Must Love Wieners (7 page)

She didn’t mind, since the hours were better than her previous clinical placement and she only had to work the occasional weekend shift. The reduced hours allowed her to take more telegram gigs, even when she was on call. However, one time she had to deliver a litter of kittens dressed as a sexy gladiator. Now she carried a spare change of clothes with her at all times. Her car was like a closet on wheels.

Heading across the parking lot to meet Aiden, she almost wished she’d worn something nicer, not a cotton tank and an old pair of sneakers. But she wasn’t interviewing for a position at Caldwell and Son Investments, just as the son’s dog walker. And she definitely looked the part. Plain old dog walker Piper.

“Hi.” He stood up when she got closer. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Hey. Sorry we’re late.”

He gave her a brisk handshake. Again with the handshake, she thought. “That’s okay. Traffic?”

“No. I’m infected with perpetual late-itis. The doctor says it’s terminal.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Aiden said in mock seriousness. “Terrible diagnosis. My cousin had that.”

“Oh, what happened to him?” she asked, clipping Colin’s leash on.

“He said he’d meet me for lunch one day. I’m still waiting.” He shook his head, his expression grim. “I don’t like to talk about it much.”

She laughed. “Come on. The dog park’s this way. We can let them off their leashes there.”

“Sure. Lead the way.” He grabbed his jacket and folded it over an arm. “Come on, Sophie.”

She stared at him from where she lounged on the mowed grass. He jiggled her leash, but she stayed put, resisting his tugs. Piper whistled through her teeth and called her.

Sophie heaved a sigh to say,
Oh, very well,
and jumped to her feet, deigning to join them.

Aiden laughed. “I guess she still doesn’t know who’s boss.”

“Oh, if you wanted to be boss, you chose the wrong breed. You’ll have to settle for administrative assistant.”

“Or mailroom boy.”

He followed her to the main trail, where they could walk side by side. The dogs stopped often to sniff out the new territory. It was busy, so they had to weave in and out of other people, giving Piper an excuse to watch the trail and keep her eyes averted from the temptation next to her. To forget about his glimmery eyes, and his adorable ruffled hair, and that one little dimple, not two, just one, and how could she have missed that before?

Not realizing she’d been staring at him, Piper tripped over a hump in the pavement and stumbled a few feet. After that, she kept her eyes straight ahead, reminding herself over and over again that this was an interview, not a date. Definitely, almost certainly, probably not. Right?

“So,” Aiden eventually said, “I wanted to spend a little time together today to make sure…”

“That I’m not a crazy person?” she offered.

He chuckled and ran a hand through his scruffy hair. “Well, I wasn’t going to put it quite that way. But yes. Before I hand over the keys to my home, it would be comforting to know you don’t have any psychotic tendencies.”

“Only when I don’t have access to my daily dose of chocolate.”

“Duly noted.”

They reached a large area where wood chips littered the ground. Piper stopped to set Colin free and Aiden did the same for Sophie. The off-leash area spanned about an acre in size, surrounded by leafy green trees and plenty of benches where many of the owners were happy to sit and enjoy the shade.

“Here.” Piper dug into her pocket and pulled out a gnarled tennis ball. “I thought our meeting could be both work and play.”

She tossed it to him and he caught it. “Oh, good. But just so you know, I’m not usually one to mix business with pleasure.”

Piper knew he meant it as a joke. It was a tennis ball, after all, but the words struck her as familiar. He’d said the same thing the day before in her taxi. She recalled the straight-faced businessman at the office, the formal handshakes, and now he was wearing a suit in a park—with a pocket square, she couldn’t help but notice.

Back when she’d helped her mother move to live near Ethan, they’d all gone to dinner together. He’d flashed his exclusive credit card, turning it in plain sight ten minutes before the bill came. Several times throughout the evening, he jingled his BMW keys with the big blue and white key chain in his hands when it was nowhere near. And while they were in the middle of dinner, he answered a call on his Bluetooth—still tucked in his ear—and began speaking loud enough so everyone could hear about his oh-so-important legal cases because he was such a big-time lawyer.

They were what he considered the badges of his new status, the things he thought made him better than where he came from—a farm in Oregon. It was a persona he wore, a mask of permanent fakeness, of empty gestures, leaving nothing but a hollow personality beneath it. Gone was the little boy she grew up with.

She appraised Aiden with a lingering look. “You know what they say, ‘All work and no play…’”

“Hmm, nope. Don’t think I ever heard that one,” he teased. “What do they say will happen?”

“Oh, something about kidney stones or blindness.”

“Well, in that case.” He whistled. “Sophie.”

Both dogs perked up. Aiden threw the ball in the air and caught it again, mesmerizing them. Hypnotized, they watched his arm draw back. The moment he released it, both Sophie and Colin took off like they were hot on the trail of a badger, their natural quarry.

Piper laughed, watching Colin fight Sophie for the toy like it was to the death. “Colin doesn’t understand the words ‘not your ball.’ Every ball is Colin’s ball. On the plus side, I’ve made lots of friends at dog parks because of it.”

“And Colin some enemies?” Aiden asked.

“No way.” Colin brought her the ball and she ruffled his fur in congratulations. “Look at this face. How can you hate this face?”

As she said this, Sophie tackled Colin and they went rolling. Sophie came back with wood chips stuck in her long red fur, and Aiden bent down to pick some of them out. “Well, these two seem to be the best of friends.”

“Yeah, they love each other. They grew up together. After I adopted Colin, he still came back to the center with me to visit her.”

“But you only adopted Colin?”

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t take both home with me. I shouldn’t have a dog at all. My landlord would kill me if he knew.”

She tossed the ball back across the lot again. The dogs raced for it, wood chips flying up in their wake. Finding the shadiest bench, Piper took a seat and curled her legs up next to her. Aiden had to hitch his pant legs up a little to sit but tried to look casual, slinging an arm across the back of the bench.

Piper studied him out of the corner of her eye. If Aiden wore the same mask as her brother, he wore it so flawlessly, without having to flash his badges around, that Piper wondered if it was a mask at all.

But what did it matter? She came there for one reason—a job interview. Aiden was just her potential boss. However, when she recalled the final notices in her mailbox that morning she knew it wasn’t
just
a job. It was her best shot at staying afloat.

She eyed her tank top and shorts wondering once again if she shouldn’t have worn something different, maybe with a collar, or at least something that didn’t show her bra straps. After all, dog walking wasn’t to be taken lightly in San Francisco. It was a cutthroat job market. Not to mention the turf wars that occurred over dog-walking territory between the walkers. It was dog-eat-dog—no pun intended.

Aiden still looked relaxed and effortless in his suit next to her, playing with the dogs each time they returned with the ball. Nothing had changed between her and Aiden, but Piper grew tense. But he offered her the job in the first place, she reasoned, so surely she had nothing to worry about. Then again, if it were that easy why would he need to interview her? Straightening up on the bench, she crossed her legs. That was professional, right?

She cleared her throat. “So, what else can I tell you about myself to prove my sanity?” she asked.

“Maybe you can tell me about yourself. Your hobbies, your goals.” He said it straight-faced like he was reading off a list of interview questions. “Your friend at the center said you’re training to be a veterinarian. Tell me more about that.”

“I’m in my fourth year, well, eighth if you count my undergrad. I have two more weeks of practicum left before I graduate.”

The tennis ball fell at her feet and she paused to toss it again. When she leaned back, Aiden’s dark green eyes were focused on her. Maybe it was a tactic, like one of the seven habits of highly effective communicators. Eye contact would be one, surely. But then why did his lingering gaze cause her cheeks to ignite?

“So you don’t treat the dogs at the rescue center?”

“Oh no. Nothing like that,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. I’d like to open my own veterinary clinic one day.”

“That’s ambitious.”

She shrugged it off, feeling self-conscious. She knew it would be tough. It would mean remaining in her run-down apartment, working a lot of overtime, scrimping, saving, having more sleepless nights. But it would be fine. She knew she could do it. She
would
do it. And at the end of it all, she’d look back and say she did it all on her own.

Sophie won the battle this time, and she brought the ball to Aiden. He bent down to wrestle with her for a minute, but her grip was too strong. Eventually, he gave up fighting her, and she dropped the ball of her own free will. She sat on her haunches and waited for him to pick it up, staring at him like,
Come on. What are you waiting for?

He chuckled before lobbing the ball across the expansive park. “Where do you want to work once you graduate?”

“Anywhere, really,” Piper said. “But I want to be able to volunteer more time at the center. Right now we don’t have the facilities or money to treat the serious cases that come in. Using an outside vet seriously drains our funds, which prevents us from taking more dogs off the euthanasia lists around the city.”

“Really? That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. It is. Once I’m licensed, hopefully I can prevent some of that. We try to save as many dogs as we can and help find them good homes.”

He nodded like he’d ticked off another question on his mental list. “So I’d like to go over some of the details of the job and what would be expected.”

“All right.” Piper didn’t think she could sit up any straighter.

“The wage will be seventy dollars. You can come over—”

“Seventy dollars a day?” Piper interrupted.

“No. Seventy an hour.”

“An hour?” she blurted. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

He hesitated, blinking in surprise. “Is it not enough?”

“Enough?” Piper stared at him like he was the crazy one now. “It’s too much.” She wondered what would possess him to offer such a ridiculous wage. Who did he think she was, Cesar Millan?

Suddenly, she remembered stumbling into Aiden’s office the day before wearing hardly anything and how he’d followed her down to the taxi afterward. Of course. He’d jumped to the same conclusions so many telegram customers had before.

Piper received this kind of treatment all the time, requests for “private parties” or “photo shoots.” How did she not see it before? Probably because she’d never had a request for a dog walker. Plus there was something about Aiden Caldwell. She’d expected more class from the man.

He doesn’t mix business with pleasure my ass, she thought.

She jumped to her feet and swiped Colin’s leash off the bench. He scampered over with the ball, ready to play some more, but the moment he saw the expression on her face he dropped it. She clipped on his leash and turned back to Aiden.

“Look, Mr. Caldwell, I don’t know what kind of girl you think I am, but clearly you have the wrong idea about me.”

Aiden stared at her openmouthed as she spun on her heel and began to march right out of the park.

7

Never Mix Business with Wieners

Piper stomped back the way they’d come through the dog park—which was difficult to do on wood chips—burning with mortification. She should have seen it coming. A sexy CEO offering her a job the moment she needed it most? How desperate did he think she was? Piper, you idiot, she told herself. Of course it was too good to be true.

“Wait a minute!” Aiden called out to her.

She didn’t turn back. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, weaving through the packed dog park. The crowd had grown since she last noticed. She’d been too busy ogling the man who wanted to proposition her for … well, who knew what.

When Aiden caught up to her, Sophie was in one arm, his coat in the other. “Hold on a second. Wait. You’re mad because I’m offering you too much money?”

She spun to face him. “Seventy dollars an hour? What exactly are you expecting for that kind of wage? Another lap dance like yesterday?”

“I expect you to walk my dog.” His voice rose with what she guessed was insult. “It might be more than your average pay, but that’s what it’s worth to me.”

“You can hire anyone else in this city for less than half that.”

“I’m not asking anyone else,” he said. “I’m asking you.”

Piper gave him a hard stare, trying to figure out what game he was playing. She recalled her original fear, that he pitied her. And to her, that was worse than propositioning her. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not a charity case, either.”

He held his hands up in defense. “I never said you were.”

“Fine,” she relented. “But I earn my way. I work hard for my money.” She said it like a warning.

“Then earn it. What will it take? Negotiate with me. I’m all ears.” Aiden brought a hand up to where his tie should be, but he seemed surprised to find it missing, like he didn’t often take a day off. His demeanor turned all business again, but this time he was giving her the power.

She felt her breathing even out as he waited for her counteroffer. “Well,” she began. “I’ll accept seventy dollars a day, but I’ll be walking Sophie for two hours.”

“An hour and a half,” he countered.

“An hour and forty-five.”