At Last (38 page)

All her life she’d worked her ass off, running on the hamster wheel, heading toward her elusive future. Being adopted at birth by a rocket scientist and a well-respected research biologist had set the standards, and she knew her role. Achieve, and achieve high. “It’s nothing really. Except I’ve applied at every bank, every investment firm, every accounting firm between Seattle and San Francisco.”

“No nibbles?” Mallory asked sympathetically, reaching for the syrup, her ring flashing again.

Amy shielded her eyes. “Jeez, Mallory, stop waving that thing around, you’re going to blind us. Couldn’t Ty have found one smaller than a third world country? Or less sparkly?”

Mallory beamed at the rock on her finger but otherwise ignored Amy’s comment, unwilling to be deterred. “Back to the nibbles,” she said to Grace.

“Nothing too noteworthy,” Grace said. “Just a couple of possible interviews for next week, one in Seattle, one in Portland.” Neither job was exactly what she wanted, but they’d both be a steady—and solid—paycheck.

Grace had grown up back east, from toddlerhood through getting her CPA. Drowning beneath the debt load of her education—her parents had been of the “build character and pave your own road” variety—she’d followed that job offer to Seattle, wanting a good, solid position in the firm. Just not one that she could find in the Kama Sutra.

Now late spring had turned to late summer, and she was still in Lucky Harbor, living off the temp jobs she’d picked up. She was down to her last couple hundred bucks, and her parents thought she was still in Seattle counting other people’s money for a living. The pleaser in her was withering daily.

Her parents believed in hard work and rising above the norm’s potential. Since they were both esteemed in their respective fields, it was safe to say that they’d accomplished their goals there.

Grace was still working on doing the same. She’d strived hard for each of her twenty-eight years to live up to the standards of being a Brooks, but there was no doubt she felt the pressure. In her heart she belonged, but in her brain—the part of her who knew that she was only a Brooks on
paper
—she’d never really pulled it off.

“I don’t want you to leave Lucky Harbor,” Mallory said. “But one of these interviews will work out for you, I know it.”

Grace didn’t necessarily want to leave either. She’d found the small, quirky town to be more welcoming than anywhere else she’d ever been, but staying wasn’t really an option. She was never going to build her big career here.

“So with two interviews lined up, what’s the problem?” Amy asked.

What
wasn’t
the problem? “Well, let’s see.” She stabbed a few more pancakes from the tray and dropped them on her plate. “I’m still fibbing to my parents so they won’t worry.” She hated that, so very much. She’d done it to make them happy, but that wasn’t making her feel any better. “I’m whittling away at my meager savings. I’m in limbo… pick one.”

“Yeah, none of those things are the problem,” Amy said.

“No?”

“No. The problem is that you’re not getting any.”

Grace sagged at the pathetic truthfulness of this statement, a situation made all the worse by the fact that both Amy and Mallory
were
getting some.

Lots.

“Remember the storm?” Mallory asked. “When we almost died right in this very place?”

“Right,” Amy said dryly. “From overdosing on chocolate cake, maybe.”

Mallory ignored this and pointed her fork at Grace. “We made a pinky promise. I said I’d learn to be a little bad for a change. And Amy here was going to live her life instead of letting it live her. And you, Miss Grace, you were going to find more than a new job, remember? You were going to stop chasing your own tail and go after some happy and some fun. It’s time, babe.”

“I am having fun here.” At least, more than she’d ever let herself have before. “And what it’s time for, is work.” With a longing look at the last stack of pancakes, Grace stood up and brushed the crumbs off her sundress.

“What’s today’s job?” Amy asked.

When Grace had first realized she needed to get a
temporary job or stop eating, she’d purposely gone for something new. Something that didn’t require stuffy pencil skirts or closed-toe heels. Something that didn’t require sitting in front of a computer for fifteen hours a day. Because if she had to be off track and a little lost, then she
was
going to have fun while she was at it, dammit. “I’m delivering birthday flowers to Mrs. Burland for her eightieth birthday,” she said. “Then modeling at Lucille’s art gallery for a drawing class.”

“Modeling for an art class?” Mallory asked. “Don’t art classes use nude models?”

“That’s not today.” Nope, nude was
tomorrow’s
class, and Grace was really hoping something happened before then, like maybe she’d win the lottery. Or get beamed to another planet. “I’m a hand model today.”

Amy looked her over. “If I had your body, I’d totally model nude.”

Grace shook her head, dropped the last of her pocket money onto the table, and left to make the floral deliveries. At the bank, she’d always had to get up before the crack of dawn, ride a train for two hours to get to work, put in fifteen hours, then get home in time just to crawl exhausted into bed.

Things were majorly different here.

For one thing, she saw daylight.

So maybe she could no longer afford Starbucks. At least she wasn’t still having the recurring nightmare where she suffocated under a sea of pennies that she’d been trying to count one by one.

Two hours later, Grace was just finishing the flower deliveries when her cell phone buzzed. Out of habit, she looked at the screen with her eyes squinted. Because
everyone knew
that
made it easier to hear bad news. But there wasn’t any more bad news to be had, she reminded herself. She’d already pretty much hit rock bottom. Even so, she took a big step back from the large tree she stood near, not wanting to tempt fate to prove her wrong by striking her with a lightning bolt.

She didn’t recognize the incoming number, so she played mental roulette and answered. “Grace Brooks,” she said in her most professional tone, as if she were still sitting on top of her world. Hey, she might have had to give up designer clothes, but she hadn’t lost her pride. Not yet anyway.

There was a brief pause. “I’m calling about your flyer,” the man said. “I need a dog walker. Someone who’s on time, responsible, and not a flake.” The man, whoever he was, had a hell of a voice; low and a little raspy, but she was stuck on his words.

Her flyer?
“A dog walker,” she repeated. Huh.

“I’d need you to start today.”

“Today… as in
today
?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Okay, clearly he’d misdialed. And just as clearly, there was someone else in Lucky Harbor trying to drum up work for herself.

Grace considered herself a good person. She sponsored a child in Africa, she dropped her spare change into the charity jars at the supermarket, and she gave her restaurant leftovers to the homeless. Or at least she used to, back in the days when she could afford a restaurant. In any case, someone had put up flyers looking to get work, and that someone deserved this phone call.

But dog walking… She could totally do dog walking.
Offering a silent apology for stealing the job, she said, “Sure, I can start today.”

There was a brief pause. “Your flyer lists your qualifications, but not how long you’ve been doing this.”

That was too bad because she’d sure like to know that herself. She’d never actually had a dog. Turns out, rocket scientists and renowned biologists don’t have a lot of time in their lives for consequentials such as dogs.

Or kids…

In fact, come to think of it, Grace had never had so much as a goldfish, but really, how hard could it be? Put the thing on a leash and walk, right? “I’m a little new at the dog walking thing,” she admitted.

“A little new?” he asked. “Or a lot new?”

“A lot.”

Another brief pause, as if he was considering hanging up, and Grace rushed to fill the silence. “But I’m very diligent!” she said quickly. “I never leave a job unfinished. And I’m completely reliable.”

“The dog is actually a puppy,” he said. “And new to our household. Not yet fully trained.”

“No problem,” she said, and crossed her fingers, hoping that was true. She loved puppies. Or at least she loved the
idea
of puppies.

“I left for work early this morning and won’t be home until late tonight. I’d need you to walk the dog by lunch time.”

Yeah, he really had a hell of a voice. Low and authoritative, it made her want to snap to attention and salute him, but it was also… sexy. Wondering if the rest of him matched his voice, she made arrangements to go to his house in a few hours and walk the puppy, where there’d
be someone waiting to let her inside. Her payment of forty bucks cash would be left on the dining room table.

Forty bucks cash for walking a puppy…

Score.

Grace didn’t ask why the person opening the door for her couldn’t walk the puppy. She didn’t want to talk her new employer out of hiring her because hello,
forty bucks
. She could eat all week off that, if she was careful.

At the appropriate time, she pulled up to the address she’d been given and sucked in a big breath. She hadn’t caught the man’s name, but he lived in a very expensive area, on the northernmost part of the town, where the rocky beach stretched for endless miles like a gorgeous postcard for the Pacific Northwest. The dark green bluffs and rock stacks were piled like gifts from heaven for as far as the eye could see. Well, as far as
her
eye could see, which wasn’t all that far since she needed glasses.

She was waiting on a great job with benefits to come along first.

The house sat across the street from the beach, all sprawling stone and glass. Beautiful, though she found it odd that it was all one level, when the surrounding homes were two and three stories high. Even more curious, next to the front steps was a ramp. A wheelchair ramp. Grace knocked on the door, then caught sight of the Post-it note stuck on the glass panel.

Dear Dog Sitter,

I’ve left door unlocked for you, please let yourself in. Oh, and if you could throw away this note and
not let my brother know I left his house unlocked, that’d be great, thanks. Also, don’t steal anything.

Anna

Grace stood there chewing her bottom lip in indecision. She hadn’t given this enough thought. Hell, let’s be honest. She’d given it
no
thought at all past “Easy Job.” But she was thinking now, and she was thinking that walking into a perfect stranger’s home seemed problematic, if not downright dangerous. What if a curious neighbor saw her and called the cops? She looked herself over. Enjoying her current freedom from business wear, she was in a sundress with her cute Payless-special ankle boots and lace socks. Not looking like much of a banking specialist, and hopefully not looking like a breaking-and-entering expert either…

But what if this was a setup? What if a bad guy lived here, one who lured hungry, slightly desperate, act-now-think-later women inside to do heinous things to them?

Okay, so maybe she’d been watching too many late-night marathon runs of
Criminal Minds
, but it could totally happen.

Then, from inside the depths of the house came a happy, high-pitched bark. And then another, which seemed to say: “
hurry up, lady, I have to pee!
”

Ah, hell. In for a penny… Grace opened the front door and peered inside.

The living room was as stunning as the outside of the house. Wide open spaces, done in dark, masculine wood and neutral colors. The furniture was oversized and sparse on the beautiful, scarred, hardwood floors. An
entire wall of windows faced the Indian summer sky and Pacific Ocean.

As Grace stepped inside, the barking increased in volume, intermingled now with hopeful whining. She followed the sounds to a huge, state-of-the-art kitchen that made her wish she knew how to cook beyond the basic boxed mac and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. Just beyond the kitchen was a laundry room, the doorway blocked by a toddler gate.

On the other side of the gate was a baby pig.

A baby pig who barked.

Okay, not a pig at all, but one of those dogs whose faces always looked all smashed in. The tiny body was mostly tan, with a black face, crazy bugged-out eyes, and a tongue that lolled out the side of its mouth. It looked like an animated cartoon as it twirled in excited circles, dancing for her, trying to impress and charm its way out of lockup.

“Hi,” she said to him.
Her?
Hard to tell since its parts were so low as to scrape the ground along with its belly.

The thing snorted and huffed in joyous delirium, then hopped up and down like a Mexican jumping bean.

“Oh, there’s no need for all that,” Grace said, and opened the gate.

Mistake number one.

The dog/pig/alien streaked past her with astounding speed and promptly raced out of the kitchen, and out of sight.