Paws for Love

by Mara Wells

  Keep the past in the past. Really, he should get the phrase tattooed on his arm right under his Semper Fi. Life would be a lot simpler if he could heed his own advice. Truth was, he’d snagged one of Danielle’s flyers and kept it on him all week. Her number was on the brochure. Or at least a number that would reach her. It didn’t match the one she’d texted him the dog park video from, but he’d use the business number first. He’d ask about Sarge, his second-most obsessive thought of the week. He couldn’t get the big dog out of his head, either. Maybe it was the cast on his leg that made Knox feel like they were kindred spirits, but each night in his nearly empty apartment, he thought about how nice it would be to have a dog excited to see him when he walked in the door. He couldn’t keep a dog in that tiny place, though, so that led him to only one conclusion.

  “I’ll take it.” Knox gave Lady an extra pat on the head before turning his attention to Eliza hovering near her oak dining table.

  “You will?” Eliza’s hand flew to her chest, like he’d surprised the breath out of her. “Just like that?”

  “It’s a good yard. Plenty of room for a dog.” He took the few strides to the table and pulled out a chair for himself.

  “Sure. Always had big dogs myself. A Rottweiler, then a Great Dane mix. Now her Ladyship here.” Eliza made herself comfortable across from him. “Are you sure you don’t want to think about it first? Maybe take a few days to mull it over? I hate it when buyers get cold feet at the last minute. Waste of paperwork.”

  “If you insist, but my feet are plenty warm.” Knox raised one shoulder. From what he’d seen so far, the interior hadn’t been updated in decades, and that was exactly the kind of project he was looking for––a distraction that would also help him strengthen his leg. If he made a few bucks when he resold it in three or four months? Win-win. “Let’s settle terms first, though. No real estate agents, you said? Should I get my brother Caleb to do the paperwork?”

  “No need. I was a real estate lawyer most of my legal career. I’ll draw everything up.” She pulled a yellow legal pad toward her from the middle of the table and produced a pen out of her bra. “How’re you planning to finance it?”

  Knox took a long blink. “Cash, of course. I don’t do debt.”

  Eliza cackled. “You Donovans. Must be nice.”

  The comment irked Knox, and though he knew she meant no harm, his voice was still a bit sharp when he said, “It’s not family money. I’ve been living simply for a long time.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot for a moment.” Eliza reached across the table to pat his hand. “Thank you for your service.”

  Knox nodded curtly, still unused to civilian reactions to the mention of his time in the Corps. He could never tell if they really meant it or if it was just a thing people said, like saying, “How are you?” and not waiting long enough for a person to respond.

  “Then make your offer.” Eliza scooted the pad over to him. “We’ll take it from there.”

  Knox took her pen and wrote down her asking price. He wasn’t a businessman like Caleb, and he wanted the house. His gut told him this project was what he needed to keep busy in all the hours he wasn’t working at the Dorothy. He’d hit the bed every night physically and mentally exhausted, an excellent remedy for clearing his mind of thoughts of the past and the uncertain future. Besides, he wasn’t going to try to cheat an elderly woman out of what appeared to him to be a very fair value for the home she’d spent a lifetime in.

  When she saw the large number, a smile spread across her face, deepening the wrinkles around her eyes. “You’re not much of a negotiator, are you? Sold.”

  “Don’t you want me to think about it for a few days?”

  “At that price, I’m not letting you get away.” She stuck her hand out across the table. “I’ll have the paperwork ready in no time.”

  Knox took her hand in his, noting the thinness of her skin and the arthritic knobs on her knuckles that must cause her pain. “Good doing business with you, ma’am. If you and Lady ever get homesick, you just walk across the street to say hi.”

  Eliza’s hand trembled in his. “You’re a dear boy, Knox Donovan. You take good care of my house. That’s an order, young man.”

  Knox’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t quite smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  It was funny how imminent homeownership changed the way Knox viewed the world. When Lance and Carrie moved into the house a few streets over from the Dorothy with their son, Oliver, and their Jack Russell terrier, Beckham, they raved about the “good bones” of the house, and Knox had spent many an evening unwinding after a hard day on the construction site in their hot tub on the back patio. It was a nice place. Comfortable, airy. But he couldn’t say why, and suddenly that bothered him.

  “How do you do it?” Knox leaned his head back in the hot tub, inching a bit to the right so the jets could hit his lower back right where the muscles were tightest. Carrie and Lance sat across from him, their bodies obscured by bubbles.

  “Do what?” Carrie sipped from a crystal champagne flute. She made what she called a “signature cocktail” for hot-tub time, some kind of prosecco-berry mix that tickled his nose until he’d sneezed right into his first glass. Tonight, he stuck with ice water while he was soaking his bones.

  “Make everything so…I don’t know…homey?” Knox rolled his head to one side and then the other. There was definitely room in Eliza’s backyard for a hot tub. Maybe that would be his first home improvement. For the rest, he was going to need Carrie’s help. She’d be able to add that special something that would make potential buyers pay top dollar.

  “It’s my job.” Carrie giggled and sipped from her champagne flute. She was on her second one, which made her eyes sparkle and her hands wander. Knox kept his eyes above water level. He did not want to see or even think about what Carrie and his brother did under the cover of bubbles.

  “Right. But how do you know what goes with what? Like colors and pillows and stuff.” Above him, the stars shone hazy through a thin layer of clouds. “I’ve lived in my place longer than you’ve been in this house. Yet mine looks like I moved in last week, and yours looks like you’ve been here for years.”

  “I hope you’re not saying my décor is dated!” Carrie pointed her champagne flute at him. “That would be very ungrateful, seeing as how you treat this hot tub like it’s a job perk.”

  “It isn’t?” Knox raised an eyebrow at her, and Lance chuckled.

  “Help him out, Carrie.” Lance sipped from his own champagne flute. Lance could throw down scotch with Grandpa William like it was nobody’s business, but around Carrie, he tended to drink whatever she was having. Knox didn’t know if it was cute or sickening. Both, he decided. Lance set his glass on the outer lip of the hot tub. “He’s been in military housing his entire adult life. This is his first apartment. Treat him like one of your client’s kids going off to college for the first time.”

  “A dorm room makeover!” Carrie clapped her hands together, which had the unfortunate side effect of spilling her cocktail into the tub. “Oh no! I’ll be right back with another one, and then we’ll talk budget. Okay, Knox?”

  “Sure thing.” He closed his eyes, figuring it would be a while before she came back. The water whirled around him, chlorine wafting up his nostrils, the pump whirring in the background in an even rhythm.

  “You really going to decorate your apartment? You’re hardly ever there.” Lance’s voice cut through Knox’s relaxation daze.

  “Thinking about a few options. I’ve been back a year. Gets old, living out of boxes.” He opened his eyes but didn’t look Lance’s way. Didn’t want to see the pity. Nor did he want to let on that he wasn’t really talking about the apartment. Eliza’s house had a lot of rooms, and all of them would need furniture and stuff. He could get by with a bed, a couch, and a TV, but he figured he’d need more to stage the house f
or selling.

  “I’m sure it does. Have you given any thought to sticking around? You know, even after the Dorothy’s done?” Lance floated his hands on the surface, bubbles popping up between his fingers.

  “You’ll be plenty sick of me by then.” Knox’s skin itched where the jet hit him in his lower back, but he didn’t move. The pressure felt too good. “You’ll be glad to see me go, I’m sure.”

  “You’re wrong, man. I’ve gotten used to having your ugly mug around.” Lance scissored his fingers, bubbles jumping. “Besides, you staying would be excellent for my business. You’re a good guy to have on the job, Knox, and adding security systems to what I offer, well, ka-ching, ka-ching, hear those coconuts ring.” Lance chuckled at his own rhyme, demonstrating that Carrie’s signature cocktail had a serious kick even if it was difficult to take anything served in a champagne flute seriously.

  Knox reluctantly smiled. “There are worse things than moving back home.”

  Lance gasped so loudly that Knox was forced to look at him. Lance held his hands to his cheeks, Home Alone–style, his mouth open comically wide. “Did Knox Donovan just admit to liking civilian life?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” Knox stretched out his left leg, so light without the brace that always weighed it down. Another reason he loved the hot tub—a reason to go without his hobble. “But I’m thinking about it, whether to stay or go. A buddy of mine from the Corps reached out to see if I was interested in coming on board his new security firm, but I told him I have to stay down here until the Dorothy is finished. After that? I really don’t know.”

  “All joking and other job offers aside”—Lance’s hand landed on Knox’s shoulder—“I’d be happy if you stuck around even longer. I’ll miss you if you go away again.”

  It went unspoken that they hadn’t missed each other the first time. Aside from the few occasions every year that Caleb’s mom insisted the brothers get together, they’d barely known each other. But Lance was right. If Knox reenlisted and left on another tour now, he would miss his brothers. A year of working together to build up the Dorothy had gone by so quickly, he hadn’t noticed how attached he’d gotten to the project, the crew, his brothers.

  It would all be ending soon. They had another three, maybe four months left of renovation work. He’d install the new security system, and then it would be over. What was next for any of them? What if they all went their separate ways once they’d fulfilled the terms of the Dorothy contract? Had he been an idiot to buy the house across the street from the Dorothy? He’d been hesitant to bring up his upcoming homeowner status, but now he decided definitely to keep it to himself for a while longer. No need to pressure Lance into hiring him on or anything. Knox didn’t need charity. He had options and months before he had to make any real decisions about the future. Buying the house was a practical investment of time and money, not permanent.

  “Incoming!” Carrie called from the sliding glass door. Beckham came barreling out, barking his head off at something on the far side of the yard. He sprinted to the fence and back, then hopped up on the hot-tub edge, circling until he was behind Knox.

  Knox felt the wet slop of dog tongue on his neck, but he didn’t brush the dog away. Lance and Carrie weren’t the only people he’d miss if he re-upped or moved to Atlanta. There were Caleb and Riley to consider, and the construction foreman, Mendo, had become a friend. Hell, he’d even miss this wacko dog that loved the taste of chlorinated skin.

  Carrie slid her slim body back into the water, sipping her cocktail. “Now, Knox, let’s talk vibes. Do you think of your home as a refuge from the world? When you walk in, do you want to be energized? Or calmed?”

  Knox groaned and leaned his head back. No way was he telling Carrie he had an entire house to worry about staging. It wasn’t like he was really putting down roots, not like Lance and Carrie were doing. Knox ducked his head under the water, disappointing Beckham for a half second before he switched his attention to Lance. Holding his breath, Knox thought about his new home and wondered, if asked, how Danielle would answer Carrie’s questions.

  “If only our father could see us now, huh?” Lance raised his champagne flute, tipping it against Knox’s water glass in a one-sided toast. “He wanted us all in the business, and here we are. It makes me mad sometimes, thinking I might actually be doing what he wanted me to do.”

  “All I ever wanted was to get away from him.” Knox picked up his glass, fingers slipping in the condensation, and took a long swallow of what had become room-temperature water. Still, room temperature felt cool when compared to hot-tub temps, and it tasted good sliding down his throat. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, like he’d downed a frothy one, and carefully set the glass back on the edge of the hot tub. Beckham immediately stuck his nose in the top, sniffing loudly.

  “Preaching to the choir.” Lance shooed Beckham off with a gentle nudge. “At least we’re doing things on our own terms. I thought him going to prison would be bad for my business. Now that all the media frenzy is over, no one seems to care what my last name is. And I have to admit it’s kind of a relief, having him tucked safely away where I don’t have to worry about running into him.”

  “Can you believe Caleb’s mom thought we’d want to visit him?” Knox snorted and leaned back to watch as clouds drifted by, blocking his view of the stars. “She still texts me, like, once a month.”

  “I finally filled out that stupid visitors’ form just so she’d stop bugging me about it.” Lance draped an arm over Carrie’s shoulders, and she snuggled in to his side.

  “Me too.” Knox heaved a sigh, recognizing the signs that it was time to leave. Carrie and Lance needed their newlywed time. “Never planning to set foot in the prison, though. I told Christine it was simply a formality, but she insisted. For emergencies, she said. For when hell ices over, I said.”

  “But you still signed the papers.” Lance traced lazy patterns on Carrie’s arm with his fingertip. “She’s persistent. I’ll give her that.”

  Knox boosted himself out of the hot tub, water sluicing down his body, and grabbed the towel Carrie always put out for him. It was bright purple with a cartoon kid wearing a stethoscope on it. He suspected when he wasn’t around, it was his nephew’s towel. He padded toward the house, Beckham following hopefully on his heels.

  “I’m not going to the kitchen, you greedy mutt.” Knox finished drying off outside the sliding back door before stepping inside. Beckham cocked his head left, then right, as if he couldn’t possibly have heard Knox correctly.

  “Fine.” Knox couldn’t take the cuteness. “One treat, and that’s it.”

  Beckham yipped his agreement with the deal, and Knox led the way to the kitchen. Beckham stood expectantly in front of the stainless-steel refrigerator door.

  “I wonder where the dog treats are?” Knox craned his head, pretending to look for the plastic container Carrie kept filled with tiny pieces of dried liver. “Up here?” He gazed at the ceiling.

  Beckham yipped once and danced in front of the fridge, toenails tip-tapping on the tile floor, tail wagging so fast it was a blur.

  “Oh, should I look in here?” Knox opened the door, and Beckham stood on his hind legs. His front paws pushed up, like he was raising the roof at some 1990s dance club. Knox found the container and tossed the dog his treat. Beckham caught it, raced out of the kitchen, and launched himself onto the living room couch. It was so easy to make dogs happy. For a minute, Knox indulged in the fantasy that this was his house, Beckham his dog, and Danielle was waiting for him in the hot tub.

  Like that was ever going to happen. He needed to move on from this obsession. He pushed thoughts of Danielle in a very skimpy bikini out of his mind and plopped onto the couch next to Beckham. “You’ve got it good, dog. You know that, right?”

  Beckham climbed onto his lap, and Knox decided that refastening the brace and heading back to his lonely apartm
ent could wait a little longer.

  Chapter 6

  The elevator doors slid open to reveal the green expanse of the new Fur Haven Dog Park. A few small dogs romped on the other side of the park. Danielle held her three greyhounds in check, making them wait for her signal to leave the elevator. The garage roof was edged in shrubbery, obscuring the high fence surrounding the park. Above it, the dawn light turned the sky pink. Danielle let out a long breath and gave the signal for the dogs to follow her into the park.

  Sight hounds could be tricky to train. As much as they wanted to be good dogs, if they could see something in the distance, their instinct was to go for it. Danielle was glad for the hedges that hid the roof edge from sight. What a greyhound couldn’t see, they wouldn’t chase. She kept the dogs on their martingales until she’d closed the gate separating the big dogs from the little ones. She knew Luna and Flurry were over their desire to chase small fluffy creatures, but Sarge was new to civilian life. Though well behaved in all the training exercises she’d done with him, this was one of his first real-world tests.

  Happily, he ignored the small dogs on the other side of the fence and spent a good amount of time sniffing the base of a palm tree. Although his inclination was to balance on the bad leg and lift the good one, he’d learned to lift the cast. He didn’t like it—she could tell from the way he flattened his ears—but a dog had to do what a dog had to do. At his last checkup, her dad estimated that the cast would be ready to come off in another two weeks.

  “Good morning.” Eliza let her black Lab into the big-dog side of the park. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Danielle? Don’t think I’ve seen you since the grand opening.”

  “Must mean Lady’s in perfect health. That’s a good thing, Eliza.” Danielle smiled at the older woman she’d known her whole life. Eliza took a seat next to her on the bone-shaped bench. A pile of dog leashes sat between them.

  “Fit as a fiddle, that old girl, but she’s slowing down these days. I’ve been giving her some glucosamine for her joints. Seems to be helping.” Eliza kept an eye on her dog as Lady politely exchanged sniff greetings with the three greyhounds. “Quite a collection you’ve got there. I thought you were only fostering the one in a cast, not adding him to your menagerie.”