Home Is Where the Bark Is (23 page)

He was gratified by the twist of her mouth, the nod of her head that acknowledged her relief.

“However, I do think there is a link between the identity thefts and Paws-A-While.”

“I get that,” she said slowly. “It does seem too much of a coincidence. Though there could be some other link they have in common.”

“Can you think of one?”

She shook her head. “The only thing I have in common with those people is the dogs.”

How to say this without freaking her? He slid his hands down the length of her slender arms and held both of her hands in his.

“Serena, I don’t have any evidence, just a really strong hunch. I think this could be something personal against you. The perpetrator might be after the money, sure, but they might also be aiming to put you out of business.”

She gasped. He thought she would protest. But she slowly nodded. “Someone with a grudge against me.”

“Or a business rival?”

She shook her head. “No way. I can’t believe that. As an industry we support each other. Give each other referrals all the time.”

“Okay, you can rule that out.” But he wouldn’t. “We need to work together on this, Serena.”

“I guess,” she said, not sounding totally convinced.

“Adam is not as certain as I am that Paws-A-While is the link. He’ll pull the plug if we don’t get some proof. I have to move quickly. I need names and contacts from you. Your staff. Your suppliers. Anyone with any possible connection that could lead you to think they might want to harm you or discredit you. I need to check the collars on all the dogs in your care.”

“Of course,” she said.

He gentled his voice. “And I need to know about your stalker, Serena.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. Wouldn’t meet his gaze, went inward somewhere where he couldn’t follow her. “I can’t say his name. I . . . I won’t say his name. It’s the only way I can protect myself from him.”

“Serena, I have to know your stalker’s name. How about you write it down for me? That way you don’t have to speak it.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Write it for me now, Serena; we don’t have time to waste.”

Dammit. Reaching into his inside jacket pocket meant he had to let go of her hands.

He gave her the small notebook and pen he carried with him at all times. He noticed her hand wasn’t steady when she wrote the name and the letters were a bit wobbly on the page. He didn’t recognize the name. But he’d soon find out everything there was to know about him.

“It couldn’t be him,” she said. “He’s locked away.”

He didn’t want to add to her fears but he couldn’t water down the facts, either. “We can’t discount his involvement. He might have made contacts in prison.”

He put the notebook back in his pocket. Reached out for her hands again. She linked her fingers through his, looked up to meet his gaze. Now he saw the glimmerings of trust in those remarkable eyes. Trust and something else that gave him hope that her discovery of the truth about him had not killed his chances with her.

This had been the unshakeable maxim for his life. It had served him well.

But maybe the time had come when he didn’t want to go so fast or so alone. Maybe his journey might be as successful, and a whole lot more pleasurable, if it were shared.

Some of those other old proverbs suddenly made a whole lot of sense as well.

He bent his head and kissed her.

 

 

Serena
sighed into the pleasure of the kiss. She didn’t care she was in a public park and heaven knew who could see her. It was delicious. Her heart started thudding.

She should stop this. Should pull away. She didn’t want any more complication in her life right now. But oh, it felt so good. The pressure of his mouth on hers. The taste of him. His strength.

This man was a professional liar.

Trust me,
he had said.

She had to overcome her fears, her trust issues, the barriers she had put up against being hurt again. She had to believe in his honesty, the sincerity she saw in his eyes.

Lucky they were in a public space. Because she wanted more than kisses. She wanted the sensual thrills promised by his skilful tongue and hard, strong body.

A sabbatical from sex?

All sabbaticals had to end some time.

She was lost in the sound of his breathing, the thud of his heartbeat.

Then sharp yapping and Snowball’s growl, surprisingly threatening for a tiny white furball, intruded. Damn! She pulled away from Nick.

A curious chow had come sniffing around. Snowball, with Bessie as his shrill, yapping cheer squad, was letting the big dog know that a fluffy little Maltese was boss of the park.

“Snowball!”

She was fast but Nick was faster. He got to the two little dogs a stride before she did and shooed the big dog away. All in a few, masterful moments.

“You’ve got a knack with dogs,” she said when he came back to her. As aftermath of the kiss her heart was still racing and her breath coming too fast, so it was an effort to make her voice sound normal. “They like you.”

“I like them,” he said. “As dogs, not—”

“Dog-kids, I know.”

He was a heck of a lot more competent than some of the people she’d interviewed for positions at Paws-A-While. The dogs sensed the strength in him, the alpha confidence.

They trusted him.

She had to trust him, too.

Accept that he had misrepresented the truth in the interests of his job. Believe the evidence of his ID card and the sincerity in his voice. It might be the only way she could keep Paws-A-While in business.

She had to help him in any way she could. “Nick . . . I . . . I want to tell you what happened with the stalker. If there’s a chance he’s involved and it will help me save Paws-A-While.”

Nick’s brow creased in concern. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“Just hear me out without too many questions.” She swallowed hard. “It started with an email through my Serena St. James website. It seemed harmless enough. I emailed the standard ‘thank you for your interest’ type of email. He emailed some more. I ignored them. After about twenty I asked him not to email again.”

“Bad mistake.”

She nodded. “He saw that as a sign of interest. He was in love with me, therefore I had to be in love with him. I blocked his emails.”

“That didn’t stop him?”

“The letters started then. Every day there was a letter.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“He didn’t make any threats. I thought I could handle it myself.”

“But he knew where you lived.”

“Not then, he didn’t. They were sent to my post office box.”

“Did you ever see him?”

“Would you believe he sent me photos of himself? The thing was, he was okay-looking. He could have got a girlfriend of his own.”

“But not Serena St. James.”

“No. He was totally into the fantasy of me in the tub of chocolate.” She shuddered. “Then he sent me chocolate bars. Hundreds of them. I threw them out. But more would come every day.”

Thank heaven Nick didn’t laugh. She couldn’t stand it if he laughed. “Tell me you went to the police then,” he said. “There are stalking laws.”

She remembered how unhelpful the police had been—that one officer in particular. “People thought the chocolate bar thing was funny. They asked me to give him their address so he could send them some.”

Nick made a sound of disgust. “You should have hired someone like me.”

“I . . . I didn’t know you then. Anyway, I honestly thought he was more of a nuisance than a danger. Then it stopped. I heard nothing. The police said he had moved on to someone else.”

“But of course he hadn’t,” said Nick, his face a study in grim.

“I lived in the Mission then, a cute remodeled Victorian. It was a good part of the Mission; I always felt safe there. I had a roommate, Kim, a chef friend of Maddy’s.”

She stopped. Cleared her throat. This was the part she found difficult.

“Just take it as it comes.” How could that deep, deep voice sound so soothing?

“I was studying part time. One night I got home from college late and . . . and found him in my bathroom. I thought I was going to die of shock and fear. He . . . he had somehow got buckets of chocolate sauce in there and was tipping them into the tub.”

“Wanting to re-create the fantasy for himself.”

“He . . . told me loved me. I was gagging on fear and the smell of the sauce. I told him he couldn’t love me, he didn’t know me.”

“Not what he wanted to hear.”

“I soon realized that. I tried to keep him talking while my mind raced to figure out what to do. I placated him, pretended to be friends. But he didn’t buy it.” Her voice rose as she remembered her fear. “He got nasty. If . . . if he couldn’t have me, nobody could.”

Nick growled a wordless protest.

The faster she spoke, the faster the recounting of this ordeal would be over. She felt she was babbling now. “He ordered me to strip. I refused. He pulled a knife. Then Kim came home, Maddy with her. I heard the door open, but he was too busy describing what was going to happen to me after I was in the tub of chocolate to hear. Thank God they realized something was wrong and crept up the stairs. Maddy had a huge fry pan in her hand, Kim a marble rolling pin.

“He heard something and looked away from me. I grabbed the hair dryer and whacked his hand with it. He dropped the knife. I kicked it out of his reach. The girls threatened him with their weapons.” She took a huge, steadying breath.

“What happened then?”

“He started to cry. Like a thwarted little boy.” She felt the familiar contempt. “We locked the door and called the police. He was convicted of stalking and committed to a high-security psychiatric hospital. I try never to think of him.”

“But we have to consider him as a suspect who might wish you harm.”

Serena appreciated that while she was recounting her ordeal, Nick had the sensitivity not to touch her. Now she was through it, she felt able to touch. She placed her hand on his arm. “You investigate him. I want nothing to do with it. It will only feed his fantasy if he thinks I have any interest in him whatsoever.”

“Right,” he said.

She thought about what he had said about hiring someone like him to protect her. Words formed before she’d really thought out her strategy. But immediately they made sense. “I want you to work for me,” she said.

He shook his head. “No can do. The insurance company has retained us for this investigation. That would be a conflict of interest.”

“That’s not what I meant. I can’t afford to pay you, anyway. Not now. You should come on staff as a dog carer. Go undercover—that’s the right term, isn’t it? That way you can see exactly what might be going on at Paws-A-While.”

And she would get to see him every day.

Nick
grumbled to himself under his breath as he unwrapped packs of conical, dog-sized party hats. The hats were red with a pattern of paw prints, trimmed at the base with blue feathers and topped with a blue pompon. In its own separate pack was a single black hat, with gold trim and pompons, and the words “Birthday Boy” picked out in gold.

Wouldn’t you know it, his first shift on staff at Paws-A-While just had to be the day of Brutus’s birthday?

Two days after Serena had proposed the idea, and after Adam had proved Serena was a genuine victim of identity theft, he was on board as a dog carer. The satisfaction of actually being undercover and getting access to all areas—including those collars—was marred by the prospect of having to feign excitement at the prospect of a full-on canine birthday party.

Worse, he was expected to act as a waiter at the feast. Doggy day care was one thing. Dog parties another. His years of special agent training had prepared him to expect the unexpected—but nothing like this had come up in any training session at Quantico.

Party hats unpacked, his first job was to fence off an area at the far end of the playroom. There the millionaire mutt, his “wife,” “daughter,” and a select group of Brutus’s puppy pals would be served a gourmet dog food lunch and be given party favors to take home afterward.

Putting up the fence was easier said than done with curious dogs intent on monitoring his every move. He was constantly interrupted by butting heads and wet noses and little whimpers of excitement. Thankfully once inside the security of the fence, free from canine companionship, it got easier. He helped Kylie lay a large, heavy, plastic picnic cloth on the floor. It was embellished with cartoon drawings of frolicking dogs.

He made an effort to sound enthusiastic about the just-so placing of the doggy hats but Kylie had overheard his grumbling.

“You’re just not into it, are you?” she asked, as he knelt near her on the floor to help her lay the party table. His job was to put food and water bowls and a conical hat at each place. Kylie had to arrange a stack of rubber chew balls as a centerpiece and scatter some dog-safe streamers and novelties around for decoration.

As if the dogs could give a damn
.

Kylie’s friendly attitude toward him had done a complete turnaround when Serena had informed her that Nick was joining the staff. When he’d turned up this morning dressed in jeans and an official Paws-A-While shirt (made originally for Tom O’Brien and a tad tight across the shoulders) Kylie had been more hostile than hospitable.

Nick decided it was best not to answer with a lie. Kylie would sniff the rat of a sudden change in attitude. “You’re right. Party hats and birthday cake for a pack of pooches. It’s a sad reflection on our priorities,” he said.

Under his guardianship there would be no birthday parties for Mack. Ever. Mack, who right now would be undergoing his surgery. He hoped—no, he prayed—that all would go well for the big black dog.