Choices

by Tessa Vidal

  I felt primitive, a little awkward. I'd trimmed my curly bush, but a wax job wasn't something I'd ever thought about.

  “You can touch it,” she said. “Feel how soft.”

  I tapped my fingertips against the silk flesh of Caroline's belly, then used my whole palm to slide down and down. The puffy pink delta looked sensitive and must feel that way too to judge from her exquisite little moans.

  “Happy birthday,” Caroline said. “This is all for you. All of it.”

  “No,” I said. “No. Not quite all of it. Some of it's for you.”

  Chapter One

  Caro

  Georgia Sumners, owner of the Happy Heaven Dog Rescue, was not impressed by a mere movie star― not even one who had an Oscar nomination two movies back. “Chows are a difficult breed.” She'd already repeated this line several times, although there didn't seem to be anything the least bit difficult about calm, fluffy Dickens. We walked slowly around the shaded exercise track, not because he resented the leash but because I was still learning how to handle it. “They will test your limits.”

  We stopped to let a boisterous jogging group run past us in the opposite direction. Dickens tested my limits by nudging his orange head against my hand while we waited. Two of a kind, we'd bonded at a glance. We understood each other because we'd both been born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “He's already been dumped by one owner,” Georgia said. “I don't want that to happen again.”

  She'd made up her mind about me before we ever met. I was a blonde princess who wore dark glasses indoors and starred in movies. The dog saw inside of me, but all she saw was the shiny surface.

  “It won't,” I said. “I'm not a person who dumps a pet.”

  “A chow is never recommended to a first-time dog owner.”

  A dog was out of the question when I was a child. Dog food cost money. And then I was busy building a career. “I'm willing to learn everything I need to provide the best possible home. ”

  “The guidelines are clear. Inexperienced dog owners cannot adopt chows.” She stood with legs apart and arms folded over her chest. A clear signal that she wasn't going to be bowled over by every so-called A-lister who stumbled into her shelter.

  Hell's bells, as my mom used to say. This shelter was famous for its caution. Not everyone who wanted a dog got a dog. That's why Happy Heaven Dog Rescue had such a reputation in Hollywood for being the place to go for exclusive adoptions. And I'm all about exclusive.

  I never dreamed I would be denied. Why wasn't it obvious Dickens and I were meant to be together? He'd chosen me as much as I'd chosen him. And he understood everything. His fluff hid the expression in his deep-set black eyes, but I could tell from the tension in his shoulders.

  He felt what I felt― that he didn't belong here, that we were two of a kind and he belonged with me.

  “This dog needs a home, and I'm willing to provide a home,” I said. “What do I have to do to make that happen?”

  “You need to prove you have the experience demanded to keep a dog like this healthy, happy, and well-socialized. Which, in your case, means you need to take some classes from an experienced behaviorist.”

  Dickens lifted his head to me, those deep-set eyes full of trust. I couldn't leave him here. I couldn't let him down. Smiling, unblushing, I looked Georgia Sumners dead in the eye. “Oh, I have the very best dog behaviorist in the world. Maybe you've heard of her? There's talk about a new reality TV show coming into production next year? Shell Tate.” I nodded for emphasis, although it felt fake. Very actor-ly. “Shell is one of my closest friends.” She had been once. When she was Rayna Taylor.

  Name-dropping the up-and-coming dog whisperer was enough to make Georgia's eyes go wide. “She would be perfect. But, uh, I need to talk to Ms. Tate myself. It's for the paperwork.” It's because you want to meet the new celebrity animal behaviorist in town. “You understand. I have to cross all the i's and dot all the t's. We have to do our due diligence to make sure our dogs don't end up in the wrong hands.”

  “Of course.”

  “It's the rules.”

  “Of course.” I patted his sweet face with both hands while thinking frantically about everything I'd read in People and TMZ about Shell Tate's celebrity dog-training business. “She has a lot of stuff going on right now with her hiking school, but I'll have her get back to you as soon as humanly possible. Don't worry, boy. I'll visit you every day until I can take you home for good.”

  At first, Shell ignored my calls. Of course, she did. I hadn't talked to her in eleven years, and now I was calling her because she'd gotten famous and had something I needed. I wouldn't call me back either. I should have called her a lot sooner. But first my mother and my aunt got in the way, and then a year had gone by, and I'd missed her mom's funeral, and I was ashamed of letting her go through that whole mess alone, and...

  Shit. Eleven years. How did I let so much time blow past me? And now I was out of time. No way I was letting Dickens sit in that fucking shelter one minute longer than he had to. We spent an hour together every day, but it wasn't enough, not near enough. He was my dog. And if Georgia Sumners refused to see that without meeting the new celebrity dog behaviorist, fine. I'd put aside my pride and do whatever it took to get Shell Tate in the building.

  My next move was to hire a private investigator. Not three days later, Ryder popped up outside my yoga class pretending to be a fan asking for a selfie.

  “Heard you were looking to get back in touch with Rayna.” He looked not at me but at the phone he held out to capture an image of the two of us together. I noticed his only bit of visible ink― a teeny, tiny penguin in the webbing of his left hand between his thumb and his index finger. We were juniors in high school when he showed up with that. Now it was hardly more than a smudge.

  “I was looking for a dog behaviorist, and she's made a name. Speaking of which, where you been for the last eleven years, or do I even want to know?” My accent got more Mississippi when it was just me and Ryder from back home. I could hear it in my own ears.

  “Why don't you ask your hired snoop?” He frowned at the screen, playacting that the photo hadn't come out. “It's not good for me, people poking into my life.”

  We adjusted our smiles and posed again. Who did he think was watching this charade?

  “I'll call him off now that I've found you,” I said.

  “Now that I've found you.” He was technically correct, considering he knew enough to run me down outside my yoga class. Did he even live in California, or had he come out here specifically to talk to me? “Look, Rayna's probably pretty pissed off at both of us for leaving her back there in Bumfuck, Mississippi.”

  From the way he said it, I realized he'd never seen his sister again. The favor I was asking was even bigger than I knew. “You used to be so close.”

  “We were, but...” His eyes flicked up and down the street. “I'll get to her. I'll talk to her. Look, it's been real, but I've got to run. Just call off your guy, all right? I know you didn't mean anything, but it makes people nervous when other people are poking around asking funny questions.”

  “Of course, Ryder. I'm sorry. I didn't think. It's been so long. I figured my guy could just check and see if you were somewhere safe...” Eleven years. My best friend's twin brother. Once we'd been everything to each other. The three musketeers. I wanted to hug him like the long-lost friend he was, wanted to feel him warm and real in my embrace, but he was already sliding his phone into his pocket.

  And then he was gone, striding away without a glance backward. His long legs worked fast, carrying him around the corner. Fucking Ryder Taylor. He was still involved in something. That duck and weave he did... he'd been hiding from somebody. The little visit proved one thing though. He knew where I was and where his sister was, even if he hadn't been in contact with either of us.

  Chapter Two

  Shell

  This trail didn't have a name or a brown sign. It was a forest service access trai
l that hadn't been maintained in years. Little more than a deer track.

  “I'll be guiding you up this very exclusive path to a seldom-visited overlook that provides fine views of the waterfall,” I said. On this trail, the neglected trail, we could hike for hours and never meet another human soul. Exactly the way I liked it.

  Of course, the views were much better if you used the trail that did have a sign and a name. But Bobbie and Chili weren't inclined to criticize my plans for their week in the lovely Gila Mountains of southwest New Mexico. Bobbie was a Bernese Mountain Dog. Chili was a Blue Heeler.

  Bobbie's already broad chest puffed with importance because I'd outfitted him with a tiny red, white, and blue backpack. Chili wore only a bright red-and-orange bandanna with little peppers printed all over it. They were picture-perfect. Instagram perfect. Although I wasn't allowed to post their photos to Instagram myself. I messaged the photos to their owners' publicists, who scheduled the images at the hour they decided would attract the most likes and re-grams.

  The dogs didn't care about show business or about the rumors they'd spark being photographed hiking together up a scenic mountain path. Bobbie's owner was a country music singer who lived in Franklin, Tennessee. Chili's owner was an actor who owned a large compound in Los Angeles. The singer and the actor, both single, had been informed by their respective publicists they needed to create some fake romance drama to keep the fans interested. That side of it wasn't any of my business. All I did was train, exercise, and provide enrichment activities for dogs.

  Hiking in New Mexico was one hell of a star-quality enrichment activity. In fact, it was the most expensive dog vacation package I offered. For what the singer and the actor were paying, I'd throw in a few fucking Instagrams.

  Bobbie and I hiked at a steady pace. Chili kept running ahead and then running back, his whole body a happy demand for us to catch up. Bobbie and Chili hadn't met before this vacation, and they would go their separate ways after their magical week was over. Nobody would cry. Dogs didn't cry. Me and dogs, we had that much in common.

  The actor was gay. She'd made excuses to talk to me several times about her compound in Los Angeles, about the obstacle course she'd set up for the energetic Chili. About the qualifications or lack thereof held by Chili's personal behaviorist, who would soon need to be replaced. I gathered I could be in line for that job if I slept with her, but sleeping with clients is no way to get ahead in the dog business, so I always pretended not to get it.

  Let her believe I was silly enough to believe what the fans believed. That she and the singer from Tennessee were having a crazy fling while their dogs went to hiking school in New Mexico. Brief encounters were all I looked for. An hour together and never again. It hurt too much to do it the other way. Getting involved was for people with hearts made of granite.

  The crossbills flitted high in the trees. Yellow and red. When I first started hiking out here, I thought they were two different species, but they weren't. The red ones were the males. People said they were more colorful, but I wasn't sure why yellow wasn't a color.

  Chili stopped running ahead. In fact, he stopped cold and nosed at me, as if to herd me back down. I signaled Bobbie, and he stopped too.

  The forest was silent except for the sound of the dogs breathing and the soft gossip of the crossbills fifty feet overhead. A strong woman with two large, athletic dogs by her side can't be frightened away by a little silence. “Who's there?” I pitched my voice low and calm, a steadying voice I often used on my dogs.

  A large shadow moved forward slowly. A man. It wasn't good that a man had waited for me here on this isolated trail. And it was me he must be waiting for. No one else used this path on a regular basis.

  I must have gone tense, because the muscles beneath Bobbie's ridiculous backpack began to bunch too. Chili nudged at me again, not hard― he was too well-trained to attempt to herd me too hard― but there was a certain emphasis in his touch.

  I signaled silent reassurance.

  Hold steady.

  “Don't come any closer,” I called. “I have two trained dogs here. Big ones. You need to tell me who you are before you take another step.”

  He did take one more step, enough to put him in the center of a ray of light streaming between the tall trees. The spotlight effect gave me a cinematic look at his strong face and stronger body. His empty hands were spread wide and held open, a gesture meant to reassure me of my safety.

  My heart caught in my throat. I often told myself I didn't have a heart, but there it was again.

  “Have you forgotten me, Rayna? Have you forgotten all about your baby brother?”

  “Don't call me that. I'm not that person anymore.” I signaled the dogs to relax, although I myself still felt tense all over as I went forward to throw my arms around him. We hadn't seen each other in years, and he felt like a stranger inside all those bands of muscle. Had he been in prison, and I'd never known? Or maybe he belonged to some gym with an intensive muscle-training program.

  “Keto.” Ryder must have remembered his twin's trick of reading my mind. “All that low carb crap. You know.”

  “Well. You look good.” I stepped back.

  “You too.”

  I looked like somebody who spent a lot of time outside working with dogs. My hair was buzzed into a fade, the better to keep it out of the way. Some people read it as a statement about who I was, which didn't really hurt my feelings either. It's always good when people know where you stand.

  “I guess it wasn't a phase,” Ryder said. “Girls, I mean.”

  I shrugged. “Love 'em and leave 'em.”

  “We really are twins.”

  This was awkward. And Chili was ready to start hiking again. “Do you mind?” I gestured at the dogs.

  If Ryder minded, he wouldn't have gotten this far up the path. We walked on single-file, which gave us an excuse not to speak until we reached the overlook. It was a clear blue day. There were sparkles in the waterfall on the opposite mountain.

  “Well,” I said. “Shouldn't you be in Brazil?”

  Ryder blinked at me instead of the sparkles. Then he laughed. “Oh, you mean the casino job? Fuck, they quit looking for me years ago.”

  Then where the fuck have you been?

  Better not to ask. I might not like the answer.

  “Mom passed away about a year after...” When I let my voice trail off, I was again aware of the dogs panting and the crossbills flitting. A chickadee, much lower than the crossbills, scolded Chili when he got too far from my side, but the Blue Heeler didn't much notice the opinions of chickadees. The air smelled fresh this high in the mountains.

  “I know,” Ryder said. “I'm sorry I couldn't be there.”

  “I understand. I saw them.” The undercover officers who showed up for Mom's funeral stood out like redbirds in a flock of crows. “They were thinking to pick you up there.”

  “I figured.”

  More of that awkward silence. There were lots of questions I could have asked, but I wouldn't like the answers, so I didn't.

  “I hope it wasn't bad for you and Caro,” he said.

  “Well, they had a lot of questions, of course, since the three of us came in together, but one thing about those places... lots of cameras.”

  “Yeah. I figured.”

  Apparently, he'd figured out everything except the most important thing― don't rob a casino in fucking Tunica County.

  “They had us on video, Caroline and me, going over to the place next door.”

  Ryder nodded, an excuse to flick his eyes away. “That was in the plan. They'd see you weren't involved. I never meant to make it hard for you.”

  Did it matter what he meant? Because of that night, Caro and I were torn apart the very next day.

  Chapter Three

  Shell

  We reached the next overlook. Bobbie and Ryder stared out into the distance, mountains and valleys as far as the eye could see. Even Chili plopped down for a quick breather. Although I preten
ded to gaze at the scenery, all I saw was the past.

  “Your plan worked to a certain extent,” I said. “The cops could see it was us who rented the room on her mom's card. And those funny little refrigerators they had, they had a time and date stamp so they could see when the bottles were taken out. So we could prove where we were.”

  “Underage drinking in the hot tub.” He forced a smile. “Hardly a federal offense.”

  I probably said something else, but I don't know what. The memories I'd tried to repress came flooding back all too strong. Caroline in the hot tub, the personal bottles of wine going down fast because of the heat. Our skin shiny when we tumbled out to play with each other's pink bodies. Caroline a little flushed along the collarbone, a faint echo of what her post-orgasmic blush would be.

  We used a lot of tongue that night, replenishing ourselves with bottled water and more of the overpriced cheap wine.

  There was a moment on my back, my knees rocked open, Caroline dripping teasing little drops of wine into the hollow of my inner thighs before she licked it up. Another teasing drop or two into my belly button. Her tongue had a devious way of going down to a point, a trick I tried to copy.

  She curled around on top of me, lowering her own sleek pussy to an inch or so above my face. A tease. Her tongue wasn't teasing, not anymore. It was bold and searching and eager to find all my secret places. I rocked back my head and lifted my own tongue.

  We thought we had all the time in the world. Forever and a day. Soaking, loving, sleeping, calling down for a fancy breakfast from room service. A silver pot of coffee, a crystal pitcher of orange juice spiked with cheap champagne. A salmon platter, Caroline's idea of a classy breakfast. Capers and caviar sprinkled on top.