by Sarah Morgan
“No problem. Do you dance?”
“Excuse me?” Marsha stared at him.
“Dance. You know—tango, salsa, that kind of thing.”
She smiled. “Daniel, if I did the tango, I’d spend the rest of the week with a chiropractor. Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
“You mean no reason you want to talk about. I’m intrigued.” She folded her arms. “Are you going to tell me why you asked?”
“No.”
Marsha rolled her eyes and made for the door. “That’s what I thought. But if you’re not going to share, stop teasing.”
The moment the door closed behind her, Daniel typed New York Salsa Dance Club into the search engine.
After two minutes he was able to understand Marsha’s response.
Why not join her at an activity she loves?
How about because he didn’t have a clue how to dance? He’d fall over his feet or, worse, he’d fall over her. That would hardly advance his cause, although it would be a novel way to find himself on top of her.
Dating was complicated. It was no wonder Aggie was busy. He was still in the process of trying to find out her identity, but right now it wouldn’t have surprised him if Aggie had turned out to be a team of forty people. Judging from the volume of advice that was given out, each of them was probably working full-time on researching answers.
And he didn’t need to write a letter to know what to do next.
It was time to tell Molly the truth. He’d tried to do that earlier, but she hadn’t given him a chance.
Thinking about giving people chances made him think about Brutus. He wondered whether the people who had come to look at him had liked him. Should he have mentioned to Harriet that the dog liked to drink from puddles?
He sat back in his chair, wondering how Molly was going to react when she discovered the dog wasn’t his.
Hopefully she’d be flattered that he’d gone to so much trouble to get her attention.
She had a keen sense of humor, so he was pretty sure she’d find it amusing.
He’d tell her the truth, she’d laugh and then they’d go out to dinner.
* * *
She’d overreacted. It was a kiss, for goodness’ sake. One kiss.
What she should have done was give him a smile, thank him and walk away with her dignity intact. Instead she’d run like Cinderella hearing the first chime of midnight.
Thinking about it made her cringe, and she’d cringed her way through a mostly sleepless night and woken early with a head full of cotton wool.
She’d taken Valentine for a quick walk in the park, going earlier than usual and taking a different route so that there was less chance of bumping into Daniel.
Valentine had been unimpressed by the change in routine and the lack of canine company.
She’d let him off the lead for a short time and sat on a strange bench, trying to think about the meeting she had with her publisher later, but only managing to think about Daniel.
Would he show up in the park later?
Would he wonder where she was?
No, he probably thought she was crazy now.
Having cleared the clouds from her head, she called Valentine and returned to her apartment.
“You’re going to spend the day with Harriet. I’m going to meet my publisher.” She talked to him as she got ready, taking extra care with her appearance.
They wanted her to tour, which she’d refused, just as she had refused to have an author photo on the jacket of her book. Touring would mean showing her face, risking exposure. She didn’t want Aggie to have a face. On her website she used a logo—a heart with a question mark inside it. She used the same image on her social media. What was the point of using a pseudonym if you put your face up there for everyone to see?
She stared into the mirror as she finished applying her makeup.
When she was answering questions online, or writing her book, she became Aggie, the persona she’d invented. Aggie was fearless in the advice she gave. She was strong, confident and wise.
Right now Molly felt like writing to Aggie to ask her how to unravel her complicated life. She frowned. She’d never felt that way before. She’d always been comfortable compartmentalizing her work and her private life.
It was that conversation about divorce that had rattled her. Or maybe it was the kiss. What advice would she give herself?
Be yourself.
Or maybe that wasn’t what she’d say. Who, in reality, revealed all of themselves? Most people had a side they showed the world, and a side they kept private.
She was no different, except that she’d given a name to her public persona.
“You’re good at what you do,” she told her reflection sternly. “You know more about relationships than anyone you’ve met, you have hundreds of grateful emails to prove it.”
So if she was such an expert on relationships, why had she run from Daniel?
One kiss wasn’t a declaration of eternal love. No feelings had been involved.
There had been no reason to overreact, except that she knew kisses like that inevitably led to other things and before you knew it someone got hurt.
On the other hand Daniel wasn’t the type to get involved past a certain point, so maybe they could have the passion without the pain.
Was that even possible?
Remembering the kiss brought flutters of excitement low in her belly.
Where he was now? In the park?
Maybe, or maybe not.
Maybe he had assessed her running-away routine and dismissed her as too complicated. Who wanted to get involved with a woman who behaved as if zombies were chasing her when a guy kissed her?
Valentine watched her reproachfully as she stepped into a pencil skirt and teamed it with a shirt with tiny shell buttons.
“Don’t look at me like that. I can’t go and see my publisher wearing yoga pants. I need to look professional and competent. And I can’t take you with me. You’ll have fun with Harriet.” She slid her feet into a pair of flats and put heels in her bag. “This is what pays the bills. And in New York City I can tell you those bills are big, so be a good boy and I’ll take you to the park this evening.”
He whined and lay across the door, looking pitiful.
“Don’t guilt-trip me! You know you love Harriet.” She dropped her phone into her purse, and glanced around to see what else she’d forgotten. “Do you miss Brutus?”
Valentine sprang to his feet and barked.
“You recognize his name? It’s more than he does.” She stroked Valentine’s head. “We’ll go to the park tomorrow and, if Daniel is there, I’ll apologize for behaving like a crazy person and say yes to dinner.” Dinner, she promised herself. Nothing more. He was attractive, and he was a dog person. That gave him extra points in her book.
She grabbed Valentine’s lead and a few dog treats, and made for the door.
It was a ten-minute walk to Fliss and Harriet’s.
Fliss opened the door, looking flustered. “Molly. You’re early.”
“I’m sorry. Do you mind? I’ll pay you extra of course, but I need to buy a gift for my editor on my way to the office.” She smiled as Valentine shot past her into the apartment. “He’s so at home here. He loves it.”
Fliss’s response was drowned out by a cacophony of excited barking.
Molly peered over Fliss’s shoulder toward the noise. “Is Harriet fostering again? What—” She broke off as Valentine came bounding back to her, a large German shepherd by his side.
Even if his markings hadn’t been unmistakable, Molly would have known who it was from Valentine’s ecstatic greeting. “Brutus? What are you doing here? That’s a coincidence.” Smiling, she bent to rub Brutus’s head. “I know this dog. He belongs to a guy I see in the park most mornings. He’s adorable. The dog, I mean, not the guy. Although if I’m honest the guy is pretty adorable, too.” She flushed as she realized she was babbling like a teenager. “He never told me
he used dog walkers.” She glanced up and saw the frozen expression on the Fliss’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Say that again. That thing you said.” Fliss spoke between her teeth. “You meet a guy in the park—you mean you see him and run past him?”
“To begin with, but then we got to talking. Now we meet up most mornings. It’s no big deal. This is definitely his dog. I’d know him anywhere. Brutus.”
Brutus wagged his tail crazily and Fliss swallowed. “Crap. Molly—” She opened the door, her face a few shades paler than it had been a few moments earlier. “You’d better come in.”
“Why? I have a ton of things to do, and—”
“Come in. Harriet!” Fliss bellowed her sister’s name. “Come in here now, I need you. We have a situation, and I’m not good with situations.”
“What situation?” Confused, Molly followed Fliss into the apartment while Valentine and Brutus played a lively game that involved barking and rolling on the rug in the center of the room. “The two dogs are great together. It will be like a boys’ day out, so you don’t need to worry about walking them together.”
“What’s wrong?” Harriet appeared, a toothbrush in her hand. “Hi, Molly. I’m a bit behind because I had to go and pick up some abandoned kittens in the night. We’re so looking forward to having Valentine today, though. He’s the best dog ever.”
“Hold that thought. She may not be leaving him with us,” Fliss muttered and Harriet looked puzzled.
“Why not? What’s happened?”
“I have no idea.” Uneasy now, Molly glanced from one twin to another. “What’s going on?”
Fliss clenched her jaw. “Molly has been walking Valentine in the park every morning, and she’s been meeting up with Brutus. He and Valentine know each other well.”
Harriet’s face brightened. “That’s great. It makes it so much easier that they’re already friends, because now the two of them can—” She stopped in midsentence and her eyes widened. Delight changed to consternation. “Oh!”
“Yes, oh.” Fliss jabbed her fingers into her hair. “Molly, there is no easy way to say this, so I’m going to come right out with it and then you can blacken my eye. Go for it. Don’t hold back. That man in the park… Brutus doesn’t belong to him.”
Molly smiled. “Yes, he does. I’ve seen them together every day. They love each other.”
“I knew we should have said ‘no.’” Temper boiling, Fliss paced across the floor. “He came to us last month and said he wanted to borrow a dog so that he could meet a hot girl. How the hell was I to know it was you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Daniel. Came to us.”
“Wait. How do you know his name?”
“I’ve known his name my whole life. Daniel is our brother.”
It took Molly a moment to comprehend what Fliss was saying. “Your brother?”
“Yes.” Fliss let out a breath. “It didn’t occur to us that you were the hot girl. You’re going to kill me. And then you’ll probably kill him. And neither of us would blame you for that. In fact there have been plenty of times when we’ve been tempted to do the same thing ourselves.”
Molly stared at Brutus. Daniel’s dog. Except that he wasn’t his dog.
He’d borrowed the dog so he could meet her. And she’d fallen for it.
Fliss looked unhappy. “Say something. Are you flattered or are you about to go batshit crazy? My money is on crazy. Go ahead. Yell or shriek. Throw something, only not a ball or the dogs will try and fetch it.”
Harriet looked stricken. “We’re so sorry, Molly. We never should have let him borrow Brutus, but our business is exploding right now and that dog is a handful, so to be honest we were glad to have someone walk him.”
“And then there’s your romantic side.” Fliss turned her accusing gaze on her sister, who flushed.
“I know this is partly my fault. Fliss thought it was a bad idea, but you have to understand, Daniel has never really shown attachment to anyone or anything. I really thought having responsibility for the dog every day might be good for him. If I’d thought he was going to be unkind—”
Molly thought about the way Daniel had gently removed the stick that had become embedded in Brutus’s fur. “He wasn’t unkind. Not to Brutus.” She couldn’t get her head around it.
He’d borrowed a dog. Brutus wasn’t his.
Anger started to simmer.
“But he didn’t actually lie,” Harriet said, her expression hopeful.
“He lied by omission. He knew I thought the dog was his.” Molly’s legs stopped functioning and she sat down on their sofa, sinking into throw cushions. Something sharp dug into her thigh and she realized she’d sat on a book. She hadn’t even noticed it. She tugged it out from under her leg and saw the title.
Mate for Life.
“That’s mine.” Harriet snatched it from her and tucked it under a stack of other books. “I was hoping for some tips. Although this is too advanced for me. I need the beginner version. Mate for Five Minutes. That would be a start, but unfortunately Aggie hasn’t written that one yet. Have you read it? It’s good.”
Molly made a noncommittal sound. What an irony, she thought. Harriet was reading her book and she had no idea Molly was the author. And it hadn’t crossed Molly’s mind that Daniel was the twins’ brother.
“I thought if Daniel spent time with the dog, he might form an attachment,” Harriet confessed. “I admit I wasn’t thinking about the woman he was chasing. I apologize.”
“Don’t. It wasn’t you, it was him.” She told herself it was normal to feel angry, but the truth was she felt so much more than that. She felt sick.
All her first instincts had been right. The only thing that had confused her had been the dog, and it turned out Brutus wasn’t even his. None of that was real. To think she’d actually been excited about seeing him again and finally accepting his invitation to dinner.
“I shouldn’t have interfered,” Harriet muttered. “It’s not as if Fliss and I make attachments either, so we’re not so different to him.”
“We make attachments,” Fliss protested. “I’m attached to you, and to my clients, and to the dogs I walk. I just happen to not have a man in my life right now.”
Harriet looked at her sister, challenging. “Ever.”
“Being attached to a man comes with strong feelings and when it all goes wrong you have to find something to do with those feelings that doesn’t involve breaking the law. And there’s the fact that I love being single.”
“Daniel did a bad thing, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.” Harriet’s defense of her brother was touching.
“What are you going to do?” Fliss was looking at Molly.
What was she going to do? She didn’t know.
Molly looked at Brutus, snuggled with Valentine. “So what is happening to Brutus?”
“Someone came to see him the other day. They’re coming back to get a second look at him tomorrow, and then there will be a load of checks of course, but if it works out Brutus will have a new home.”
Molly remembered how attentive Daniel had been to the dog in the park the day before. An idea formed in her head, and suddenly she knew exactly what she was going to do.
“Can I borrow him for a few hours?”
“Why?” Harriet’s tone was a shade cooler and Molly realized that although Harriet might seem gentle, she was more than ready to fight for a cause she cared about. And top of that list was vulnerable animals.
“There’s something I want to do. I promise I’ll keep him safe.”
Harriet relaxed. “I never doubted it. But what are you going to do? I must admit, I’m surprised you’re not madder than you are.”
“I am mad.” Molly stood up and this time her legs felt steady. She was still angry, but she was no longer afraid she might break something. “But there are many different ways of letting out that mad.”
“Don’t you have a meeting with your publisher?”
; “Not until lunchtime. I was going to catch up on some jobs, pick up a gift, but that can all wait. If I move fast, I should still make my appointment later. But I need to take Brutus.”
“Okay. But as you’re going to be spending one-on-one time with him, there’s something else you should probably know.” Harriet glanced at Fliss, who rolled her eyes dramatically.
Molly braced herself for more revelations. “What?”
“His name isn’t actually Brutus. It’s Ruffles.”
Nine
“Daniel, there’s a woman in reception to see you. She says it’s urgent.”
Snowed under with the complexities of the case he was handling, Daniel didn’t even look up. “She needs to make an appointment.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“If it’s complicated, then she definitely needs to make an appointment.”
“This isn’t business. It’s, er, personal.”
Daniel looked up. He never, ever, allowed his personal life to intrude on his work. It was one of the reasons he’d never hooked up with anyone from the office. “What’s her name?”
“She didn’t give her name, but she has a dog with her. And this is the weird part—she says it’s your dog.”
“A dog?” Daniel’s internal radar sounded several loud alarm bells. “What sort of dog?”
“A boisterous German shepherd who is creating havoc in reception.” Marsha smiled. “When you were asking all those questions the other day, I wondered what was going on. Were you worried it would make you seem more human? Because honestly, that would be a good thing. You should have told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That you have a dog.”
Tension spread across his shoulders and down his spine. “Are you telling me one of my sisters is in reception?”
“Your sisters? No. I know Fliss and Harry. This woman has dark hair. Very pretty.” Marsha looked intrigued. “I assumed you knew her.”
He knew her. The description sounded like Molly, and if she was standing in reception with a German shepherd it meant he was in more trouble than he could possibly have imagined.
She’d found out the dog wasn’t his.