A Lot Like Perfect

That explained why she’d started wearing her hair down at the renovation site. She had a thing for Marchande, which was far from unusual. Women thronged around him on a regular basis and he’d always had his pick. If she had her sights set on his teammate, good. That meant Isaiah could be around her with no chance of anything mystical going on.

“I had a feeling you might appreciate the fact that it’s a bet,” she allowed. “They practically dared me.”

That did hit all of his buttons. The fact that she’d clued in on it warmed him considerably. She didn’t have to know that a wager upped the stakes enough to get his blood pumping or why he needed that so badly. “If there’s a bet, I’m your guy. Tell me more.”

She shrugged. “That’s basically it.”

“Not by half. Why would anyone take that bet unless they thought you’d lose?” He had to know what he was working with here and she’d left out a piece of this puzzle.

Aria’s brows quirked in apparent disbelief. “Have you looked at me recently?”

What kind of question was that? He looked at her all the time. But in the interest of fairness, he swept her with a once-over that should have been a lot more casual than it was. “Looking at you. You have gorgeous hair. Pretty eyes.”

As his gaze strayed to some of the areas that might be off-limits, he suddenly couldn’t tear his gaze from her lithe form. Aria was fit in the way of a woman who could run three-quarters of a mile without stopping. Sure she wasn’t one of those lushly-formed types who made men stupid with nothing more than a come-hither smolder, but he’d never been attracted to that.

Actually, he’d never really spelled out the things that made up his ideal woman and he didn’t want to start at that particular moment. Because he’d sound like an idiot if he said Aria had every last quality.

He cleared his throat. “Basically, you’re pretty awesome. Seems like a sucker’s bet to me. And like you don’t need much help.”

Aria blinked and a pleased blush stained her cheeks, which did nothing to decrease her attractiveness. “That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

That summed up the issue in a nutshell. She didn’t have a lot of experience with men paying attention to her, which must be what she hoped to gain with Isaiah’s help. He was the practice run. That, he could do without worrying about Serenity’s prediction or his imminent departure.

The whole shebang got his juices flowing in a way that nothing had, not in a long time. “You should have men singing sonnets to your beauty on a regular basis.”

“Well they don’t.” She made a face that wrinkled up her nose a bit. “But I’m not expecting that. I just need Tristan to ask me out on a date. To anywhere. I’ve been in his orbit for a few weeks now and he’s never given the slightest indication that he notices me above anyone else. I need insider info. Tell me what he likes, dislikes. Music, movies, books. That kind of thing.”

“I’d counter that with the point the he’s been in your orbit, not the other way around,” he corrected and bit back some choice words about the kind of men Aria had been dating. There was a whole lot wrong with them if they hadn’t been telling her on a regular basis how great she was. “That’s all we’re going for here? He asks you out and you win?”

She nodded, seemingly pleased that he’d gotten on board so fast. “What can I do for you in return? Something similar? Maybe you’d like the inside track on Cassidy.”

He recoiled so fast it snapped his neck. How in the blazes had Cassidy Calloway entered this already bizarre conversation?

“What? Why? I don’t—” He swallowed before he said something he shouldn’t, like how plain and unappealing Cassidy was next to Aria. “Why would I want any kind of track with Cassidy?”

“You know. Because she’s into you. Maybe I can help—” Aria’s eyes widened as she contemplated what must have been an expression of extreme what the heck just happened? on his face. “This is news to you. I thought you were…well, this is awkward.”

Yeah, he was a regular Captain Oblivious here. Clearly he’d been too wrapped up in his own misery over coming home from Syria in pieces to notice all the goofy eyes being thrown around on this barn renovation project. “I feel like I’m back in high school.”

Aria just laughed. “I wouldn’t know. There were ten people in my school and two of them were my sisters. For a while anyway.”

Because they’d both left, according to what he’d gleaned from Hardy. “Well, don’t worry about reciprocation. You can have my help for free, but only because you deserve to have a man who appreciates you.”

All at once, he had the uneasy feeling Marchande wouldn’t be that guy. Isaiah would lay down his life for the man, had been given many opportunities to prove that, but his own personal allegiance to his teammate didn’t erase facts. Tristan Marchande was a smooth dog of the highest order, prone to love ’em and leave ’em before a blink of time had passed. He appreciated women all right—in mass quantities.

That would not be what Aria deserved. Neither was that any of his business.

“No, I insist,” Aria shot back stubbornly. “You and Cassidy would be cute together. She’s so pretty and smart. There aren’t a lot of women around here, in case you didn’t notice. Why not snag one of the best for yourself?”

Because he was avoiding entanglements of that sort. And not just because of the prediction. Something that felt like panic beat a drum in his throat. But it couldn’t be. Because that would be a stupid thing to panic over. All he had to do was lay down the law in that respect.

“No really, I insist right back. This is a freebie, strictly to win the bet. Your sisters are going down. We cannot lose. I’ll be like Donkey, Shrek’s trusted sidekick. Right by your side to help complete the quest with no thought to my own personal safety as we traverse a hostile countryside in search of the dragon’s castle.”

The look Aria gave him brought him up short and he trailed off. Okay. Not on board with the Shrek metaphor. Maybe she’d never even seen the movie and plus, it was a cartoon. Probably he should have picked something more manly, like Lord of the Rings, another personal favorite. A quest was a quest.

“Before you get too far into this,” Aria said just as he opened his mouth to backtrack. “You should know there will be no makeovers like in the second movie. What you see is what you get. There will be no magic potions turning me into the non-ogre form of Fiona.”

Isaiah had to grin. “She never drank a potion. It was Shrek who got a makeover from the potion. Besides, I would never do that, mostly because I’m not into winning that way. But also because you don’t need any magic potions. You’re going to win because you’re you, and Tristan will be thrilled to have the Aria that you are right now.”