Home Is Where the Bark Is (3 page)

“It’s just what?” he prompted.

She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “Nothing. This is a new business and I have to be very careful of our reputation.” She took a deep breath. “People trust me with their pets. The last thing I need is some damaging press article.”

“I am not a journalist.”

Finally she smiled again. Strange how relieved he felt to see that smile back and shining at him.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m being paranoid. Of course you’re curious about how things work. You’re welcome to a tour of the premises. I’ll answer any questions you have as best I can.”

“I’d like that,” he said. The more he found out about this place without having to sneak around, the better.

“Fine,” she said. “Now I’m going to get Snowball. Could you hold Bessie, please? She’s too close to the door. I don’t want her following me into the playroom where the other animals are until we’re ready for her.”

“Sure,” he said, taking the few quick steps necessary to bring him closer to the dog. And to Serena Oakley.

Only to be stunned when she backed away from him so fast she nearly stumbled. Panic flashed across her face so quickly he could have imagined it. For just a second too long, she braced herself against the door.

The hint of fear in those remarkable eyes put him on instant alert.

He was an expert on false identities. And something was not right here.

The doggy day-care director was a good-looking woman. But it was obvious she did everything to hide that. Her dark hair was pulled back severely from her face. She wore no makeup. Her clothes were chosen to shroud rather than enhance.

It was as if she wanted to look as dowdy as possible. But she would need surgery and extensive use of prostheses to disguise her beauty. Who did she think she was kidding?

He took a step back and noted the sigh of relief she was unable to disguise. He squatted down next to Bessie and looked back up to Serena, careful to keep his expression neutral. “I’ll hold her, you go through the door,” he said.

She took a deep breath in an obvious effort to regain her composure. It was not the detached investigator part of Nick that appreciated the resulting swell of her breasts. She caught his gaze, flushed, and clutched the fabric of her shirt across her chest. She cleared her throat. “As soon as Bessie is aware of the other dogs, she’ll want to follow me. You . . . you could get a toy from the toy box to distract her.”

“Good idea,” he said.

Why the hell was she so nervous?

This investigation was getting more interesting by the minute.

He forced himself to open the cutesy toy box. It made a “ruff-ruff” sound as the lid sat back on its hinges. He suppressed a groan. Was there no end of dog paraphernalia in this room?

The box was packed with an assortment of luridly colored balls, plastic bones, and chew ropes. But the first toy he put his hand on was a small, red, heart-shaped rubber cushion bearing the words Puppy Love in elaborate white script.

“No! Not that one. That’s not meant to be there—” said Serena, too late, as Bessie, eager to play, snatched it from Nick’s hand.

“Get it back from her. Please.” Her voice was underscored with urgency.

Nick grabbed the toy and tried to pull it from Bessie’s jaws, but the little dog saw that as a game. She growled playfully, shook it from side to side, then bit down hard.

“I love you. I love you,” the toy squeaked.

“What the—?” said Nick.

“Oh no,” groaned Serena.

Bessie chewed on the love heart again. “I love you,” the toy squeaked again in that grating, synthetic tone.

Nick laughed. He looked up to Serena, to the toy, and back up to Serena. He expected her to laugh, too. But her face was flushed and her eyes glinted. She bit down on her lower lip.

“Drop it, Bessie!” she ordered, an edge to her voice.

Reluctantly, Bessie dropped the squeak toy on the polished concrete floor.

“Good girl,” said Serena. She lunged forward and bent down to pick up the love heart at the same time Nick reached for it, so his hand closed over hers.

The movement nearly made them collide, brought her face just inches away from his. So close he was kissing distance from her lush, generous mouth. So close he inhaled her scent—something flowery—no, vanilla—no, both. Whatever, it was rich and sensual and totally unexpected in someone who dressed the way she did.

Her face was flushed pink high on her elegant cheekbones, and her eyes were huge. He felt too mesmerized by her mouth, too intoxicated by her scent to do anything but stare at her.

“Sorry,” she said, but she made no move to stand up, her eyes locked to his.

He tried to say something in reply but choked on his words.

“The . . . the toy?” she stuttered, finally looking downward.

“Wh-what about the toy?”

He tore his gaze from her face and followed her line of vision down to the love heart. To see his hand had imprisoned hers on top of the red rubber cushion and pushed it down to the floor. She was immobile. Not because she was struck still by the same out-of-nowhere attraction that had hit her like a heat-seeking missile but because he had, effectively, trapped her.

Reflexively his hand tightened on hers. “I love you,” squeaked the toy.

Nick snatched his hand away. He cursed.

Serena stood up, still holding the toy. She squashed it in her jeans pocket where it gave a strangled squeak. Her gaze was fixed on the wall somewhere behind his head. A strand of dark hair had escaped from the tight plait behind her head and curled around her cheek. She pushed it back with slender, graceful fingers that must still be warm from his body heat. “Dumb thing. I . . . I should throw it out.”

“Yeah,” he said, not knowing why he was agreeing, just not certain what else he could say to her. He grit his teeth.

She was lovely. Funny. Sexy. Alluring in spite of her total lack of artifice. Intriguing because of it.

But he could not be beguiled by her.

He’d left the FBI to partner with a former co-worker in a private investigation business that specialized in identity fraud. It was the fastest-growing crime in the United States and there were serious dollars to be made for those who could crack it. His partner and he were working on a major case involving wealthy victims from the Bay Area and Marin County. He’d suspected it was just coincidence that, of the twenty cases of identity theft he was pursuing, twelve of the victims kept their dogs at Paws-A-While.

But there was something about Serena Oakley’s demeanor that made him decide not to be hasty in dismissing that coincidence.

He would have to distance himself from her.

Deny that sudden attraction.

Because she was now his prime suspect.

When
she returned from the playroom accompanied by Snowball, Serena still felt so awash with humiliation she could not bring herself to look directly at Nick Whalen where he stood beside the toy box. She took a step back, careful to keep at least four sets of stenciled paw prints between them. How could she endure to meet that disconcerting, see-right-through-to-your-secrets gaze?

Instead, she watched with exaggerated interest as Snowball and Bessie cavorted around each other and, with great enthusiasm, participated in the doggy butt-sniff introduction ritual. She forced herself to take deep, calming breaths.

She had long gotten over feeling embarrassed about the things dogs did in full public view. With each other, with peoples’ legs, and with a variety of inanimate objects. No. The reason her cheeks still flamed and her pride smarted was that darn love-heart dog toy.

When it started its cheesy declarations of love with that grating, mechanical inflexion, she’d wanted to climb into the toy box, pull down the lid on top of her head, and stay scrunched up and hidden there until Nick Whalen went away.

No way could he know she’d bought the love heart for Valentine’s Day seven months ago. Not for Snowball but for herself.

She had never confessed to anyone that, alone in her bedroom, she had encouraged her little dog to chew on the toy over and over just so she could hear someone say the words “I love you.” It was pathetic. Embarrassing. But, at the time, oddly comforting. Especially followed by a binge on Peanut Butter Cups.

“Thank God humans have moved on from this . . . uh . . . basic level of communication,” Nick Whalen said as the dogs continued to sniff each other along the length of their furry bodies.

“Uh, yes, very primitive,” she agreed, fighting the flush that still burned her cheeks.

She screwed up her eyes in an effort to resist sneaking a look at Bessie’s owner’s rear view. Bet he had a great butt. Tight. Muscular. And long, strong legs. Bet he had—

It was her thoughts that were getting primitive. Primeval even. Hot and sweaty and—

She shook her head to clear her wild imaginings. What if he guessed hormones she’d thought long extinct had flared into such throbbing, pulsing life?

This hot guy with the cool blue eyes that didn’t give a thing away had her totally off balance. And not just because her body was reacting to him in such a disconcerting way. For some reason she could not fathom, he was suspicious of her.

Was he—in spite of his denials—an undercover animal welfare officer? If so, she had absolutely nothing to hide. Health and safety regulations were followed to the letter. He could search for fault, but he wouldn’t find it. She adored her doggy guests and treated every one as if it were her own.

But she could not shrug off the fact that Nick Whalen made her feel edgy. It was as if he were assessing her and not liking much what he saw. Could he detect the fear and hurt she was trying so hard to conceal from the world?

Not far from the top of the list of those hurts was the fact that she—the woman who not so long ago had been voted the gal American men most wanted to lick all over—had been dumped by email on Valentine’s Day.

The humiliating episode was something she’d rather the beyond-handsome Yorki-poo owner did not pick up on. Darn that dumb love-heart toy.

She cleared her throat. “So far, so good,” she said as she continued to watch the dogs.

Had he noticed the mortifying way she’d cringed when he’d stepped too close, too quickly? Surely after all that counseling she should be over that kind of reaction by now?

She stole a sideward glance at the tall, muscular hunk. He caught her gaze, and she forced herself to meet it. Even to pull her lips back in a smile. He was a potential client, and she had to act as professionally as possible.

“So far, so good,” he agreed, indicating the dogs with a nod. “No need to worry about these two.”

Bessie rolled over on her back in a total pose of submission to Snowball, whose flag of a white tail was wagging furiously as he trotted around her. Serena could swear he was grinning and her forced smile widened to something heartfelt. She reached down to pat her beloved pet.

“Good boy,” she murmured. The little Maltese had earned his treats for the day. With bonus.

Delighted by the animals’ behavior, Serena dared a full-on gaze into Nick Whalen’s chiseled face. “If Snowball could talk, I think he’d beg Bessie to stay. I guess you could call it love at first sight. That is, if they weren’t both, uh . . . altered.”

Ohmigod, there she was stumbling over that word again.

“That is, if you attributed human emotion to dogs,” he said.

Was that a challenge? If so, she chose not to meet it.

The love-heart incident might already have him thinking she was a teensy bit weird. He balked at the term “dog-kid.” If she argued too fiercely in defense of the concept of dogs falling in love, she could lose herself a new client.

“Which of course you do not,” she conceded with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “And I . . . I respect your belief.”

Though she certainly didn’t agree with it.

Imagine him not realizing that dogs had real feelings and formed lasting bonds with other dogs—not to mention humans? To her that was incomprehensible. She knew from experience that dogs loved and grieved with real emotion.

“Their behavior looks like plain old instinct to me,” he said, “neutered or not.”

She bit down on a defensive reply. “Instinct? I guess you could call it that.”

This guy was definitely a stranger in a strange land when it came to dog world.
Except for that fussy bow on the Yorki-poo’s forelock.
That still did not add up.

She took a deep breath. “Whatever your opinion might be on doggy emotion,” she said in her best dog-professional voice, “Bessie has proved herself to be one well-socialized little animal. I’m with Snowball on that.”

“So she’s passed her temperament test?”

“So far with flying colors. Now all I need to see is how she copes with the playroom and meeting the other dogs. Want to bring her through?”

Serena stepped past the powerfully built man, careful to keep a more-than-shoulder-brushing distance away.

But it was only as she escaped into the adjoining room that the realization struck her: in that long moment when her hand had been trapped by his much bigger, stronger one, she hadn’t panicked.

No. In such intimate proximity to the Yorki-poo owner, her heart had been racing and her breathing tight for an altogether different reason.

 

 

Immediately
after Nick stepped into the playroom he was assailed by the smell of dog. Not dirty dog. Or dog mess. Just dog. You either liked it or you didn’t. And the good, clean smell of dog had only happy connotations for him.

But to him dogs were animals that earned their keep. They guarded property. Worked on farms. Used their superior senses to sniff out contraband.