey, I don’t want to pressure you or anything.” Dinah sounded hurt, and I realized I was probably sending her all the mixed signals, and keeping her waiting for a response.

  “It’s not that,” I said. But how was I supposed to explain? “You’re not pressuring me. I’m just...I’m kind of in a holding pattern, which is really foreign to me, and while I want what you’re offering—”

  “—you’re just here on leave.”