Barking Up the Wrong Tree

by Sawyer Bennett

  “I want to hear the real story of why you left Raleigh for Whynot to practice,” Jake says, and I immediately go stiff all over. How could I be silently comparing Jake to Cam, and then he just ask about the reasons why I ran away from Raleigh?

  For a second, I think about making up some benign story. Maybe the old, “I’m just a small-town girl” type of thing, but I’m betting Jake would see through it.

  But then, why shouldn’t I tell him the truth?

  Why not just lay it out there so he knows no matter how many fancy dinners he takes me on or how many times he makes me scream with pleasure, it will never be anything more than just a casual fling to me.

  “Okay, Mr. McDaniel,” I say with a wink. “I’ll tell you my story. But after we eat as I’m starved.”

  “Deal,” he says with a grin and finally picks up his menu to peruse. I do the same, and I actually feel okay about this. It’s not a story I tell many people because it really has no bearing on things. My relationships are passionate but short-lived. If Jake is going to be here for a while, then he probably needs to know the truth so we keep our expectations in line with reality.

  ♦

  Herman

  On the competition…

  I’m not quite sure what’s going on. A few hours ago, Mom spent a lot of time in her bathroom doing weird things to her face and hair. She sprayed on some stuff that made my nose tickle, and I sneezed. When she picked up her keys, I got excited because I thought we might go for a ride, but she patted me on the head and told me I had to stay home and be a good boy.

  Some hours later, I was snoozing in the middle of her bed pretty hard when she came home, and was slightly confused when she yelled from the front door, “Come on, Herman. We’re going for a ride.”

  Of course, I flopped from back to belly and shot off the bed, careened off the wall, and barreled into her. I was enjoying a nice double-ear scratching from my mom when I suddenly noticed a man standing near her.

  The same man who had scratched my ears when I was lying on that porch the other night, protecting Mom and that funny-smelling little animal. He seemed all right then, and I guess he’s all right now. I push my head into his leg, and he gives me an ear scratch, too.

  Yeah… he’s okay.

  Mom and the man engage in gibberish. No clue what it means.

  “Want to pack a bag?”

  “Nope. I’ll just do the walk of shame tomorrow morning.”

  “You said you’d lounge tomorrow morning rather than run out.”

  “I suppose I did.”

  The man laughs. Mom packs a bag.

  Then we’re heading outside, and Mom has me get in her truck. We follow the man back to the house with the funny-smelling animal, but rather than me staying on the porch, I’m invited inside.

  I follow Mom and the man upstairs, but when we get to a room, Mom turns to me and says, “No, Herman. You stay out here.”

  She scratches my ear, kisses my snout, and then closes the door. I curl around three times and lay on the floor just outside the door. Tonight, I’m protecting Mom and the man.

  I wonder where the funny-smelling beastie is?

  CHAPTER 13

  Jake

  “Do that again,” Laken orders me, so I do.

  Brush my lips across the side of her neck, and then smile against her skin as she shivers.

  “God, I love that beard,” she murmurs, and this I already know. She’s been vocal about it as I’ve made sure to have it caress pretty much every part of her body.

  My arms tighten around her, and I pull her in closer. This morning is the first time we’ve woken up together where she doesn’t rush out the door for other commitments, and I find I like it very much.

  She wiggles in my arms and starts to push away. I release my hold, and she rolls out of our spooning position until she’s standing by the bed.

  “What the hell, woman?” I grumble as I prop my head up on my palm. “You said you didn’t have to work today. You said Sunday was a day of rest. I demand you get back in bed and rest with me.”

  Laken gives me a smirk as she rummages through the duffel bag she’d thrown on the floor and shimmies into a pair of faded jeans. “I don’t have to work today, city boy, but there are things that can’t be ignored.”

  “Like what?” I ask as my eyes cut to the alarm clock. “It’s only six AM.”

  Her shirt goes over her head without a bra, and this gives me encouragement. She laughs and says, “I’ve got to let Herman out to do his business, and then I’ll be right back. I figure that will give us an hour in bed before you have to feed MG. Can you survive without me for a few minutes?”

  I give a grumble of assent and turn onto my back. “I suppose.”

  But inside, I’m smiling because she’s coming back.

  Laken blows me a kiss, then she’s out the bedroom door to take Herman out for his morning constitutional or whatever it is he does. I stare at the ceiling for a second, and then let my eyes drift around the master bedroom. Mr. Farrington’s deceased wife must have decorated it because the wallpaper is cream with tiny roses all over it. Totally not my taste, but it doesn’t matter. This isn’t going to be my home and Darby will be living here soon.

  I learned a lot about Laken last night. Mostly, what makes her tick and that’s because she was up front with me about a past relationship that hurt her badly. Oh, I’d clearly gotten from her prior that she’s not big into commitments or relationships.

  Over coffee and dessert, I’d learned that all had to do with one Dr. Camden Barrows. He’s a preeminent veterinarian in Raleigh with a mega-practice that has six locations around the area. Laken got a job with his practice straight out of school. She also fell in love with him, and she admitted it wasn’t hard to do because he persistently pursued her. He was wealthy, charming, well-respected, and was apparently a damn good veterinarian.

  Within a year, they were living together in his downtown condo and her world revolved around him and the veterinary practice. He talked about marriage and bringing her into the business as an owner. Dr. Barrows promised her the world on a silver platter, and he supplemented those promises with extravagant trips, jewelry, and other such romantic but expensive gestures.

  I’d already seen the writing on the wall as Laken was telling me the story. Her voice became slightly bitter as she pushed forward, and by the time she’d told me he’d been cheating on her—with another veterinarian in the practice, I was prepared for it.

  What I wasn’t prepared for was the lengths he went to manipulate her after. He wanted to make it work, gave her more promises, and an offer of marriage. She contemplated all of it, thinking there was room for forgiveness for an indiscretion.

  Turns out… he had lots of other indiscretions.

  Apparently, he had also made a lot of the same promises to other women.

  What I’ve come to know about Laken is that she’s proud and headstrong. She quit her job and moved home to Whynot with the intent of opening her own practice. Apparently, Dr. Barrows’ parting words were, “You’ll never make it. You don’t have the business savvy or the fortitude to be successful. Hell… you’ve only been out of school for two years. You don’t even know all there is to know about how to practice veterinary medicine.”

  Laken had admitted, “That stung worse than anything. The way in which he tried to tear me down and make me doubt myself.”

  “Did it work?” I’d asked her.

  Her honesty knew no bounds. “Yes. It worked.”

  Outside of wanting to punch Dr. Barrows’ teeth down the back of his throat, the next important thing I wanted was to take Laken’s mind off her past. When we got back to Whynot, we stopped by her house, got her dog, and some clothes, and then we came here and forgot about anything but each other for the rest of the night.

  The bedroom door opens and Laken slips in, Herman right behind her. She turns and holds up a hand. “Sit.”

  His butt hits the ground.

  She lowers her
hand, pressing the palm toward the floor. “Down.”

  Herman flops on his belly and places his chin on his paws as he looks up at her with adoration. I see it in his eyes and know it by the way his tail thumps on the hardwoods.

  Laken then turns to me, giving me a sexy smile. I study the ease and confidence with which she removes her clothing so she can slip back into bed with me. From it, I know Barrows didn’t break everything about her. She still has a large measure of self-assurance, and that’s sexy beyond measure.

  “Going to let the dog watch us?” I ask curiously.

  She looks over her head at Herman. “Close your eyes.”

  The dog thumps his tail harder and I swear, he actually grins at her. Turning to me, she shrugs, “I’m sure he won’t be too traumatized.”

  I laugh but it’s brief and slides away as Laken’s knee hits the mattress.

  “Hi, you,” she says with a sultry tone as she crawls on top of me. My arms wrap around her as she lays flat against me. “Whatcha wanna do today?”

  “Would it be absolutely irresponsible of me if I said I wanted to spend all day in bed?” I ask her.

  “Pretty much,” she points out. “You have a little goat to feed. And you should check up on how Carlos is handling things.”

  “And I actually have some other work I need to get done,” I add on glumly. I’ve always worked on Sundays, but damn if I don’t want to be lazy with Laken today.

  “Okay, how about this?” she says, and then tilts her head to brush her lips over my beard right at my jawline. “Let’s do dirty things to each other, then we’ll get a shower. I’ll help Carlos to gauge how he’s doing, and you get your work done. Then we’ll have the afternoon to do whatever.”

  “I like it,” I say with a broad smile. My hands come up to frame her face, and I pull her down for a kiss. She gives the cutest little moan that basically says, That’s awesome but let’s move this along.

  Instead, I pull back and look at her straight in the eyes. “I could be here for a while.”

  She nods. “I know.”

  “I want you in my bed every night. Or your bed… whichever. But every night.”

  “Greedy,” she teases me.

  “Sure… you can call it that,” I say easily. “But I sort of got the impression last night you were trying to draw some clear boundaries after you told me all about Dr. Jackass.”

  Laken doesn’t laugh at the mention of our conversation from last night. Instead, she looks wary. “Why are you saying that?”

  “Because I don’t want you to freak out that I want you in my bed every night.”

  I can see she wants to deny that she’d ever freak out, but she holds silent. So I push forward with the words I wanted to say last night, but I hadn’t thought it was the right time.

  “Laken… you’re amazing. We’ve got a crazy physical connection, and that’s what I’m interested in right now. It’s obvious you don’t want much more than that.”

  “I don’t,” she says hastily, and without a single thought that she might be wrong about herself.

  I nod. “I get it. But let me just say this… please don’t compare me to Barrows. It’s one thing if you just aren’t ready to be in a relationship for whatever the reason may be, but at least respect me enough to draw your own conclusions.”

  “Okay,” she says slowly, but I can tell I’ve confused her.

  “He’s wrong about you,” I tell her straight up. “You came back and became an immense success.”

  She rolls her eyes at me. I kiss her on the nose and continue, “You’ve kept a business running here for almost seven years now. You’re in a small town with not much market. Sure, you trade in goods if necessary, but you also live in a nice home, drive a nice truck, and have a wonderful family supporting you. More important, I’ve watched you practice and you’re amazing. I’ve seen you hunt down wayward goats, give shots, and clean oversized Milk bones out of a ferocious dog’s teeth. You do back-breaking work, and you always do it with the number-one goal of making sure an animal is well cared for. That jackass didn’t run you off. He showed you the path to where you should be. And while I’m here, I’d like you to be in bed with me. Is that clear enough?”

  Laken blinks at me several times as she processes, and I can tell I’ve struck a good chord with my affirmations.

  “No long-term promises, though?” she asks for clarification. “I mean… you’ve got a life in Chicago, and I have my life here. This is just… temporary.”

  “It is what it is, Laken,” I chide. “Don’t put a label on it. Yes, I want you in my bed, but I want to take you out, I want to go play pool at Chesty’s, I want you to help me teach MG how to eat from her mama, and I want to go back and eat oysters again—”

  “Okay, I get it,” she says with a laugh. “And I promise I won’t compare you to Camden.”

  “Can you not say his name?” I ask with a grimace.

  She grins at me. “Jackass?”

  “Perfect,” I say with a squeeze. “Now let’s get dirty with each other.”

  Her laugh is cut off as I roll her underneath me and kiss the breath out of her.

  CHAPTER 14

  Laken

  “So, out for a Sunday stroll?” Larkin asks as she stares dreamily at Jake through the window. She’s got her forearms on the glass case housing all sorts of confectionary delights she created, looking right past me to Jake. He’s standing on the sidewalk outside of Sweet Cakes, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

  I’d been giving him the grand tour of Whynot today, which so far only included pointing out Trixie’s law firm, which sits in between Chesty’s and Sweet Cakes. I decided I wanted a jumbo chocolate-chip-cookie sandwich that Larkin fills with the lightest, delicately sweet cream in the entire world.

  Just as we were getting ready to walk in, Jake got a call on his cell. He took one look at the number and gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry… I’ve got to take this, but I’ll be right in as soon as I’m done.”

  “No problem,” I said, surprised when his free hand came to the back of my head and he laid a sweet kiss on my lips.

  After, I stumbled into Sweet Cakes where I found Larkin, resting her chin on her forearms as she watched the scene play out through the front window of her bakery.

  “Something like that,” I murmur and struggle not to bring my fingertips to my lips so I can smooth away the tingling he left behind.

  Larkin had already seen Jake once… that day he came barging into Chesty’s demanding help to round up his wayward goats. While I’ve seen Larkin since then, because I see my twin almost every day, she’s not seen me with him. She knows I’ve been sleeping with him because I have no filter and I tell her everything. I’m a free spirit with a serious aversion to commitment at this point in my life, and she’s aware of that.

  It’s why she has that sappy, dreamy look on her face… because I’ve never brought a man to Sweet Cakes. Or Chesty’s. Or Central Cafe where we had breakfast this morning, ensuring I was the top headline for the gossip mill by the time I’d finished my last piece of bacon.

  When I snap my fingers in front of Larkin’s eyes several times, she blinks and finally straightens to look at me. My twin gives me a huge, knowing grin. “You got to admit, he’s nice to look at.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I answer with a resounding grin.

  “That premature silver he’s got going on,” she observes.

  “And that beard.”

  “Those muscles, too. Is he good in bed?” she queries in a soft voice, but I’m not sure why. Jake’s outside and no one else is in the bakery.

  “He’s amazing.” I look over my shoulder at Jake. He’s wearing a tight-fitting polo shirt with a pair of navy shorts, and he looks like he belongs in an advertisement of a man on a sailboat hawking an expensive cologne or something.

  “Is he serious potential?” she asks.

  I shake my head vehemently. “He lives in Chicago. I live here.”

  “So?”

&nb
sp; Rolling my eyes at my sister, I tell her the tough facts of life. “It’s just sex, Larkin. Good sex. Fun sex. I enjoy spending time with him. But eventually, he’s going to go back and I’m going to go on with my life.”

  “That’s so depressing.” Larkin pouts, but then her lips curve into a welcoming smile as the door opens. Jake steps in, tucking his cell phone in his pocket.

  “Sorry about that,” he tells me. “Business.”

  “No worries,” I say with a shrug. “You remember my sister, Larkin? That day you so rudely burst into Chesty’s and looked right over us women as if we didn’t have the brains to be veterinarians.”

  “Well, I, for one, don’t have those brains,” Larkin quips as she extends her hand over the case. Jake takes it, and they shake. “But it’s nice to officially meet you.”

  “Jake McDaniel,” he says, although I’d already told Larkin his name, along with everything else I knew about him, through visits or text exchanges. And then he turns to me and glares. “And I did not look over you two as women who couldn’t possibly be smart enough to be veterinarians. I’ve already told you this. I was freaking out because the goats were in the road.”

  Snickering, I pat him on the arm. “I know. I just like to give you hell.”

  “Evil woman,” he mutters as he peers into the bakery case. “So Laken tells me everything in here is phenomenal, but what is your absolute favorite?”

  Larkin reaches into a display case with a piece of parchment in her hand and grabs a pastry. She hands it across to Jake. “The cream horns.”

  Jake accepts it with one hand and reaches into his pocket with the other, but Larkin waves him off. “On the house. A welcome to Whynot.”

  “Thanks! That’s really nice,” Jake says and then takes a big bite. He groans with delight, and I turn to grin at Larkin.

  “Give me a chocolate-chip-cookie sandwich,” I tell her.

  She hands me one. “That’s two-fifty.”

  I dig into my little clutch purse, but Jake growls at me. “I’ve got it.”