“The other night was incredible, and I want every night to be like that. You’re sweet and kind and wonderful and funny and you let me eat pudding. Which I need to stop doing, because I almost couldn’t run through this airport.”
He just stood there, jaw clenching. But he was listening, so I rushed forward.
“And I don’t care that you’re leaving for twelve weeks, but I want to be here waiting for you when you come back. And I don’t want you meeting any pretty young veterinarians down there just because I didn’t tell you what I should have told you before.”
I looked at my TSA agent for courage, and she nodded.
I took a deep breath and looked into those gorgeous blue eyes. “I don’t want to be your rebound. I just want to be yours. And I’m so, so sorry for not telling you sooner about the way that I left Charles. I should have and it was stupid of me not to. I lied to you and I hate that I hurt you, when that’s the last thing you deserve. Because you—” My breath caught, and my throat got tight. “You’re it for me.” Then I crunched my eyes closed, because I couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. Because if he didn’t want me to be his . . .
“Chloe,” he said, and I opened one eye.
“I . . .” I held my breath. “Can’t.”
I opened the other eye, not entirely sure what he’d just said.
“I just can’t do this.” He shook his head. “I appreciate you coming down here, really I do. But I just can’t have another woman lying to me again. I’m sorry.”
And as they called his flight, final boarding, he gave me a thin sorry smile, and ran for his plane.
“But, I came to the airport,” I said, mostly to myself.
“What did you lie to him about?” Monica asked.
“Just one thing, but it was a big thing.” I sighed, wrapping my arms around myself. I can’t believe he was leaving. I thought for sure if I poured my heart out, he’d . . . he’d . . .
“You thought if you came down here and spilled your guts and apologized, he’d sweep you off your feet and kiss you stupid?”
“Something like that,” I admitted, not seeing even a flash of red hair in the crowd. He was well and truly gone.
“You’ve been watching too many romantic comedies,” Monica said. “Come back in twelve weeks. Maybe he’ll have cooled down by then.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning to leave.
“And Chloe Patterson?” she called, and I looked over my shoulder. “You ever try something like this again, and I’m going to redline you. You don’t want that, believe me.”
I nodded, my head feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds, and headed back toward the ticketing area. Where Dr. Campbell senior was waiting for me.
“Well, that was embarrassing,” he offered.
“You saw that?” I asked.
“Chloe, it’s a small regional airport. Everyone saw it.”
“Great,” I croaked, shaking my head. What a mess.
“Just give it some time,” he said kindly. “Things like this have a way of working out.” He started walking me out of the terminal. “By the way, I got a call about those dogs from the other night. Looks like we’ll be able to place them all with you by the middle of next week . . .”
I let him lead me out to the parking lot, numb.
“I can’t believe someone would bring a pit bull to a dog park. That’s just asking for trouble,” the woman said, sounding outraged.
“I know, how irresponsible! I’m amazed that dog hasn’t tried to maul any of the other dogs. I’ve been keeping my Pekingese close to me, in case anything happens.”
“That’s a good idea. Those dogs are so vicious, I’m just waiting for that one to—”
“Ladies?” I said. “The dog you’re talking about is my dog, and yes, he’s a pit bull. If you can believe it, his last owner left him chained outside to a tree, with no food and hardly any water, for days at a time. Yet unbelievably, he still loves humans, no matter how horrendously they’ve treated him. And Sammy Davis Jr.—that’s his name, by the way—has never once even nipped at another dog, even when they’re climbing all over him like that Chihuahua’s doing right now.”
The two ladies were clad head to toe in Lululemon, their hair in perfect ponytails, makeup flawless, nails shiny, not an ounce of chocolate pudding anywhere on their thighs or tummies.
I wanted to tell them to shut their stupid faces. I wanted to tell them that there’s no such thing a bad dog, only bad owners. I wanted to tell them to stop talking about things they knew nothing about.
What I said was, “I’d love for you to meet him; he’s the sweetest guy. Would that be okay? I’ll hold the leash; no pressure.”
Because that was how you changed a heart and a mind. Individual experiences. Common sense. Common ground. And that big pageant smile never failed to do the trick.
They looked at each other, then looked at me unenthusiastically. “Um, sure. But he’s not going to, like, rip my little Bobo to shreds, is he?” one of them asked, arching a perfectly manicured brow.
“No, ma’am, I can promise you your Bobo will be just fine.”
They looked at each other once more, then nervously nodded at me.
“Sammy Davis Jr.!” I called out, and my own slice of golden-eyed, brindled gorgeous looked up from a spirited game of “can’t catch me” with two huskies. He came bounding across the sand, tongue hanging out, doggie grin spread wide across his face.
“Good boy,” I said, letting him lick my hand. “Sit.” He obeyed instantly, calm even though he’d been racing through the surf seconds ago. He gazed up at me, jowls falling back from his face, creating an even wider grin that never failed to make me laugh out loud. “Sweet boy, I’ve got some new friends for you to meet.”
I spoke in a low tone to him, as I always did. He was incredibly smart, always in tune with me, and eager to please.
The two women were cringing back slightly, but one looked more interested than the other did. She’d be the one I’d win over first.
“Do you want to pet him?” I asked, smiling again.
“Yeah, sure. I guess,” she mumbled, reaching out with a tentative hand. Sammy Davis leaned in to sniff, as dogs do, and she jerked back a bit.
“It’s always good to let any strange dog smell you first, before you pet them. That’s it, perfect,” I coaxed, as she reached out again. This time she held still as he gave her another sniff, nuzzling into her palm.
“He loves to have his ears scratched,” I said, and as he lowered his head for her, she reached around and began to pet his head, eventually scratching his ears a bit. His tail thumped contentedly on the sand as he watched his friends run and play on the beach.
This was our favorite dog run, a place Sammy and I came at least once a week. We always changed up the time and day, to make sure we interacted with as many new people and dogs as we could. It was good for him, it was good for me, and it was great for everyone else to see this beautiful dog playing with everyone else and their dogs.
Sammy Davis Jr. had become the unofficial mascot of Our Gang, and my best friend. He spent every night in the house with me and several other dogs that rotated from the barn into the house to continue their socialization skills.
Three months after opening its gate, Our Gang had successfully placed 90 percent of the original gang, with new dogs coming in every week. We’d had three more litters of pups from moms who came to us already pregnant, and placed every single one of them with new families. Only a handful of the dogs still had trouble with kids and other small dogs, something that was just a fact of life when animals were mistreated so horrendously in their earlier lives. But instead of being euthanized, or worse, left out on the street, they’d live out the rest of their lives on a ranch in Monterey. There are worse places to reside.
Clark and Viv had come down to adopt their puppy, and were only days away from their own delivery. They knew what they were having, but it was “mum’s the word” until he or she arrived. They’d adopted
a lovely dog, pure gray-blue with smoky blue eyes. They named him Lancelot—something about a knight? No matter, they were smitten, and that dog rode home in the front seat of a giant 1950s convertible, looking very regal.
And speaking of mum’s the word, my mother, in a twist of fate I could never have predicted, had fallen head-over-heels in love with an old black and white dog named Sally. Missing an ear and walking with a limp, she’d come to us as a stray, almost starved to death. But a kinder soul I’d never met. She helped to wrangle the younger dogs, she sat patiently with the sick ones that came to us, and she was always the first one into the yard each day, and the last one back in the barn after herding in any stragglers for the night.
When my mother was visiting one weekend, I’d put her to work helping me clean out the stalls in the barn. Initially, she’d regarded everything with an upturned nose and a when-will-this-be-over attitude. But after about an hour, every time I turned around, I noticed that Sally was right next to my mother, and my mother seemed to be sneaking her something from her Talbots-inspired overalls. I finally caught her with some leftover turkey bacon, and suggested that she take Sally on a walk around the property, that she needed some exercise on that bad leg.
My mother came back an hour later, enraptured, and told me that no one was allowed to adopt Sally. Because she was taking her home with her the following day. Later on that afternoon, with Sally and Sammy Davis Jr. asleep by the fireplace, my mother and I had a traditional English tea, with tiny cucumber sandwiches, clotted cream, and about a barrel full of tears. She talked, I talked, and she told me she was . . . proud of me.
She also told me that if Lucas and I ever got married, we should elope.
Lucas.
Sigh.
Bad kind of sigh.
I hadn’t heard from him the entire time he was in Belize. I kept a few tabs on him through the news service that was Marge. He was due home sometime next week, but I didn’t know when I’d see him, if I’d see him. I’d sent him a few emails but none were replied to. I’d tried everything I knew to do, and it was still radio silence. When he’d said “I can’t,” he really meant it. I had to respect that.
“How long since you’ve had him?”
“Eleven weeks—it was eleven weeks ago.” I sighed sadly.
“Pardon me?”
“Sorry, what?” I asked, coming back from Planet Lucas to the dog park, where the two women were staring at me as though I’d grown a third eyeball.
“I asked, how long you’ve had him? Sammy Davis Jr.?” one of the women asked, still kneeling down and petting my very contented dog.
“Oh! Sorry, daydreaming a little. I got Sammy when—” And I launched into my tale.
Twenty minutes later I was standing on the water’s edge, letting the waves tickle my toes as Sammy splashed and played. I’d given out two business cards for Our Gang. One of the women was still a little standoffish, but the other seemed genuinely interested in coming by and seeing the dogs we had up for adoption, having been won over by my sweet boy.
“You did great today, buddy,” I murmured as he nudged at my knees, threading between them and looking up at me, grinning. “You ready for your ball?” As he watched eagerly, I tossed it up in the air a few times, then threw it out into the water.
But instead of chasing the ball, he craned his head around behind me, sniffing the wind. His tail began to thump wildly, banging against the back of my legs.
I turned to see what he was looking at. People. Dogs. More dogs. But he was still sniffing something. Before I could catch him, he took off like a shot toward the fence, aiming for the gate where everyone came in and out.
“Crazy dog,” I said, chuckling as I made my way back up to where he was barking happily. “Sammy, what are you—”
I stopped short. Because there, on the other side of the fence, was my daydream. Deeply tanned, dressed casually in jeans and a black T-shirt, Lucas was pushing through the gate to greet Sammy Davis Jr., who was bouncing and jumping with happiness. He bent down to greet the dog, and when he stood up again I was struck again with how gorgeous this man was. Long and lean and breathing sex—eleven weeks in my imagination had not done him justice. It was all I could do not to literally run down the beach and throw myself into his arms, romance-novel style.
But I’d tried that before, done the grand gesture at the airport, and knew how that ended up. So I approached, but with caution. “What are you doing—”
I was cut off by his mouth covering mine in a slow, wet, burning, and churning kiss. He finally pulled back, hands clutching at my hips. Finishing my earlier question, “—here?” prompted him to kiss me again. Harder. Longer. Deeper. Tonguier.
This time, I managed to break the kiss and looked up into his face. “What’s happening here?”
“I came home early.”
“I’m getting that, but why are you—”
“I spent eleven weeks working twenty-hour days, because unless I was busy or sleeping, I was thinking about you. And even when I was sleeping I didn’t catch a break, because I’d dream about you.”
“Dreaming about me?”
“Yeah. Mostly naked.” He nodded, sliding his hands a little higher, just under the edge of my T-shirt. “Although once you were wearing a snowsuit while trying to paddleboard in the middle of the ocean. That was one of the weirder ones.”
“Okay, just wait a minute. You leave for eleven weeks without a phone call, without an email, after I humiliated myself in an airport—and now you show up and make out with me, without one shred of explanation?”
“I needed some space. I took some space.” He tilted my chin up to place one single soft kiss on my lips. “And I don’t want space anymore. I want you.”
Oh!
“I had a whole speech planned out, saying how sorry I was that I didn’t call you back while I was gone, that I know you’re nothing like Julie and I was a real shit to say that before I left, that I missed you like crazy. But when I saw you, I just wanted to kiss you. So I did. Thanks for not slugging me, by the way.”
“I was too surprised to slug you. Plus, the kissing was nice,” I said, fighting the urge to bury my hands in his hair and do it again. Talk first. More kissing, after?
“It was nice,” he repeated, and the look in his eyes had me clenching my hands into fists to stop them from pulling his face down to mine.
“But what about what I did to Charles? And not telling you?” I asked.
“Are you ever going to lie to me again?” he asked, his eyes searching.
“Big ones like that? No. Little white ones about things like how much pudding I really have hidden away? I can’t promise that.”
“Good enough for me.”
“Are you sure? Really? Because—”
I was cut off once more by his amazing mouth. Why the hell was I trying to talk him out of this? I gave my hands the All Clear and they sank deep into his hair, pulling him into me, holding him, loving him. When we finally came up for air, he tucked me into his chest and I burrowed in, surrounded by Lucas. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
“I missed my girl,” he murmured, his hands wide on the small of my back to capture as much skin as he could.
“To be clear, that’s me, right?”
“Only you, chickie baby,” he said with a chuckle. And then he kissed me again.
“I’ve tried so, not to give in . . .”
“Boy, I’ll say.”
“Oh, shush,” I said.
An hour later, with a record on the turntable and Sammy Davis Jr. occupied on the patio, I lay naked on top of an equally naked Lucas, breathing heavily and unable to wipe the grin from my face.
“I’ve said to myself, this affair never will go so well . . .”
“Have you been listening to this since we met?” Lucas asked. “Is that why you didn’t kiss me in the barn that day? Fucking Troublemaker Sinatra. You totally should have kissed me in the barn. Think how much longer we could have been doing . . . oh man, do t
hat again.”
“I would if you’d just shush already.”
“So why should I try to resist, when darling I know so well . . .”
“No way, chickie baby. No way I could have resisted you another second.”
“Let’s be clear: it was me who attacked you. In the shower. With the naked.”
“Are we playing Clue?”
“You really want to talk about board games right now?”
“No. Not when I’d rather . . .”
“Mmm, Lucas . . .”
“I’ve got you under my skin . . .”
An indeterminate time later . . .
“I want to tell you something,” I said.
“Is it a list of all the things you’ve been thinking of doing to me for the last eleven weeks?”
“Um, no.”
“Oh.”
“Wait, do you have a list?”
“Oh, I’ve got a list.” He laughed, moving his hands down to my bottom, grabbing a handful and squeezing. Which made me squeeze some other parts that might still be wrapping around some of his parts, and oh my. He groaned, his breath warming the hollow of my throat, his teeth nipping lightly now at the tops of my breasts.
“Hey, I wanted to tell you something!” I protested, sitting up a little. Which was not a smart thing to do, because as soon as my breasts were on full view again, his eyes widened. And something else hardened further. My eyes crossed a little bit. He was still inside me, you see. And oh, my.
“Tell me whatever you want; just keep bouncing on my dick like that.” He sighed, thrusting up ever so slightly.
“I love you,” I said simply. Watching his face.
He froze. Midthrust. Such control. “I really wish I hadn’t said something as crass as ‘keep bouncing on my dick’ right before you said that.”
“Well, if you had known what I was going to say, what would you have said?” I asked, nervously chewing at my bottom lip.
A slow smile began to spread across his face. “I love you first.”
I shook my head. “You love me second. I said it first.”
“But you just gave me a time travel option. In which case I would have said it first, instead of the dick bouncing.”
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