How to Heel a Wounded Heart (Must Love Dogs Book 4)

by Daniel Banner

  “At least I’ve still got you, T. The only big guy in my life.”

  Cason still had no inkling of what had inspired the Curtises to ditch him and request Avvie. Actually there was still some question whether they’d requested Avvie or just requested someone who wasn’t Cason.

  Had she picked up on the fact that he found her super-attractive? Her easygoing attitude was exactly what he’d look for in woman someday. And her pixie haircut, cute smile, even the flannel shirt she’d been wearing the first day they met all just made her seem like the perfect woman. Lucky Emmett. But maybe it was for the best. The last thing Cason wanted was to fool around with a married woman.

  It didn’t hurt his feelings—they could spend their money on whoever they wanted to—but it did break his heart. The humans in the family were good people and even though they came from different economic circles, he could see himself chilling at their summer barbeque or backpacking with Emmett. The relationship with Fiyero, however, was the hard one to break. So sudden. No chance to say goodbye.

  Cason had talked to Avvie every day since she’d taken over, trying to help her find a way to help the big guy. They’d brainstormed some decent ideas, but it killed Cason to not be there working with him.

  Looking up past the scattered clouds in the sky, he said, “I walk with You.”

  For the first time in a while, T looked over his shoulder even though Cason hadn’t been talking to him.

  “Is it time?” Cason asked T and got no response.

  Like a parent subconsciously putting a blanket over a sleeping baby, Cason extended his arm.

  T watched it for only a second, then a dire growl escaped his throat and he showed all of his very sharp teeth.

  “Guess not,” said Cason, pulling his arm back a little more quickly than he had extended it. “That arm doesn’t need any more stitches.”

  The noise stopped and T’s ample lips fell over his teeth, but he kept his head turned toward Cason.

  “I know, stupid humans, right? I apologize. Promise it won’t happen again. You can trust me.”

  Stupid humans.

  They settled into a companionable silence.

  13

  Zandra crouched behind one of the piles of stuff that filled Emmett’s half of the garage. Still filled his half of the garage. To be fair, it had only been five days. She’d given him a week to do it, and if she was going to put as much in as she expected from him, she’d give him the week without saying anything else.

  At first Fiyero tried to nose through the clutter to get to her even though he was way too big. She’d expected him to barge his way in and crawl right up onto her lap. Then the second the garage door went up, he’d take off running through the construction supplies toward Emmett and ruin what she had planned. But after thirty seconds of looking for a way in, he’d plunked down on his bed and closed his eyes. The big guy was snoozing like 22 hours a day lately.

  Elfie was keeping close eyes on Zandra and Fiyero, obviously confused but rolling with it for the most part. She didn’t try to follow Zandra’s path into the maze of boxes and once in a while she stood, walked over to Fiyero, sniffed him, then walked away a few feet and sat down.

  “Buddy,” said Zandra. “Why can’t we figure out what is wrong with you?”

  Zandra shifted positions and her foot hit something big and rubbery. Back in the piles of stuff where she was hiding, it was mostly dark, so she had to stick a hand down to feel what it was.

  Almost as big around as a bowling ball, with a rubber handle. “Oh, Fiyero! Look what I found.”

  He opened his eyes but didn’t lift his head until she got the Jolly Ball high enough for him to see and waved it in the air.

  “Woof!” said Fiyero, climbing laboriously to his feet. The excitement didn’t go beyond his eyes and voice, but at least he was moving.

  Zandra tossed it with a little spin over the granite slabs that separated her from the dogs’ sleeping area. It bounced in an unpredictable pattern that Fiyero couldn’t track with his eyes, much less his mouth, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

  The big goof finally tracked the ball down, once it came to a stop. It took two tries but he scooped up the handle in his mouth and strutted over to Elfie to show it off. Elfie hit it with her nose just hard enough to dislodge it from Fiyero’s mouth. It bounced a couple times then rolled in a circle.

  Fiyero followed it with his eyes and this time waited for it to stop completely before picking it up and carrying it back to his bed, where he laid down with it between his front legs. That was it. No more dropping it and chasing it, no chewing, he was content to just hold his favorite toy. It had only been lost for a month, but the last time he’d had it he’d attacked it like it was a possessed raccoon that he had to protect the rest of the family from.

  Was her baby finally growing up and getting more mature? Or was he just lethargic because of whatever was going on with him?

  She fought off the temptation to go over and love on him. With what she had planned for Emmett, it wouldn’t do to smell like a giant dog and have her hands and face covered in hair and slobber. One of Emmett’s three requests/demands/ideas was more excitement in the bedroom. Big shocker.

  She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her robe and checked the location app. Oh good, he was just about to pull into the driveway. Zandra felt a little thrill and a touch of nervousness. She had to admit, Emmett was on to something.

  The garage door started to rise and Fiyero forgot all about his Jolly Ball. Tail wagging thunderously against the granite, he tottered over to the rising door and shoved his nose under it as if he could make it go up faster. By the time Emmett parked and pushed his door open, Fiyero had done a full lap around the truck.

  “Hey, buddy,” said Emmett, tucking his cell phone into his pocket. “Looks like you’re feeling good.”

  “Woof,” answered Fiyero. Zandra suspected it was the I found my toy woof.

  She waited for Fiyero to run over to his bed and tell Emmett about the plan, and bring Emmett’s attention to the garage, possibly exposing Zandra. But Fiyero was more interested in getting his ears scratched. Elfie came up and nudged her way in.

  “Look,” said Emmett, “a dog sandwich.” With his hands as the bread, and their heads side by side, he dug in for another minute.

  Oh how she loved seeing her man interacting with the dogs like that.

  Possibly the best thing that had come out of the incident last week was that he was now willing to consider, consider, having kids soon. She couldn’t wait to see him with a baby in his arms. And one on his lap. And a couple climbing on his back.

  He was close to giving in and Zandra wasn’t above using her womanly wiles to convince him.

  “Alright, outta the way,” said Emmett playfully. “My baby’s waitin’.”

  Zandra smiled as she ducked her peeking eye away from the spot she’d been spying through. He couldn’t find her until she was ready for him.

  His footsteps clipped through the garage and into the house without slowing down. The door closed and Zandra hopped into action.

  She ran to the passenger side of his truck. There was only one more question mark in the whole plan, and as soon as she opened the door she saw what she was looking for.

  “Come to mama,” said Zandra as she pulled Emmett’s tool belt from the floor of the truck. She closed the door as quietly as possible, then crept back into the garage.

  Taking a quick breath, she tucked the tool belt inside her robe and squeaked when the cool leather wrapped around the bare skin of her waist. The tightest setting was still loose on her, but it caught on her hips instead of falling all the way to the floor.

  “Here goes nothing,” she said to the curious dogs, then gripped the lapels of the robe. If seeing her wearing nothing but his tool belt didn’t do the trick for exciting, she didn’t know what would.

  The tool belt buzzed. Like a … a cell phone alert. But she had seen him tuck his phone into his pocket when he climbed
out of the truck.

  Zandra worried if she should be nervous. That clasp on the bottom of her stomach was on the verge of springing open, sending her into a furious despair.

  As slowly as if she was reaching into an active beehive, she stuck her hand into the buzzing pocket and pulled out a cell phone. It looked brand spanking new.

  “Options?” wondered Zandra quietly. “No.”

  She clicked the wake up button and an image of the woman she’d tried to forget about appeared on the screen. All of the woman. Wearing even less than a toolbelt.

  Zandra clicked back to the text thread and saw various images, all of them seductive or downright graphic, interspersed with encouraging texts from Emmett such as, More! Or From behind.

  The phone buzzed again, Zandra didn’t want to see any more of the woman than she’d already seen—as if that was possible—but she dared a peek.

  Just a teaser until tmw, Emmie! Say hi to the ball and chain.

  Zandra heard a growl and looked at the dogs to see where it came from. They both stared at her, and Elfie’s hackles on her rump were standing on end.

  “Don’t listen to what’s about to happen, Fiyero. I don’t want your ears to burn.”

  14

  Zandra didn't bother looking back any further in the thread of text. She found her hand on the handle of the door and her feet walking through it. The phone hung in the air in front of her like a radioactive sample that she touched with the bare minimum fingers. Emmett looked up from the pile of mail he was sifting through, and his face took on an amused, confused countenance.

  As he looked her over, Zandra realized the robe was hanging wide open, showing off much less than that woman in the pictures, but much more than she wanted to share with him at the moment. Letting the phone fall in between them on the counter Zandra grabbed the lapels of the robe and pulled it tight around her, but she couldn't get it tight enough to feel comfortable.

  There were a million things Zandra wanted to say, but she didn't know how to say any of them. With Zandra's goods off display all of Emmett's attention went to the phone and for a moment, no only half of a moment, he looked like a rabbit caught in a snare.

  “Oh, you found Tommy's phone.” Emmett reached out to pick it up.

  Zandra was quicker, but she didn't want to touch the phone again. Like a journeyman carpenter she swooped up the hammer from the belt and had it coming down with full force before Emmett’s hand could make it. Plastic and glass and little bits of marble flew in every direction. Zandra realized it was a perfect shot, but it wasn’t the time for gloating or celebration.

  “Guess I owe Tommy a new phone.” There were daggers in Zandra's voice. She didn't like it, but it also wasn’t the time for niceties or softness.

  "What are you doing, Zandra?” Emmett was … not guilty, not embarrassed. He was angry. At her!

  "Tommy's phone my right eye!" yelled Zandra. "I may be gullible, but I'm not stupid." She dropped the hammer onto the countertop where the phone had been. She wasn't necessarily tempted to do something violent—not yet—but she also didn’t want temptation to keep whispering in her ear.

  Chapter

  "I am not going to give up on us, Emmett. We have way too much going for us. We are amazing together. We'll get through this.” Zandra forced herself to say the words, because she sure wasn't feeling them. Things really had been awesome between her and Emmett since they met her first day on the job at the café.

  “Emmett, we can fix this, but we have to pull out the poison.”

  He was looking down at the hammer on the counter.

  He scooped up the hammer and biggest pieces of the shattered cell phone then came around the countertop, stood in front of Zandra, and held out his hand.

  Zandra held her ground. “I’m not asking you, Emmett. I’m not begging you. I’m telling you—we are going to make some changes. We are going to fix this.”

  Fixing his dark gaze intensely on her, he said, “One problem, Zandra. I never said I wanted to fix it.”

  He might as well have hit her in the gut with the hammer. Zandra felt her mouth fall open and her eyes blink repeatedly in confusion.

  “My tool belt,” said Emmett. He was still holding out his hand.

  The scene grew even more humiliating as Zandra reached under the robe and unbuckled the tool belt. She did so without showing an inch of skin underneath. At least she had that, right?

  All she had wanted to do was re-create the famous tool belt scene from early in their marriage when he had first started running a crew of his own. With a heavy breath she slapped the tool belt into his hand and watched as he walked out the door.

  Without a backward glance, he walked out the door.

  Leaving the words My tool belt floating in the air, he had walked out the door.

  It wasn't over. Zandra wasn't done fighting.

  But for the moment she needed options.

  No, thought Zandra. For the moment I just need to cry.

  It was a good thing she didn’t attempt any other options because the tears came whether she wanted them or not.

  15

  The early-morning moisture hung in the air creating a slight haze. Cason, in a sweatshirt with the logo from a construction company he’d never heard of, sat between Big T and Haley Hutchinson. Haley on the bench, T lying on the grass with his rear end just barely touching Cason's foot. The sun hadn't risen, and the dog park was empty

  Cason was penned in, unable to scoot any closer to T without invading the dog’s space. Haley seemed to know it as she scooted into his space on the bench casually. What would she do if he suddenly snarled and snapped at her, he wondered with a grin? She hadn't made any overt invitations like she had the first time he went to her house, but for a married woman she was much too familiar for his comfort.

  Even though T was over 150 pounds they were sitting in the small dog enclosure of the dog park. In Cason's experience, it seemed to be less populated in the early morning hours, and T was a dog who didn't come to places like this for the social aspect.

  "You think he's ready for you to pet him?" Haley leaned toward T, bringing her upper arm firmly against Cason's. "Do you think he’ll ever be ready for you to pet him?”

  At the sound of his owner’s voice, the big guy looked over his shoulder at Haley then he shifted his gaze to Cason. Just as he had every day in the week and a half since the first day they met, he seemed to be saying, we can be friends but if you value your hands you will keep them away from me. For Cason those instructions worked just fine, but you couldn't expect a one-year-old to follow that type of warning. Cason was so grateful that Haley and her husband were willing to spend the money to keep Cason around trying to work with the big guy rather than just throwing him away. It had been a long time since Cason had wanted to bring a dog home, but if the Hutchinson's ever decided T wouldn't work out, Cason would take him home without a second thought. He did love himself a good throw away.

  "I actually tried it a few days ago,” said Cason. “I reached for him because I thought I got a signal. The big guy was nice enough to give me a warning growl instead of disconnecting my hand at the wrist and swallowing it. It was a mistake. Set us back in the whole circle of trust.”

  “How will you know when he finally accepts you?"

  Cason wasn't sure exactly how to answer that because he really didn't know what it would look like when T was ready.

  While he was thinking of an answer, a blue Chevy Avalanche pulled into the parking lot of the dog park.

  Absently, he said, “You, well, you just get this feeling.”

  The Avalanche looked familiar, but Cason couldn't place it. It was one of those vehicles that was half SUV and half truck, and until he could get a view of the dogs in the back or maybe a smaller dog sitting up front with the owner, he didn't think he’d be able to identify it. He didn't have to wait long for Fiyero to stick his head over the edge. His beautiful copper, breadbox-sized head.

  That was Zandra driving then,
and soon Elfie came into view in the back with Fiyero.

  Cason was happy for the chance to see them again. He wanted to get up and go greet them, but his priority was T, and he still felt that the best thing he could do was just hang out. And there was the fact that he’d been fired for some reason he didn’t know. He was the last guy who wanted to impose where he wasn’t wanted with humans or dogs.

  They pulled into a parking spot and Zandra was quick to hop out and open the tailgate for the dogs. Fiyero stood at the edge, shifting weight between his front legs. Elfie made it down by herself, but Fiyero was stuck there until Zandra got her arms under his chest and helped him down.

  A healthy three-year-old French Mastiff shouldn’t need that kind of help to get out of a truck.

  They didn't bother with leashes; the dogs knew where to go and Zandra followed them. She looked amazing, as always. For a married woman, anyway. Well, good physically but there was something in the way that she walked that either belonged on a very cold day or in someone who was suffering somehow. It wasn’t Cason’s place to go there.

  "You know her?”

  Cason brought his gaze back to Haley. "Oh, yeah. That big guy is a former client of mine. I've been worried about him. What was the question you asked?” Was Fiyero limping worse than he had been a week ago?

  "How will you know when it's right?” prompted Haley. “With Big T.”

  “It's a feeling." Cason realized when Zandra's eyes came up to meet his that he was staring. He gave a small wave then looked down at T. "Kind of like the dog is talking to me, but not in a mental patient kind of way."

  Fiyero reached the gate and gave it a punch that shook the chain links.

  "Wow,” said Haley. “I thought Big T slobbered a lot.”

  “Did you see Turner and Hooch?” asked Cason. “I think the slobber capability is the reason they chose a French Mastiff for the role.”