by Mary Stone
“Of course it is. They give you those tiny little pats of butter, and it’s never enough. You know I’m a butter fiend and—”
She stopped. Why was she arguing about butter with him when there was a pregnancy test cooling in the bathroom cabinet, waiting to reveal its contents? Did pregnancy tests go bad? If she waited too long, would it give her the wrong answer? But Linc was waiting on her to explain, so it wasn’t like she could just call a break and go check, especially considering she’d just been in the bathroom less than two minutes ago. If she hightailed it back there now, he was bound to get suspicious.
“Anyway,” she said, sitting on her hands to stop from fidgeting with them, “Elise says she wants to possibly hire me. She said something about a phony adoption agency, but I think she might be a little confused. Something about a baby she thinks is missing.”
“She seemed…” He touched the side of his head. “Am I right?”
Kylie nodded. Elise Kirby was what some people might call a little slow. It might have been an intellectual disability, but she also walked like she was moving through molasses, with a little bit of a limp. And when she spoke, it usually took her quite a while to get the words out.
“But she’s so sweet. I really like her, so I agreed to meet her this afternoon.” Kylie wiggled her eyebrows at Linc. “Now who thinks it was a dumb idea to put the ads for Coulter Confidential on their placemats?”
Linc raised his hand, grinning at her. “I still do. Just because some waitress hires you for what could or could not even be a case doesn’t mean that you’re going to recoup the three-hundred bucks a month you put into it.”
Kylie’s face pinched. She’d really been proud of that advertising coup, especially when she’d finagled an extra month free out of the ad exec. “You just wait. Anyway. We should probably clean up this sty before she gets here.”
“Wait.” He looked down at the balls of fur floating around like fuzzy tumbleweeds. “You’re meeting her here?”
“Yeah. She said it was a personal matter. She didn’t want anyone at the diner hearing about it.”
He considered this. “About an adoption agency?”
Kylie nodded.
“Interesting.” He pushed up off his chair and grabbed a training leash. “Going to see if I can’t do some one-on-one training with Beatrice. She’s the most promising. If she gets it, maybe her siblings’ll fall in line.”
Kylie smiled wide at him, trying not to shoo him away. She was anxious to get rid of him because of what waited in the bathroom cabinet.
“Have fun,” she said to him, still sitting on her hands. Get moving, bud. I got things to do. Life and death things.
The second the screen door slammed, all the pups but Beatrice hustled back inside, yipping and sliding on the wood floors.
She cursed, then rushed to the bathroom as if her pants were on fire. By then, she was sweating and nauseated again. A few more dry heaves later, she grabbed the wand, and saying a little prayer, raised it up so that she could read her future.
3
Something was definitely up with Kylie.
If only Linc knew what it was.
He’d known Kylie for over a year now, and that was the thing about her. She was always optimistic, even on the worst days. And now…not so much.
He took a few breaths in the bracing mountain air. It was still summer, and yet the weather was comfortable this high up. He’d grown up here, on this hill, preferring the tranquility of his grandparents’ vast oasis to his parents’ stuffy mansion in Biltmore.
Kylie was turning out to be a different story. Oh, she said she loved the farmhouse, but she sometimes grouched whenever they had to drive a half-hour to get to the supermarket, remembering fondly the days when she could walk right out of her downtown Asheville apartment and grab everything she needed at the market next door.
Once they were married, Linc thought they’d become the type of couple who read each other’s minds and completed each other’s sentences.
Fat chance.
With Kylie, he’d quickly learned that was impossible. She was, and always had been, all over the place. Just like Vader, her Newf. Two peas in a pod.
Not like Beatrice here, Linc thought, petting the pup’s side. She may have looked like Vader, but inside, she was all Storm, his well-behaved German Shepherd, and until an injury sidelined her last year, one of the best SAR dogs in the state. Bea, who Kylie had named after one of the rescuers who’d been murdered on a case she’d solved, was calm. Even temperament. Not prone to any Vader-like outbursts of insanity.
Kylie may have had a definite case of ADHD, but what made him able to tolerate her was that, like Vader, Kylie was always, always positive. Happy. Infectiously so.
Now…Kylie’s unpredictability was rearing its ugly head even more. Because now, he couldn’t even count on the happiness.
“Come on, girl,” he said, leading Bea into the fenced yard. When he closed the latch, he let her off the leash and started out with the basic commands.
Talk about insanity. Ever since Kylie’d started this venture a month after they’d gotten married in May, she was up one minute, down the next. She was so invested in getting it off the ground, spending long hours transitioning everything from Greg, that she’d barely had time to breathe. Probably just stress, but she’d quickly gone from high-strung yet upbeat to high-strung and moody.
That’s why he’d decided it’d be better to remove himself from her hair. They didn’t fight much, but when they did, it could get real ugly, real fast. She didn’t stop until she’d figuratively pinned him to the floor, and he didn’t like confrontations.
He’d quickly learned that it was easier to either let her win or walk away.
When Beatrice lifted a paw when he asked her to shake, he smiled. Good dog. She’d gotten all the basic stuff already.
Now, it was time to introduce some basic SAR lessons.
As Linc was about to get her started on scenting, the back door opened, and a crazy parade of dogs barreled straight for him, barking and intent on creating a little havoc.
What the…
Whenever all the dogs got together like this, all the training lessons pretty much went out the window. There were too many of them to adequately train as a group.
“I can’t clean anything with them in here!” Kylie yelled, her head poking through the door. “Elise’ll be here any minute. You’re the dog whisperer! You deal with them!”
Well, okay then.
He opened the gate that led to the yard, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as several of the more Vader-like dogs jumped at him, wanting to play. All right. So, training would have to wait.
He threw a ball for them to chase, thinking of his wife.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were married. She was his. He was hers. All those relationship head games were supposed to be behind them. Wedded bliss, right?
Then why was she acting like this? Was it really the stress of the job, or something else? He’d thought the anxiety of starting the new business would let up after a couple months, but if today was any indication, it only seemed to be getting worse.
Just this morning, she’d been so happy. What the hell had made her turn on a dime like that? If he talked to his brothers, they’d have probably told him she was on the rag, but that was the reason he never went to Craig and Erik for marital advice, even though both of them were much older and no strangers to married life.
What it was, probably, was too many changes too soon. Marriage. All the puppies. The new business. Mountain farm life.
Her old life had completely transformed into something different, and she needed time to process all the changes. She had a reason to be stressed right now. The best he could do was hang on for the ride.
And something that he wasn’t really all that great with.
Communication.
Yeah. Kylie was big on communication. Really big. She never stopped talking, wanting to share feelings, but as t
he strong, silent type, that was hard for him. She had been rather closed-off lately, probably because she was too busy trying to keep all of her balls from dropping.
Maybe that’s all he had to do. Open up the lines of communication.
He’d go in there and talk to her until she spilled whatever was bothering her. She’d seemed like she wanted him out of her way, but maybe he should’ve offered to clean up with her. Maybe he should’ve told her that if there was anything she wanted to tell him, he was all ears.
Right. That was it.
He threw the ball again, then bounded up the back steps and went into the kitchen. As he was opening the door, he caught sight of Kylie, sitting at the kitchen island, phone in front of her, holding something he couldn’t quite see in her hand.
As soon as she looked up, she snatched the thing behind her back and scowled. “What are you doing in here?”
Wow. That was a tone of voice he hadn’t expected. Had she ever sounded that annoyed with him before? “I just wanted to see if you needed me for—”
“I needed you to keep the dogs busy while I cleaned up in here,” she snapped, fisting one hand on her hip while keeping the other behind her back. What was she hiding?
He leaned against the doorframe, studying her closely. She looked a bit flushed. Had she been crying? “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been acting a little—”
“I’m fine!” She bit the words off in a way that proved the opposite. Not at all fine. Before him, she took in a really deep breath, closing her eyes as if praying for patience. When she opened them again, she smiled. A big, fake smile. “I’m sorry, honey. I was just googling my newest client to see if there was any info on her. I like to go into my meetings prepared.”
Kylie was usually the very opposite of prepared, but he didn’t argue with her. She had been getting better, doing the things that were necessary even when they weren’t necessarily fun. Research would be one of them.
Even so, she’d been trained by the best private investigator in Asheville, Greg Starr, who’d been at the business for forty years before he took Kylie on as a lowly filing clerk…at first. But she’d shown that she had so much spunk, grit, and determination that she’d quickly risen in the ranks before he decided to place the business and all its assets in her capable hands and fish his way into retirement.
All right. If she insisted.
But she must’ve seen the doubt in his face, because she added, “I know, it’s not The Red-Headed League, but we’ve all got to start somewhere. And I do feel bad for Elise. She sounded really worried.”
“I’m sure you can help her.” Working on new cases, helping people, always made Kylie happy.
But what the hell was behind her back? Why was she hiding things from him?
They were married. Secrets and hidden things were not supposed to happen between them. He walked around her, but she spun with him, facing her back away from him.
Definitely. Definitely hiding something.
The more she spun to face him, the more curious he got. He had the urge to lunge over to her and grab it from her hand, whatever it was.
“I hope I can help her,” she said, ignoring his curious looks. So that was it. Deflect, and maybe he’d forget about whatever it was she was hiding. “It’d be nice to have a good case that’s not from Greg. Then I can really say the business is taking off.”
“You’ll do great.” He wasn’t really paying attention.
She picked up her phone and slid off the stool, still facing whatever was behind her back away from him. “I’m telling you. Those placemat ads? Pure gold.”
Deflect, deflect, deflect.
He stared at her as if he could see through her, to whatever she was keeping from him. “I guess.”
She nudged him. “Come on! Admit it!”
Now, she was teasing him? All right then. “Okay, okay. It was a good idea.”
She gave him a triumphant smile, and then reached into the garbage bin, grabbed the overflowing bag, tossed whatever was in her hand in there, and tied it up tight.
“I’ll take that out,” he said, sensing his one and only chance.
“It’s okay. I’ll do it.” She was already heading toward the front door, where she could get to the trash cans they kept near the barn.
He sighed. Even if she’d let him take out the trash, would he really have pulled open that bag to see what she’d thrown away? Didn’t he trust her?
Yeah. He did. And that’s why no…he would not go snooping on his wife. He trusted that if she had something to tell him, she would. “Hey, Lee?”
She stopped and spun to face him.
He’d practiced what he was going to say to her, and outside it had made sense, but now it seemed awkward. “If there’s anything you have to tell me or want to talk about…I’m here.”
She gave him a look like he was a many-horned thing that had crawled out of the pond out back. “Uh. Thanks.”
Then she turned and pushed out the front door, letting the screen door slam behind her.
Scratching his head, he went to the back door, where the dogs were all pressing their noses up to the glass, wondering where he’d gone.
Heading outside, he groaned. As much as they said Coulter Confidential was their shared venture, it was really Kylie’s baby. She loved it, just as he loved working with SAR dogs. She wanted desperately for it to succeed. So, if her three-hundred-dollar investment in placemat ads was going to get her where she wanted to be, he was all for it.
He just couldn’t bring himself to be as invested as she was. He was invested in the sense that he wanted it to make her happy. But if it didn’t? Then he had his job. It didn’t make oodles of money, but eventually, when he had the dogs trained, he could sell them off, and that would probably net them enough money to live comfortably for the next few years, with or without Kylie working.
Besides, in another few years, he wanted kids. Actually, if he’d had his way, Kylie would be fat and pregnant right now. He was thirty-three. It was time to start a little brood of his own. But when the prospect of taking the investigations business over from Greg landed in her lap, they both decided to put starting a family off for a few years, to get the business off the ground.
Or at least, Kylie decided. He went along with it, because he wanted her happy. And the business? It made her happy unlike anything else. Even, sadly, sometimes him. He’d never seen her looking so alive as she did while she was in the throes of researching one of the big, important cases. She loved the thrill, the hunt, the adventure, the danger.
So, maybe being a private investigator wasn’t the greatest job for a mom to have. Especially considering how Kylie always got herself embroiled in some heavy shit. In the past year, she’d been kidnapped, shot, had her car torched, and more. Kids didn’t fit into that job description.
So, yeah. Waiting.
He took a deep breath, sucking in more of that mountain air and tried to relax. The dogs were fun, sure. He loved playing fetch with them. But he couldn’t help thinking what it’d be like to be throwing a ball around with a little boy. His son.
Then he turned around and realized that half of the brood had disappeared.
“Damn it all to hell,” he murmured when he went to the fence where he’d last seen them and noticed a small hole, like some animal had chewed through the wire.
Fantastic. The run he’d made for the dogs was about a football field’s length in size and went from the back of the house down a long, grassy hill. But, apparently, that wasn’t enough space for his spoiled pups. They wanted to explore.
Something told him that he’d be up late tonight, picking burrs out of fur. Wonderful.
Bending the wire to close it up, he told Beatrice, the good girl, and Britt, the good boy, to stay, and motioned for Storm to come with him. “Where’d they go, girl?” he asked her.
Once she got free of the fence, she tore off like a bolt of lightning toward the woods, surprisingly fast considering she’d lost a leg not t
hat long ago. Linc had a sneaking suspicion that Storm’s beau, Vader, the rebel, was at the helm of this particular prison break. He’d never been keen on setting a good example for his kids.
As Linc climbed down a sloping embankment, he saw the pups between the trees and cursed. There was a small creek that ran through the property, the edges of which were mostly mud…thick, black mud.
And yes. Burrs. Lots and lots of burrs.
Even from several dozen yards away, he could see that most of the pups had gotten themselves good and dirty with all that nature had to offer them. They were rolling around in it, without a care in the world.
Shit. Kylie would be furious. She’d just love to finish cleaning the house, only to have these nightmares trailing mud and wet fur through it.
“Dammit!” he muttered under his breath, then shouted, “Come!”
Of course, Storm obeyed, moving swiftly in spite of her disability. The rest? Fat chance.
Linc slid down the embankment toward the rest of the muddy pups, getting his jeans coated in the dirt. When he got closer, he realized that Vader wasn’t all that dirty. In fact, he was running around the pups, barking at them, nudging them with his nose. It was almost like he was trying to get them to behave.
“Vader, come,” he said, and the enormous Newfoundland mix listened. He came, head down, looking immensely sorry. Linc patted his side but couldn’t help feeling a flash of jealousy for the dog having pups to look after. Linc would’ve liked any pups, even misbehaving ones.
That would probably be a really nice feeling, to have a little someone to teach, to mold, to love. He was a traditionalist. He wanted that. Marriage. Kids. Maybe even a whole brood like the dogs had, one that would require a massive minivan. Their own freaking baseball team, or a clan that they could tote around to school events, a kid in every grade, and everyone would say, “Ah, here comes all the Coulters. All twelve of them.”
But no. He wasn’t going to tell Kylie that he’d made a mistake by agreeing with her that they should wait to start that family. She needed to feel comfortable in her job first.
