by Nora Roberts
“Yes, Mom.”
“Keep it up, you’ll raise a counter-grazer. I’ve had more than one student who’s chowed down on the Thanksgiving turkey, the dinner party rack of lamb or the Christmas ham because they weren’t taught proper manners. One stole a neighbor’s steaks right off the grill.”
“Was that a fetch/retrieve? Because that could be a good skill.”
She shook her spoon at him. “Mark my words. Anyway, other than the stump?”
“Nothing much. I had some work, and I took some pieces into Syl’s, which is why I’m eating soup.” It wasn’t a chore after all, he realized, this dinner conversation with candlelight and dogs gnawing on rawhide. “She’s buzzed because a couple of women were in there when I came in, and they walked out loaded down. She’s shipping the wine cabinet because it was too big for their car.”
“The wine cabinet.” Her spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. “You sold my wine cabinet.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
She sulked a moment, then shrugged. “Well, hell. Congratulations.”
“It suited her.” He shrugged back when Fiona’s eyes narrowed. “Susan from Bainbridge Island. Canary diamond, good leather jacket, stylish boots. Subtle but expensive Susan from Bainbridge Island.”
“What am I? Obvious and cheap?”
“If you were cheap we’d be having sex now, soup later.”
“That’s supposed to be funny. It is, but only a little.”
“What do you do when you’re out with your unit like today? Don’t you just know all the stuff anyway?”
“It’s essential to practice, individually and as a team. We work a different problem, over different terrain, at least once a month. Then we can go over any mistakes, any flaws or any room to improve. We worked a cadaver find today.”
Simon frowned at his soup. “Nice.”
“Happy to change the subject if you’re sensitive.”
“Where’d you get the cadaver? Corpses Are Us?”
“They were out. We use cadaver material—bone, hair, body fluid—in a container. Mai, as base operations, plants it earlier. Then we set up, just as we would for a real search, assign sectors and so on.”
He tried to think if he’d ever had a more unusual conversation over minestrone. Absolutely not.
“How does the dog know it’s supposed to find a dead person instead of a live one?”
“That’s a good question. Different command. For mine, I use ‘find’ for a live search and ‘search’ for cadaver work.”
“That’s it?”
“There’s more, but most of it deals with the cross-training, the early work, the advanced work.”
“Jaws might be good at it. He found a dead fish today. No problem.”
“Actually, he could be. He can be taught to differentiate between the scent of a dead fish, or animal, and human remains.”
“And not to roll in it when he finds it?”
“Definitely.”
“Might be worth it just for that.” He glanced over to see Jaws bellying toward the table. Fiona simply turned, pointed. Jaws slunk back to the other dogs.
“He responds well, see? Not only to you but to another handler. That’s another essential skill.”
“I think he responds better to you, and I’m not sure that’s all that helpful.”
She nudged her bowl aside. “Maybe not, but this has been. I wouldn’t have brooded because it’s against the rules, but I’d have come close on my own.”
He studied her while the candlelight flickered. “You don’t look like hell tonight.”
“Oh my goodness.” She fluttered a hand at her heart. “Am I blushing?”
“I figured you would,” he added, unperturbed. “A full day out on maneuvers, or whatever they are.”
“Unit training.”
“Sure, and the fallout from the article. But you look good.”
“Wow, from not looking like hell to looking good in one leap. What could be next?”
“Your smile. I also figure you have to know it’s your best feature—the most appealing, the sexiest thing about you. That’s why you use it so often.”
“Really?”
“See, like right now.”
Still smiling, she rested her chin on her fist. “I’m still not sleeping with you tonight. This wasn’t a date. I may want you to take me on a date before we sleep together. I haven’t decided.”
“You haven’t decided.”
“That’s right. It’s one of the privileges of the female to decide these things. I don’t make the rules. So I’m not going to sleep with you yet.”
“Maybe I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Because I’m not your type,” she said with a nod. “But I’ve already seduced you with my smile, and softened you up with Sylvia’s soup. I could lay you like linoleum.”
“That’s insulting. And provocative.”
“But I won’t because I like you.”
“You don’t really like me that much.”
She laughed. “I actually do, and I’m not altogether settled tonight, so it wouldn’t be what it should be. But I’ll take this.”
She rose to walk around the table. And slid into his lap. She grazed her teeth over his bottom lip, then soothed it with her tongue before sinking them both into the kiss.
Comfort and fire, she thought, promise and threat. The hard body and thick, soft hair, the rough stubble and smooth lips.
She sighed into it, retreated, then locked her eyes on his.
“A little more,” she murmured, and took his mouth again.
This time his hands slid up her sides, skimmed her breasts. Possessed. Small and firm, with her heart thudding under his palms.
“Fiona.”
She broke the kiss to lay her cheek to his. “You could convince me; we both know it. Please don’t. It’s so unfair, but please don’t.”
Some women, he thought, had the power to turn a man in the opposite direction from what he wanted. It seemed his fate to run up against them. And, damn it, to care.
“I need to go.”
“Yeah.” She drew back again, this time cupping his face in her hands. “You do. But thanks, because when I’m restless tonight it won’t be over some damned article in the paper.”
“Just call me Samaritan.”
For a moment, she rested her brow to his. “I’ll give you a container of soup. And a bigger collar for Jaws. He’s outgrown that one.”
He didn’t argue as she gave him time to settle.
And still, all the way home while the pup snored in the seat beside him, he could taste her, smell her.
He glanced at the dog. “This is your fault,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t be in this situation except for you.”
As he turned into his own drive, he reminded himself to go buy a damn tree and plant it.
A deal was a deal.
TEN
She got through it, got past it. Work and routine pushed her hour to hour. She channeled excess nerves into workouts, shedding tension with sweat until an article rehashing her ordeal, her loss no longer mattered.
Her classes, her blog, the daily care and interactions with her dogs filled her days. And since a casual dinner over soup and bread, she had the idea of a relationship—however far it went—with Simon to entertain her mind.
She enjoyed him, quite a bit. Maybe, she considered, because he wasn’t as protective and easy as her circle of friends or the two women who made up her family. He was a little hard, a lot blunt and, she thought, a great deal more complicated than most people she knew.
In many ways, since Greg’s murder, the island had become her sanctuary, her safe place where no one looked at her with pity, or particular interest, and where she’d been able to restart her life.
Not on bare ground, she thought. She was who she was, at the core. But like an island, she’d broken off from the mainland and allowed herself to change direction, to grow, even to re-form.
Not so many
years before, she’d imagined herself raising a family— three-kid plan—in a pretty suburb. She’d have learned to cook good, interesting meals and would love her part-time job (to be determined). There would have been dogs in the house and a swing set in the yard, dance lessons and soccer games.
She’d have been a steady and supportive cop’s wife, a devoted mother and a contented woman.
She’d have been good at it, Fiona thought as she sat on the porch taking in the quiet morning. Maybe she’d been young to have been planning marriage and family, but it had all unfolded so seamlessly.
Until.
Until there was nothing left of that pretty picture but shattered glass and a broken frame.
But.
But now she was good at this. Content and fulfilled. And she understood she’d come to this place, to this life, to these skills because all those lovely, sweet plans had shattered.
The core might be the same, but everything around it had changed. And she was, because of or despite that, a happy, successful woman.
Bogart came over to bump his head under her arm. Automatically, she shifted, draped her arm over him to rub his side.
“I don’t think everything happens for a reason. That’s just the way we cope with the worst that happens to us. But I can be glad I’m here.”
And not feel disloyal, she thought, to Greg, to all those pretty plans and the girl who made them.
“New day, Bogart. I wonder what it’ll bring.”
As if in answer, he came to alert. And she saw Simon’s truck rolling down her drive.
“Could be interesting,” she murmured as the other dogs raced over to join her and sit, tails drumming.
She smiled at Jaws’s happy face peering out from the windshield on the passenger’s side, and Simon’s unreadable one behind the wheel.
She rose and, when the truck stopped, gave her dogs the release signal. “A little early for class,” she called when Simon stepped out, and Jaws leaped into the reunion with his buddies.
“I’ve got your damn tree.”
“And so cheerful, too.” She wandered over as he waded through the dogs.
“Give me the coffee.” He didn’t wait for the offer but took her mug, downed the rest of the contents.
“Well, help yourself.”
“I ran out.”
Because he looked surly, unshaven and sexy, she fluttered her lashes at him. “And still, here you are bright and early with a tree, just for me.”
“I’m here bright and fucking early because that dog chewed open five pounds of dog food somewhere before dawn, then opted to puke it up, bag and all, on my bed. While I was in it.”
“Awww.”
Simon scowled as the concern and attention went straight to the dog. “I’m the injured party.”
Ignoring him, Fiona rubbed the puppy, checked his eyes, his nose, his belly. “Poor baby. You’re okay now. That’s all right.”
“I had to throw out the sheets.”
From her crouch, Fiona rolled her eyes. “No, you clean off the puke, then you wash the sheets.”
“Not those sheets. He heaved like a drunk frat boy.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“I didn’t eat the damn kibble.”
“No, but you didn’t have it stowed where he couldn’t get to it, or better yet in a lidded container. Plus, he’s probably not ready to have free rein in the house. You should put up a baby gate.”
His scowl only deepened. “I’m not putting up a baby gate.”
“Then don’t complain when he gets into something he shouldn’t while you’re sleeping or otherwise occupied.”
“If I’m getting a lecture, I want more coffee.”
“In the kitchen.” Once he’d stomped out of earshot, she let the wheezing laugh escape. “He’s mad at you, isn’t he? Yes, he’s very mad. He’ll get over it. Anyway”—she gave Jaws a kiss on his cool, wet nose—“it was his own fault.”
Rising, she walked to the back of the truck to get a look at her tree.
She stood there, grinning still, when Simon strode out with his own mug of coffee.
“You got me a dogwood.”
“It seemed appropriate when I bought it yesterday. But that was before this morning when I was reminded dogs are a pain in the ass.”
“First, it’s a beautiful tree. Thank you. Second, any and everything that depends on us can be pains in the ass. He booted on your bed because when he felt sick and scared he wanted you. And third”—she laid her hands on his shoulders, touched her mouth to his—“good morning.”
“Not yet.”
She smiled, kissed him again.
“Marginally better.”
“Well, let’s plant a tree and see what that does for you. Let’s put it over there. No . . .” She changed direction. “There.”
“I thought you wanted it back in the woods, where the stump was.”
“Yes, but it’s so pretty, and back there hardly anyone will see it but me. Oh, there, back there, just on this side of the bridge. Maybe I should get another one for the other side. You know, so they’d flank the bridge.”
“You’re on your own there.” But he shrugged, opened the truck door.
“I’ll go with you, give you a hand.” So saying, she hopped nimbly in the back of the truck and sat on the bag of peat moss.
He shook his head but maneuvered the truck around, eased to the bridge and parked again. When he got out to lower the tailgate, she slung the bag of peat moss over her shoulder.
“I’ll get that.”
“Got it,” she said, and jumped down.
He watched as she carted it over to the spot she wanted, set it down. When she came back, he took her arm. “Flex,” he ordered.
Amused, she obeyed, saw his eyes register surprise when he tested her biceps. “What do you do, bench-press your dogs?”
“Among other things. Plus, I just have excellent protoplasm.”
“I’ll say.” He climbed up to pull the tree to the tailgate. “Get the tools, Muscle Girl. There should be an extra pair of work gloves in the glove box.”
The dogs sniffed around but soon lost interest. He said nothing when she hauled over the bag of soil he’d bought to mix with the peat, still nothing when she walked back to the house trailing the dogs.
But he stopped digging to watch her walk back carrying two pails like some lean-muscled milkmaid.
“My hose won’t reach this far,” she told him—and he was gratified she was at least a little winded. “If it needs more water, I can get it from the stream.”
She set the buckets down. The dogs immediately began to lap at the water.
“I don’t know why I never thought to plant something pretty here before. I’ll see it whenever I come home, go out, from the porch, when I’m training. Them,” she corrected, “if I put one on the other side of the drive. Want me to dig awhile?”
It was probably stupid to take that as a challenge to his manhood, but he couldn’t help it. “I’ve got it.”
“Well, let me know.” She walked off to play with the dogs.
He’d never considered tough especially sexy, but despite the willowy frame, the soft coloring, the apparently bottomless patience, the woman had an underlayment of steel. Most of the women he’d been involved with hadn’t lifted anything more challenging than an apple martini—and maybe a five-pound free weight at a fancy health club. But this one? She shouldered a sack of dirt like a seasoned laborer.
And damn if it wasn’t sexy. And it made him wonder just what that body would look like, feel like, when he got her naked. Maybe he needed to push a little harder on that goal, he thought, and put his back into the digging.
She came back when he cut open the bags of soil and peat to mix into the hole.
“Hold off on that a second, and I’ll do it. But I want to show you something first.” She stepped beside Simon, then signaled Jaws—hand command only. He trotted right over and, when she pointed, sat. “Good dog, good.” She slipp
ed him one of the treats she never seemed to be without. “Stay. Go on and get down to his level,” she told Simon.
“Do you want this tree planted or not?”
“It’ll only take a second. Stay,” she repeated firmly when Jaws bunched for a leap as Simon hunkered down. “Stay. He’s getting it, and we’ll work on the sit and stay with distance. But I thought you’d like this. Hold out your hand, say, ‘Shake.’”
Simon slid a cynical glance up at her. “No way.”
“Just give it a try.”
“Right.” He held out a hand. “Shake.”
Jaws lifted a paw, plopped it into Simon’s palm. “Son of a bitch.” He laughed, and the dog forgot himself in pride and pleasure to rear up and lap at Simon’s face. “That’s pretty good. That’s pretty damn good, you dumbass.”
Fiona smiled down as man and dog congratulated each other.
“Do it again,” Simon demanded. “Sit. Okay, shake. Nice.” He stroked the pup’s ears, looked up at Fiona. “How’d you teach him that so fast?”
God, they looked adorable together, she realized. The tawny-eyed man with his morning stubble, the young dog who was growing into his feet.
“He wants to learn, to please. He has a strong drive.” She passed treats into Simon’s free hand. “Reward him. He’ll be happy with your approval and affection, but the food reward’s extra incentive.”
She picked up the shovel, began to toss dirt, then peat, then dirt into the hole.
“That’s enough. We need to set the root-ball.”
“I don’t know much about planting trees.” She swiped the back of the work glove over her brow. “In fact, this is my first. Do you?”
“I’ve plugged in a few.”
“I thought you lived in the city before Orcas.”
“I didn’t grow up in the city. My family’s in construction.”
“Okay, but doesn’t that mean planting buildings?”
His lips quirked. “You could say. But my dad’s policy was to buy a tree or a shrub for any new house he built. So I plugged in a few.”
“That’s nice. Your dad’s policy, that’s nice.”
“Yeah. Nice gesture, and good business.”
