About a Dog

by Jenn McKinlay

  Mac hurried behind the counter and took the payment out of Gavin’s hands. When his eyes focused on the fact that it was her, he looked so relieved she thought he might weep. Instead, he kissed her forehead and glanced at Jessie.

  “My helper,” Mac explained.

  He looked bemused and said, “Um . . . okay.”

  Jessie gave him a nervous smile and Mac pulled her over to the computer to show her what was what and how it worked.

  “You, go,” Mac said to Gavin. “I’ll get them sorted and send them in to you. Do you have anyone waiting?”

  “Just Cheryl Benson and Jiggles in exam room one,” he said.

  “Really?” Mac asked. “Did she pay for this visit?”

  Gavin shook his head. “I haven’t seen the cat yet, so I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “I do,” Mac said. “It has a case of horny-owner-itis.” She turned back to Jessie and handed her the sign-in clipboard. “See who’s here and who’s been waiting the longest and then start sending them in. We have four exam rooms. Gavin will be starting in room two.”

  “I will?” he asked.

  “You will.” She glowered and then she went to kick Cheryl Benson’s sneaky behind out to the curb.

  Three hours passed in the space of a blink. By the time the lobby was sorted and patients were seen, payments were processed, and the waiting room was cleared, Mac and Jessie were sagging on their feet in exhaustion.

  “That was unbelievable,” Jessie said.

  Mac raised her hand and after an awkward moment, Jessie slapped it in a high five that made both women smile.

  “We kicked ass,” Mac said.

  “Yeah, we did,” Jessie said. She beamed and Mac returned her smile, thinking Jessie wasn’t as haughty looking when she was happy. Maybe that was the problem, then; maybe Jessie had never been truly happy.

  They were still looking at each other with new respect when Gavin came out of an exam room with a kitten in his arms. Mac looked up from the counter and felt her heart stutter in her chest. The orange tabby looked tiny in his hands and Gavin held him with a gentleness that made Mac’s ovaries want to throw all of their eggs at him at once like he was the target in a dunk tank. That couldn’t be good.

  “Looks like we have a new housecat,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Mac asked.

  “This little guy was found abandoned on Route 1,” he said.

  “Oh, no, that’s terrible,” Jessie said. She held out her hands and Gavin passed the kitten to her.

  While she caressed his head, Gavin looked at Mac. When she didn’t respond, he widened his eyes and tipped his head toward Jessie and then toward her in the universal gesture for What the hell is going on?

  “Oh, hey, I didn’t get a chance to explain earlier,” Mac said. “Gavin, meet your new office assistant.”

  Gavin looked at her like he’d swallowed his tongue.

  “A word, Mac,” he said. He looked at Jessie. “Excuse us, please.”

  “Take your time,” Jessie said. The kitten was pushing his head against her chin and she was wrinkling her nose and making kissy noises at him. Mac never would have believed it. Jessie was an animal lover.

  Gavin grabbed Mac by the arm and led her into exam room one.

  “Explain,” he said.

  “Simple version is this. She’s a business major who needs a job. You need an office manager. Match made in heaven or by the side of the road, depending upon how specific you want to be,” she said.

  Gavin opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it, and said, “But you hate her.”

  “We made peace,” Mac said.

  “Just like that?” he asked.

  “There was some crying involved; her, not me,” Mac said. “But apologies were made and accepted.”

  Gavin stared at her and Mac stared back. Finally, she raised her hands in the air and asked, “Well, can she have the job?”

  Gavin put his hand on the back of his neck and started to pace in the little room. When he started to talk to himself, Mac leaned against the wall and let him work through it.

  “She seemed to manage the office okay, picked up on the details quickly, wasn’t scared of the big dogs, made the patients calm down,” he said. “Doc thought she was cute.”

  He stopped pacing and looked at Mac. “I guess she can have the job, but I have to be honest, I had someone else in mind for the position.”

  “Who?” Mac asked.

  Why hadn’t he told her that? Since she was his unofficial trainer she should have input. The intensity of his stare made her pulse pick up and she was pretty sure she felt her pupils dilate. Oh.

  “Me?” she asked.

  “You,” he said.

  Chapter 29

  He started walking toward her and Mac backed up until she felt the counter at her back. He leaned forward and rested his hands on each side of her, blocking her in.

  “I bet you could run the heck out of this place,” he said. His lips were just inches from hers and Mac had a hard time understanding what he was saying. His words were coming at her like so much white noise since their unfinished business from a few nights ago had her brain churning raunchy scenarios in her mind, blocking out any cognitive reasoning.

  “I have a job,” she managed to choke out. “In Chicago.”

  “Is that so?” he asked.

  He kissed her just below the ear and Mac felt her legs buckle. Gavin grabbed her hips and scooped her up, setting her on the counter so they were now eye to eye.

  “Yes, it’s so,” Mac said. “I’ve worked too long . . . oh, my.”

  He moved his mouth down the side of her neck, pushed aside her hair, and used his teeth on her shoulder. Mac swallowed hard and tried to focus.

  Across the room, there was a poster of a kitten dangling from a tree limb, telling her to hang in there. Mac didn’t want to; she wanted to free-fall right into a pool of hot sex with Gavin, but she knew the kitten was right.

  She pulled back and cupped his face in her hands, forcing his attention away from her shirtfront and up to meet her eyes.

  “While I love the idea of working here and I’m flattered that you’d want me to, I can’t,” she said. “I have worked too hard for too long to give up everything I’ve achieved. My career is in Chicago.”

  Gavin sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. His hands were stroking up and down her sides, making Mac long for things she had no business longing for, not now, not while she still had several unresolved situations such as telling Emma how she felt about Gavin and ending things officially with Trevor.

  “All right,” he said. “If I can’t hire you, then Jessie can have the job. You will explain to me in greater detail how all of this came about, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” Mac glanced at the clock. “Oh, I have to get her home to meet her daughters.”

  Gavin stepped back and she hopped off of the counter, already missing his nearness. She headed for the door but Gavin grabbed her hand and pulled her back. Then he kissed her and this time it was not swift and sweet but long and full of lascivious promises. When he released her, Mac was pretty sure steam was coming out of her ears.

  “Just so you know,” he whispered in her ear as they left the room, “I’ve heard that long-distance relationships can be very sexy.”

  • • •

  Mac dropped Jessie off at her home. There was no sign of Seth for which she was eminently relieved. Jessie surprised her by hugging her tight before she climbed out of the car.

  “You’ve given me something I haven’t had in a very long time,” Jessie said. At Mac’s questioning glance, she said, “Hope.”

  “I’m glad,” Mac said.

  She watched Jessie walk up the steps of the old colonial in the historic section of town, not far from Mac’s family home in fact, and
she noticed that while the house looked imposing from a distance there were little tells in its façade that reflected the less than perfect state of its inhabitants.

  Peeling paint, overgrown garden beds, a missing shutter or two; singularly they were a mark of wear and tear but cumulatively they showed the neglect that was pervasive on the property. Jessie had confessed to dreaming of a tiny cottage by the shore for her and the girls. Mac really hoped she got it.

  She returned the Jeep to Jillian at her shop and then chose to walk through town, planning to join the aunts for dinner since the wedding to-dos over the next few days were going to make any more free time for her scarce to nonexistent.

  She had just turned onto Elizabeth Street when the sound of a car stereo’s bass cranked to top volume pounded her eardrums with its merciless beat. She clapped her hands over her ears and whipped her head in the direction of the street to scowl at the offender.

  Her jaw smacked the concrete at her feet when she saw Aunt Charlotte cruise by in a blue Dodge Challenger with a white racing stripe running over its top from front to back. Charlotte saw Mac and flashed her some sort of hand gesture that meant hang ten, hook ’em horns, rock and roll, or, possibly, up yours. Mac had no idea and she was pretty sure Charlotte didn’t either.

  One thing Mac did know: this madness had to stop. Right now. She was going to demand to know what the heck had gotten into her aunts. And if she had to hog-tie them to get them to talk she was going to do it.

  She ran-walked the rest of the way home so that when she turned into the driveway it was to find Charlotte just climbing out of her car.

  “What is that?” Mac cried.

  “Our new ride,” Charlotte said. “Like it?”

  “What music were you playing?” Mac asked. “It sounded like—”

  “Rap,” Charlotte said. Her eyes sparkled.

  “Where’s the Volvo?” Mac asked.

  “I traded it in,” she said. “It was beginning to cramp my style.”

  “For this?” Mac felt the need to clarify. “You traded it for this.”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Can you even see over the dash?” Mac cried.

  “Sure,” Charlotte said. “They gave me a booster seat.”

  Mac’s eyes went wide.

  “I’m kidding, relax,” Charlotte said. “When exactly did you become no fun?”

  “No fun,” Mac spluttered. “I’ll have you know I’m plenty of fun, but I’m grown-up fun, not this impulsive adolescent fun you and Aunt Sarah have going.”

  The front door swung open and Sarah joined them. She glanced at the sports car and then at her sister. She looked delighted. “You got it? Is that our new shagging wagon?”

  “Yes, it is, and I got a year of free oil changes, too!” Charlotte said.

  “Sweet!” Aunt Sarah hurried down the steps to look it over. “Let’s take it for a ride in the hood.”

  “The hood?” Mac felt as if she was going to have a stroke. “Did you hear her coming down the street? I’m surprised the cops aren’t here to cite her for a violation of the noise ordinance.”

  As if they’d activated their twin powers the two aunts rolled their eyes at her in perfect sync as if they were fourteen. Mac lost it.

  “That’s it!” she cried. “I have tried to be patient. I have tried to be supportive. But you are freaking me out! What the hell is going on and why are you two acting so weird?”

  They gave her a mutinous look and Mac said, “I will call my dad and have him come here and interrogate you instead of me. I swear I will.”

  Sarah tipped up her chin as if daring her. Mac pulled her cell phone out of her bag and began to dial.

  “I think she means it, Sarah,” Charlotte said. She twirled her key ring on her finger. “We should tell her.”

  “Fine!” Sarah sighed. She raised her arms up in the air in a gesture of complete exasperation. “Not that it’s any of your business but we’re going to die.”

  “What?” Mac felt all of her blood drop from her head to her feet in one fast whoosh and she staggered from the sudden lack of oxygen.

  “That was mean,” Charlotte said. “Just look at her, you’re lucky she didn’t faint.”

  “Oh.” Sarah waved an annoyed hand at her sister and then glared at Mac. “Not right now, but someday.”

  “Hang on,” Mac said. She staggered over to the steps and sat down and put her head between her knees. “Let’s try this again. You’re behaving like adolescents because you’re going to die someday, not tomorrow or next week or even in the next decade, but someday?”

  “Exactly,” Sarah said. “We’re plowing through our bucket lists because we don’t want to have any regrets.”

  Mac sprawled out on the steps. “Sweet chili dogs, I think you just scared ten years off of me. Was that really necessary?”

  “It could have been avoided if you’d minded your own business,” Sarah said. She stepped over Mac and went into the house.

  Mac glanced up at Charlotte. “She’s not lying, is she? I’m not going to find out you two have heart disease or cancer or something like that, am I? Because that would kill me.”

  “She’s telling the truth, we’re fine,” Charlotte said. “But it’s been a rough year. We’ve lost a lot of our friends lately and it’s beginning to take a toll. This is our way of coping.”

  Mac had heard from her dad that several of the aunts’ friends had passed over the winter so it made sense—but poetry slams, beekeeping, a Dodge Challenger? Wow, just wow.

  “We’re not wrong, you know,” Charlotte said.

  “About?”

  “Making sure you have no regrets,” Charlotte said.

  The look she gave Mac was a knowing one, and Mac wondered if the rumor mill in this tiny town had already churned out tales of her and Gavin, and if so, was that what Charlotte was referring to or was Mac just paranoid?

  Then there was the million-dollar question. What would Mac regret more, losing her friendship with Emma or not pursuing what she might have with Gavin? A week ago she would have put all of her chips on her friendship with Emma, but with every moment she spent with Gavin, she was less and less sure. Why did it have to be so complicated? For a nanosecond she was tempted to borrow the sports car, crank up the tunes, and drive away, taking Tulip with her as she went, natch.

  • • •

  They were now down to the wire with the wedding. People who had not bothered to RSVP had to be called, the final seating arrangements made, and the vendors confirmed, all while Emma and her wedding stager were logging long hours at the brewery directing the workers who were making the courtyard of the old brick building look like something out of a fairy tale.

  Mac borrowed Jillian’s Jeep and ran endless errands. Picking up ribbon here, dropping off payments there, badgering the florist to make sure the bouquets looked like what Emma had envisioned; it was endless. And, of course, Mac still had to pop in on Tulip a few times a day to make certain baby girl was okay. Every time she left Lester’s without her dog, it broke her heart a little bit more. Every time.

  On top of the chores, Emma had the wedding party booked for festivities every single night. On Wednesday, they all met at a karaoke bar, with the best man Bobby and his very pregnant wife Linda. On Thursday, it was back to just the eight of them for bowling, Linda being just a bit too pregnant to heft twelve-pound balls to hurl at pins and all.

  “I think by the time this wedding is over, I will not need to see any of you for a year,” Carly said.

  “You’re just sore because you’re gutter balling,” Brad said.

  He and Emma were in second place to Jillian and Sam’s first place. Mac and Gavin were in third with Carly and Zach dead last.

  “Did he just insult me and call me a sore loser?” Carly asked.

  “Yes, he did,” Gavin confirmed.

&n
bsp; “Because these shoes aren’t insult enough?” Carly asked.

  Mac took a sip of her beer and watched her friends. It was hard to believe that the two weeks were almost over. She realized it was going to be strange to go back to Chicago and not have this anymore.

  Oh, she had friends in Chicago that she enjoyed very much, but they didn’t have the life history that Mac shared with her Maine crew, which now seemed to include the guys. She had liked Brad from the moment she met him and saw how besotted he was with Emma.

  She’d met Zach and Sam on a trip to Florida that they’d all gone on together over a year ago, but she’d never gotten to know them like this. She considered them her friends now, too, and she realized she was really going to miss Sam’s dry wit and Zach’s juvenile antics.

  Then there was Gavin. Luckily, Emma had kept Mac moving at a clip the past two days and she’d had no time to think about him, or them, or his suggestion of a long-distance relationship, or anything else. Especially, anything else.

  It was his hands that captured her attention now; okay, and his lips, and, oh, heck, it was the whole package, but mostly his hands. Every time it was Gavin’s turn to handle his bowling ball, Mac broke into a light sweat and her girl parts ached. She didn’t trust herself alone with him, sitting next to him, or even brushing by him. For the past two nights, she had done everything she could to keep her distance but her body was in complete opposition to her brain. It was exhausting.

  For Gavin’s part, he seemed to accept that she was not willing to go public with anything between them. In front of their group, he never made any moves on her that would be construed as anything more than passing affection. A hug here, a high five there—it was the same type of camaraderie that he shared with Jillian and Carly. But when any opportunity presented itself where he could get Mac alone, the game changed and it was smokin’ hot.

  At karaoke, he managed to cop a feel in a dark corner of the bar; then he sang “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” by Barry White to her. In all fairness, he sang it to all of the ladies, but it was Mac he said the spoken parts to, completely charming her stupid.