About a Dog

by Jenn McKinlay

  At bowling, he demanded her help in carrying pitchers of beer from the bar on the other side of the alley back to their lane. Halfway to the bar, he grabbed her hand and pulled her outside an exit door into the parking lot.

  “Being with you and not being with you is driving me insane,” he said. He pushed her up against the side of the building as his hands did things to her that made Mac’s head buzz.

  “I know what you mean,” she said and she pulled his head down to hers so she could kiss him.

  “Do you really think my sister will care if we hook up? She loves us both. Wouldn’t this make her happy?” he asked between kisses.

  Mac froze. She pulled away from him and looked him right in the eye. This was the moment. This was the moment she should tell him about Trevor and the fact that they were taking a break but not officially done yet. Would he care? She wasn’t sure. Would Emma care? Mac didn’t know and there was the problem. This close to the wedding did she want to cause drama?

  Chapter 30

  She opened her mouth but no words came out.

  “I can see from your face that you’re not sure,” he said. “What is it with brides and having this über huge day all to themselves?”

  “Not all brides are like that, but Emma—” Mac cupped his face. She savored the feel of his stubbly chin against her palms. Man, she had gotten so fond of this handsome mug. The thought of going back to Chicago and not seeing it every day hurt.

  “I know,” he said. “Ever since Mom died, Emma makes an event out of everything. I love it about her even as it wears me out.”

  “Let’s let her have her special day with no surprises,” Mac said. “A perfect day that is lovely and magical and all for her and Brad.”

  “All right,” Gavin said. “I’m a bit more interested in a magical night myself; besides, keeping this thing between us a secret is kind of hot.”

  He swooped in and kissed her and Mac melted against him. She had to concede he was right; stolen moments in dark corners and lonely alleys were pretty hot.

  “Hey, you two, those shoes are not to be worn outside the bowling alley!” The manager of the bowling alley barked at them as he came outside for a smoke break, and Mac and Gavin broke apart.

  They exchanged a sheepish glance and ducked back inside. Mac tried not to think about what she was setting in motion by responding to Gavin. One thing she did know was that when she got home to Chicago, she was going to be making some changes. For time put in, she felt she owed it to Trevor to end it face-to-face.

  As for any magical nights with Gavin, that would have to wait until after she talked to Trevor. Since she was flying out the morning after the wedding, she didn’t think they’d have time to do much more than steal a few moments here and there, which while maddeningly frustrating and greatly disappointing was probably for the best. As Carly had suggested, she could flirt and fool around but no more.

  • • •

  Friday was a blur. Mac was up and moving before dawn and didn’t stop going until she arrived at the church for the rehearsal. She tried not to overthink her outfit selection but when she found herself choosing a hot red number just to see Gavin’s reaction to it, she put it back and went with a demurer floral dress.

  As she was leaving the house, she found Aunt Sarah trying out some hip-hop dance moves in the living room. She knocked on the doorframe to get her attention, but Sarah didn’t even break her rhythm. She looked at Mac and frowned.

  “If you want to have your way with that Tolliver boy, the red number is the way to go,” Sarah said.

  “I do not—” Mac began to protest but Sarah just shook her head at her. “Is it that obvious?”

  Aunt Charlotte entered the room. “That you’re in love with Gavin? Oh, my, yes.”

  “No, no, no.” Mac shook her head. She really liked him, sure, but love? No, she wasn’t in that deep, not yet.

  Aunt Sarah switched off the music and gave her a look that said quite clearly Mac was too stupid to live.

  “Let’s see,” Charlotte said. “Do you think about him all of the time?”

  Mac nodded.

  “Does he make you feel good about yourself?” Sarah asked.

  Mac bobbed her head.

  “Do you care more about him than you do about yourself?” Charlotte asked.

  Mac nodded again. She was getting unhappier with each answer.

  “Does he make your body hum?” Sarah asked.

  “Aunt Sarah!” Mac cried. She felt her face heat up.

  “Hey, it’s important,” Sarah said. “And judging by your face, he does.”

  “Excellent,” Charlotte said. “I like Gavin so much better than that toady Trevor fellow.”

  Sarah nodded. “You two will make great babies together.”

  Mac closed her eyes and tried to gather her composure. “I am leaving now. Do not say a word of this conversation to anyone, or I’ll delete the hip-hop from your iPod. Am I clear?”

  Both aunts nodded, solemnly. Mac felt like she was leaving two adolescent girls on their own as opposed to two septuagenarians. She wondered if she should lock up the liquor cabinet and call a sitter. Honestly!

  She walked to the church where the rehearsal was to take place. It was a gorgeous evening and tomorrow promised to be a picture-perfect day. She knew because Emma had her check the weather every fifteen minutes all day long.

  A faint breeze tugged at the hem of her skirt and swept her hair across her shoulders. She paused to admire the pink roses that hung down over the fence around the Burnhams’ yard. Mr. and Mrs. Burnham always had the prettiest roses on the street and the pink ones had always been Mac’s favorites.

  She leaned forward and inhaled the sweet scent that held just a hint of spice to it and the truth flared up in her like a burst of bright light. She was in love with Gavin Tolliver.

  Mac steadied herself on the fence, trying to catch her breath. When had it happened? How could she not have known?

  Then she realized that it had happened seven years ago, the night he had loved away all of her pain and humiliation. That was the night she had fallen for him. She had thought it was the trauma that had made it such a soulful connection but no. Gavin had been her soul mate all along; she had just never seen it. She had been in such a horrible world of hurt, she had run and never looked back.

  The realization staggered her. And then she just wanted to see Gav, to be with him, to hold him close, and to hell with what anyone thought of them together. Yes, even Emma.

  Mac turned away from the roses and all but ran to the church. She was winded when she got there. She saw her friends milling around on the front steps of Abiding Savior and she raced up the steps to join them. Her eyes searched the group for Gavin but there was no sign of him.

  “Mac, thank goodness, you’re here,” Carly said. “Emma’s having a meltdown.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” Mac asked.

  “Gav is MIA,” Zach said. “He’s not at the clinic and he’s not answering his phone.”

  Mac frowned. That was weird. Totally out of character for Gavin, unless—

  “Mac, you’re here!” Emma cried. She looked lovely in a pale blue dress with silver trim. “Is Gavin with you? We’re supposed to start and he’s nowhere to be found.”

  “Don’t fret, Emma, at least he’s not the groom,” Pastor Braedon, Jillian’s father, who was officiating the service, joked. “Oh, hi, Mackenzie.”

  “Hi, Pastor Braedon,” she said. She had been worried that seeing him again would trigger some post-traumatic stress since he was the one who was to officiate her own wedding, but no. She was pleased to note she was completely over it. She even managed to smile at his joke.

  “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Brad said. He took Emma’s hand in his. “He’ll get here as soon as he can.”

  “He probably had a
veterinary emergency,” Mr. Tolliver said as he joined them. “You know how your brother is, animals always come first.”

  Emma nodded. “You’re right. I just get worried.”

  “No need, he’ll jump in when he gets here, and if not I’m sure Mackenzie can bring him up to speed, right?” Pastor Braedon looked at her and Mac started.

  Did he know? Could he read on her face that she was in love with Gavin? Did everyone know? She felt her face heat up.

  “You are his partner in the wedding, correct?” Pastor asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mac said. “Yep, that’s me. Sorry, I sort of forgot my role here for a second.”

  They all laughed but Carly gave Mac a WTF look that Mac chose to ignore.

  The rehearsal went smoothly as everyone practiced their parts. Emma choked up a bit on her vows, but Brad just smiled down at her and pulled her through it, her ever-steady rock. Mac felt her own eyes water up, but she blinked away the tears, refusing to give in now when tomorrow would likely be a hurricane of happy boo-hoo-hoos. She figured she’d better conserve the water.

  They stood outside the doors of the church, taking their spots in the receiving line. Mac left a space for Gavin, as if he might appear at any moment. She didn’t say it to Emma, but she was getting worried. Emergency or no, she knew how much Emma meant to him and she couldn’t believe he hadn’t called anyone to let them know where he was.

  Mac’s phone chimed and she grabbed it out of her purse. Hoping it was Gavin, she didn’t even check the screen.

  “Where are you?” she cried.

  “London, you know that, babe,” Trevor said.

  Everyone was watching her and Mac shook her head to let them know it wasn’t Gavin. She turned her back and walked to the far side of the church. She wondered how swiftly she could hang up without being rude.

  There was a crisis here, after all, and now that she knew she was in love with someone else, talking to Trevor made her feel guilty. Not guilty for loving someone else—that was out of her control—but guilty for knowing she was going to be ruining this man’s week, possibly his whole month.

  The thought made her shake her head. Yeah, that was telling, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t be heartbroken about losing Mac, but he would be inconvenienced and Trevor hated to be inconvenienced.

  “Listen, Trevor, we’re leaving for the rehearsal dinner,” she said. “So I really can’t talk right now.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “I was just thinking about you tonight and I realized I sort of miss you. You should be here with me in London instead of that backwater in Maine.”

  His voice sounded slurred.

  “Trevor, have you been drinking?” Mac asked.

  “Just a few pints at the pub,” he said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Okay, that’s lovely,” Mac said. Trevor rarely drank but when he did, he got very chatty. She knew she needed to nip this or she’d be forced to hang up on him. “I really have to go now, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow and I’ll see you at the end of the week when we’re both back in Chicago. Okay?”

  “About that,” Trevor said. “You’re not bringing that dog back with you, are you?”

  “What makes you say that?” Mac asked. She had, in fact, been devising ways to steal Tulip and bring her to Chicago, but she hadn’t mentioned them to anyone, not even Gavin.

  “Because I know you,” Trevor said. “You have a soft heart and you probably fell all in love with that mangy mutt, but I’m telling you, it’s better off with Lester.”

  Mac froze as all the blood in her veins went icy cold.

  “What?” she asked. “What did you say?”

  “It’s better off with Les—” Trevor bit off the word as if just catching on that he had fumbled mightily.

  “I never told you who her owner was,” Mac said. “How did you know his name?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly, you must have,” he blustered.

  “No, I remember quite clearly because you hung up on me to go grease some wheels when I would have told you his name and everything about the horrible ordeal,” she fumed. She felt someone move to stand beside her and saw that it was Jillian and she was looking alarmed. “So, tell me how you know his name, Trevor, tell me now.”

  “Look, it was for your own good,” he said.

  “What did you do?” she snapped.

  “I might have hired someone to come and claim the dog,” he mumbled. “But I did it for you, for us, with the best of intentions.”

  “You hired someone to take my dog?” she cried. She heard Jillian gasp but didn’t look at her. “How?”

  “A corporate attorney friend of mine in Boston said he knew a guy in that Podunk town of yours that he figured would do it, so he drew up bogus ownership papers and had him call you,” Trevor said. “But, honestly, I was just trying to help. You don’t want to be tied down to some stray mutt. You have a career to think about.”

  “No, you weren’t trying to help me,” Mac said. Rage, white-hot and blinding in its intensity, made her growl through gritted teeth. “This was all about you. You had someone take my dog away because you didn’t want it in my life because it might impact your life—your perfectly ordered, carefully constructed life. You son of a bitch!”

  “Hey, now, there’s no call for language like that,” Trevor protested.

  “Oh, yes, there is,” Mac argued. “How much? How much were you paying him?”

  “Five grand,” Trevor said.

  Mac squeezed the phone so hard in her hand she was surprised it didn’t break.

  “I’m going to say this once, Trevor, so listen very closely,” she hissed. “That break we were taking, yeah, it’s permanent now. We are done, finished, over, the end. Lose my number forever because as soon as I end this call I can assure you I am losing yours.”

  He began to protest but Mac ended the call.

  “Holy sh—” Jillian began but Mac interrupted.

  “Give me your keys,” she said.

  “Okay,” Jillian said. She opened her bag and took them out and handed them to Mac. “But the rehearsal dinner.”

  “Tell Emma I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said. “But I have to go save my dog.”

  “Do you want help?”

  “No, I’ve got this. You be there for Emma—oh, and if you could explain about the whole me and Trevor on a break and now officially broken up because of what he did to my dog thing, that would be awesome.”

  Jillian nodded and then smiled. “Go get our girl!”

  Chapter 31

  Mac was pretty sure she broke the speed limit on her way to Lester’s house. Her hands were shaking. Her head was throbbing. She was so angry. How could Trevor have done such a deceitful, lying, conniving, horrible thing as to hire someone to take her puppy away from her? And why? Because it was going to inconvenience his life?

  It was a damn good thing he was thousands of miles away from her because she was quite certain she’d have wrapped her fingers around his thick neck and strangled the life out of him, the manipulative bastard.

  She parked right in front of Lester’s house. It was still light out and she could see his Buick was parked in his driveway. Excellent.

  She was not about to climb under the fence. This time she was going right through the front door. She was going to march into the yard and claim her dog. Lester could call Trevor and hash it out with him if he felt so inclined but Mac was over it.

  She lifted the latch and pushed her way through the creaky chain-link gate. The grass was as high as her knees and the walkway was cracked and pitted. She could see rusted parts of old junk strewn about the yard and she felt her rage spike. Yeah, Trevor had thought this was an acceptable life for her dog.

  Mac had to force herself to breathe and calm down as she was afraid that she’d take one look at Lester and pop him right in the f
ace. She was halfway up the walk when the front door burst open.

  She immediately assumed the fighter’s stance she’d learned in self-defense. If Lester wanted to rumble, she was more than ready and willing to drop him on his head. But it wasn’t Lester who was charging toward her. It was Gavin, coming at her with Tulip in his arms.

  “What are you doing?” Mac cried.

  “Go!” Gavin yelled.

  The front door banged open again and Lester appeared. He was sporting a shiner and had a baseball bat in his hands.

  “You think you can come on my property and take my dog?” he shouted. “I don’t care what you think you saw, she’s my dog and I’ll treat her however I want.”

  Lester lumbered down the steps. Gavin shoved Tulip into Mac’s arms and said, “Get her out of here.”

  Mac didn’t need to be told twice. She clutched Tulip close and hustled her to the Jeep. She popped the back open and put Tulip inside, making sure the side windows were down so she had plenty of air.

  She heard Lester’s baseball bat connect with something, making a loud thwack. She desperately hoped it wasn’t Gavin’s head as she dashed back across the street.

  The bat was now in two pieces and had been tossed aside. The two men were squared off, fists up and ready. Lester was panting and his shiner had started to swell. Gavin was breathing normally and didn’t have a mark on him that Mac could see.

  “I’m taking the dog,” Gavin said. “You can let us go or this can get ugly.”

  “You have no authority,” Lester said. “You’re just a vet. You can’t take people’s pets.”

  “You kicked her,” Gavin said. “I saw you.”

  “What?” Mac cried. She started to charge forward; she was going to put a hurt on Lester that he wouldn’t forget anytime soon. Gavin turned toward her and waved her off. Big mistake!

  As soon as Gavin turned his head, Lester charged him. He took Gavin out at the knees and the two men hit the ground in a flurry of fists and grunts.