“We’re closed.” I repeated, this time in a much firmer tone.
He nodded his head, dark hair falling into his eyes. He had a scruffy beard and the first thing I noticed was that his very large nose was crooked like a UFC fighter who had been hit one too many times. The man was tall, definitely taller than my five foot three frame and the leather jacket he wore hugged his broad shoulders. He looked tough, mean and definitely wasn’t someone that I wanted to be in a parking lot alone with.
I didn’t want to be alone with him ever.
“You guys take dogs though, right?” he said, his voice raspy.
“Um, yes. But if you have information about a dog who needs to be rescued then I’d call animal control or-”
He put up a large hand and shook it back and forth, cutting me off. “No, no. It’s nothing like that. I just had a question about a certain dog. I, uh, I lost my puppy and I wanted to know if someone had dropped him off.”
If someone dropped him off? This isn’t a doggy day care, I wanted to growl at him. I was fiercely protective of my animals and I hated the fact that some people treated their pets like they were expendable. Replaceable.
“We haven’t gotten any new rescues in over a week. I’m sorry. When did this happen? I can keep an eye out for him.”
He ran a hand through his greasy hair. “Last night. Late.”
I paused, thinking about my own night last night. Logan. The puppy. The severely injured, malnourished puppy that had been crying on my kitchen counter while I cleaned him up. There was no way that he was talking about that dog, right? That would have been way too much of a coincidence. There were plenty of dogs in the world and we couldn’t have been talking about the same one.
I hoped my face didn’t give anything away as I asked, “Can you give me a description of the dog?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder like he was spooked about something. “Uh, he was… small. He’s only seven weeks old. Just a mutt, you know? Uh, he’s brown and white. His ears are floppy.”
Holy. Shit.
My spine straightened and I nodded my head as my gut told me I needed to get the hell out of the parking lot and go home. “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out and ask around. Do you want to leave your name with me and I’ll get in touch with you if the puppy ends up here?”
“No, uh, no. That’s okay. I’ll come back. Just wanted to see if someone found the little mutt,” he practically growled before taking a few steps back and turning on his heel.
I stood there until he was out of the parking lot and then bolted to my car, jumping in and locking all the doors. The one day I didn’t bring Sadie to work with me and I ended up in the lot with some creepy animal abuser.
I sped out of there and took the winding back roads home, trees lining either side of the road as I drove towards Port James. Confused, angry and scared, I had no idea what was going on. But I had the sneaking suspicion that Logan had the answers to whatever questions I had, and I wasn’t leaving him alone until he told me the truth about what happened last night.
Who could hurt an innocent animal? Who could do something so vile and cruel? Animals just wanted love and affection, especially puppies that didn’t know how to do anything on their own. Any kind of pet relied solely on their owner which was why I was so strict about the adoption process at Arden. I needed to make sure that my dogs didn’t end up with someone like that man who hurt the puppy.
When I got home I jumped out of the car and stormed down the dock, my boots slapping against the faded wood as I went to my own house, let Sadie jump all over me for a few seconds and then charged towards Logan’s with her in tow. He was going to give me answers or I was going to let my dog tear him to pieces.
“Logan!” I shouted and banged my fist against his blood red front door. I could see light from the tv and knew that he was home. He was not going to avoid me. “Logan, open the goddamn door right now!” I said. Sadie was looking up at me with her ears back. It was rare that I ever raised my voice and the poor thing had no idea what to do when I was upset.
I banged the side of my fist against the door again once, twice and on the third time it swung open and my hand connected with something firm.
Too bad it wasn’t just something firm.
I had just hit Logan directly in the mouth and boy did he look pissed.
Chapter 3
“Did you just hit me in the mouth?”
Logan slid his tongue over his lower lip- I’d be lying if I said it didn’t look completely erotic- and then glared at me. “You just hit me in the fucking mouth!”
I’d never hit anyone a day in my life but I really couldn’t say that I regretted it, even if it was an accident. He wasn’t honest with me last night and I was going to get some goddamn answers before I took the dog and went to the police.
Without waiting for an invitation I shouldered my way passed him and into his home. It was nice, sparsely decorated and screamed “perpetual bachelor”. Sadie followed me in and then zoomed past me and jumped on the couch as soon as she realized the puppy was laying down on a pillow. Nose to nose with the much smaller animal, she yipped once and was silent.
“You hit me and come in uninvited?”
I turned and fixed Logan with a frosty glare, my arms folded tightly over my chest. “Tell me why some random man just showed up at my job looking for a seven week old puppy. Tell me why he gave me the exact description of that-” I pointed towards the couch. “Animal.”
Logan held up a hand and turned around, locking the door and peering out the window before turning back to me. “Okay, I need you to tell me what he looked like.”
I raised my eyebrows and guffawed. He had some nerve questioning me as though I was the one who was guilty. Logan was in some sort of trouble with God knows who because of God knows what and he was not going to turn the tables. Did it have something to do with drugs? Money? Drug money? For all I knew I could have been standing in the home of some drug lord who beat up puppies when people didn’t pay up.
My mind was going a mile a minute and I went over to the couch and, carefully, scooped up the injured animal. I had to admit that he seemed much more lively today than last night. He wasn’t shaking and his tail wasn’t between his legs. The gash on his head looked like it was starting to scab, but the one on his paw looked as though he’d been gnawing at it. The poor thing didn’t know any better.
“You tell me what I want to know or I’m taking this dog to the police.”
“No!” Logan shouted and vehemently shook his head, a vein appearing in the long column of his throat as he raised his voice.
Sadie, not appreciating the raised tone, jumped down in front of my legs and gave a low growl, tossing him a clear warning that she was on edge and feeling threatened.
Logan’s eyes widened and he took a small step back, brown eyes bouncing between me and the bulky shepherd. “Look,” he began, much softer. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine. But I need you to promise me that you won’t go to the cops. Please, Juliette. That won’t end well for anyone.”
Maybe I should have left. Maybe I should have refused to listen to him, taken the puppy, and ran like a bat out of hell. But something about the way he was looking at me and the soft plea in his voice had me pausing. I stormed into his house wanting answers and he wanted to give them to me. I could hear him out and let him explain himself. If I didn’t like what he had to say then I could leave and go to the cops. He wasn’t holding me prisoner. For my own piece of mind and the safety of the dog, I agreed to stay.
AFTER BOTH ANIMALS were comfortable on the couch, Logan led me into the small galley kitchen. I accepted the beer he offered me and sat down on the bench at the table, sliding the bottle back and forth between my hands as he sat across from me. He was clearly uncomfortable and clearly dreading the conversation we were about to have, but I didn’t care.
“His name’s Greg Conlon,” he finally said after I gave him a description of t
he man. “He’s from Boston, stereotypical Charlestown trash. He’s got a rap sheet a mile long and just got out of prison a few months ago. The guy’s bad news. He’s violent and… abusive.”
“Clearly. He did a number on that dog.”
“Mac.”
“You just said his name was Greg,” I responded, confused.
Logan laughed and tipped his beer bottle to his mouth. “I meant the dog. I named him Mac. Last night after I left your place I made mac and cheese. He shoved his whole face in the bowl, the thing’s a pain in the ass.”
“Yet you named him,” I said with a smirk.
Logan shrugged and his cheeks flamed. “Well, yeah. He’s my dog now.”
He’s not adorable, he’s not adorable, I chanted in my head over and over again. He’s a liar and probably a drug dealer. I squared my shoulders and looked him dead in the eye, silently letting him know that I wanted the full story and I wanted it immediately.
He leaned back in his chair and met my eyes. “Listen, what I say needs to stay between the two of us, okay? I trust you about as much as you trust me, but I can get into some serious shit if I get busted.”
Oh God, he really is a drug dealer.
“I…” Logan trailed off and it seemed as though he was trying to find the right words before he continued. “I help high profile girls get out of bad situations. Girls that need to get into rehab, girls that need to get out of abusive relationships. I even help some girls get decent, honest jobs. Their parents contact me as a last resort when they want to keep it under wraps. They pay good money, the police don’t need to be involved and I help get families back together. All of it is done by me. I’m my own boss, I make my own rules and I help as many people as I possibly can. But… Nicole was the first girl that I helped for free. She didn’t have parents to help her.”
“I’ve known her for years and she didn’t have two pennies to rub together. She and Greg have had an on and off thing for years, even when he was locked up. She’s a sweet girl but she’s really messed up. Codependent. Weak. Nicole has been depending on men her whole life and she has no idea how to live on her own. I’ve always tried to be there for her but whenever she and Greg were together I couldn’t be around. He’s possessive and controlling and out of his fucking mind. Every paycheck she got was given to him and everywhere she went he went, too.”
“Whenever Greg would fuck up and hit her he would always apologize with a gift. The last time it happened he got her-”
“A puppy.” I finished the sentence for him.
Logan nodded his head and then continued. “Anyway, I still tried to talk her into leaving. I have a few friends down in Florida that do what I do. We’re a pretty good team and we all tried to convince her that it would be safe down there. Conlon wouldn’t know where she was and she could start over. But she refused, she said this time would be different.”
“About two weeks ago she called me in the middle of the night. He’d beat her up pretty bad, broken her ribs, knocked one of her teeth out. I drove all the way out there and picked her up without a second thought, and brought her back here.”
“Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
“It’s part of what I do. I don’t go to the cops if I don’t need to. I couldn’t with Nicole because they would have made her testify in court and Conlon’s buddies would have gotten to her long before that. It was too dangerous to bring her to the police, so I did the next best thing and got her out of town. Bought her a one way ticket to Fort Lauderdale and my friends picked her up there.”
So many questions were going through my head. Was she an ex? Was he doing this because he was in love with her? Why didn’t he want people to know what he did? Logan seemed compassionate and empathetic. He seemed… sweet.
That struck a nerve with me and I found myself feeling somewhat of a kinship with the man that I was so ready to turn into the authorities. I liked to help broken animals and Logan liked to help broken girls. I hated how surprised I was at the fact that he was helpful and honest, and not some punk like I’d originally written him off as.
“So, the dog…” I trailed off.
“Conlon beating on Mac was a warning. He wants to know where Nicole is and he won’t stop until I tell him. He’s a psycho.”
“But now that she’s gone you can go to the police,” I said and drained the rest of my beer.
Logan shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. He winced and rubbed his shoulder as it cracked loudly. “Nah. I, uh, I have a very nosy family.”
“Expectations to live up to?”
“Something like that. Don’t worry, okay? I’ll handle it. You have nothing to worry about, Juliette.”
I was very quickly realizing that there was more to Logan Ashford than I originally thought and it was making my head spin. He made a living out of helping young women get from point A to point B. He helped battered, sick women learn how to stand on their own two feet and there was something unintentionally beautiful about that. I knew that I couldn’t praise someone for being a decent human being, but it seemed that Logan was doing more than that. He was risking a part of his life by trying to save people. He could have been a doctor or a lawyer but he wanted to do something else instead.
Maybe Logan had a gift, too.
I was still shaken up about the fact that Conlon showed up at my work looking for Mac, but there was nothing I could do other than hope and pray that it didn’t happen again.
But in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking that hoping and praying wouldn’t be nearly enough.
When I eventually went home sometime after midnight my feet were dragging and my eyes were crossing with exhaustion. Even Sadie collapsed in her dog bed the second I opened the front door. I kicked off my shoes, shrugged out of my jacket and went into the bathroom to do my nightly routine. But when I looked in the mirror I was taken by surprise.
My green eyes widened as I looked at my reflection. My cheeks, normally pale, were rosy as though I’d spent the night flirting and blushing. Red hair that fell to the middle of my back was messy from repeatedly running my fingers through it and the small smattering of freckles across my nose looked the same as always. I wasn’t gorgeous and I wasn’t a supermodel. Rose was always telling me how much she wished she had my thick mane of hair and I thought she was insane. I was plain and as a youngster I’d always been told as much.
Except for Gran. She would spend hours brushing and braiding my hair. When she’d tuck me in at night she’d count the freckles on my nose and then kiss me on my forehead. Her favorite thing was to tell me I looked like some Irish princess that she used to read about. A princess that was stronger and more fierce than her male counterpart.
I missed her so much.
I snuggled into bed that night with the blanket up to my chin. Staring up at the ceiling, I was caught off guard by the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get a certain blonde out of my head.
But I couldn’t help it. Logan was off saving people left and right and it made me wonder who was there when he needed saving?
Chapter 4
I was in the middle of applying a light coat of makeup before I left for work when there was a sharp knock on the door. Sadie was in the middle of shoving her face in her food bowl and stopped, cocking her head to the side and staring at the door like she could see through it. There was no bark and no growl which was unusual, and I found myself pulling the curtain back and glancing out the window.
“Logan?” I said when I opened the door. “Is Mac okay?”
He gave a bright smile and then stepped to the side revealing Mac, who was standing behind his leg. Logan gripped a black leash lightly and the floppy eared puppy yipped excitedly when he saw Sadie.
“I made him a jacket,” he said proudly and gestured to Mac. It was another flannel, this one black and gray. The sleeves were cut and the buttons went up over the small expanse of the puppy’s back. It looked like it was knotted down by his ass and it was wa
y too big, but he wasn’t shivering.
My heart beat a little faster at the small, sweet gesture and I was immediately caught off guard. My heart never beat like that.
I wasn’t the kind of woman whose heart skipped a beat when she saw a handsome man and I wasn’t the type to blush or giggle. I kept my head down, worked diligently and went home alone every night. Which was fine. But seeing that Logan embraced his own puppy fatherhood was chipping away at the armor I’d spent years building and it was putting me on edge. Throwing me off my game.
I didn’t like it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked harsher than necessary.
He tucked his free hand into the pocket of his black leather jacket and lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Driving you to work.”
What?
“My car works fine,” I said and backed into the house to finish getting my bag together. Lunch for both me and Sadie, phone charger, adoption applications that I had yet to look at. I was pretty much good to go and right on schedule, anticipating a slow day due to the fact that it was Wednesday.
Logan walked into the house and Mac pranced along behind him, jumping up towards Sadie, who sat back on her haunches and stared down at him. Mac collapsed in front of her and started chewing on her paw, uncaring to the fact that it wasn’t something he was actually supposed to be doing. In response, she hesitantly leaned her block head down and sniffed him before giving a swift lick to the healing wound on his head.
My dog reminded me of a little old lady in a four year old shepherd’s body. Sadie was a year old when I began working at Arden and had received zero adoption applications because all she did was lay down in her stall and stare numbly at people who tried to give her any attention. She, like Mac, was also a survivor of abuse and neglect, something that bled into her first few months at the farm. She wasn’t trained, tried to bite anyone who went into her stall, and had run off into the woods multiple times. Rose, Violet and I feared the worst, thinking that she would have to be euthanized if her behavior didn’t change. She would purposely knock her food dish over and try to bite me whenever I went in to clean it up. Overall, she was a pain in the ass and a headache.
Reckless and Wild: A Small Town Romantic Suspense (Port James Series Book 1) Page 2
