Adopt-a-Dad

by Marion Lennox

  He thought this through and found an immediate flaw. Or rather, the flaw was looking at him again. “You intend on taking Socks with you?”

  “I…” She faltered. “I guess I’ll find a place where I can take him.”

  “There’s no landlord that’ll take a dog like this.”

  “I don’t need to stay in the city,” she said calmly, as if this was a decision she’d made hours ago. “I can go out into the country somewhere. Get a place to stay on a farm or something.”

  “Oh, sure,” he mocked. “Farms take in dogs like Socks all the time. And you can always race from a farm to my place at a moment’s notice when immigration officials arrive asking questions. They were here tonight.”

  “Here!” Her eyes widened. “You mean at your home?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, Michael.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, flinching at the fear in her eyes. “They think you’re safely in bed. In my bed. They had no right to search, and I didn’t let them in. But if you think you can stay someplace else…”

  “I must be able to,” she said in distress. “I must!” The fear was still there, with a hint of something else. The knowledge of being trapped?

  That was pretty much how he was feeling, Michael acknowledged bleakly. Claustrophobic. Closed in. Hell, they’d done this in such a rush they hadn’t thought it through.

  But if he’d had time, would he have acted differently? Michael found himself searching his heart as he watched the misery on her face. Would he have done the same thing? Or would he have waved her off to Mexico alone, to face childbirth and her future with nothing and nobody?

  No way! He saw the courage in her eyes and knew he would do no such thing. He’d hurt her this afternoon, he’d hurt her badly. She’d come here to try to figure out a way to get out of his life-for his sake, not her own. Here she was, distress on her face, and it was all on his account, not hers. He’d caused it by showing her how unhappy he was with their situation.

  “Hey, Jen.” Reaching out, he touched her face. It was cool, as if the damp and fog had penetrated. She gave an involuntary shiver, and he flinched. Guilt swept in like a physical kick in the rear. Hell, he was being a total jerk. He’d suggested this. He’d married Jenny, despite her doubts. His sense of honor was telling him to accept that fact and move on.

  “Come on, Jenny,” he said gently. “Let’s take Socks to the pound and get you home.”

  The fear and distress changed in an instant. Her eyes searched his, and her mouth tightened to stubbornness. “No, Michael, I can’t.”

  “Can’t?”

  “Socks is not going to the pound. I’m sorry, but…”

  “You’re not seriously suggesting we keep him? Jenny, that’s impossible.”

  “I am keeping him.”

  “But…”

  “If you won’t let me move to the country, and if I have to stay with you, then I’m sorry, but he’ll have to stay with us, too.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, I know I’m being a pest and I know you don’t want me to stay, but you’re out all day. He won’t cause any trouble. You’ll see. You’ll hardly know he’s there. And it’s only for the next few weeks…while I need to stay.”

  “Jenny, I am not a dog person.”

  “You’re kidding.” She put her hand down and brought the dog’s face out from where it had been pressed against her breast. Gently, she raised it so those great brown eyes were looking straight at Michael. He stared down and tried to look away-and couldn’t.

  “How can you say you’re not a dog person?” she asked reproachfully. “You look Socks in the eye and tell me that. He’s the most wonderful dog.”

  “You know nothing about him.” Michael glared, and the dog-Socks-looked soulfully back. “He’s probably vicious.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Her voice was mocking. “You see how terrified I am.”

  “When he’s been fed he might have a totally different personality.”

  The dog whimpered and licked Jenny’s hand. Good grief, he really was the strangest-looking mutt. His golden-brown hair was straggly and moth-eaten, and he looked as if he hadn’t had a bath in years. But he gazed at Jenny with a slavish adoration that said if he had a choice of half a side of beef or Jenny, he’d choose Jenny any day. Vicious? Well, maybe not.

  “Yeah, one sniff of red meat and he turns into Attila the Hun!” Jenny was seeing exactly what he was seeing. She chuckled and ran her fingers under the dog’s ears. The dog looked mutely at her. “I’d like to see that.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” Michael said bluntly, trying not to think about what her fingers were doing. Trying not to imagine what those fingers could do if they touched him. “For Pete’s sake, Jen, you’re probably catching all sorts of diseases right at this minute.”

  “I must have already caught ’em,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve been cuddling him for hours. He’s staying.”

  “There’s a no-pets clause in my title,” he said, driven against the wall and still fighting, but Jenny shook her head. Her eyes were mischievous. Honestly, she was like a chameleon, flashing from one mood to the next.

  “Nope. Nice try, though. The lady living next door to you in the very same block has a pug called Basil. I met her this evening and was introduced to Basil in person.”

  “You met Mavis?” He stared at her, appalled.

  “Yep. Is there anything wrong with that?”

  Michael groaned. “Jenny, Mavis is the biggest busybody in the neighborhood. What on earth did you tell her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you tell her we were married?”

  “Well, I sort of had to,” she confessed. “She kept asking, and what was I supposed to say? So I did, but it made me feel dreadful. Like it was an invasion of your privacy-to have some strange woman running around saying she’s your wife.” She struggled to her feet, still holding the dog, rejecting Michael’s hand as he made to help her. “No. I can manage on my own.” She took another deep breath, searching for words. “I’m sorry, Michael, but I’m afraid that’s the last time I’m going to say it. If I keep feeling guilty I’ll go under. So let’s forget the sorries, forget the guilts and just take Socks home and get on with it.”

  “Take Socks home?”

  “And me. And the bump.” She smiled, but there was lingering anxiety behind her eyes as if she was expecting to be slapped. This woman had been slapped more than once in her life, Michael realized, and the thought made him feel ill.

  “Jen…” But she was still speaking.

  “Take your wife, our unborn child and our dog home to bed,” she said gently. “Welcome to domesticity, Michael Lord. We somehow seem to have jumped right in at the deep end, but I’m afraid there’s nothing for us to do but to swim. Together.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  S WIMMING was a very good description of what came next. Michael carried Socks home. “He’s too weak to walk, and I’ll carry him if you won’t,” Jenny decreed, so he had no choice but to carry the misbegotten bag of bones. By the time they reached the front door they were both scratching. Socks, it seemed, came with friends. Jenny fed him four TV dinners, which appeared to hardly ease his hunger, and then they had no choice but to fill the tub and soak off the unwanted visitors.

  Socks had agreed entirely with his dining arrangements. The bathroom plans, however, were not so much to his liking. Jenny had been right in deciding there wasn’t a vicious bone in his body, but Socks had his own way of objecting. By the time he was up to his neck in water and soaped to the eyebrows, his two new owners were soaked to the skin.

  “There’s no need for you to stay,” Michael insisted, aware that Jenny must be exhausted after sitting for so long on the riverbank. “Go shower and change.”

  “You can handle him?”

  “Sure I can handle him.” Michael fixed Socks with a look. “Can’t I, Socks?”

  In answer, Socks shook himself again, and water sprayed from one end of the laundry room to the o
ther.

  “I’ll leave you boys together then-to bond.” Jenny chuckled, and retired to her own room.

  BOND. HA! The only thing bonding was dirt. Socks was filthy, with ingrained grime that looked as if it hadn’t been touched for decades. Michael used laundry soap and elbow grease, and more laundry soap and more elbow grease, and after fifteen minutes of scrubbing, he finally figured he had nice clean fleas. Too bad about the dog. Still he scrubbed on, knowing it was expected of him.

  Which was truly strange. He didn’t do things because women expected him to. Did he?

  Finally Jenny reappeared, flushed from a hot shower. To Michael’s amazement she was enveloped in his bathrobe and was holding a bottle of dog shampoo and a container of flea powder like trophies of war.

  “How about this?” she asked gleefully, bouncing into the room. It was hard to believe she was eight months pregnant. “It’s courtesy of Mavis. I figured we needed proper stuff to kill the little suckers.”

  Michael stared. He was feeling itchy and scratchy. He was soaked to the skin-he’d decided to hold Socks under until every flea was drowned-and his eyes were suddenly riveted to this bright-eyed, triumphant, pregnant waif of a woman. Wearing his bathrobe.

  She took his breath away.

  “You didn’t visit Mavis like that?” His voice came out sounding like a croak.

  “I sure did, and I even woke her up.” Jenny’s eyes twinkled with guilty mischief. “But she doesn’t mind. Mavis hasn’t had so much excitement in years. What with your callers earlier this evening-I gather they were sniffing around asking questions-and me wearing your bathrobe and announcing we were married, I doubt she’ll get back to sleep all night.”

  He groaned. “Great! It’ll be all over the neighborhood by dawn.”

  “Mmm.” She cast a doubtful look at him. “Does that bother you?”

  “No, but…”

  “I’m not saying sorry anymore, Michael,” she said resolutely. “We’re in this together. Can I shampoo him now while you have a shower?”

  “No.” He took the shampoo from her and emptied half of it into the tub. Socks almost visibly flinched. “I’m soaked to the skin already, and there are fleas doing the backstroke in here. Hunting and killing is man’s work. Clear out, lady, while I do the dreadful deed. I’ll bring him out to you after I’ve toweled him dry.”

  “Are you sure?” Jenny gazed doubtfully at her bedraggled mutt, who looked even more doubtfully at her. “Poor Socks. He looks so sad.”

  “He’s sad!” It was all Michael could do not to utter an expletive. “I’m itchy, I’m half drowned and I’ve been told I’m adopting a dog who’s half Shetland pony and half goat-and he looks sad!”

  “I guess I can leave you to your fun,” Jenny said, chuckling. “I’ll plug in the hair dryer in your doggy salon-I mean, in your living room-and wait for you there.”

  She ducked and bolted for cover as a sodden towel whizzed straight at her head.

  DOG SALON or living room? Ha! It was neither. Michael’s living room looked as if it had never been used in its life. White shag carpet, white sofa, glass coffee table with designer fruit bowl and designer fruit.

  Jenny picked up an apple and took a bite, amazed to find it was real. His housekeeper must go to heaps of trouble with this fruit bowl, she thought, selecting and arranging each piece like an artwork. She grinned as she looked down, suppressing an almost irresistible urge to take a bite from every piece and leave it like that.

  “Cut it out, Jenny Morrow,” she said. “You let Michael’s beautiful artwork be.”

  But the fire was a different thing. It, too, looked designer perfect, with pine cones and logs set in artful symmetry. The firebricks in the back were still white. It really hadn’t been used. Austin’s climate was mild in fall and winter, but Jenny was still feeling the dampness of the riverbank, and the thought of crackling logs was definitely appealing. After all, she was going to live here, too.

  No more apologies.

  She took a match from the beautiful white ceramic container on the white mantel and watched guiltily as the flames flickered into life. Then she stuck her bare toes out to the warmth and sighed with sheer sensual pleasure. Yes!

  That was how Michael found her when he hauled the towel-dried Socks in from the laundry room. She was sitting staring into the flames, and for once, his living room looked lovely.

  No. Jenny looked lovely.

  She glanced at him, her eyes dancing in the firelight. When she held out her hands to greet her wet dog, Michael felt his gut wrench in a way it never had before.

  “I… He’s all yours.” Heck, his voice sounded strangled. “I’ll just go take a shower myself.”

  He practically bolted out the door, with Jenny looking strangely after him.

  IT TOOK MICHAEL twenty minutes to shower, anoint his various bites and regain his composure. When he returned, he found a transformation of gigantic proportions.

  Dirty, flea-ridden and starved, Socks had looked appalling. When he was wet, every rib had stood out and he looked bedraggled and sodden, all big eyes and droopy ears.

  But now, blow dried and brushed with love… Michael stopped at the living room door and stared.

  Socks would never win any pedigree dog prizes, but his coat was a gorgeous honey color. His ears were a mass of rippling silken fur, and the rest of his coat would soon match. Jenny was lying full length on her side on the carpet before the fire, still in his red bathrobe, gently stroking the dog’s matted fur over and over. The two of them made an amazing splash of color in the golden firelight.

  Jenny had a brush in one hand and a hair dryer in the other, and there was a pair of businesslike scissors on the floor beside her. She picked them up as he walked in and waved them in his direction.

  “Great. We need one person on brush and one person on scissors. He has king-size mats under his tummy. They stink like crazy when you put them on the fire.”

  Michael blinked. The tableau before him was almost surrealistic.

  Socks, however, was enjoying himself to the hilt, sitting up in front of the fire as if he was on show. When Jenny mentioned his matted fur, he tucked his head under his chest and looked down, as if inspecting his belly for himself. And then he returned his gaze to Jenny.

  Good grief. The dog was practically purring.

  I would be, too, Michael thought, dazed, staring at them in stunned amazement, if Jenny was brushing me!

  It was a ridiculous thought. Somehow he shoved it aside and knelt to take the scissors from Jenny’s hand. Their fingers brushed briefly as she passed them to him, and the feeling was like an electric shock striking right through his body. It was as much as he could do not to pull away as if burned.

  “Oh, Michael, you’re flea-bitten.” She looked sympathetically at the red splotches on his chest. He’d hauled on a pair of jeans but left his chest bare, all the better to apply calamine lotion. She reached out a finger to touch, but he pulled back. No way.

  “You…you must be, too.” He sounded like an embarrassed schoolkid. Why the heck wasn’t she feeling this strange charge between them?

  “Nope.” She grinned. “Or not very much. You must be fatter. They always chew the fat ones first.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s true,” she said seriously. “My dad always said that.”

  “And he was a flea expert? I though you said he was a miner.”

  “His hobby was entomology.” She gave him a cheeky look. “An entomologist is someone who studies insects.”

  “I know what an entomologist is,” he said, goaded.

  “Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry at all. “I just thought, you being American and all…”

  “You’re saying my knowledge of the Queen’s English isn’t all it ought to be?”

  “I expect you’ll get it right sometime,” she said kindly. “Just as soon as you learn to spell.”

  “Yeah, right.” It had been a major source of conflict between them in the months she’
d been his secretary. She’d type center as centre. He’d change it, and she’d patiently change it back again. He’d given up in the end, letting her spell as she darn well pleased, and he gave in now. Anything for a quiet life!

  “Okay. Okay. So what’s a coal miner doing with a hobby like entomology?”

  “Contrary to what Gloria believes, being a miner didn’t make my father ignorant,” she said. She glared, defying him to argue. “There was no money to educate him, so my dad left school after grade eight, but he kept right on learning.”

  “He studied insects in his spare time?”

  “So did my mother,” she said proudly. “They wrote a great research paper that’s still widely acclaimed all about the habits of bumblebees. I remember hours and hours with my parents, tracking individual bumblebees-only we kept getting them confused. It’s very hard to tell one bee from another, you know. Unless…” Her voice grew thoughtful. “Unless you’re another bumblebee, I guess.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  She didn’t seem to notice his amusement, or the way he was watching her. He couldn’t keep his eyes from her.

  “In the end my father roped them with a piece of fine thread, and we’d run around the garden with our chosen bumblebee tied on our line like a kite,” she told him. She chuckled. “It was a good piece of research. There aren’t many kids whose dad gets home from work, grabs his string and heads out to the garden to rope bumblebees.”

  “I can see that,” Michael said faintly. He hesitated, still watching the firelight flickering over her face. “It’s a good memory to have.”

  “It’s part of me,” she said softly, lifting a tuft of Socks’s hair for inspection. “Cut here, Michael. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I mean, my parents-they’re part of who I am, and if this little one inside me starts following bumblebees, then I’ll be really proud. I’ll know where it comes from.”

  She paused, as if unsure whether to continue. But she did. “Don’t you feel that about your own birth parents? That you need to know them-that there’s a part of you missing?”