by Maria Luis
“Good.” Luke tipped his beer in Brady’s direction. “Because no one wants to see that shit.”
“My fiancée does.”
“That’s because she signed an invisible dotted contract—wait.” Luke sat up, his hands forming a T. “Time out. Did you just say fiancée?”
Danvers placed the six-pack on the coffee table and chose the single couch to Luke’s left. “How could you not tell us you proposed? Hell, for that matter, how do we not already know that you proposed? Jade and Shaelyn are tight.”
Brady reached into his pants’ pocket and withdrew a black velvet jewelry box. Going for humor, Luke quipped, “I’m guessing that’s not for me, eh?”
“You don’t sleep with him,” Danvers said, “so I doubt a ring is coming your way.”
“The ring’s not for you,” Brady confirmed, reclaiming his seat on the couch. “Y’all want to see it?”
“Am I going to need a beer for this?” Danvers asked, at the same time Luke grumbled, “I’d almost rather see your fake snake.”
“The snake’s not fake,” Brady said. “Also, I know y’alls bitching means you’re just excited.” He flicked the box open and set it on the coffee table next to the six-pack. Luke was halfway surprised when a light didn’t burst from the ceiling and shine down upon the ring glistening under the reflection of the Saints losing on the TV.
Luke leaned forward. He knew nothing of rings. Never had been the sort to give women jewelry and have them thinking that the relationship was more than it was. But even he could recognize a finely made piece. Diamonds glittered, even when there was no direct sunlight hitting the stones.
Danvers, ever the dramatic one, threw up a hand over his eyes. “I’ve been blinded! Quick, hand me a beer.”
Rolling his eyes, Brady tossed a beer to his coworker. “I take it that means you like it?”
“It means that the moment Jade sees this, she’s going to get ideas.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Brady asked, drinking his own beer.
“Nah,” Danvers said with a shake of his head, “I’d marry that woman tomorrow, but her mother is determined to see us get hitched in a big-ass wedding. I don’t know. There’s been talk of a guest list being three-hundred deep.” He mock-shivered.
“Shaelyn and I don’t want a big wedding.” Brady shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. “We should have gotten married years ago. Hell, I’d bring her to city hall if I didn’t think her grandmother wouldn’t clobber me over the head.”
“Brady, you say that like your own grandparents wouldn’t murder you,” Luke pointed out, to which he was rewarded with the middle finger.
Brady gave a heavy sigh. “You’re right. We’re probably going to have a huge wedding. The old folks are going to want to invite half the city. But as long as the proposal goes my way, I won’t complain.”
During halftime, they tossed around proposal ideas. Danvers believed the bigger, the bolder, the better, which didn’t come as much of a surprise to the rest of them. Luke suggested proposing at dinner, but only because he had no idea what constituted a good proposal and he figured better safe than sorry.
In the end, Brady turned them both down and grumbled, “I’m just gonna talk to Anna about this.”
Luke reached for another beer, steeling his shoulders at the sound of Blondie’s name. “They’re close, aren’t they?”
“They’re cousins.”
“I’ve got cousins. Don’t even ask me what their names are.” It was true. Luke had no contact with his father’s side of the family, but even contact with his mother’s side was slim to none. His maternal grandparents had died before he was born, and Moira’s older sister lived across the country with her family.
In thirty-one years, he’d met his cousins all of two times.
“They’re best friends, too,” Brady said, eyes glued to the football game. “If anyone knows anything about Shaelyn and her wedding dreams, it’s going to be Anna.”
Luke eyed the engagement ring.
“Speaking of Anna, I heard some interesting information.”
Shit.
He bought himself time by taking a pull of his beer.
“Shaelyn told me that you and Anna have something going on.”
Not quite true. They had a dare going on, that’s all. “It’s nothing.”
“I thought you said you were laying off dating for a while,” Brady said, turning his gaze from the TV to Luke.
“We aren’t dating. I haven’t even kissed her.”
“But you want to?” This from Danvers. “You got the look of a man who wants something he can’t have, like a Chihuahua after its favorite stuffed toy.”
“First, I resent being compared to a five-pound dog.” Luke shook his head adamantly, adding, “And it’s not like that. I promised to help her meet a guy.”
“You’re playing matchmaker?” Brady took a sip of his beer, his brows lifted in curiosity. “Bit of a switch in gears from being a soldier, don’t you think?”
Yeah, it was a change in gears. Except that Luke had no intention of making matchmaking a permanent gig. He was doing this for Blondie because he’d been cornered, and, maybe, just a little bit because Anna Bryce presented an alluring distraction from his life.
“Too bad you’re just now just getting into this gig,” Danvers said with a shit-eating grin, “I would have paid you good money to find a nice guy for my sister. Maybe still will—hey, how do you feel about breaking up relationships? Lizzie’s found herself another asshole and—”
“Jesus, y’all, I’m not a fucking matchmaker.”
“But you are matchmaking for Anna?” Brady said slowly.
Luke dragged his fingers through his hair. “Three dates in three weeks. We came up with this deal, challenge, fuck, I don’t really know what to call it. I told her that she had shit intuition about picking the right guys, and she dared me to find three perfect men for her to date. Meanwhile, she’s picking her own.”
“This might just be better than the Saints game,” Danvers said.
Brady pointed a finger. “Blasphemy.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Danvers paused, then added, “It’s actually way better than the Saints game.”
They all turned weary eyes to the game in question, where the Saints were trailing behind the Broncos by 31 points. Fourth quarter, one minute left in the game. It was a goddamn execution.
“Big question here,” Danvers said, “what’s the winner get?”
“Whatever they want,” Luke told them with air quotes. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Sounds like an invitation.”
“I don’t think it was,” Luke muttered, draining his second beer and placing the empty bottle on the coffee table. He didn’t move for a third. He had no plans to get sloppy drunk on his best friend’s couch while an engagement ring box sat on the table, especially not when Luke’s brain was already a convoluted mess.
Brady thumped him on the shoulder. “You know what you need?”
“I don’t want another beer,” Luke said, when Danvers quipped, “The Saints aren’t going to win. Hell hath not frozen over yet.”
Brady ignored them both, his blue eyes finding Luke’s face. “You need a dog and I know the perfect person who’d kill to be its personal walker.”
11
“I got a job.”
Anna paused in stirring the pot of soup to look at Julian, who was sitting at the kitchen table tackling math homework. Or, he should have been tackling math—instead, it seemed that he’d found a job.
“I thought we’d discussed you focusing on school right now,” she said, returning her attention to the pot. “Make sure that your grades stay up so that you can play ball after school.”
“I’m fourteen, Ma.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Are we comparing ages? I’ll win every time.”
“Forty-two, right?”
“Careful, dear son, otherwise you’ll find yourself sleeping outside with the rougarou
s.”
The rougarous were a harmless threat she’d issued since he was five years old and still believed that the Cajun version of the werewolf existed.
Still, good kid that he was, he continued the ruse even now. “Ma,” he said, “we all know that rougarous only exist in the bayou.”
She chuckled at his overly dramatic tone as she selected Cajun seasoning from the pantry as well as pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and salt. One by one she added them into the pot, bringing to a boil her famous roux for the gumbo she’d perfected at the age of twenty-three. It was the only thing she could season decently, and it was also Julian’s favorite meal.
The rest of the days it was pizza, pasta, or whatever else she could scrounge up with her measly kitchen skills.
She set the pot to a low simmer. “So,” she prompted, wiping her hands on her decade-old apron as she turned to face her son, “what job did you get?”
Julian straightened, a smile brightening his face. “I’m a dog walker.”
Anna bit her lip. “You know what we’ve said about dogs . . .”
For years Julian had begged for a dog, but life as a single parent was hard enough without a four-legged furry friend to worry about too. It wasn’t that Anna didn’t want a dog—she just didn’t have time to worry about walks and feeding times amidst her very busy schedule. With football season in full swing, it wasn’t just her schedule that bordered on hectic. Julian’s was no better.
“I know, Mom,” Julian said, shifting his body to the edge of his seat in excitement, “but I’m not getting the dog. I’m just its walker. Twice a day.”
“And where, exactly, does this dog live?”
He lifted his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “Oh, you know.”
This didn’t sound promising. “I don’t know, actually. Is the dog in our area?” They lived Uptown, not so very far from the universities. It was an easy commute to most areas in the city, perhaps fifteen minutes tops to wherever she wanted to go. “Jules?”
Those same shoulders slumped. “He’s down in the Quarter.”
So, not within walking distance of their house then. Anna wasn’t opposed to Julian getting a job. There were plenty of opportunities in their area, especially if he chose to dog walk. She couldn’t even leave her front door without being almost mowed down by German shepherds or corgis most days.
She gentled her voice. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible, Jules. You’ve got practice all the time and I’m at work. Driving downtown just to walk a dog for . . . how much?”
“Twenty bucks,” he mumbled, casting his eyes to the floor. “Ten bucks each time.”
“Right, driving downtown to walk a dog for ten bucks isn’t going to cut it.”
“Brady said you’d say that.”
Anna froze, her hands falling from the counter to her hips. “Brady got a dog?” He and Shaelyn had a cat named Freckles, who was very much anti-dogs.
“It’s not Brady and Shae,” Julian said. “Their friend Luke got one, and Brady asked if I wanted a job walking the dog. I guess the guy’s got a bum hip or something? I don’t know. But I really, really want to do this, Mom. I’ve never wanted something so much in my life.”
Luke had gotten a dog and enlisted her son to walk it. Somehow, she wasn’t even surprised by this turn of events. He’d probably concocted the idea as some sort of revenge scheme to get back at her for her date with Dev Smith.
Though thinking of Dev made her feel quite guilty. He was a very nice guy and Anna had enjoyed his company. Conversation had been easy, and she hadn’t even noticed as the hours slipped one into the next. When he’d bent down to kiss her, she’d felt a momentary flare of disinterest.
Truth was, the disinterest was only on account of Luke, whose eyes she’d felt on her throughout her entire date. She hadn’t meant to let the kiss happen. One moment Dev had been asking her if she had any plans for the weekend and then his tongue had been playing tonsil hockey with hers, high-school style.
The man had been fun, nice, everything Anna wanted.
The kiss had been . . . lackluster and a bit slimy.
“Mom?”
Anna jolted to attention. “When did you promise to walk this dog?”
Looking torn, Julian tugged at his blond hair. “I may have told Brady and Luke that I could start tonight . . .”
Her gaze narrowed. “You have a game tonight.”
“I know.”
She did not like the sound of this. “You have a football game in an hour and a half. The food is still cooking, and we have to walk this dog.”
“His name is Sassy.”
“The dog’s name?”
“Yeah,” Julian said, nodding, “Luke said over the phone that he adopted the little guy from the shelter, but the first owner’s daughter had taken to calling him Sassy, and now he refuses to answer to anything else.”
A male dog by the name of Sassy. Perhaps it was wrong of her, but she thought it rather fitting that the ultra-masculine Luke had ended up with a yap-yap dog.
Throwing a forlorn look at the steaming gumbo, she turned the dial to its lowest setting. “Get your gear. I’ll drop you off at the stadium before I go walk this dog for you.”
Whooping in joy, Julian launched from the chair and slammed his math textbook shut. He dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re the best, Mom!”
She pretended that the words didn’t completely melt her heart. “You can tell me that tomorrow when you’re hitchhiking to the Quarter twice a day.”
“Brady said he can drive me whenever he’s not working.”
“That’s because Brady loves you.”
“You love me.”
“Family obligation,” Anna teased, swatting at her son’s shoulders with the towel. “Just remember that when it’s pouring cats and dogs outside, and I’m sitting nice and warm in the car while you walk this dog around.”
“I won’t regret it,” Julian vowed, a hand going to his heart. “I’ve always wanted a dog.”
“I know.” Anna smiled. “All right, c’mon, let’s go do this.”
As Julian tore out of the kitchen, he hollered over his shoulder, “Pizza’s on me when I get my first check!”
Shaking her head, she put the spices back in the cabinets.
As much as she loved pizza, she didn’t think for a second that it made up for the fact that she’d just become Luke O’Connor’s personal dog walker via her teenage son. She loved Julian, she really did.
Except for, perhaps, right now.
She glanced down at her clothing, wincing at the sight of her baggy sweats that had seen better days and a T-shirt that was so worn through that she was surprised it didn’t fall apart as she wore it.
“Screw it,” she muttered. It wasn’t as though he were interested in her anyway.
12
It turned out that Luke lived only a few blocks from La Parisienne. His nineteenth-century, double-shotgun-style house sat nestled between two two-story buildings; with the French louvered shutters drawn tight over the windows, the bright yellow shotgun looked like something out of a fairy tale.
It never failed: no matter how many years Anna had worked in the French Quarter, she truly never got over how beautiful and quaint Old New Orleans was.
Not that the tranquility lasted all too long. Tourists bustled along the sidewalks toward the neon-lit Bourbon Street, and no less than two tour groups were camped out within a hundred-foot radius of Luke’s home.
No one could ever claim that the Quarter was boring, that was for sure.
Hiking her purse strap up on her shoulder, Anna lifted her gaze to the front door and determinedly took the three steps up to the front porch.
Here we go. Steel your loins.
She rang the doorbell. Bounced from one sneakered foot to the other as she heard a man’s boisterous yell from inside the house, followed by the scrabbling of dog nails across hardwood floor. She smiled to herself, reminded of La Parisienne’s equally as thin walls.
The door swung open with a loud creeeeeeek and Anna’s gaze fell to the giant head shoving its snout into her breasts.
“Holy crap!” she exclaimed, her hands going to either side of the beast’s head. “Did you adopt a horse?”
“They told me dog, but I’m having second thoughts,” came Luke’s raspy drawl. “I thought I hired your son to walk the dog.”
Anna glanced up at the man who was as rugged as—her breath caught. She’d heard the saying before countless of times, but hadn’t ever experienced it for herself. Someone’s breath catching? Ha! More likely, it was asthma or anxiety. Lust wasn’t a scientific cause.
Except that now, as she stood there on the front porch staring dumbly at Luke’s bare chest, Anna had to concede that, yes, maybe she’d just learned what it meant to have your breath catch at the sight of a hot, sweaty guy with a hard face and even harder body.
Much to her horror, she blurted, “I thought you had a bum hip.”
His already sullen mouth pulled into a frown. “I do.” He lifted the cane, just short of shaking it as if to say, See? “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to say anything if you don’t have anything nice to say?”
Her back stiffened at his prickly tone. “Didn’t your mother teach you to wear clothes when answering your door?”
“It’s my house.”
“You invited my son over.”
“‘Invite’ is a strong word. I offered to pay your son to walk Sassy.”
She couldn’t help it. Her gaze went to the massive Great Dane who was drooling all over her tennis shoes and the hem of her sweats. “Is Sassy a girl?” she asked, belatedly remembering that Julian had mentioned the dog’s gender. She opened her mouth to correct herself, only—
“I’m sure you’ll use your best judgment when Sassy uses the restroom,” he told her, a wicked grin plying his full lips. “I’d suggest stepping to the side when he goes—he cranks his leg higher than a gymnast’s when he pisses.”
Anna scrunched her nose, instinctively repulsed by the image. Most mothers grew to love—or at least to accept—the diaper-changing days. Anna had not been that kind of mother, and had thanked her lucky blessings the day Julian had learned to use the potty on his own.
