by Jill Shalvis
the smallest of string bikinis . . .
And that’s when he heard it, the one sound that could bring him back from the beach and the sexy woman on it: “Arf!”
Fuck.
“Arf, arf, arf . . . ”
The next morning, Brady came awake to a noise he didn’t recognize and rolled off the bed, automatically reaching for his weapon.
When he realized he wasn’t in combat, was in fact a million miles from any combat zone, he lay back down and scrubbed a hand over his face.
Then the sound came again.
What the hell?
He sat up and found the dog sitting in front of the kitchen sink, head deep in the trash he’d clearly hauled out from its place in the cupboard beneath. He was surrounded by a pizza box, an orange juice container, and two bottles of beer.
All empty.
“You are a menace to society,” Brady said, and scrubbed a hand over his face. What had he gotten, maybe half an hour of sleep? Well used to sleep deprivation, he staggered out of bed thinking he might as well get on with what he’d agreed to do here.
Work on the Bell. “No more trash,” he told the dog after he’d showered and dressed. “It’ll make you sick.” And with the little guy happy at his side, clearly not sick at all, they headed downstairs, stopping at Jade’s desk. “Anyone come looking for him yet?”
Jade was one of those women who looked like she belonged in Vogue. Gorgeous but . . . different. Today she was wearing a sunshine yellow sundress that required sunglasses to look at her straight on. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a haphazard knot, held there by wooden tongue depressors. Her makeup was photo-ready. He nearly looked around to see if he’d stepped onto a movie set. “His name is Twinkles,” she said.
He just looked at her.
Not particularly intimidated, her mouth twitched suspiciously.
He narrowed his eyes, and she let a very small smile free. “Lilah did her thing, putting out notices and flyers. We’ll let you know.”
“It’s been two days.”
“It has. Dell told me he examined him. He’s about a year old, and other than slightly malnourished, he’s healthy. Great news.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re certain Lilah’s trying to find the owner,” he said.
Jade smiled and patted his hand. “Lilah would never put a dog’s well-being at risk for her own amusement.”
“But she is amused.”
“Oh, honey. There’s no doubt.”
It took Brady three days just to clean out the Bell 47. Not surprising, considering the chopper had suffered nearly three decades of neglect and abuse. It also needed airframe repairs, battery servicing, and a whole long list of engine and parts maintenance.
He enjoyed the work. In the army, he’d started out as a nobody, but well used to that he’d worked his ass off and through performance had earned a warrant officer slot, which had qualified him for flight training.
He’d never looked back. He loved being in the air, but when he couldn’t be, his second love was this, taking apart and reassembling a chopper. As he worked, his new shadow stuck close, alternately snoozing in the sun or watching him with hero worship.
Belle Haven continued to do business around them. Del and Adam ran a tight ship, and it was a busy one. Adam, apparently the resident dog whisperer, was currently in the yard with three golden retrievers and their owners, teaching a class. Even from twenty-five yards away, Brady could tell it was more about training the wayward owners than the dogs.
When class ended, Adam ambled over.
“The dogs are pretty good listeners,” Brady said, wiping his hands on a rag.
“It’s not the dogs that need to listen.”
“This one does.” Brady nodded to the dog sleeping his day away in the sole sunspot as close to Brady as he could possibly get.
“What’s his problem?” Adam asked.
“He won’t sleep.”
There was a moment of silence while Adam took in the dog doing just that. Well, not complete silence, since the mutt was snoring like a buzz saw.
“I mean at night,” Brady said with a disbelieving shake of his head.
“What does he do instead of sleep?”
“Cries. Barks. Drives me up the fucking wall.”
Adam’s mouth hinted at a smile. “I’m going to tell you what I tell all of my clients. You’re the one in need of training, not him.”
“What are you talking about? I’d sleep all night just fine if he’d shut the hell up.”
Adam let the smile escape. “Okay, man. Let me know when you’re interested in being trained.” He crouched and ruffled the dog’s fur, and the little guy immediately rolled over on his back, exposing his belly for more.
Brady slid the dog a dark look, at least glad to see that his little belly was rounder now, no longer concave. “Traitor.”
With a smirk, Adam rose. “So what’s going on with you and Lilah?”
Dell had tried asking him this question days ago. Brady hadn’t answered. Not because he wanted to be an ass, but because he honestly hadn’t known. “Other than she saddled me with this thing?”
“Yeah. Other than that.”
“Not sure.”
“But something,” Adam said.
Brady nodded. Yeah. There was definitely . . . something. And holy Christ, that something was explosive whenever they got too close.
“She’s important to Dell and me.”
“I know.” He wondered if Adam was telling him to back the fuck off, and if it mattered. Could he back off? He honestly didn’t know.
Adam was quiet a moment, just studying the Bell. “You’re important to us, too,” he finally said.
Brady let out a breath and nodded, feeling an unexpected tightening in his chest at that. There sure as hell weren’t that many people who felt that way about him. He started to say something, he had no idea what really, when a truck pulled into the lot, interrupting him.
A leggy blonde hopped out of the truck wearing a business suit, the skirt as narrow as a pencil, emphasizing mile-long, perfectly toned legs. The high heels added an I’m Sophisticated and Expensive tone.
Turning to her truck, she reached back in and the red suit tightened across a world-class ass, wrenching a sound from Adam.
Brady looked at him but his face was carefully blank. Too blank. “Know her?”
“Yes,” Adam said tightly.
The woman straightened and Brady saw that she was carrying a golden retriever puppy. She glanced over, drew herself up at the sight of Adam, then strode toward them, face cool and impassive.
Actually, Adam’s expression was impassive. A battle-ready soldier.
The woman’s face was set in stone. Angry, cold stone.
Brady figured she was one of those snooty bitches who was wound too tight. And going off the steam coming out of her ears, her hair was also wound too tight.
“Holly,” Adam said with no inflection in his voice.
“Adam.” There was plenty of inflection in her voice. Mostly temper. “Here.” She thrust the puppy into Adam’s arms. “She’s defective.”
Adam looked down at the puppy, who wriggled and licked his nose. A genuine light of affection came into his eyes. “Defective?”
“She’s up all night crying.”
At that, Brady was forced to rethink his opinion of her. She wasn’t bitchy. She was exhausted.
He knew the feeling.
Adam gave Brady a brief look. “He’s in a new place, Holly. He’s scared.” He thrust the puppy back into her arms, where it wriggled some more and licked her, too.
“I suppose you think this is funny,” Holly said, attempting to stay lick-free.
“A little bit,” Adam said evenly, not showing the smile that was in his voice.
Her mouth tightened. “My father’s a domineering, annoying, meddling ass. And you. You’re . . . ” Breaking off, she shook her head. Turning on her heels, she strode off, long gorgeous legs churning up the distance
while her puppy looked back over her shoulder at Adam, head bouncing.
“Big fan of yours?” Brady asked.
Adam didn’t rise to the bait. He merely looked at the helicopter and then back into Brady’s eyes. “You in for the month or not? I need to know whether to make plans.”
“I said I’d do it. Make your plans.”
With a nod, Adam was gone.
Brady went back to work for the rest of the day and then spent the night hours once again attempting to get the mutt to sleep.
But the damn dog was not interested in anything but driving Brady to the edge of sanity. At two in the morning, he was over it and reached for his cell phone to call Adam. “Fine,” Brady grated to Adam’s voice mail. “I’m waving the white flag. I need training.”
At three A.M., Adam hadn’t called back, and desperate, Brady tried Lilah, feeling completely justified at the late hour since she was the one who’d foisted the damn mutt on him in the first place. If he had to be up, she should, too.
He got her voice mail as well. “Come get him or I’m shipping him to Afghanistan,” he said, and tossed his cell phone aside to flop to his back on the bed, listening to the damn dog cry.
Thing was, Brady was used to going on little sleep. He’d been trained for sleep deprivation in the military. But this wasn’t an enemy thing. Hell, this wasn’t even a logical thing.
It was one damn little dog getting the best of him. He’d tried everything short of strangling him, and finally somewhere near dawn, the mutt finally crashed. A grateful Brady fell into one of those dead slumbers that nothing short of a world-wide catastrophe could rise him from.
And yet he came suddenly awake what felt like a minute later to the sun poking him in the eyeballs. Sprawled face-down and spread-eagle on the bed, he cracked open one eye and blinked blearily at the clock.
Seven thirty.
Since the last time the dog had woken him up had been seven, he’d had exactly thirty minutes of sleep. “Fucking mutt.”
“Aw. Is that any way to talk about your bedmate?”
“Jesus!” He pushed up on his arms and turned his head, his gaze landing on Lilah’s. She stood at the foot of his bed in a pair of hip-hugging, ass-snugging jeans, a knit top, and a smile he couldn’t quite read but was pretty sure was smug.
Then he realized there was a weight on his lower back, and that it was the dog.
Sleeping.
Brady dislodged it and rolled to his back. Grabbing his pillow, he shoved it behind him to lean back against the headboard.
The dog simply rolled onto its back and kept sleeping. The fucker.
Lilah’s eyes were on Brady’s bare chest. “Um.”
Brady raised a brow and waited for her gaze to meet his.
When it did, she had two spots of color high on her cheeks. “Sorry, my phone was off last night, but I came over as soon as I got your message. Wanted to see if you were still alive.”
Which he most definitely was. Alive. Very . . . alive. Some parts more than others.
Her gaze jerked back up to his eyes. “I thought you’d be . . . up.”
They both knew just how up he was. “It was a rough night.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the dog, who was slowly coming awake and blinking innocently. “That thing kept me awake all night.”
“What did you do to get him to go to sleep?”
“I told him to shut up.”
She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Twinkles is a rescue. He needs love and affection.”
“Sorry, fresh out of both.” He sighed at her look of disappointment. He’d gone years and years, and to his recollection, he’d never once sighed. And yet he’d sighed more in the week he’d known her than he had in his entire life. “I gave him my blanket,” he said. “I put a loud clock in that blanket to simulate the sound of a mother’s heartbeat. But I’m starting to think he never had a mother, that he came from the devil himself.”
“Did you try cuddling with him?”
“Huh?”
“Cuddle,” she repeated. “You know, hold him close, snuggle, nestle . . . Like what you’d do if someone was with you in there . . . ”
“The only someone allowed in my bed is a woman.”
“Pretend he’s a woman, then!”
Fascinated by her, he plumped his pillow some more and gave her a go-on gesture with his hand. “No, I don’t know. Tell me what I’d do. In great detail.”
She blew out a breath. “You’re sick.”
“Depends on your definition of sick.”
“Just hug your dog!”
“Not my dog. The dog you foisted on me. Which begs the question: why?”
“Twinkles. His name is Twinkles,” she grated, hands on hips now. “Not ‘the dog’ or ‘it’ or whatever else you’ve been calling the poor thing.”
Probably best she didn’t want to know what he’d called it earlier this morning around three thirty A.M.
And again at four thirty.
And five thirty.
“Haven’t you ever had a dog?” she asked in exasperation.
“No. And I don’t want this one. Fun’s over, Lilah. You’re taking him back.”
She was just studying him speculatively. “Really? You’ve never had a dog?”
“Never.”
She looked surprised for a beat, and then her expression softened. “So you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“What having a pet can add to your life.”
“Pain and suffering?”
She slanted him a pitying look and crossed her arms, which plumped up her breasts. “Unconditional love.”
“Lilah, I travel all the time. I don’t have time for unconditional love that comes with the responsibility of pet care.”
“Or . . . you don’t like attachments.”
“Attachments are messy,” he agreed. She’s chilly, he thought, watching her nipples press against her white shirt. Or maybe turned on.
That made two of them . . .
“And messy can make you feel too much,” she said. “Right?”
“Actually, at the moment I’m feeling plenty,” he said softly.
Again her gaze flickered downward, past his chest to his lap, where the sheet was pooled. Two high spots of color appeared on her cheeks. I should . . . ”
“Go?”
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “Good-bye, Mr. No-Strings.”