But they did have one small victory. Sarah arranged for in-home physical therapy, and Mike finally relented to work with the woman, so that was progress. Now if they could just figure out—
A loud, sharp, insistent bark interrupted Beck’s thoughts. Sitting up, she blinked into the dim light of her room, surprised to see Ruff at the doorway, since he’d yet to show any interest in sleeping in her bedroom.
“You okay, bud?” she asked.
He answered with another loud woof, coming close to prod her bed with his nose.
“What do you need?” She still couldn’t figure out how to interpret this dog’s barks. She knew happy, because it was when he saw Aidan. And sad was when he was alone with her. Other than that, he remained a mystery.
She put the tablet on the nightstand and reached for him. “You hungry? Lonely? Scared?” She patted the bed in invitation, but he just jabbed his nose, this time at her leg, adding another bark. “Pee?” she guessed.
That made him turn in a circle and trot to the door.
“We can handle that,” she said, climbing out of bed. “Hold your horses, Ruffer. I’ll take you out.”
Grabbing a hoodie to pull over her T-shirt and sleep pants, she ushered him into the living room and glanced out the windows toward the square, surprised to see a few people out dog walking, visible by the soft white lights strung over all the trees. But then, Bushrod Square never closed, and it was the favorite gathering place for the many dog owners and tourists who visited Better Bark.
At the door, Ruff gave a noisy bark.
“All right, I’m coming.” She grabbed the leash from the kitchen counter, latching it on to his collar. “See? I know what you want.” She rubbed his head, but he looked down, as if it pained him to have eye contact with her. He’d been better since the visit to Mike, but he still didn’t show any signs of wanting to connect with Beck.
“I’m gonna win you over, kiddo,” she promised him—and herself. “Let’s start with a midnight walk to pee in the park. What male wouldn’t like that, huh?”
She stuffed some treats, her phone, and keys in her pocket, and he barked a few impatient times, certain now of where he was going. Which could have been interpreted as, Shut up and let’s go, or, You’re the greatest dog mom ever.
Little Miss Sunshine chose the latter.
He led the way down the stairs and out the back door, turning on Ambrose Avenue, not stopping to sniff or check out his surroundings, since he must have known there was nice Bushrod Square grass in his near future.
“See? You’re getting the hang of your new home. Now if you could only love your owner.”
He walked faster toward the crosswalk, staying a few steps ahead of her the entire way. At the intersection to get over to the square, he suddenly pulled on the leash, trying to take her the other way.
“No, we’re going to the square, Ruff. This way.”
He was strong, though, taking control and heading in the opposite direction. Bitter Bark was a safe town, but it was now a full-blown tourist town. And the street Ruff headed to was lined with busy restaurants, a few bars and cafés, all of which would be open. She didn’t want to head into the business district when there was essentially a city park with plenty of other dog walkers right there.
“Ruff!” She gave a sharp tug and led him in the other direction. “This way.”
He relented, but not easily, making her fight the leash all the way across the street. Okay, not the relaxing night stroll she’d had in mind, but she wouldn’t give up.
By the time they got to the square, her shoulder was sore, her arm muscles were stretched, and the leash had practically cut her fingers. Finding a bench right near the entrance and under a bright light, she sat down and switched the leash to her left hand. Again, he pulled—hard.
“Hang on a sec, Ruff.” Sliding the strap under her thigh to hold it, she used her left hand to rub the right, massaging her aching fingers to—
The leash snapped out from under her leg as Ruff launched into a full run. Damn it!
“Ruff!” She jumped up and started after him, horrified that she’d let him get away. He was fast. Wild. And no matter how much effort she put into the run, that dog was twenty, thirty, fifty feet away, out of the square, bolting down the street like a racehorse out of the gate.
She kept running, her blood pumping so furiously she could barely hear the air singing in her ears.
“Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!” As he ran out of sight, she slowed her step and looked around for help, but the people she thought she’d seen out here were too far away. Every second took Ruff farther. She was going to lose him.
With a grunt of frustration, she stuffed her hand in her pocket, grabbed her phone, and called the only person she could think of who might be able to help.
For all she knew, Ruff was headed to him right now.
* * *
The soft buzz of his phone pulled Aidan out of the deepest sleep he could remember in weeks. He woke in a fog, his throat parched, his bare body damp with sweat and that low-grade state of arousal he’d felt all day.
Taking his phone from the nightstand, he peered at the screen and two words.
Beck Spencer.
And that did nothing to quell his arousal. “Hey,” he said after tapping the phone, his voice barely a sleepy rasp. “What’s—”
“He ran away! Ruff ran away!” The words almost didn’t make sense, they were so loud and panicked and high-pitched. “I took him to the square, and he ran away. Please help me, Aidan.”
He was up before she finished her plea, stomping around his floor in search of clothes. He grabbed a pair of jeans and held the phone with his shoulder as he stuffed his legs into the pants with the same speed and agility he’d use in a military drill.
“Which direction?” he asked, pulling up a mental map of where she lived.
“He shot out of the Ambrose Avenue entrance of the square not two minutes ago, heading north.” Her voice cracked with fear and tears. “Oh, Aidan, I’m sorry. I’m so scared. Please don’t take him away from me. Please.”
“Beck, honey, chill. We’ll find him. And you’ll keep him.” His mind flipped through a dozen possibilities and, in a matter of seconds, landed on one. “I think I know where he might be going.”
“You do?”
He grabbed whatever shirt was on the top of a pile of clean laundry, but didn’t take the time to button it or find shoes as he ran toward the front of the house, snagging the Jeep keys on the way.
“Maybe,” he said. “But just in case, I’ll call in some backup to search.”
“Where do you think he is?”
“My guess is he went to see his new best friend, Mike.” He slammed the door behind him and jogged to the Jeep, so grateful his brother Garrett had lent him the wheels until he could buy his own.
“My uncle?”
“Or where he thinks Charlie might be, which is the same place.”
“He’s gone to my aunt and uncle’s house?” Her voice rose with disbelief.
“A guess, but that’s where I’m headed.”
“I’ll meet you there,” she said.
“No, stay at your place.” He stuck the key in the ignition and fired up the noisy engine, knowing that the sound of the Jeep should get Ruff’s attention if Aidan got close enough. “Search the square once, then go home, because the most likely place for him to go is where he’s familiar and where he knows he’ll be fed. So you need to stay close to your apartment and the pizza parlor. I’ll text you the minute I get to Mike and Sarah’s house.”
“Okay.” She sounded devastated and defeated. “Aidan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, I know that dog. The blame for running away falls squarely on his shoulders. You sit tight. We’ll find him. I’ll give a call to the sheriff’s office and see which one of my cousins is on duty at the fire station tonight. Ruff is not getting out of Bitter Bark, I promise you.”
He heard a whimper that was as sweet as it was des
perate. “Thank you.”
It didn’t take Aidan long to drive toward Mike and Sarah’s, scanning every inch of his surroundings on the way. Ruff wouldn’t go all the way back to Waterford Farm. It was too far. But he might try to get to Mike.
While he drove through the darkness, he called his cousin’s cell phone, happy to find Captain Declan Mahoney on duty at the fire station that night.
“Pine Woods Grove?” Dec asked after Aidan told him what was going on. “I can’t send a truck unless the dog is in need of a rescue, but I have a top-notch volunteer who lives there who’s got three dogs of his own. Bet he’d jump in his truck and take a look around.”
“That’d be great.”
“And I’ll give a call to the sheriff, Aidan. They can get a cruiser in the area, circling the Bushrod Square area and widening out a search from there.”
“Awesome, Dec,” he said. “I owe you one.”
“Hey, not a problem. This is a Waterford dog? You think he’d head back there?”
“He wasn’t at Waterford long,” he said. “He’s been living with Mike Leone’s niece upstairs of Slice of Heaven, so she’s waiting there in case Ruff returns.”
“Okay, keep me posted.”
“Thanks, man.”
By the time Aidan disconnected, he’d reached the street that led out of town and up to Mike and Sarah’s neighborhood. At the intersection, he slowed to a stop, put on the brights, and sat up to get a good look around the area. The streetlights were rare this far out of the heart of town, and at this hour, most lights, even porch lights, were off.
“Ruff!” he called, listening for any response.
Even in the dark, he could find his way to Charlie’s house, he’d been there so many times. Good thing, since he barely looked at the road in front of him.
Instead, he peered into driveways and lawns, searching the shadows and bushes for a lost dog. He called his name so many times it was a wonder a neighbor didn’t come out and complain.
A few dogs barked from inside houses, making him wish that Disney folklore was true and they really did have a barking hotline from house to house. But this wasn’t 101 Dalmatians. This was real, and if they didn’t find that dog…
It would be like Charlie had died all over again.
The thought was all he needed to rev the engine, call out some more, and finally make the last turn to the two-story clapboard home, which was completely dark at this hour. As soon as his lights hit the house, he saw the dog sprawled on the front porch.
Relief made him groan as he turned off the engine.
He wanted to text Beck, but he had to get Ruff out of here first, before he barked and woke up Sarah and Mike. Ruff didn’t even look up when Aidan climbed out of the Jeep, bypassing the door for the sake of a sneak attack. He stealthily headed up on cold, damp grass, his gaze locked on the target.
Ruff was asleep, snoring loud enough for Aidan to hear as he approached. All he had to do was grab the leash, then slide his arms under Ruff’s belly, and airlift his ass to the car. Quick and quiet. An easy mission.
He was two feet from his target, ready to launch into his rescue, when six billion watts of lights came on, followed by a screeching siren. Ruff jumped two feet in the air, spun around, and started howl-barking like a wounded water buffalo.
Damn it!
“Ruff!” Aidan leaped toward the dog, but Ruff vaulted in the other direction, spinning around with deafening, staccato barks of fear and desperation. Seconds later, the front door flew open, and all Aidan could do was pray Aunt Sarah wasn’t packing.
She stood in the doorway, her hair in wild tufts, a cotton bathrobe hanging over her shoulders, a look of sheer horror as she backed away from Ruff as he pawed the screen door.
“Ruff! Down!” Aidan ordered.
Sarah touched something on the inside wall that silenced the siren, but Aidan was still bathed in high-intensity light like a prison inmate caught making a break.
“Sorry, sorry, Sarah.” He snagged the leash and tugged hard. “He…ran away.”
“And came here?”
“To see—” Ruff fought him, trying to get to the door, barking desperately, sniffing at the screen, then clawing at it to get in.
“Stop him!” Sarah screamed in abject fear.
Aidan hoisted the beast and draped Ruff like a mantle around his shoulders. “Really sorry. We’re out of here.”
“Why would he come here?” She sounded positively bewildered by the idea.
He took a few steps back, not sure how to answer that. As he did, he noticed a light had come on upstairs, and there, in the window that Aidan knew from memory was Charlie’s room, was the clear silhouette of a man, slightly hunched, one arm hanging at his side.
“Maybe to see Mike,” he suggested. “They hit it off today.”
She hugged herself, then tied her robe. “Okay.” She started to close the door, then added, “See you tomorrow, Aidan.”
Well, that was progress.
He marched Ruff, hanging like a corpse around his shoulders, back to the Jeep and slid him into the back without a fight. Instantly, Ruff dropped down and started doing the whine of repentance and shame.
“Don’t even think about an apology, brother. You’re in so much trouble, it hurts. Now I got to take you all the way back to Beck. In the middle of the night. And see her in pajamas.”
He grinned at the dog and gave his head a good rub.
“You’re the best, Beasto. Know that?”
Chapter Thirteen
Beck waited for Aidan on a bus-stop bench on Ambrose Avenue, her hands shoved into the pockets of her hoodie while she tried to get her emotions under control even after Aidan called with news that Ruff was safe.
She failed, though, churning inside as the full weight of what almost happened tonight hit her hard.
She almost lost someone again.
It had taken the better part of her life to really put a balm on the loss of her parents. That wound had finally healed, and she had been taking the baby steps to make the kind of connections she’d known she needed, and then Charlie died.
Everything had collapsed again, but she’d held it together, and wham. Uncle Mike had a stroke. It was like she held on to loved ones with feeble fingers and no grip. The same way she’d held that leash. No, wait, she hadn’t held the leash at all—she’d carelessly slipped it under her leg.
Lost in guilt and self-pity, she didn’t hear the Jeep rumble close until Aidan was whipping into a parking spot not far away. Ruff was in the back, head out the window, quiet enough that she suspected he knew he was in trouble. But she didn’t care.
She launched off the bench and jogged to greet Ruff with a big hug, which he accepted without a fight.
Aidan got out, the proof of how quickly he’d gone to rescue Ruff evident in his unbuttoned plaid shirt and bare feet. His hair was still a sleepy mess, and she wasn’t even sure the fly of his jeans was snapped.
She tried not to stare or hug him with something even stronger than relief as he came around the car to her.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, gesturing to Ruff. “I give you one very, very bad dog.”
“I’m glad he’s safe.”
In front of her, he tipped her chin, the contact of his finger warm on her skin. “You okay? I wouldn’t take you for the crying type.”
“I was scared I’d lost him,” she admitted, reaching to pet Ruff. “I’m so glad we found you, Ruffer.”
Ruff turned away, making her straighten with a sigh. As if he sensed that hurt her, Aidan pulled Beck into a silent hug, pressing her against that bare chest and wrapping a strong arm around her. “Might have told me Aunt Sarah has a screaming motion detector.”
“Yikes, I forgot.” She eased back, biting back a smile. “Was she mad?”
“Not very. But that alarm scared the crap out of me and my dog.”
“My dog,” she corrected, then sank into his arms. “Unless you changed your mind.”
He didn
’t answer for a moment, but held her tight, the granite of his chest making a warm and welcome place to fall. “It’s not my mind that has to change,” he said. “And your dog-care skills are not being judged. Damn beast is difficult to manage, not going to lie.”
“Not for Uncle Mike,” she said, sliding her arm around his waist as they started to walk, the move too natural and nice to question. “Did you see him?”
“Up in Charlie’s room,” he said softly.
Her eyes flashed. “I didn’t know he went in there.”
“It might be why Ruff reacts to him like that. He smells like Charlie.”
She let out a long sigh, the very idea of Mike in there making her sad. “So, how can I thank you?”
He was silent for a beat, long enough for a slow tendril of heat to wind its way through her and make her wonder if he was thinking of all the same ways to say thank you that she was. A longer hug. A stroke of fingers. A sweet, sweet kiss.
“Food,” he said.
Okay, maybe they weren’t on the same wavelength after all.
“After a successful mission, I like to eat,” he said. “A lot.”
Not as exciting as a kiss, but doable. “We happen to have some of that right here. I hope you like pizza,” she added on a laugh, leading him to the side door on Ambrose Avenue, because it was easier and faster than the dining room entrance.
“Who doesn’t like pizza? Wait. You. Is that true, by the way, or is your refusal to eat pizza some kind of urban myth you keep up for Uncle Mike?”
She gave him a sideways look as they walked in and headed toward the kitchen. “It’s true.”
He snorted a dry laugh, slowing his step. “Seriously? He wasn’t rambling or joking?”
“Uncle Mike would never joke about pizza.” She paused as they reached the kitchen door, glancing up the stairs. “I don’t want to leave Ruff up there alone, no matter how bad he’s been.”
“Bring him into the kitchen,” Aidan said. “Dogs belong in kitchens. It’s where the scraps and people are.”
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