Home Is Where the Bark Is

by Kandy Shepherd

  The snowflakes whirled round and round and round in that snow globe, disorienting her, and she felt so dizzy she thought she might fall. She blinked her eyes rapidly to keep her world in focus, gripped tight to Snowball’s leash.

  Nick went to take her arm to steady her. She shook it off. “Don’t touch me,” she spat. He cracked his knuckles. She was too distraught to even flinch.

  “Serena, if there’s a crime, I investigate it. That’s my job.”

  She swallowed against the hurt and anger that slashed through her. “You honestly thought I would . . . would steal from my clients? From good people like Joe and Rosemary Godfrey?”

  “It’s people like the Godfreys I work to get justice for. As you say, good people.” He was tight-lipped, his jaw taut with tension. “I didn’t know you. You were . . . suspicious. Working under an alias. Evasive about your past. In disguise.”

  She gasped. “I wasn’t in disguise. Or under an alias.”

  But when he put it like that . . .

  Maybe her escape from Serena St. James to the anonymity of Serena Oakley would appear suspicious to someone who didn’t know her. Someone who saw only the facts. “Perhaps it seemed that way, but I—”

  “I saw a link between the crimes and your center; Adam saw only a coincidence. I chose to check out Paws-A-While. You were the director.You had to be investigated.”

  “Investigated!” She recoiled from the sound of the word. “So you pretended to be a dog lover to . . . to . . . infiltrate my business.”

  “I didn’t have to pretend to be a dog lover.”

  “Why couldn’t you have just asked me? Wait. Of course you couldn’t. Because you thought I was a crook.”

  So much fell into place now. Even today Nick had taken twice as long to fasten Bessie’s harness as she had to fasten Snowball’s. No way was he a legitimate dog person, not in the San Francisco way of it, anyway. It was time for her to do a little “investigating” of her own.

  The dogs were anxious to be let off their leashes. When Fort Mason was owned by the military, dogs were allowed to play without leashes. Since Fort Mason had become a federal park, it was strictly an on-leash area. Local dog people exercised their right to disagree and dogs went off leash unless in the actual presence of the police. Freed from their leashes, happily sniffing around the area they came most days for exercise, Snowball and Bessie were totally oblivious to the tension between their humans.

  She turned to face him. “So, Nick, you say you’re a genuine dog lover. How long have you had Bessie? Or is she a fraud, too?”

  “Only two weeks. I am her official guardian—”

  “Why is she named Bessie?”

  “I don’t know. That was her name when I got her. She—”

  “Who really tied that bow in her fur?”

  “A seventy-year-old woman named Hannah, but—”

  “Why did she—?”

  Nick put his hand up to stop her. His voice was as much a growl as any Rottweiler under threat. “Serena. Let me finish. Bessie belongs to my great-aunt Alice.”

  “I knew that dog wasn’t yours. I knew—”

  “You don’t know. And you won’t know until you let me finish.” He made a zipping motion across his mouth.

  He looked so grim and determined that Serena zipped.

  Nick continued. “I’m new to San Francisco. Adam is a friend from my bureau days and I came here to join him as a partner in his investigation business. I’d been living in DC. Before that I had a stint in Australia.”

  “For the FBI?” She didn’t know that the FBI actually sent people out of the country.

  He nodded. “Yes. They send agents to every country that we want to exchange intelligence with. I was undercover in our embassy.”

  “Now you’re back.” The James Bondish truth about him was almost too much to take in.

  “My aunt lives in Sausalito. She’s on her own. If anyone from our family comes to San Francisco, we always visit with her. I asked could I stay until I found my own place. She was just about to take off on a road trip with some ladies from Seattle she met on a cruise boat. It worked out well for us both. She got a house-sitter and someone to look after Bessie. I got a place to stay and a ready-made cover dog.”

  So Nick Whalen really was not, and never had been, a Yorki-poo type of guy. No wonder he didn’t know how to tie that bow in Bessie’s forelock. Or was so clueless about claw polish.

  “So that’s how you ended up with a purse-sized pooch. It was a total sham from the word go. Bessie. Your job. You.”

  Us. She stopped herself from saying the word aloud just in time.

  Perhaps that was the most hurtful thing of all. That she’d allowed herself to think there might be an “us.” The kindness. The kiss. All just part of his ploy. She burned with humiliation at how easily she’d been taken in.

  Boy, did she know how to pick ’em. Was there something wrong with her when it came to men?

  Her breath caught in her throat when she realized what else she had to add to the list. “Mack. The thing with Mack, that was just another ploy, wasn’t it? Just to ingratiate yourself with me.”

  “No, Serena, don’t think—”

  She didn’t know what to think.

  “Did you really take him to the surgeon or just drive around the block and pretend?” She fought it, God, did she fight it, but the thought of Mack being involved in this man’s deception made her eyes sting with tears. “What were you planning to do with him after his use to you was over? Dump him at a shelter?” She couldn’t keep the break from her voice, but, what the heck, what was one more humiliation?

  He stared at her, tight-lipped. “How could you even think that? Nothing changes with Mack. He’s booked in for his operation tomorrow. Whatever happens, I want to adopt him.”

  Serena swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “Why should I believe you? I don’t know what’s lie or fact. I don’t know why I would trust Mack with you now.”

  A small group of tourists on a guided walking tour showed rather too much interest, and Serena realized her voice had risen too loud. There was nothing she hated more these days than drawing attention to herself. She willed herself to calm down.

  Nick shifted from foot to foot. For the first time since she’d known him he looked awkward and uncomfortable. Somehow it was endearing to see such a big, tough-looking guy seem so unsure of himself. When he cracked his knuckles she held back from saying anything. Though it took an effort.

  “Serena, I swear to you I would do nothing to harm Mack. He’s a great dog. I want him. I . . . I care about him.”

  He looked less grim-Rottweiler type, more the kind of guy she could be friends with. Could be—wanted to be—more than friends. Much more than friends.

  “I wish I could believe you.”

  “Trust me. Even though Mack could be a crook himself, I still want him.”

  Her heart thudded into overdrive. “Mack. A criminal?” Was she hearing things?

  “More of an accessory to crime,” he amended.

  “An accessory to crime? Mack? I don’t get this.”

  “While strictly speaking he’s innocent until proven guilty, the evidence is pretty damning.”

  Serena started to back away from Nick. This was seriously weird. She kept waiting for him to laugh and say he was joking.

  But he didn’t.

  She still doubted Nick’s honesty. Now she was beginning to wonder about his sanity.

  Twelve

  If it weren’t so damn serious, Nick would have laughed out loud at the expression on Serena’s face.

  “You think I’m crazy,” he said.

  She continued to creep cautiously backward from him. “Of course not. I knew all along Mack should be behind bars. I just . . .”

  Now Nick did laugh. “You’re clueless about the collar, aren’t you?”

  He had stopped suspecting her, but her reaction proved to him beyond a doubt that she was in no way involved.

  “M
ack’s collar?” She stopped, bewildered. “You mean the new one I gave him today? How does that make Mack a crook?”

  “Not the red one. The black studded one we took off of him. The one with the surveillance camera.”

  “The what?”

  He filled her in on the details. What kind of camera it was. How it worked. Where he’d found it. “It’s a sophisticated device but generic. Readily available on the Internet or in a spy shop. You don’t need a license to buy one.”

  Serena’s eyes were wide with horror. “And you thought I put that hideous collar on Mack? With a camera in it? Believe me, it was already fastened around his neck when Mack’s owner left him at Paws-A-While.”

  “His old owner, you mean,” he reminded her. “I’m Mack’s owner now.”

  “Of course you are,” she said. “But a camera. How could I have missed it? I’ve groomed Mack, taken the collar off to flea shampoo him.”

  “It’s very advanced technology. The lens is disguised in one of the metallic studs. So tiny I nearly missed it.”

  She shook her head slowly from side to side. “I can’t believe this.” She looked up at him. “Does this mean someone has been watching me, recording me, the whole time I’ve had Mack?”

  “Yes. The camera was active. Adam has disabled it. Somewhere, someone might be getting worried. Might make a move into the open to see what happened to it.”

  Serena cursed, the first time he had heard her do so. “That bastard abandoned his dog. I thought that was as low as he could go. Now I find he’s stolen from me and my clients.”

  “Maybe. He’s a suspect, that’s for sure. But the range of that camera, sophisticated as it seems, might be limited. We won’t know how limited until we track down a receiver for it or Adam can get a fix on it with another receiver. Can it actually record credit card details? We don’t know that. It’s a good bet the fraudster—whether it’s this guy or someone else—has had other access to your credit and banking details, too.”

  Serena looked like she’d been hit by a stun grenade. “He seemed like a nice enough guy. Although obviously he wasn’t nice to abandon Mack.You know, I thought he might have died or been in an accident and that’s why he didn’t come back for Mack.”

  “That’s a possibility. We won’t know until we investigate. Serena, this could be important. Tell me everything you remember about Mack’s old owner.”

  “His name is Eric Kessler. A guy in his thirties. Lived in Larkspur. Worked in an IT job in the Financial District.”

  “That figures. It would help to be tech savvy to get the most from that camera.”

  He enjoyed the look of concentration on her face as she sifted through her memories. “As I said, he paid up front. Seemed fond of Mack. I remember I got the impression he hadn’t tried too hard to wean him from the fast food. That’s all. I don’t think there’s anything else to remember.”

  She was so pale, except for the flush high on her cheekbones. Her eyes were huge and shadowed with anxiety. This was tough on her. But it would get tougher. He had questions he had to ask her that she would not want to answer. About her stalker. About the boyfriend she’d split from. And there was another fear she had to face.

  “Serena, you have to report what’s happened to you to the police. You have no choice. Unless you file a crime report the bank and the credit card companies won’t treat this as fraud; you will get no recompense.”

  She shuddered. “I know. The bank guy told me that. But I don’t like the police.”

  He put his arm around her; she didn’t shake it off. He brushed a kiss on her dark hair; she did not recoil. Then with a little sigh, she leaned in toward him and relaxed her head against his shoulder.

  For a long moment, he stood very still. He breathed in her heady scent, felt the in and out of her breathing, still too rapid and too shallow.

  He wanted to protect her; he wanted to look after her. Dammit, he just wanted her. Not just for the pleasant, no-strings kind of interlude he had enjoyed with his former girlfriends. Serena was everything he didn’t know he’d wanted until he found her.

  Now he got that forever-after stuff. Stuff that had always seemed for other people, not for him, not yet. Until now. But he had to win her trust, prove her innocence, get her life back on track before he could consider getting it in step with his.

  The sun warmed his back and his thoughts warmed his heart as he stood there with Serena by his side, knowing this calm interlude in a traumatic day must end, not wanting to be the one who ended it. He watched the two little dogs as they explored the endlessly intriguing scents of a park frequented by a lot of other dogs. Snowball started to cavort around Bessie, frisking in an invitation to play.

  “I’ll go with you to the police. Let me help you, Serena.”

  Serena twisted away from him.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “You lie to me. You think I’m a crook. But you want to help me.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders so she was forced to face him. “Get this straight. I know you’re not a crook. I think I knew that on day one.”

  He was gratified by the twist of her mouth, the nod of her head that acknowledged her relief.

  “However, I do think there is a link between the identity thefts and Paws-A-While.”

  “I get that,” she said slowly. “It does seem too much of a coincidence. Though there could be some other link they have in common.”

  “Can you think of one?”

  She shook her head. “The only thing I have in common with those people is the dogs.”

  How to say this without freaking her? He slid his hands down the length of her slender arms and held both of her hands in his.

  “Serena, I don’t have any evidence, just a really strong hunch. I think this could be something personal against you. The perpetrator might be after the money, sure, but they might also be aiming to put you out of business.”

  She gasped. He thought she would protest. But she slowly nodded. “Someone with a grudge against me.”

  “Or a business rival?”

  She shook her head. “No way. I can’t believe that. As an industry we support each other. Give each other referrals all the time.”

  “Okay, you can rule that out.” But he wouldn’t. “We need to work together on this, Serena.”

  “I guess,” she said, not sounding totally convinced.

  “Adam is not as certain as I am that Paws-A-While is the link. He’ll pull the plug if we don’t get some proof. I have to move quickly. I need names and contacts from you. Your staff. Your suppliers. Anyone with any possible connection that could lead you to think they might want to harm you or discredit you. I need to check the collars on all the dogs in your care.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He gentled his voice. “And I need to know about your stalker, Serena.”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. Wouldn’t meet his gaze, went inward somewhere where he couldn’t follow her. “I can’t say his name. I . . . I won’t say his name. It’s the only way I can protect myself from him.”

  “Serena, I have to know your stalker’s name. How about you write it down for me? That way you don’t have to speak it.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Write it for me now, Serena; we don’t have time to waste.”

  Dammit. Reaching into his inside jacket pocket meant he had to let go of her hands.

  He gave her the small notebook and pen he carried with him at all times. He noticed her hand wasn’t steady when she wrote the name and the letters were a bit wobbly on the page. He didn’t recognize the name. But he’d soon find out everything there was to know about him.

  “It couldn’t be him,” she said. “He’s locked away.”

  He didn’t want to add to her fears but he couldn’t water down the facts, either. “We can’t discount his involvement. He might have made contacts in prison.”

  He put the notebook back in his pocket. Reached out for her hands again. She linked her
fingers through his, looked up to meet his gaze. Now he saw the glimmerings of trust in those remarkable eyes. Trust and something else that gave him hope that her discovery of the truth about him had not killed his chances with her.

  He who travels fastest travels alone.

  This had been the unshakeable maxim for his life. It had served him well.

  But maybe the time had come when he didn’t want to go so fast or so alone. Maybe his journey might be as successful, and a whole lot more pleasurable, if it were shared.

  Two hearts are better than one.

  It takes two to tango.

  Some of those other old proverbs suddenly made a whole lot of sense as well.

  He bent his head and kissed her.

  Serena sighed into the pleasure of the kiss. She didn’t care she was in a public park and heaven knew who could see her. It was delicious. Her heart started thudding.

  She should stop this. Should pull away. She didn’t want any more complication in her life right now. But oh, it felt so good. The pressure of his mouth on hers. The taste of him. His strength.

  This man was a professional liar.

  Trust me, he had said.

  She had to overcome her fears, her trust issues, the barriers she had put up against being hurt again. She had to believe in his honesty, the sincerity she saw in his eyes.

  Lucky they were in a public space. Because she wanted more than kisses. She wanted the sensual thrills promised by his skilful tongue and hard, strong body.

  A sabbatical from sex?

  All sabbaticals had to end some time.

  She was lost in the sound of his breathing, the thud of his heartbeat.

  Then sharp yapping and Snowball’s growl, surprisingly threatening for a tiny white furball, intruded. Damn! She pulled away from Nick.

  A curious chow had come sniffing around. Snowball, with Bessie as his shrill, yapping cheer squad, was letting the big dog know that a fluffy little Maltese was boss of the park.

  “Snowball!”