by Liliana Hart
If she’d known upfront what kind of a man he was back in college, she would have never agreed to go out with him that first time. Let alone that fourth, fifth and sixth. And she certainly wouldn’t have slept with him.
Even though that colossal mistake had been one of the most memorable nights of her life.
“What she means,” a dry, irritatingly masculine voice said from the door, “is that I’m on official police business, not stalking you for reminiscence’s sake.”
His voice was familiar, yet not. He still spoke with that deliberate, cool calm. But his tone was deeper, raspier than it had been back then. Which made sense; he’d been on the cusp of manhood, but not quite there.
He’d been twenty-two back then, which would make him, what? Thirty-two today? An adult.
Her reaction to his voice hadn’t diminished, unfortunately. It still lifted the hair on her arms and set her fingers to tingling. She would have known immediately who he was just by the heat pooling in her belly.
And then his words registered.
…. here on police business?
Police business?
Kaylea’s hand froze again, the table suddenly a rigid, icy pressure beneath her hand. That same icy pressure pricked down her spine, and dropped into her belly with a cold, hard, splash.
He’s only been here six weeks. Nobody else has a clue what we did, and it happened seventeen years ago. There’s no way he could have found out in six weeks. No way. He must be talking about something else.
Forcing herself to breathe, she straightened and turned to face him.
He looked the same, yet not. She could see the face of that slow to smile, studious university boy buried beneath the chiseled jaw and stern mouth. His cheeks looked harder, his nose bumpier—like it had been broken one time too often since that impromptu football game her first weekend on campus, when her roommate had introduced them. His shoulders were easily twice as broad, blocking the sun spilling into the clinic’s lobby.
But his eyes. . . his eyes marked the real difference. They’d always been a deep, dark chocolate brown. But they hadn’t been shuttered. They hadn’t held hers with such distant watchfulness, with such brittle cynicism.
They hadn’t been cop eyes.
A sense of loss hit her, of deep mourning for the boy he’d been, and the innocence he’d lost during his wanderings on the path he’d chosen. Of what they’d lost, because of his choices.
“Princess,” he said, with a subtle nod of his head in acknowledgement of their previous relationship, even if it had been antagonistic towards the end.
It wasn’t the nickname that drowned the swell of pity and loss—it was the subtle derisiveness that sharpened it. He’d always called her princess. In the beginning it had been a tribute, of sorts. It hadn’t turned derisive until that second year, after they’d returned from summer break and he’d announced his career change.
“Logan.”
She caught the rounding of Janine’s eyes at her dismissive tone, and fought to soften her voice.
“You’re here on police business?” she prompted when the silence dragged on uncomfortably long.
He was studying her as closely as she’d surveyed him. Had he noticed the same depth of changes in her, as she had in him? It was doubtful. Her disillusionment had settled hard as concrete years before she’d headed off to college.
“Yeah.” He paused to rake his fingers through his hair.
The familiar gesture rocked her, and for a moment the college kid she’d known was transposed over this stranger’s stern face.
“A stray showed up at my place last night. Looks to be in good health, well taken care of. Thought you might know who it belonged too.”
“Dog or cat?”
It didn’t surprise her that he’d brought the animal to her clinic, rather than dumping it at animal control. He’d always liked animals. It was one of the things she’d found so attractive about him in the beginning.
She guessed some things hadn’t changed. His concern for animals, and his avoidance of her.
By the end of his final year at the University of Washington, they’d avoided each other stringently. It had been rather difficult, since her roommate had been dating his.
Avoiding her was obviously a tactic he intended to continue in Jamesville, which suited her just fine. He must have known she ran the clinic in town, because there’d been no surprise to find her behind the door—yet he’d made no attempt to contact her in the six weeks he’d been in town, either.
Until this animal in need.
“A golden retriever.” The words were clipped, distant—as were the dark eyes that held her own.
She acknowledged the pang of grief at the breed he mentioned, marveling that after seventeen years she could still miss Max so much. But, then again, maybe it wasn’t so surprising. If not for Max she’d be dead.
“Goldens are popular in Jamesville; quite a few clients have them. I should be able to put you in touch with its owner.”
“You’ll recognize him?”
“If he’s a client’s dog, I’ll know who he belongs to,” Kaylea assured him. She made a point of knowing her clients’ pets inside and out. And the town’s goldens… well, while she’d never owned another golden since Max—or any animal, for that matter—goldens still held a special place in her heart.
“He’s out in the car.” Logan turned and walked away.
Kaylea hesitated, a shaft of annoyance piercing her. She heard the sound of the front entrance’s bells, which indicated that he’d gone back outside. Did he expect her to follow him? Or was he bringing the dog to her?
After a second she straightened her shoulders and headed for the door herself. No way was she going to hide in the exam room. She owned this place. She was a capable, adult business woman.
Time to start acting like one.
The door chimes jingled again as she slipped behind the counter in the lobby. Well, at least her question had been answered; he was bringing the animal into the clinic.
“Oh, what a beautiful animal,” Janice said, her voice half cooing. “But he’s not one of ours.”
The front counter was high, so high she couldn’t see the animal. But she could hear him. The dog let loose with a rash of yips and whines, and then an excited yodeling yowl.
An eerie sense of deja vu kicked in at the sound. Time and space spun for one crazy moment. Max had greeted her with that exact same enthusiastic howl every afternoon when she’d return from junior high school.
Shaking the memory aside, she leaned forward to get a better view.
“He seems to knows you,” Logan said, a hint of warmth giving life to his voice. He smiled, but the expression was directed down, toward the dog.
Suddenly, a huge, pale gold body launched itself over the counter.
Kaylea caught a glimpse of a big, blocky head with large, almond shaped eyes and floppy triangular ears sticking straight up in the air as the dog flew directly at her.
“Damn it.” Logan’s voice was grim as he vaulted the counter as well.
And then the animal clipped her knees, knocking her backwards.
She fell backward in what felt like slow motion, her frozen, unbelieving gaze locked on the huge, blocky head with its soft as satin golden ears. Ears an entire shade darker than the fur on his face.
Max’s ears.
Max’s face.
Her head and shoulders hit the padded front of the computer desk chair, which blunted the impact of the fall. She slid down the chair, landing on the linoleum with a muted plop. The dog crawled right into her lap, his frantic cries echoing in her ringing ears. A pink tongue, liberally streaked with black, went to work licking her face.
Max’s tongue.
She looked into a pair of joyful, chocolate brown eyes, and her chest went hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold, pulsing with the oddest mixture of disbelief, recognition and joy.
Max’s eyes.
Except they couldn’t be. They couldn�
�t. Max was dead. Gone seventeen years now.
“Son of a bitch.” Logan grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck and dragged it back, shaking it slightly when it struggled frantically against his hold. “Sit, damnit, sit.” When the pale gold butt plopped down, Logan squatted beside Kaylea. “You okay?”
She nodded, afraid to test her voice. Her gaze tunneled in on the big, square head, with its fluffy ears and milk chocolate, adoring gaze.
“You don’t look okay,” Logan replied after scanning her from head to shoes. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
It’s not Max. It can’t be Max. Max is dead. Resemblance aside, reaction aside. This cannot be Max. You know that.
“I’m okay,” Kaylea assured both Logan and Janine, who was hovering over her with even more concern in her eyes than Logan had in his. She winced at the tremble in the words and strengthened her voice. “Seriously, I’m fine.” She reached out to ruffle the dog’s fluffy ears. “Where did you say you found him?”
“I didn’t. He found me.” Logan straightened, apparently taking her reassurance at face value. “I’m working the graveyard shift. He was waiting on the porch when I got home this morning. I figured he’d wander back home, so I left him outside when I went to bed, but he was still there when I woke up this afternoon.”
Logan had only been in town for six weeks. Maybe the dog belonged to whoever had lived in that house prior to Logan’s arrival.
“What’s your address?” Kaylea asked.
The golden let loose with a round of tail thumping and several gusty groans as she leaned forward to dig her fingers in behind his ears and massaged the slight hollow beneath the joint. Max had loved having that spot rubbed too. In fact, he’d always reacted in exactly the same way. With tail thumping and deep guttural groans.
Her heart jerked.
He couldn’t be Max. Couldn’t be.
She’d watched Max die. She’d buried him. It may have been seventeen years ago, but she remembered it like it had hours earlier.
“68 Willow Burrow,” Logan said, “The house came with the job.”
The address knocked Kaylea’s breath away and spawned a vipers’ nest of memories.
Shrill childish screams echoed in her ears. “Stop it daddy. Stop it. Please, please, stop. You’re hurting her.”
“You know the place?” Logan asked, his gaze suddenly sharp and searching. Cop’s eyes.
“I knew someone who lived there.” She forced the admission past the knife in her throat. “But it was a long, long time ago.” Seventeen endless years ago.
Her gaze shifted to the dog. To the big, blocky golden head identical to Max’s. To chocolate brown eyes as expressive as Max’s.
Logan said he’d been waiting on the porch. On the porch at 68 Willow Burrow. Exactly where Max had waited for the school bus, all those years ago.
Was it possible? But how?
Something niggled at her, but she was too frazzled to hunt the memory down.
Instead, she pushed the dog aside and braced her palms against the floor, trying to shove herself up. Logan caught her arm and pulled, holding onto her until she regained her balance before letting go, all without releasing his grip on the dog.
“You should see the doc; you’re still pretty white,” he said quietly, that earlier distance creeping in to cloak his eyes and voice again.
“I’m fine,” Kaylea said, brushing her shirt and slacks with hands that were shakier than she’d liked. “You can let him go now.”
Instead of releasing the dog, Logan glanced at Janine. “Do you have a leash?”
The question shook the last of the haze from Kaylea’s mind. “I’m perfectly capable of controlling an unruly dog.”
Or an excited one. She glanced at the golden sitting in front of her. The liquid brown gaze was watching her with joyful adoration—focused completely and utterly on her, as though as though she was the only thing of importance in the world.
Exactly the way Max had always watched her.
And for the first time, she realized that the dog’s eyes, eyes identical to Max’s, were the exact same shade of brown as the eyes of the man holding him.
Was that why she’d had such an instant, blinding sense of trust in Logan back then? Had his eyes subconsciously reminded her of Max?
Yeah, it made sense. There hadn’t been a trusting bone in her body by then, yet somehow she’d fallen into Logan’s snare with nary a whisper of warning.
Janine handed Logan a kennel lead, and he slipped the noose over the dog’s head. As he straightened, the golden bounced up, his gaze still focused on Kaylea’s face, his whole body vibrating.
His eyebrows snapping together, Logan tightened the lead.
“Max,” Kaylea said, testing the name to see the dog’s reaction. The feathery golden tail wagged wildly.
“Sit,” she said.
The fluffy hindquarters instantly plopped down.
“So you know who he belongs to?” Logan asked, glancing between her and Janine with a slight frown.
“I think so,” Kaylea managed—he belongs to me. He’s my Max Midnight.
She ignored the surprised look Janine sent her and stared at Logan, willing him to leave.
He must have picked up on her assistant’s confusion, or maybe the strangeness of her reaction, because he hesitated again, his frown deepening.
“Just leave him with me. I’ll contact his owners.”
Please don’t ask who his owners are.
He glanced between her and Janine again, and Kaylea held her breath, just waiting for her assistant to voice her confusion and blow everything. Janine knew their clients’ pets as well as Kaylea, so she knew there wasn’t a golden retriever who looked like this, or went by the name of Max in their database.
After another slow glance between the three of them—the dog, Janine, and Kaylea—he finally nodded and turned, heading for the front entrance. Silence dominated until the bells chimed signaling the door closing behind his broad back.
“I’ve never know you to lie, Kaylea Armund,” Janine said, planning palms on her generous hips. “So I’m sure there’s a good reason for that clunker of one you just told.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Kaylea protested. At least not a complete lie. “I do think I know who he belongs to.”
Janine released a soft huff of doubt and confusion. “And this person isn’t on our lists? Because I’ve never seen this dog in my life.”
No, she wouldn’t have. Max had died long before Janine had come to town. It can’t be Max. It can’t be. Yet every instinct Kaylea possessed screamed that it was.
“So his name’s Max?” Janine asked.
“Yeah. Max Midnight.”
The dog raised his paw to shake hands as Kaylea said his full name, exactly as she’d taught Max to do all those years ago. Her heart stuttered and thrashed, trying to break free from the shackles she’d chained it in. Break free and trust in this miracle.
“Midnight? That’s an odd name for a golden retriever.”
That’s what her father had said, just before he hit her.
“He was named for a comic book hero.” Kaylea pushed the explanation past her tight, aching throat. “Max Midnight, Avenger of Injustice.” And abusive, murdering fathers.
Janine still didn’t look like she fully believed Kaylea, but it was closing time, and she’d said she had big plans for the weekend involving the casino in the next county. She shrugged and went to collect her purse and sweater. “Never heard of it.”
No, you wouldn’t have. I burned all the copies after he died.
She busied herself pretending to straighten the office until Janine’s car pulled out of the parking lot. Then she locked the front door and pulled the window blinds.
Once she was alone in the clinic, with no witnesses, she studied the dog intently, inspecting him from nose to tail. He really was the spitting image of Max—from the pink scar on the bridge of his black nose,
to the slight kink in his tail. Absolutely identical to her childhood companion, to the best friend she’d ever had.
Slowly she knelt in front of him. His deep, brown eyes watched her with adoration, and joyfulness. The expression was so familiar, so much like Max’s.
Her hands were shaking as she ran her fingers through the fur along his neck and then down through his chest, searching for scars—for the evidence of the bullets that had plowed into him and taken him from her.
Bullets that had been meant for her.
“Max?”
His tail thumped hard against the floor.
How was this possible? Seventeen years separated them. Even if he was Max, he’d be nineteen years old now, an old man in dog years. Plus, wouldn’t he remember a child? A twelve year old girl? How would he even recognized the woman she’d become?
And then he leaned over and sniffed her arm, his nostrils flexing, and she knew. He’d recognized her by scent. Physically she might have changed in the intervening years, but her scent must have remained the same.
If this was Max.
Because Janine was right. She tried not to lie. Not even to herself.
And everything aside, this couldn’t be Max. It couldn’t be. Max was dead. He’d died and taken her heart with him.
For a while it had looked like Logan might be able to revive it, except she’d eventually discovered that her heart was best buried where she’d left it—with Max Midnight, the super hero who’d offered his life, so that she might live.
Chapter Two
Logan cast one last glance toward the clinic door before gingerly climbing into his cruiser. He’d expected some kind of physical reaction to seeing her. Hell, Kaylea Armund had been the only woman in his admittedly abbreviated romantic history who’d consistently launched his libido into overdrive. But that had been in college, so while he’d expected some degree of attraction, he hadn’t expected the rocket in his pants.
He sure as hell hadn’t expected the attraction to be even stronger than it had been in college—at least on his side—which made it hard to concentrate on his job.
