Love, Me by Tiffany White

MORNING Dakota left early with the excuse of a business breakfast appointment. It was a lie, but he couldn’t face sitting and watching Chelsea and Tucker flirting outrageously, as was their habit.
    He frittered away the day playing tourist, eavesdropping on the other tourists visiting the museums, souvenir shops and showcases on Demon Breu Street. All it did was make him appreciate how much country music was loved. It didn’t inspire the song he’d hoped for.
    He almost went to the Opryland Theme Park, but decided he was likely to be recognized. Instead, he headed for Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and enough beer to get seriously mellow.
    That didn’t work, either. Still no song idea came to him. So he took himself home. On the drive up to the house he saw a tennis ball lying in the flower bed where Pokey must have dropped it. She loved playing catch with the gardener.
    And he’d loved playing tennis with Chelsea.
    That was something Tucker couldn’t do with his broken leg. Dakota was in a much better mood as he went inside to hunt up Chelsea for a game of tennis.
    A quick check of the downstairs yielded no sign of her. The house was quiet. The cook lived on the premises in the carriage house, and the gardener had gone home.
    He stopped to listen carefully, but no strains of laughter floated down the stairs.
    â€œPokey, where are you, girl?” he called out.
    A quiet bark seemed to come from upstairs. Dakota took the steps two at a time. He checked his own bedroom first, but no Pokey.
    The door to Chelsea’s room was ajar and he was drawn to it irresistibly. He took a deep breath before he pushed it open, afraid of what he might see.
    There was someone in Chelsea’s unmade bed, all right.
    Pokey was sprawled there, happily chewing on one of Chelsea’s new leather cowboy boots.
    â€œPokey! Bad girl,” Dakota admonished, taking the boot from her, but the damage had already been done.
    Dakota picked up the boot and its mate to stow them in the closet where, he thought peevishly, they should have been in the first place.
    As he passed the large mirrored dresser he saw a bright scrap of lingerie nestled in the white tissue folds of an open white gift box. He set the boots down and picked up the bit of silk—a sheer red teddy with a thong back—and let it dangle from his fingertip as if it were a piece of evidence from a crime that had been committed.
    Chelsea’s image—a cloud of dark curls, red lips and long legs—flashed in his mind. The teddy would cling to every curve and accentuate her long shapely legs.
    An envelope in the bottom of the box caught his eye. He couldn’t resist picking it up. Feeling guilty, but not guilty enough to stop snooping, he slid the card from the envelope and silently read it.
    Now that you’ve had
    A birthday, you’re
    Old enough to wear
    This.
    I dare you.
    Love, Me
    Scowling, Dakota crammed the card back in the envelope, returned it and the red teddy to the gift box, then stalked from the room. Pokey trailed after him.
    After he’d changed his clothes, Dakota went down to the tennis court and slammed balls back at the automatic feeder.
    An hour later he was in the shower when Pokey, who was waiting outside the door, began to bark. The moment Dakota turned off the water he could hear the cause of Pokey’s excitement: a commotion outside in the driveway with cars honking like a procession of newlyweds just leaving the church.
    Pokey only added to the din with her yelping as she ran back and forth between him and the door, begging him to come.
    â€œLet me put my pants on, okay?” Dakota said, when Pokey came over and swatted at him with her paw to get him to hurry.
    Pokey settled down, but the honking didn’t.
    Finally decent, he ran his hands through his wet hair to comb it, and started downstairs. In his hurry he hadn’t bothered with shoes, which was a mistake; at the bottom of the stairs he stepped