Home Is Where the Bark Is

by Kandy Shepherd

“My house. Which is now Mack’s house,” said Nick.

  Mack thumped his tail and tried to get up at the mention of his name.

  “Down, Mack,” Serena said at the very same time as Nick did. They met each other’s smiles.

  “Hmm,” said Lydia.

  “Will you be at Nick’s house tonight?” she asked Serena.

  Serena nodded. “For dinner, yes.”

  “Well, I suggest you pack your pajamas,” said Lydia.

  “What?” Serena and Nick had another simultaneous exclamation moment.

  Lydia steepled her index fingers together. Serena wasn’t sure if her friend was parodying the manner of a TV shrink or being dead serious.

  Lydia smiled. “This is an easy one to solve. In a wild dog pack there is always an alpha male to which all other dogs defer.”

  “I get that,” said Nick.

  “There is also the alpha female who bears his puppies and is the top-ranking female in the pack,” said Lydia.

  Serena nodded. “I get that, too.” What she wasn’t sure of was which way Lydia was heading.

  Lydia looked from Serena to Nick, to Mack, and then back to Serena. Her intelligent blue eyes danced with amusement. “Mack has chosen you, Nick, as his alpha male.”

  Nick looked pleased; his broad shoulders set even straighter, and he seemed to grow even taller in height.

  “And you, Serena, as his alpha female.”

  “Ookay,” Serena said, not totally surprised at Lydia’s summation but still not sure what point her friend was making.

  Lydia clapped her hands together. “So he wants you together. With him.”

  Mutual exclamation number three emanated from Nick and Serena.

  Lydia continued. “Mack doesn’t see it as the natural order of things to have his alpha male and alpha female living apart in different packs. When they sleep apart, that’s when his separation anxiety kicks in.”

  Nick snorted. “That’s the biggest load of—”

  “Animal instinct,” said Lydia. “So, Serena, that’s why I told you to pack your pajamas.”

  Serena felt herself flush. She looked at Nick. An enormous grin spread across his face as he took in the implication of Lydia’s prognosis.

  Feeling totally disconcerted, she looked back at Lydia. “But I . . . but we . . . we haven’t . . .”

  Yet.

  “Or I could prescribe a calmative medication for Mack, see if that works,” said Lydia.

  “No,” said Nick. “Mack’s had enough meds.”

  Lydia smiled, and Serena got the distinct impression her friend was thoroughly enjoying herself. “Well, you both know what to do then, if you want a good night’s sleep. Problem solved.”

  Nick was obviously having a great deal of difficulty not erupting into laughter.

  He was still grinning when Serena returned from escorting Lydia to the door.

  “So are you packing your pajamas for your visit to my house?” he asked.

  Serena smiled a slow, deliberate smile. With unhurried steps she walked up to him, put both her hands flat on his chest, and looked up into his eyes. She curved her mouth into a teasing smile. “I don’t wear pajamas. Ever. I sleep naked,” she said. “Do you?”

  Twenty-one

  Nick had more than one appetite on his brain when, after the last dog had been picked up from Paws-A-While, he went next door to collect Serena from her apartment.

  The second appetite was for food—and lots of it. The muffin at the airport and the hastily grabbed burger on the way back from Carmel had left him with a gnawing hunger. But thoughts of food fled his mind when Serena answered the door.

  “I just have to leave some kibble for Thelma, my kitty, and I’m ready to go,” she said.

  Was that the sound of his jaw dropping to the floor? He was too gobsmacked to utter a word in reply.

  Serena looked different. Gone was the shapeless Paws-A-While uniform. Instead she wore a black dress, short and tight, that hugged every incredible curve and showed off her long, slender legs. The Birkenstocks were nowhere to be seen. High-heeled shoes that strapped around her ankles brought her practically to his eye level. She wore makeup, too, her beautiful, lush mouth slicked with scarlet, her eyes all dark and smoky.

  It was the first time he had seen Serena with her hair down. The dark waves tumbled wildly around her face and over her shoulders. She looked hot. A million dollars’ worth of hot. A woman who appeared on TV with Oprah and on the covers of magazines.

  A woman he didn’t know.

  “Nick?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll only be a second,” she said. “Come on in.”

  “I’ll, uh . . . wait here,” he said.Then stood mesmerized by the sight of her back view as she headed toward the kitchen to tend to her cat. The high-heeled shoes gave her ass an incredibly seductive sway.

  But this sensational-looking woman didn’t look like Serena. Not his Serena, anyway.

  Nick had never been short on confidence, but he was suddenly thrown back to that first day in the patch of park outside the S&W Investigations headquarters. He’d sat cracking his knuckles and wondering what in hell Serena St. James would see in a small-town guy like him. Not that it had even been a possibility then—not when he’d suspected her of being a criminal.

  Now, with her out of earshot, he slowly cracked his knuckles, one after another.

  Within moments she was back. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “You look . . . great,” he said, unable to find any better word.

  “Thank you.” She paused, smoothed her hands down her thighs as if she wanted to stretch the dress out longer to cover more of her legs. “It’s . . . it’s been a long time since I dressed like this.” She looked at him with an expression that tore through his heart.

  Trust.

  He felt humbled he had in some way helped her to come out of hiding and regain the confidence to wear a sexy dress.

  “You look beautiful,” he said. Then he made a big show of looking behind him and down at the large purse she carried. “But where are those pajamas?”

  She laughed and reached over to kiss his cheek. To his heartfelt relief she laughed like his Serena and she smelled like his Serena, that heady scent that was just her own.

  With her help, he secured the dogs in his truck. Serena climbed into the passenger seat beside him. Those legs! How could he concentrate on driving with those slender, go-on-forever legs folded so elegantly beside him?

  I sleep naked. Do you? Ever since the minx had uttered those provocative words the thought of Serena naked in his bed had been top of mind. This was his first sight of her legs. Up until now they had always been covered by a thick layer of denim. He was going crazy imagining how the rest of her looked stripped of her clothing.

  He forced his eyes to stay on the road as he pulled away from the curb outside Paws-A-While.

  “Have you thought about dinner?” she asked. “Can we pick up some takeout?”

  “I’d like to take you out to a restaurant, but we have the dogs to think about. Mack’s still slow and Bessie isn’t that used to having him on her territory.”

  “Takeout is fine. Really it is.”

  He ran the list of food options through his mind. Suddenly he knew exactly what he wanted to eat. He realized he’d been craving it all day. “Your lasagna,” he said. “I could think of nothing I’d like more.”

  “My lasagna?” she said in a strangled voice. “Uh, isn’t there something else you’d rather have?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “But I—”

  “You don’t have to cook it yourself. Just tell me how it’s done and I’ll prepare it. You can just sit in the kitchen, sip on a glass of wine, and supervise.”

  “Not . . . not a good idea,” she said.

  “You think I can’t cook?”

  “Uh. No. No. It’s not that.”

  He nodded. “I get it. You don’t want t
o share your secret recipe with me.”

  She looked straight ahead, her face screened by a tumble of that gorgeous hair. “Yes. That’s it. I . . . uh . . . I never reveal my culinary secrets.”

  “In that case, it will be me who sits in the kitchen with a glass of wine while I watch your every move. I’m sure I’ll pick up some tips, even if I can’t decipher your secret recipe.”

  “No!” The word seemed to explode out of her as she turned to face him. He was surprised she took the cooking thing so seriously. “No,” she repeated more calmly. “You’ve had a long day. You can just relax while I cook. I . . . uh . . . I can’t concentrate with someone else in the kitchen.”

  Nick was disappointed. He’d liked the idea of him cooking for her. He didn’t like the idea of him out in the living room and her away from him in the kitchen.

  He knew he could easily rustle up something else. A spaghetti sauce. Steak. A quick chili.

  But he had his heart set on Serena’s lasagna. If getting it had to be on her terms, so be it.

  “The salad with the avocado dressing. Can we have that, too?” he said, trying not to sound as if he were pleading.

  “Avocado dressing? Sure thing,” she said.

  “We’ll stop off and shop on the way home,” he said.

  “The supermarket near Marina Green. That’s the one I want to go visit.”

  “Not a problem,” he said. Serena—without pajamas—and Serena’s lasagna. It sounded like the recipe for the perfect evening.

  Serena stood in Nick’s kitchen, enfolded in his “Licensed to Grill” barbecue apron, totally and utterly freaking out.

  This lasagna had seemed so darn easy when Maddy had made it. Maddy herself had said it was idiotproof.

  Not to this darn idiot.

  To let Nick believe she had cooked lunch that day in her apartment had seemed such a good idea at the time. She had slipped into her assumed role as “good cook” so easily. But sitting there in his truck outside Paws-A-While, she just hadn’t had the chops to confess the truth about who had actually cooked that wonderful lasagna. To admit she couldn’t show him how to cook her “special lasagna” because she didn’t have a clue how to make it herself.

  Trouble had started at the supermarket. She’d done her best to remember which aisles she’d shopped with Maddy. But panic set in when she’d been faced with all those different brands of pasta, of sausage, of tomato sauce. She hadn’t been able to dither, not with Nick so interested in what she was choosing. At another time she would have found his interest cute but not when she was so desperately afraid of being caught out.

  After confidently purchasing eggplant and onion, she’d dispatched Nick to buy some wine. Then cowered behind a display of about a million different brands of pasta sauces and called Maddy. But her call went through to voice mail. What the heck. Closing her eyes and choosing the item her finger landed on was as good a method as any. In the end she thought she’d made a reasonable approximation of the products Maddy had loaded into the cart the day they’d shopped together.

  Now she faced the stove. Deep breath, deep breath. This really couldn’t be that difficult.

  “How’s it going in there?” called Nick. “Sure you don’t want some help?”

  “Quite sure, thank you,” she trilled back, injecting a confidence in her voice she was impossibly far from feeling.

  She looked at the ingredients she had strewn out on the countertop before her.

  Onion. Yes. She could do onion. Even if she wasn’t quite sure if Maddy had used them.

  Dammit! She’d forgotten why she didn’t like chopping onions. Her eyes smarted, and she squeezed them tightly together. Rubbing them only made the discomfort worse. Still, she managed to chop the onion finely. Okay, not with quite the speed and finesse Maddy had demonstrated when slicing vegetables. But it would do.

  Success! Not only were the onions browning nicely in the fry pan but they smelled good, too. Delicious in fact. Then she added the chopped-up Italian sausage.

  “Something smells great,” Nick called from the living room. It did, too. Serena sniffed appreciatively. For heaven’s sake, throw all this yummy stuff together and cover it with grated cheese and it couldn’t fail to taste good. She didn’t know why she’d been so worried. This was going to be a cinch.

  Nick’s stomach was ominously close to growling when he sat down at his aunt’s wooden dining table. He sniffed the taste-bud-tantalizing aromas that wafted from the kitchen. His mouth watered so hard in anticipation he was in danger of drooling like the Paws-A-While bulldog.

  Then Serena, divested of his apron and looking sensational, marched triumphantly from the kitchen. She bore the rectangular baking pan in front of her like a trophy, then slid it reverentially onto the table. Fresh from the oven, the golden cheese bubbled enticingly across the surface of the dish.

  “Wow!” he said. “This looks awesome.”

  “It was nothing,” she said with a modest smirk. “Enjoy!”

  Scarcely able to control his greed, Nick used the knife Serena handed him to plunge into the layer of bubbling cheese. Only to meet an unexpected resistance.

  He pressed harder with the knife. The top layer of pasta, instead of being soft, was as hard and unyielding as a fine layer of cement board. He used more force with the knife, only for the lasagna to tip inward. Hard, curling edges of uncooked lasagna sheet revealed themselves as the coating of cheese slid away.

  “Is everything okay?” asked Serena from where she hovered over the edge of the table.

  “Fine,” he said. To penetrate the top layer enough to cut himself a slice was more a job for a hacksaw than a knife.

  “It isn’t fine, is it?” Her voice rose with anxiety. “That looks burned on the edge. I . . . I must have left it in the oven too long.”

  He made reassuring noises as he hacked though the layers enough to free a rough-edged square. “Let me serve you first,” he said, as he levered it onto Serena’s plate.

  She eyed the portion of lasagna without touching it. “I . . . uh . . . I’m not used to your oven.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Probably the thermostat is set different to yours.”

  He managed to release a square to put on his plate, then used his fork to transfer a generous portion to his mouth. It crunched when he chewed it.

  The lasagna crunched.

  Manfully, forcing a look of enthusiasm on his face, he bit into a chunk of something tasteless and rubberlike. He kept it on his tongue, in an effort to identify it.

  Eggplant. Bitter, under-cooked eggplant.

  It took all his self-control not to spit it out.

  He picked over those gray, unappetizing bits before he tasted his next mouthful, aware of Serena’s watchful eyes. The sausage tasted good. So did the cheese. But nothing else about this dish resembled in any way the superlative lunch he’d been served at Serena’s apartment.

  That time, the eggplant had been a triumph—redolent of garlic and fresh herbs, soft and sweet and melt-in-the-mouth. The layers of pasta had absorbed the varied yet perfectly balanced flavors of the sausage and the sauce to make a memorable impact on the palate.

  He gulped down a mouthful of wine to help him swallow this poor imitation of Serena’s previous triumph. “Delicious,” he lied.

  Across from him at the table, Serena pushed her portion of dud lasagna around her plate with her fork. There was an expression of profound misery in her eyes as she watched him manfully transfer forkfuls of her prized recipe to his mouth.

  “I’m glad you think so,” she said.

  The dogs. Where were the damn dogs when he needed them? During his childhood, Fella had often been the recipient of unwanted food from the family table. He thought back to that Saturday lunch at Serena’s apartment and remembered how the dogs in the next room had been slavering for their share.

  Now Snowball lay nearby but didn’t even stir. Surreptitiously, Nick nudged him with his foot. The Maltese looked up at him with round, dark ey
es and seemed to sniff his disdain. Mack stayed steadfastly in his dog bed, even though he’d been successfully hobbling around Paws-A-While all afternoon. No, Mack seemed to say, that is not worth getting out of bed for. Nick didn’t even bother with Bessie. He knew she would turn her dainty little Yorki-poo nose up at such an unfortunate offering.

  Then he realized the lasagna had onions in it. Onions weren’t good for dogs. There was no way he could slip a portion or two of this truly awful meal to the dogs even if they wanted it. With no rescue in sight he knew he could not endure another bite. He pushed his plate away with a sigh of what he hoped sounded like repletion, not relief.

  “Think I’ll try some salad now,” he said.

  “Sure,” said Serena in a quiet little voice that tore at him. “Let me serve you.”

  To his relief the salad was every bit as delicious as last time. In fact the dressing was one of the best he’d ever tasted. He ate two servings.

  Serena just nibbled on a few leaves of lettuce and pushed the rest to the side of her plate.

  Nick chased the last leaf of radicchio from the plate. Tasty as it was, salad was no meal for a man of his build. He had woken very early in San Diego and been flat out all day. He was still hungry. But he didn’t let on for fear Serena would offer him more lasagna.

  “That was . . . wonderful,” he said.

  Her mouth twisted downward. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “The oven . . .” he began, not really believing the disastrous dish was the fault of the oven. That eggplant should have been fried in olive oil and garlic long before it ever hit the oven. And there was something radically wrong with the pasta sheets.

  Serena compressed her lips in the way she tended to do when agitated. “It wasn’t the oven. It was me.”

  To Nick’s alarm, tears welled in those beautiful, luminous eyes. “I’m a hopeless cook. Always have been. Probably always will be.” Now her lovely lush mouth began to tremble.

  “But the lasagna you made at your house was wonderful.”

  She shook her head. “Maddy cooked it.”

  “Huh?”

  Her mouth wobbled some more. “I never . . . I never actually said I cooked it. In fact I tried to tell you, but you were so sure I’d made it. Seemed so pleased I’d made it. In the end it was easier not to keep denying it.”