As he and Jack chased the dog down a hallway, Tyler managed to give his friend a condensed version of the briefing. They finally caught up with Harvey in a break room, where the dog paused to bury his nose in someone's lunchbox.
"Hey, my wife made those sandwiches."
Jim 'Puffy' Ferguson was a classic cut-up. The one thing he didn't joke about was his food. He claimed that his extra hundred-and-fifty pounds gave him insulation from the furnaces where he worked. He hadn't missed a meal in all the years Tyler had known him.
Tyler snapped on Harvey's leash, then tossed Puffy a fifty. "Have lunch on me, Puffy. And thanks for your help catching the dog."
"Can't get much of a lunch at Le Bec Fin for fifty." Puffy named one of the most exclusive restaurants in town.
"Don't push your luck."
Tyler gave Harvey some water, walked him near the bushes outside the factory to let him do his business and then tugged him back to the car. So much for his meeting plans. But he didn't dare cancel his meeting with Courtney Zane. She was Harvey's last hope.
"We're going to see Courtney again, Harvey," Jack said as the dog gnawed on his leather upholstery. He talked not because he thought the dog understood, but because the sound of his voice did seem to calm Harvey down. Harvey stopped chewing and his ears pricked up. "The pretty lady's going to let you lie down on her couch, let you tell her all about your rough childhood and your feelings about your mother, and then put you on some sort of doggy-Prozac. You'll be a zoned out but happy camper in no time."
Pretty lady? Where had that come from? Between his sleep deprivation and Harvey's howls, he was losing it. Sure the pet psychologist had a smile that grabbed him in the gut, but he normally went for tall leggy blondes rather than short curvy brunettes. Besides, she could be as ugly as Puffy if she could get the job done.
During Philadelphia's rush hour, it took close to an hour to cover the short distance between his office and home. At eleven in the morning, it barely took five minutes. Which was lucky. His Mercedes was well soundproofed, which meant that the noise stayed inside, where he was. And Harvey made plenty of noise.
He pulled into his circular driveway, parked behind a battered Toyota 4Runner, snapped Harvey's leash on before opening his car door, and headed up the walkway to his home.
Courtney was sitting on his front step, reading some sort of animal magazine, and tapping her foot impatiently. Her breath steamed against the cold. He was late.
"We had a delay at the plant," he explained.
"Oh, that's okay." The firm set of her mouth said otherwise. She stood, her eyes firmly aimed at Harvey.
Tyler couldn't understand why the aim of her gaze should bother him. He was paying her to help with his dog, after all. So why shouldn't she pay attention to the animal rather than the man?
She brushed her hands over Harvey's golden coat and stopped abruptly when the dog winced. "What have you done to him?"
"What?"
"He's burned. He wasn't injured when he was in my office two hours ago."
Damn. Tyler hadn't noticed. He'd assumed that Harvey's noise was his standard complaining, not something specific. "He got loose in the plant. There are lots of ways to get injured there. I didn't realize he'd gotten hurt."
She nodded, but Tyler didn't miss the way Courtney rolled her eyes. She thought he'd been careless: simply let his dog get hurt. Well, in a way she was right. He shouldn't have let Harvey escape. This whole dog thing was new to him. Growing up, his parents had vetoed all pets. Children could be packed off to boarding school, so they rarely interfered with anything important. But dogs were too much trouble.
"We might as well get on with it, Mr. Atwood."
He opened the door to his home and ushered him inside. "Mr. Atwood was my father." Even at the mill, he'd done away with the formalities. Everyone was on a first-name basis.
She sighed, then nodded. "All right, Tyler. I'm Courtney."
Which he already knew.
What he hadn't known was how a pair of jeans would transform her. In her office, she'd been wearing a sort of shapeless dress covered by a funky apron. Now, as she stripped off her heavy coat, he saw that Courtney had changed to a far more practical pair of jeans and a form-fitting t-shirt that hinted at some damned nice curves.
He reminded himself to stay focused on the problem--the dog--but it wasn't easy. Harvey had put a crimp in his dating life and he was feeling female-deprived. That had to explain why his body was responding so intensely to Courtney. She was simply the closest available attractive woman. Once Harvey got back under control, Tyler could rejoin his Philadelphia's social whirl and he'd get back to normal.
"Well, we're here. Why don't you go ahead and run your assessment," he offered. "Let me know when you need me."
"I don't need you, Mr. Atwood."
"Tyler," he reminded her. "And you damned well better need me. That meeting with the Minister was important."
"Tyler," she corrected herself. "As I said, I don't need you. Harvey needs you. I'm not assessing Harvey alone, I'm watching the two of you together."
Harvey interrupted by giving his own opinion of the whole shooting match--a singularly high-pitched howl that rattled his windows in their frames.
"Right. Assessment of both of us."
Fortunately, the cleaning crew had made their daily stop. The shattered bottles and crystal glassware had been boxed up and removed, his shoes had been triaged, and the mortally wounded couch had been covered by some sort of blanket and shoved into a corner.
Courtney's eyes widened as she looked around his expansive entryway. "By the way, nice place."
He thought she was being sarcastic for a moment. The cleaning crew hadn't been able to save the Persian rug and the bare space where his sofa and his grandmother's antique chair had been looked like a gaping wound, but Courtney was serious.
"Thanks."
She nodded but she had already moved on. She had a tape measure and was quickly casing the place, measuring accessways.
He had to admire her energy--and the calm way she quieted Harvey with a kind word, a quick scratch to his ears, and another of the tiny treats she seemed to produce from nowhere.
"Does Harvey have a dog door?" she demanded.
"Uh, no. My back yard isn't exactly dog proof, either. But I've hired people to stay with him. They take him out whenever he wants."
Her pause would have been imperceptible if he hadn't been watching closely. "You hired servants for your dog?"
He backpedaled. "Not servants. Dog trainers. They watch him during the day while I'm at work. They're supposed to keep him from destroying too much and maybe teach him to keep his howling under control. I've averaged two citations a day for creating a public nuisance ever since Harvey moved in."
If he expected sympathy, he didn't get it. "What about you?"
"Me?"
"How much time does he spend with the servants and how much with you?"
Tyler was used to tough, in-your-face negotiations but he hadn't expected confrontation from a pretty pet psychologist. "I have long days at the mill. I get home when I can. When I'm not traveling, we go for a run in the morning."
"About how long do you spend with him in the evenings?" She wasn't ready to drop this.
He shrugged. "No special amount of time. I bring work home, but I let Harvey stay with me--until his howling drives me nuts, anyway.
"Then what?"
"Then I have a petsitter come in. Except I'm all out of those too."
"One hour? Two hours?" She wasn't going to give up. "Guess how much time."
He considered. "Realistically? Half an hour, tops. I've got a lot going on."
Courtney shook her head. "Okay, basically no time other than a morning run. You say you've taken him to the vet?"
"Yeah. Uh, had him taken."
"I need to see the reports?"
He dug the paperwork out of a file in his den and handed it over feeling like a chastised child.
Courtney
flipped through the charts, obviously comfortable with what she was seeing.
Tyler glanced down at his dog. The traitor was blissfully quiet, panting slightly with the tip of his tongue protruding from his mouth. Harvey's rapturous gaze at Courtney spoke to the animal's belief that she was the queen of the universe. So much for a dog being a man's best friend.
"Sit down, please, Mr. uh, Tyler."
When his father had died in an auto accident, the police had made the family sit down first. Since then, those words had always made Tyler nervous.
"The vets said he was physically healthy," he said. "Except for a sore throat, which every single one of them said was caused by excessive baying."
Courtney led him to the remains of his sofa and sat him down. Despite his concerns for Amanda's dog, he couldn't help noticing that Courtney's hands felt good against his arms. The pet psychologist was a small person, probably a foot shorter than his own six foot two. But her hands were strong and confident.
He tried to avoid the worst of the holes in his sofa as he sat down, but that was an impossible task. A spring jabbed through the seat of his pants--and ripped.
Great. Now he'd have to stay sitting down or Courtney would think he was flashing her.
"Give me the bad news. I can take it. What is poor Harvey's problem?"
Courtney shook her head. "You've got it completely wrong, Tyler. Harvey isn't the problem."
"You've got to be kidding. You should see the bills. Harvey's been howling, destroying everything--"
"Harvey isn't the problem," she repeated. "You are."
Chapter 2
Courtney could really have used the money from a steady counseling job. She could have snowed Tyler, let him believe that the little things she could do for Harvey were worth his money. She could have, but she took pride in her job. Sometimes that meant giving a client facts that he didn't want to hear. Sometimes it even meant that she didn't get paid at all.
Tyler's face had gone completely calm, almost bloodless. "Explain. How can I be the problem?"
She'd considered the possibility that Tyler would get violent. He was a powerful man used to getting his way--that much she knew just from their brief acquaintance. She'd decided that a cold dismissal was the most likely alternative. She hadn't even considered he might take her seriously and want to do something about it. He was the Tyler Atwood, after all. The man who had brought heavy industry and forty-dollar-an-hour factory jobs back to Philadelphia. The man who had snubbed a visiting foreign dictator who had wanted to use Atwood steel to armor his troops. The man who hired servants to wait on his dog, for goodness sake. Tyler Atwood was Mr. Mr. I-am-the-solution. Everyone knew that Tyler Atwood wasn't the kind of man who'd let some female accuse him of being a problem.
But he did.
For that, he deserved the brutal truth.
"Dogs are like people, Tyler. They need to feel useful. And golden retrievers are among the most loyal, loving and people-oriented animals in the world. Harvey's job was to provide comfort to your sister, to ease her pain as she succumbed to the cancer that medicine couldn't stop. Now, he's a fish out of water." She suppressed the mental image of Mrs. Gamble's poor goldfish. "Harvey has no job and worse, he probably feels he failed at his last one. Amanda died, despite everything he could do. He certainly thinks that being ignored by you is part of his punishment--and he'll put up with even more punishment to be certain to get some attention."
Tyler stayed rock-still on the lumpy-looking sofa. "So I'm supposed to give him a job?"
"Everyone needs a purpose, Tyler. I suppose your purpose was to recreate the industry your great-great-grandfather started here in Philadelphia during the Civil War. Mine is to help animals whose humans drive them crazy. Harvey doesn't know his purpose, and it's making him sad."
"It's making him a menace." Tyler raised his leg quickly as Harvey chose that moment to lunge for it.
"Down."
Harvey responded instantly to Courtney's command, crouching on the ground, looking at her to see her next command.
"Stay." She used a hand signal along with her spoken command.
"Are you a trainer as well as a pet psychologist?" He seemed surprised that Harvey would listen to her. Well, duh.
"Harvey has had plenty of obedience training. He doesn't need a trainer. He needs a job. And he'll continue acting out until he gets one."
Tyler smiled. "Perfect. Tell me what job, and I'll give it to him."
"That's something that might take some time to figure out."
He considered, then nodded. "No problem. I'll pay you to determine what he needs. Starting now, you're full time. I've got a guest suite you can move into tonight."
Courtney hadn't spent ten years busting her tail working menial jobs during the day and studying her eyes out at night for this. "I'm a pet psychologist, Mr. Atwood. I'm not a pet-sitter."
"My place is too big for one person anyway." He flashed her his most winning smile, putting on the negotiating front that had let him buy the abandoned steel works for mostly debt and his good name. "You could run your business from here," he continued, ignoring her frown. "Just for a few weeks, until Harvey is settled down."
It was impossible but, for just a moment, Courtney let herself be tempted. It would be nice to share a house with a man as purely sexy as Tyler. Especially since his house was a Robber Baron mansion she could otherwise see only on the Christmas home tour. But she'd busted her tail to become independent. She'd paid her way through college by shoveling manure out of stables and vet's offices, cleaning motel rooms, and waiting tables. No way was she going to go back to the life she'd had before she'd moved out of her father's house, a life of running to get beers and food for the men like a servant--even if it was for a dog as adorable as Harvey would surely be, once he'd settled down.
"I've already got an office, Mr. Atwood."
"Tyler," he reminded her.
She ignored his interjection. "There are plenty of pet-sitting services out there, Mr. Atwood. But Harvey doesn't need more strangers looking out for him. He doesn't need me, either. He needs you--his owner and companion--to take charge, spend some time with him, and show him what is expected of him. Unless you're willing to make that commitment, you should think about finding Harvey another home. Because until you're ready to make that commitment, not even the best animal behaviorist in the world can help you." She turned toward the door. "I'll mail you your bill."
She fled into the winter cold before Tyler could respond.
* * * *
Tyler and Harvey both watched the fleeing woman. For the first two seconds, Tyler let himself appreciate her trim hips and the sexy little twitch in her step. Wow.
Then Harvey caught on to what was happening. If Tyler thought the animal had been loud before, he now had a chance to redefine his meanings. Because Harvey's high-pitched complaints shook his three-story home all the way to the foundations.
"Your job is to, uh…" It wasn't easy. Tyler was accustomed to being the go-to guy. His mother and his sisters had never demanded jobs--they'd simply told him what they needed and let him provide the money. So how was he supposed to come up with a job for a dog?
Harvey's mournful yap-yap-yap at the sound of Courtney's retreating, and badly backfiring, Toyota SUV clicked Tyler's brain into overdrive.
"Okay, your job is to guard the house."
Harvey didn't look impressed.
"I'll pay you at ten dollars an hour," Tyler went on quickly.
Harvey growled at him.
"I know it's not much, but that's just to start. Chance of promotion to head house-watcher. And a bonus if you catch any thieves."
Harvey walked across the room to where Tyler had abandoned his cashmere coat and urinated on it.
"Guess that's a no on that particular job offer, buddy. Am I reading you right?" He thought a moment longer, trying not to think about how stupid this would look to anyone watching. "How about being my personal trainer? We'll go for a long run every morni
ng and you can tell me to go faster and longer. The pay for that is even better."
Harvey simply went to the door and howled at it.
Oh, yeah. Give the animal a job. Courtney had made it sound so easy. And it had been easy--for her.
He needed her back in his dog's life. Before Harvey destroyed everything he owned. Just for the dog, of course, he assured himself. It wasn't like he needed the aggravation a woman could be.
He stood up--and heard the long rip. He'd forgotten about that couch spring caught in his pants. Damn.
"All right, you. We're out of here." He pulled on a pair of jeans, tugged Harvey to the car, tossed the animal in the back seat, and headed back to the office.
* * * *
A Mercedes interior wasn't cheap. Especially if you'd bought the leather upgrade. By the time he got back to the office and pulled Harvey out, Tyler figured he was out at least three thousand more dollars of dog damage. If she could just get Harvey to change his behavior, hiring Courtney full-time would be cheap at twice her usual rates.
"The Japanese are ready to do the joint venture," Jack told him the instant he stepped into the office. "But the minister was seriously annoyed when he realized you'd stood him up."
Tyler nodded. He hadn't expected anything different. But dealing with Harvey's problems had to come first. He had let his sister down too often when she'd been alive. He should have found a way to make enough money for her to do things like travel and shop while she was still healthy. Instead, he'd earned his fortune after it was already too late for her to enjoy anything. Well, Harvey had been there for Amanda, and Tyler was going to be there for Harvey.
CEO's S.O.S. Page 2
