by Jill Shalvis
The look on her face told him that he was wrong. She thought that the house was her life. “Hey,” he said. “I—”
The doorbell rang again.
“Just get the door!” she said, and vanished.
Parker had to fight the urge to go up those stairs and make Zoe forget all about Joe. He could do it, too. This wasn’t ego but fact. She looked at him every bit as much as he looked at her. But again, it was a massively bad idea so he opened the front door.
“’Bout damn time.” Joe stared and stopped at the sight of Parker. “Is this going to be awkward?”
“Not for me,” Parker said, and gestured him in. “She’s not quite ready.”
Joe nodded and hunkered down before Oreo, who’d come into the living room behind Parker. “Hey, boy. Hey, buddy. What’s your name?”
Oreo growled low in his throat and hid behind Parker’s legs.
Joe pulled his hand back in. “No? We’re not friends yet?”
“He’s a rescue,” Parker heard himself say. “He doesn’t like men all that much.”
Oreo poked his head around Parker’s thigh and glared balefully up at Joe before licking Parker’s hand.
Joe laughed a little. “So what does that make you?”
Parker ignored this and picked up the silly oaf, who weighed as much as a mountain.
Oreo set his big head on Parker’s shoulder and sighed trustingly.
It was possibly the best thing that had happened to Parker all day. He loved dogs. He loved all animals. He’d certainly saved enough of them. But in his line of work, moving around as he did, being gone for weeks at a time on a case, he’d never gotten to have a pet of his own. He’d never realized how much that bothered him.
“Sorry I’m late,” Zoe said, rushing down the stairs. She’d put on that same long, flowery old-lady dress as on Parker’s first day, and for some reason Parker felt a whole lot better. Especially when he saw Joe’s face.
Grinning, Parker said to Zoe, “A minute?”
“Oh,” she said. “Um, sure.” She followed him into the kitchen, twisting her hair up as she went.
She still smelled like syrup.
Parker did his best not to lean in and lick her like a Tootsie Pop.
“What is it?” she asked, smoothing down her dress. “Do I look okay?”
“Sure. If you’re going to that bingo night we talked about.”
She stilled and stared at him, and then looked down at herself. “I just figured since this dress never went out on the date with the dentist that it was okay to wear again. Some people like this dress, you know.”
He watched Oreo sniff at the dress, leaving a fairly significant drool stain. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “You should wear that dress.”
She glared at him. “You don’t want me to look good on my date.”
Give the woman a prize.
“I’ll have you know that I wore this dress to Wyatt’s birthday dinner last month and he liked it,” she said defensively.
“Because he isn’t interested in banging you.”
She stared at him. “I really hate it when she’s right.”
“Who?”
“Darcy. Argh, I don’t have time to change.”
“Yes, you do.” This was Joe’s voice, coming through the double doors to the living room.
Zoe crossed to them and yanked them open, revealing Joe standing there, bent a little, like maybe he’d been peeking in the crack.
He straightened quickly, but apparently Zoe had bigger fish to fry. “You don’t like the dress, either?” she demanded.
Joe hesitated.
“Well?”
He grimaced. “If I say no, are you going to back out of the date?”
“Do you want to bang me?” she asked instead of answering.
Joe’s eyes slid to Parker. “Uh . . .”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is that a difficult question?” Zoe asked him.
Much as Parker was enjoying this, he was actually starting to feel a little sorry for Joe.
“Okay, yeah,” Joe said manfully. “Sometimes I want to bang you. When you’re not being mean.”
Zoe sighed and picked up her purse from the table. “Let’s just go.”
“So . . . you’re not changing?” Joe asked, a little crestfallen.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“It’s just that I really like your jeans,” Joe said. “Especially the ones that kinda slide down a little bit when you bend over. Maybe you could—”
“We leave right now or not at all,” she said.
Joe blew out a breath and gestured her out ahead of him.
Zoe started to go and then glanced back at Parker, her expression a little . . . regretful?
No, that couldn’t be right. And besides, why would she feel bad about leaving him behind? They had no dating in their future, and he would be leaving soon enough, going back to his fast-paced, crazy world. He smiled at her. “Don’t drink and drive,” he said. “Use your seat belts, and text if you’re going to be out past curfew.”
Worked like a charm. The regret vanished from her eyes as she turned away, flipping him off behind her back as she left.
Thirteen
Parker had laughed at Zoe’s good-night finger gesture, but once she’d left, the house seemed . . . quiet. Empty of its life force. At his feet, Oreo plopped to the floor and huffed out a crestfallen sigh, setting his head on Parker’s foot with a thunk.
Oreo clearly felt the same way.
Parker cheered them both up with the leftover French toast. Then he opened his laptop to check the cameras, even though if he’d caught any action, he’d have been alerted via his cell phone.
Nothing. No action at all.
Giving up for the night, he took Oreo out to do his business, stopping short at the end of the driveway when he heard the sounds of someone crying softly. Turning, he peered through the dark and found a little girl sitting on the next door porch.
She couldn’t have been more than five. Her dark hair was long and crazy wild around her face. Her eyes were dark and drenched with tears, and the sight stabbed him right in the heart.
She looked so much like his sister Amory had at that age: sweet, guileless, and able to take down grown men with a single devastatingly vulnerable gaze.
Shit.
Don’t do it, man. Just keep walking.
Instead he moved to the edge of Zoe’s property line and called out to her. “Hey, you okay?”
She just cried harder. The front door opened behind her and a woman stepped out into the pool of light created by the porch lantern hanging above them. “Kaylie,” she said with obvious relief. “There you are— Oh honey, I told you we couldn’t keep them when Socks came up pregnant. One cat, baby, that’s all we can handle right now.”
“But the babies, Mama,” Kaylie cried. “The babies are so cute.”
The woman looked up and saw Parker standing there. “Are you a friend of Zoe’s, or do I need to call the police because you’re stealing Oreo?”
Oreo stopped anointing every single bush lining the driveway and sat on Parker’s feet. Parker patted the dog’s big head. “Friend,” he said. “Parker James.”
The woman looked at Oreo.
Oreo leaned on Parker, nearly knocking him over, and the woman laughed. “Okay, so you are a friend. I’m Manda. Can I help you with something?”
“I heard crying,” Parker said. “Just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“I’m not okay!” Kaylie sobbed. “I don’t want the kittens to go! They’re not ready, Mama!”
Manda sighed and crouched low by her daughter. “When you found Socks in the yard a few months ago, I let you keep her on one condition. Do you remember that condition?”
“No more strays,” Kaylie said. “But—”
“No buts,” Manda said gently but firmly. “You’ve had six weeks with the two kittens, baby. They’re old enough to be adopted at the humane society.”
Kaylie snif
fled noisily, still clutching the kittens. “But how will we know if they go to good homes?”
Parker remembered the sign he’d seen at the animal center where Wyatt worked. “There’s a kitten adoption next Saturday at Belle Haven,” he said.
Manda shook her head. “I can’t keep them another week.”
“Mama!”
“I’m sorry, Kaylie, but when the gray kitten climbed into the venting system yesterday, I lost the whole day of work. They’re too rowdy.”
Parker looked into Kaylie’s wet eyes and felt his heart roll over in his chest and expose its tender underbelly. “I can keep them until adoption day,” he said.
Kaylie immediately stopped crying and smiled brightly. “And then I can come visit them!”
“You don’t have to do this,” Manda told Parker.
“Mama, he already said he would!”
“You don’t,” Manda repeated to Parker.
“It’s okay,” he said, and channeled his inner Zoe. “I’ve got this.”
Twenty minutes later he was the proud new temporary owner of a gray girl kitten and an orange tabby boy kitten, and a bag of supplies. The both of them could easily fit into the palm of one of his hands and maybe weighed half a pound soaking wet.
They immediately set to exploring their new world, both getting stuck behind the TV shelf in the living room in less than three minutes.
Parker rescued them and set them up in the bathroom to corral them. Oreo whined to get in but when Parker opened the door, Oreo took one look and took off. Parker snapped a few pics of the kittens and texted them to Amory, who immediately called him.
“I want one!” she yelled enthusiastically into the phone.
Balancing the kittens in his lap, he laughed at the sound of her voice, happy to have something take his mind off Zoe, who was still out on her damn date. “You know Mom and Dad would kill me.”
“I turned eighteen last month. I get to make my own decisions now.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’m happy for you.” He’d hoped she would take the opportunity to stretch her wings a little. Maybe get out more, travel—albeit very carefully—something, anything, to expand the four walls of her life.
“Henry wants a kitten, too,” she said.
Henry had been her best friend since the fifth grade. He had Down syndrome as well and worked at the Home Depot right next to the florist where Amory worked. They spent a lot of time together and for the past few years Amory had referred to Henry as her boyfriend. Lately she’d made noises about wanting to marry him.
Parker wasn’t sure she understood the meaning of being married, but regardless, there was no way he wanted to see her go from being under their parents’ thumb to being married. He wanted so much more for her, wanted her to get out and see the big world and all that was out there for her.
But he was alone in this. Their parents, Lowell and Tess James, had always been severely overprotective with their younger child, sheltering Amory from everything. Including him.
“These kittens are a long way from Arizona,” Parker told her. “How’s it going? What are you up to?” he asked, trying to get her off the subject of the kittens. The last thing he needed was to further alienate his parents by giving his sister a pet. “How’s school?”
She was in a year-round school. The current plan was to keep Amory enrolled until she could get her GED. After that, she hoped to graduate from cleanup girl at the florist shop to actually making floral arrangements.
“School is stupid,” Amory said. “But work’s good. They let me make an arrangement last week!”
“Yeah?” he asked, smiling at her excitement. In his world, he often operated from a place where he was knee deep in the garbage of the world. Amory had always been his happy spot. This past week he’d added Zoe and Oreo, and now a pack of two kittens to that happy spot. Look at him, expanding his world without getting on a plane to do it . . .
“I made it for Tiffany,” Amory said. “She works at the rec center. It was her birthday and I got to put it together all by myself!”
Parker could practically hear her beaming. “That’s great, Am. Did you go on that rec-center-sponsored camping trip last weekend?”
“No,” she said. “I had a cold. Mom thought I should stay home.”
Parker rubbed the tension between his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know how you wanted to sleep under the stars and stay up late, and go on that full moon hike.”
“It’s okay. I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t get to go. I know you paid for the trip, but me and Henry got to sit in the backyard. Mom made us hot chocolate.”
“How’s Henry?”
“Great! He got moved from the gardening department to inside! He gets to sweep the store every night before it closes! The whole store! He’s got the best job ever. So when will you bring me a kitty?”
Parker wanted her to get everything her heart desired. She deserved it, but he wasn’t going home again anytime soon, and when he did, he wouldn’t bring her a kitten unless it was parent-approved, which it wouldn’t be.
“Please, Parker?” she asked. “Please come to see me. It’s been like a year.”
“It’s been two weeks,” he said with a laugh. He’d slipped into town and visited her at work, and then vanished again like smoke just before coming to Idaho. Although, granted, it had been six months before that since his last visit.
The truth was, his parents made visiting difficult and uncomfortable, and selfishly he let that keep him away from Amory. He’d have loved to show her the world in person instead of through pictures, but that wasn’t going to happen. For years their parents had said she was too young, but more recently, after he’d brought danger to their front door, the subject had been dropped completely.
And he got it. He got it all too well. It had been a year since someone—Parker suspected Carver—had shown up on his parents’ doorstep asking for Parker.
With a gun.
The police had never figured out who it was, and it hadn’t happened again, but it was yet another reason to stay away. Zoe might call him Mr. Mysterious, but the truth was he was just extremely cautious. Borderline OCD cautious. He had to be.
He got that it kept people from getting too close to him, that it was a big turnoff to Zoe and just one more reason not to get involved.
But he’d already opened up to her much more than he should have, certainly more than he’d ever intended. More than he’d ever done with another woman.
“I’ve texted you every day, Amory,” he reminded her.
“Not the same thing, Parker!” she said, imitating his tone and making him smile. “Oh!” she said suddenly. “I can do a free throw now, just like you taught me! You need to come see it!”
His chest ached at the beseeching tone in her voice. She missed him. Yeah, she had Mom and Dad, but they’d continued to hold the reins just a little too tight. Their hearts were in the right place and they operated from fear for her, that she’d get hurt or worse, with absolutely zero intentions of abuse or neglect, but Amory was starting to chafe under their constant supervision.
Or at least Parker would be chafing. Hell, he’d be going insane by now. “I’ll come by soon as I can,” he promised.
“Today?”
“No,” he said, wincing when she let out a sound of distress.