Home Is Where the Bark Is

by Kandy Shepherd

  She smiled. “Shall I say they’re philosophically opposed to it? But they’re cool about anything I do. Even at the time when I wa—”

  She stopped mid-word. Met his scrutiny with wide eyes. The air seemed heavy with her unspoken words.

  He held her gaze for a long moment. Then finally he uttered the question he had been burning to ask her.

  “Why?”

  He found he was holding his breath for her answer.

  Serena tilted her chin upward. “Why what?” she asked. “Why did I pose naked in a bath of chocolate for the whole of America to see?”

  Nick started to growl a response, but she put up her hand to stop him.

  “Not naked, by the way. It just looked that way. I was wearing panties.” She hated the defensiveness that always weakened her voice when she spoke about it. “Or do you want to know why I look like this now?” She swept her hands down the sides of her shapeless shirt.

  “All of that.” He folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels.

  So far, no sleaze. Just interest. Above-the-neck-type interest.

  Serena knew she had good instincts when it came to animals—that was why she understood dogs so well. But she wasn’t so attuned to men. She was wary of making yet another mistake.

  She didn’t have to tell him. He had no right to ask. But there was something about this man that made her want to answer his question.

  With the shorthand version, that was.

  He was attractive. She liked his concern for Mack. She liked the way he hadn’t turned into a number one sleazebag when he’d discovered her past. But she still felt on edge around him.

  She noticed a soft plastic ball that had rolled under the dog bed. To gain a few seconds, she bent down to pick it up. When she straightened she realized Nick hadn’t taken his eyes off of her for a second. In a moment of pure female contrariness, she wished she were wearing something more attractive than the Paws-A-While uniform she had designed specifically to deflect male interest.

  “Posing for Maddy’s chocolate feature was fun,” she began. “Annie is my favorite magazine and Maddy is my best friend. The pose wasn’t any more revealing than a swimsuit.” Despite her best efforts, she faltered. “I . . . I never dreamed what it would lead to.”

  “Yes?” Nick nodded in encouragement.

  “For one thing, as soon as the campaign started, no one took me seriously anymore. It was like they thought my brain had been smothered by chocolate. I realized pretty soon that I would never live it down.”

  “You became famous.”

  “Infamous, you mean.” Fight it as she did, she couldn’t keep the betraying tremor from her voice. She tossed the ball from hand to hand.

  He leaned closer. “What do you mean?”

  She took a deep, steadying breath. Struggled to sound unaffected, unconcerned. “I attracted some weirdos. One in particular . . .”

  Her voice cracked. She wasn’t as disengaged from what had happened as she’d hoped. Her back ached from a long day bending over the grooming tables, and she longed to sink back down on the dog bed. But she had to keep the advantage of her height.

  “A stalker. You attracted a stalker?”

  She gripped tight on the ball. One part of her was tired of holding it all in. Talking to no one but her therapist. That part of her wanted to let it all out. Cry on his so-substantial shoulder. Trust him.

  She nodded.

  He stepped forward. Too fast. Too close. She took a step back. Her throat constricted. Deep breath. Deep breath.

  In an effort to sound as though it didn’t matter, she began to babble. “It wasn’t the billboard pictures. It was the other ones. But I wanted to leave modeling anyway. I don’t stick at things. Never finish them. Not good at commitment. I—”

  She gripped so hard on the ball it broke in a whoosh of expelled air.

  Nick cursed.

  She started. Looked around to see where the noise had come from. Then, dazed, looked down at the deflated plastic in her hand. The ball was Tinkerbelle’s favorite. Maddy would not be happy.

  “Serena. Tell me about the stalker.”

  The abrupt urgency of Nick Whalen’s voice broke through the haze. She looked up. That narrow-eyed, suspicious look was back in full force on his face.

  “Tell me now,” he said. The edge of impatience to his voice flung her back to a time when she’d been interrogated as if what had happened had been her own fault.

  Unable to croak out an answer, she stared at Nick Whalen. Now she knew what had bothered her about him from the get-go, what made her feel uncomfortable and edgy around him.

  He was a cop.

  As sure as dogs turned around three times before they went to sleep, he was a cop.

  A wave of disappointment threatened to drown her. Why did the first man in a long time to arouse her interest have to be a cop?

  Her unconventional family had brought her up to distrust figures of authority. Cops. Members of the military. Particularly cops.

  Her personal experience of men in uniform had only reinforced her family prejudice. Dave the Valentine’s Day dumper was a lieutenant in the navy. And there’d been that hard-eyed police officer who had implied that women who bared their bodies for the camera got what they deserved.

  Nick Whalen was not a Yorki-poo kind of guy. But he wasn’t a boxer type, either. A boxer, despite its tough face and powerful body, was not a dog often chosen for a life in law enforcement.

  No. Nick Whalen was more a Rottweiler type of guy.

  And out of all the breeds of dogs, a Rottweiler was the only one she didn’t like or trust. Or want anywhere near Paws-A-While.

  Four

  Serena stared at Nick with a new awareness. How could she have missed it? That chiseled jaw. The cropped hair. The tightly coiled energy in the broad shoulders and powerful, muscled body.

  She could just see him in uniform. A dark shirt and pants. A gun belt slung around his hips. A big shiny badge on his chest. Tough. Authoritarian. A real Rottweiler kind of a guy.

  That he would look hot, hot, hot in that cop uniform was a thought she forced herself to suppress.

  “Did you know your stalker? Or was he a stranger?” he asked, still with that edge of interrogation that made her bristle.

  “Why so many questions?” She fought the tremor in her voice. Not a good idea to show weakness in front of Rottweilers.

  “Knowing how the obsession started might help you.”

  She grit her teeth. “So what makes you such an expert on stalkers?”

  A muscle in his jaw tensed. “Did I say I was an expert on stalkers?”

  She folded her arms in front of her chest, did nothing to hide the note of challenge in her voice. “You know something? You never actually told me what your job is.”

  He had filled in the online application form for Paws-A-While with the word “Consultant” under the section for “dog owner’s occupation.” She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.

  He shrugged those broad, law-enforcement-type shoulders. “I work for an insurance company.”

  “You sell insurance?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You’re an insurance assessor?”

  “In a way, yes,” he said.

  She frowned. “You don’t look like you spend your day behind a desk.”

  If he did, he spent the rest of his life at the gym. Or Ironman training. Or some other rugged, Rottweiler/cop type workout.

  He cracked his knuckles, a sound that made her wince. Her father used to do that, and she hated it. At her glare, Nick fisted his hands by his sides.

  “Trust me, I avoid my desk wherever possible,” he said.

  Trust me.

  One of the things she loved about dogs was that they never played games of evasion. It bugged her when people did. “If someone were to ask me, I’d say you seemed more like . . . like a cop.”

  She looked intently at his face, determined to catch him out. Not by the merest
flinching did he react.

  “A cop? So that’s why you think I’m an expert on stalkers.”

  No way would she let him twist the conversation away in another direction. She was like a dog with its jaws clamped around a bone now, determined not to let go until she got a direct answer.

  “Are you? A cop, I mean?”

  Deep down she knew it was unfair to visit her dislike of law enforcement officers on Nick Whalen. And if he were anything other than a hot, gorgeous guy who had dragged her hormones out of hibernation, maybe she wouldn’t. If he was middle-aged, balding, and had a paunch, would she care about anything other than he had a nice dog and paid his account on time?

  Nick stretched his arms, then brought them together behind his back—a relaxed movement that belied the tension in his jaw. “I’m not a cop.”

  Like he wasn’t a journalist or a health inspector.

  But if he was not a cop, how did that explain her gut-level distrust of him? “So why the interest in stalkers?”

  “You’ve got it wrong. I have no interest in stalkers in general.”

  He took a step toward her. She stepped back, so quickly she nearly stumbled. Gulped a sharp intake of breath that left her feeling giddy. Damn! When would she stop reacting like this?

  “I’m interested in your stalker. In finding out why you cringe every time I get within arm’s reach of you.”

  “I . . . I don’t cringe,” she said, desperately wanting to take another step backward. Knowing the backs of her calves were already pressing painfully against the edge of the dog bed. That her chest was hurting from the effort to breathe normally, speak normally.

  He took another sudden, quick step forward. It wasn’t threatening. By no means was it threatening. But she reacted instinctively by stepping back so fast she pushed the dog bed away from her so it scraped across the polished concrete of the playroom floor.

  Mack gave a surprised yelp and hauled himself up from the floor. Hindered by his injured leg, he lurched toward Nick. Serena tensed. Did Mack think she needed protecting? He’d shown no signs of aggression thus far.

  But no. The dog settled his bulk near Nick’s feet. He looked up at Nick as if for reassurance and then toward her. Two pairs of eyes, one human and one canine, observed her. Nick raised an eyebrow. Mack tilted his head to one side, one ear up, the other down. Wordlessly, both man and dog waited for her reaction.

  She cleared her throat. “That . . . that wasn’t a cringe,” she stuttered. “It was a . . . well . . . I was backing off from a client asking questions he has no right to ask.”

  Nick shrugged his shoulders with great exaggeration. “My mistake. When you told me about the weirdo you attracted, I thought you wanted to talk about it.”

  “Well, I don’t. He’s my stalker and . . .” She sought for words. “And I . . . I’m not sharing.”

  Damn. In a day of dumb utterances, that took the prize for the dumbest.

  Nick quirked his mouth in a valiant but unsuccessful effort to squash a grin. Mack tilted his head to the other side. His forehead wrinkled in a frown.

  Mortified, Serena glared at both man and dog. But with the sound of her own silly utterance seeming to echo around the room, she found, in spite of herself, she was unable to stop a shaky, answering smile. “Dammit, I think you know what I mean.”

  Nick gave full leash to his grin. “That’s a first. I’ve never heard of anyone bragging about their own personal stalker.” He sobered. “But seriously, it might help to share. To talk about what happened.”

  He was too darn perceptive. Already, just hours after first meeting him, she was aware of the different nuances reflected in his pale blue eyes. Suspicion. Humor. Wariness. Now they were lit by a glow of something that made her bite her bottom lip to stop it from trembling.

  Compassion.

  The temptation to confide in him was almost unbearable.

  Of course she would feel better if she talked some more about what had happened with her crazy fan. She’d always talked to Maddy when something bothered her. But now her best friend was married to Tom, and Serena tried not to intrude on their time together. There was Jenna, of course. She’d known Jenna briefly at one of the numerous high schools she’d attended. They’d only reconnected a few years ago. But while Jenna was nice—really nice—she wasn’t yet in the top rank of friends.

  Whereas she and Maddy had clicked the moment they’d met over a plated entrée of Atlantic salmon with artichoke and almonds and a dangerously dribbly brown butter sauce. She’d been a new waitress almost paralytic with nervousness that she wouldn’t remember people’s orders; Maddy the sous chef desperate to take over the number one place in the kitchen. They’d talked ambition. They’d talked men. They’d talked more men.

  But now Maddy was part of a couple and Serena was aware that although Maddy would always occupy that space in her heart labeled “best girlfriend,” her buddy had moved on to a different stage of life.

  It would be so easy to cry on Nick Whalen’s rock-solid shoulder about the incident that still sometimes made her wake bolt upright in her bed as she relived the scariness—and stupidity—of it.

  But, sincere as he sounded, she still sensed that Nick had a different agenda that somehow involved her and the fledgling business she was so determined to make succeed. That feeling niggled at her. She could not risk getting too friendly with him. Not when she’d worked so hard to establish both her business and her emotional equilibrium. She had only enough money left from the fee for the girl-in-the-bath-of-chocolate shoot to keep her afloat for another six months. It hadn’t been as much as people thought—the photographer had gotten way more than she had—but enough to set up the business and give her a safety net until she got established.

  She made a big show of checking her watch. “No time for stalker sharing tonight. Not if you want to inspect that potty facility. You did say you were interested in seeing how it worked?” she said, knowing full well he had not.

  His grin dimmed into something that fought not to be a grimace. “Right. I . . . uh . . . of course I want to know that. Fascinated, in fact.”

  Serena would have no problem keeping a real Rottweiler out of Paws-A-While. She would simply tell the owner she had reached her quota of big dogs. But Nick Whalen was a different story. She suspected he would be as tough and tenacious as the breed of dog he so suited.

  “C’mon,” she said. “If we’re in luck, you might get to see Mack demonstrating how the potty works,” she said. She couldn’t resist a sly, sideways glance at him.

  Did Nick Whalen’s face go a pale tint of green under his tan?

  Nick cursed long and hard without uttering a word of it out loud. He’d lost her. Slipped out of doggy-daddy mode for just a second too long. Pushed her too soon, too hard.

  He didn’t know what made him most angry with himself—that he’d taken a step back from finding out more for his investigation, or that he’d found himself too keen to want to know more about her, to understand the anxiety that shadowed her eyes. Maybe even to want to make excuses for her. Damn but it was hard to keep his interest from becoming personal.

  And now he had to go feign interest in a canine latrine.

  But just as he made to follow her out back, the door from the reception area opened through into the playroom.

  “Serena? Okay to come in? Kylie said you were in here.” The unfamiliar male voice echoed through the playroom.

  Serena turned. A smile of genuine pleasure lit her face. “Joe! Hi! Come on through.”

  Her smile was unforced, luminous. Nick had only seen her look like that at a dog. He was curious to see who had elicited it.

  A middle-aged man with gray hair and a closely clipped salt and pepper beard let himself in through the pool gate. “Sorry to be so late,” he said.

  “No problem,” said Serena, her face still lit with that smile. “It’s great to see you. Rosemary has been doing the pickups lately. I haven’t had the chance to catch up for ages.”

&n
bsp; Serena turned back to Nick. “Joe and Rosemary and their darling golden Lab, Freya, were my very first clients. Joe, this is Nick Whalen; his Yorki-poo, Bessie, had her tryout day today.”

  The man nodded cordially and offered his hand. Nick was so stunned he hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking it.

  He recognized this man.

  But he could not in any way let on. He called on all his training to school his face into a mask of polite interest.

  Joe’s hand felt damp in his hand and, this close, Nick noticed that his skin had a tinge that matched his hair. But the older man rustled up a smile for Nick. “Your dog will be very happy here, if our experience is anything to go by.”

  There was an almost imperceptible catch to his voice on the last words that Serena didn’t seem to register. Or did Nick notice because he knew so much more about Serena’s other client?

  “So far so good,” Nick said. “Bessie seems to be fitting in real well.”

  And he had to keep up the act so Bessie would be here long enough for him to get the dirt on whatever was going on at Paws-A-While.

  The other man hardly seemed to hear Nick’s words. It was if he were operating on autopilot on the surface while something altogether different was churning underneath. But Serena appeared oblivious to any hidden tensions in her client.

  “Freya’s watching a movie in the television room,” she said to Joe. “We put the 101 Dalmatians DVD on for her and she’s been parked in front of it all afternoon.”

  Joe smiled, in what Nick thought was a weary imitation of a doting-doggy-daddy smile. “That movie is her favorite.”

  Nick forced himself to swallow a smart, decidedly non-doting remark. During his thirty-two years he’d seen quite a bit of life. But nothing had prepared him for the excesses he had encountered at this place.

  Was there no end to the pampering of these pooches? Favorite DVDs, for heaven’s sake. What next? Was that the way he’d have to infiltrate here? Walking through the dog-dedicated TV room offering popcorn and snacks to the lazy, indulged animals reclining in their armchairs?