by Kate Aster
“He’s doing well,” Ryan tells me, and I fight back the hope that always churns up inside of me when I hear things like this. I can’t help thinking sometimes that the doctors have made a mistake. But then another episode happens, and reality stabs me in the gut.
“He’d really love it if you came to work for the company, Logan.”
I roll my eyes childishly at the statement.
“It wouldn’t have to be running the show. But right now, while he still knows what’s going on around him, don’t you think it would be a good thing?”
I know what he’s insinuating and I hate it. I could work for him for a while, until Dad reaches the point when he doesn’t know who I am anyway. I don’t like thinking about that. “Ask Dylan.”
Ryan cocks his head. “You know he has no place at JLS Heartland. Never had any interest. Even Dad knows that.”
My youngest brother Dylan had been blessed with enough talent to eclipse any plans my dad had for him at the company. He went to college on a full wrestling scholarship, spent every free moment training, and ended up with a medal at the Olympics. So while I was deployed to third world countries armed with an HK416 and wondering if I’d come home in a body bag, Dylan was raking in millions from cereal and shaving endorsements.
I’m happy with my choices in life, don’t get me wrong. But Dylan’s a pretty hard guy to relate to.
“Besides,” Ryan adds, “he’s busy now. Got another gym opening up in LA.”
And I’m not busy is what he’s really saying, just renovating a handful of little townhomes. In this family, that classifies more as a hobby than a job.
“I’d go crazy locked in an office all day, Ryan. Besides, I’ve only started renovating my townhomes. You’d know that if you ever stopped by,” I add. Hey, if he’s going to toss a little guilt my way, I can throw it right back at him.
I bought a strip of townhomes that were in foreclosure when I moved here, and am fixing them up one by one. I love the work. I love taking something that has been neglected and turning it into something that shines. If I stick around after I sell these ones, I might do it again. Sadly, there are plenty of foreclosures in our area these days.
“Sorry. Been meaning to, but I’ve been a bit chained to my desk now that Dad’s unable to take the lead on projects.”
My point exactly, I want to say. But I don’t. I know Ryan enjoys his work to some degree, but I also know there is a trace of resentment toward me for not stepping up to bat when Dad wanted me in his company years ago.
“Just think about it,” he finishes, rising from the wicker chair and stretching his back as he gazes at the sunset.
I see the way he looks at the stand of trees leading up to the creek as he stretches, and it saddens me. I never pictured Ryan taking over for Dad. Not Ryan, who liked backpacking and hiking and rock climbing. Looking back at the two of us as we were growing up, I’m a little surprised that he wasn’t the one who ended up a Navy SEAL rather than me.
But he has a responsible streak in him a mile long. And I’m damn grateful our family has him. “I will think about it. Promise.” And I will. After the townhomes are renovated and sold, I might be looking for another challenge to fill my time.
I’m clueless, though, how a mission-driven guy like me would thrive at JLS Heartland.
Nodding and giving my shoulder a pat, he walks back into the house. The silence of the night somehow bothers me—it always has since my last year in the SEALs—as though I’m waiting for a firefight to erupt or an IED to explode beneath me. My heart picks up its pace, and my throat feels like it’s closing.
I know it isn’t. This, I can control now.
I suck in a deep breath, reminding myself that oxygen is not scarce and look back down at my phone to distract myself. I start tapping out a message:
“Alexandra, I’m writing to follow up about Kosmo since I haven’t heard from you. I’m still interested in him and know that I could provide a good home for him. I would appreciate it if you would contact me ASAP to conduct the house check you mentioned.”
I gaze out at the final rays of sun as they disappear behind the trees in the distance, remembering the image of the refreshing woman that I shared dinner with. She had that kind of sweetness that guys like me eat up. Such a stark contrast to how she was the next morning.
Coming from a band of three brothers, the intricacies of the female mind continue to evade me.
“I’m not sure what happened between the time you departed that Friday evening and the following Saturday morning that caused you to detest me…”
I pause, and delete the word “detest.”
“…dislike me. However, it is imperative that Kosmo receives the medical care he needs and I can provide this without further delay.”
That’s right. Guilt her.
Through the open windows, I hear the laughter of my niece inside as she plays Go Fish with my brothers. My heart feels its usual tug.
“Regardless, I would like to offer to pay for any medical expenses Kosmo has, and would like to discuss with you and his vet scheduling the surgery he needs.”
I close with my contact information, and hold myself back from adding my advice that she seek psychiatric help for her obvious multiple personality issues. After all, now is the time to focus on Kosmo.
Chapter 4
- LOGAN -
I had expected a reply. I hadn’t expected it so quickly.
Within an hour of sending my email, she asked if she could do the house check tomorrow during the day sometime. She was surprisingly polite, and apologetic for not being able to do it after normal work hours, but she works most nights.
So now it’s closing in on 10 a.m. and I’m rushing to finish painting this wall in the townhome that adjoins to mine before she arrives. I hate leaving a wall half-painted. My team is in the third townhome over, knocking down the wall between the kitchen and the living room, just as they had in this one last week. The noise is overwhelming, and I’m really worried she’ll tell me that my house is too chaotic for a dog like Kosmo to recover from surgery. I plan on putting the heavy work on pause during that time anyway, but I just don’t want anything to trigger this woman into going Ice Queen on me again.
The windows are open, and I’m surprised to hear a car pull up in front of my home ten minutes early. Leaning over to peek out the window, my hand slips and I end up with a thick, giant streak of beige paint on my blue shirt.
Dammit. Way to make an impression.
I open the door before she even is able to ring the bell next door. “Hi.”
Glancing at the number on the door, she looks confused. “Oh. I thought you had written that you were in #1.”
“I am.” I step outside and move to my own door, swinging it open. “I’m just working on #2 and 3 now. I bought this row of townhomes and am renovating them.”
“Oh,” she says noncommittally and adds, “Wow,” when she steps into my living room.
I have to admit, my house looks great. I bought most of the furniture and art pieces at Maeve’s direction when I moved to Annapolis for my last tour with the Navy. There’s nothing that looks “bachelor pad” here and that suits me fine.
“This is really beautiful,” she says, her eyes darting around the room.
“Well, don’t be too impressed. My friend Maeve is an interior designer.”
“She’s talented. Does she live in Newton’s Creek?”
I suppress a laugh, trying to imagine Maeve in a small Midwestern town like this one. “No, she’s in Annapolis, Maryland.”
Her hand strokes the supple leather of the couch and I notice she seems to be appreciating the woodwork I installed. There’s dentil molding along the ceiling and built-in bookshelves around the fireplace. I love books and I like to show them off.
She walks toward them. “You must read a lot.”
“I try. I’ve only read half of these though.”
“You could get an e-reader and not have to store all these,” she
says, making me grimace. I like e-readers—don’t get me wrong. When I was deployed, it was the only way I could read as much as I liked since I couldn’t fill my rucksack with books. But given the choice, I just prefer the weight of a good, heavy book in my hands.
“I guess,” I reply. “But then what would I put on my bookshelves?”
She nods, her eyes wandering to the huge smear of paint on my chest.
I glance down apologetically. “Sorry. I was painting next door,” I say.
Her eyes are still on my chest, but she seems to be staring at my pecs more than the paint. She bites her bottom lip awkwardly. “So, Kosmo is in the car. Shall I bring him in?” she asks, fluttering her lashes nervously as her eyes meet mine.
“Of course. I was expecting you to.”
“Yeah. I just have learned to always take a quick peek at a house first. Sometimes applicants don’t tell me about other dogs that might not get along with ours. Or once a house I visited had a definite hoarder situation going on. And another time there was a guy who greeted me at the door wearing nothing but a thong. I mean, who wants to expose a nice dog to that?” she finishes, stifling a laugh, and I swear her eyes glance down at my groin momentarily.
This woman completely baffles me. I’m getting the same vibe I did from her that night at dinner, the one that tells me she’s attracted to me. But I’m still waiting for her head to start spinning as she mutates into the woman who stared daggers at me the morning after.
She heads toward the door, but stops abruptly at a framed photograph of my team and me before my final mission with the SEALs. It’s signed by all my SEAL brothers.
“What’s this?” Her voice is faint and I can barely hear it over the circular saw two doors down.
“Just a photo of my team.”
Taking two steps closer to it, she almost looks pale suddenly, and I’m clueless why. I’m a little freaked out by the expression on her face right now. She’s eyeing my picture in a way I can’t even define.
That photo means a lot to me and if she does something weird like sending it crashing to the floor, I’ll be pretty pissed off.
“And that’s you. Second from the right,” she notices.
“Yeah.”
She touches her fingers to her lips. “You were a SEAL.”
My eyebrows arch. I’m positive that I told her that when we had dinner. “Yeah. We talked about that. Remember?”
“But your application said you’re a construction manager.”
“Um, yeah. I separated from the military last year. Got a little too banged up for it.” I’m vague like I always am. If pressed for details, I tell people about my shoulder injury because it usually shuts them up. It’s really no one’s business that I came back from my last couple missions with moderate PTSD, as defined by the docs. I’m doing much better. And somehow talking about having it now just doesn’t seem right to me since most the guys I know who have it are a lot worse off than me.
“Oh, no,” she says quietly, her lower lip inexplicably quivering. “I really owe you an apology.”
“Why?”
“I assumed that you had been lying about being a SEAL just to—um…”
“Get laid,” I finish for her. I toss my head back and laugh. “So is that why you suddenly disappeared that night?”
“No. I didn’t think that till the morning after when I saw your application and some other job listed as your occupation. And then when you said your name wasn’t really Logan…”
“It is,” I interrupt, trying hard to hold back a smile. “I only fill out forms with my legal name though. A habit from ten years in the military.”
“Yeah, I get that now.” She sighs, looking humiliated. “But you did tell me you were from San Diego.”
“If I recall correctly, you asked me where home was. I only moved back here temporarily for some family reasons. If you had asked me where I lived, I would have said right here.” I shake my head. “Look, I’m sorry if I wasn’t specific enough for you. Maybe I should have made things clearer. But I don’t lie to women.”
That is the God’s truth. Lies are like unexploded ordnance. You don’t know when they’ll blow up in your face, but they will.
“I’m really sorry,” she says.
I touch her shoulder impulsively. I can’t resist because she really looks defeated and I hate it when people look that way. “Not a problem.”
“I’ll get Kosmo.” She walks out my door without even looking me in the eyes.
It’s really not the big deal she thinks it is. It’s not like she poured gasoline on my truck and lit a match. She just acted a little bitchy one morning.
Hell, my last girlfriend treated me like that once a month when she’d get PMS, and I wasn’t mad at her about it.
I step to the open doorway and see Kosmo bound out of the car. He’s big and burly and full of personality, I can tell already. I love how dogs just barrel through life. I’ve seen it before. They don’t let things get to them much.
Got a heart valve problem? Oh well. Where’s my toy?
Missing leg? No prob! Let’s play anyway.
Blind in both eyes? So what. Got a bone for me?
I try to keep that attitude. It was hard when I was told that my time with the SEALs had come to an end. No one wants to hear that. But I just try to barrel through, same as Kosmo.
When they step in the house, I sit on the ground as Alexandra unhooks his leash, and let him sniff and lick me anywhere he wants. He immediately shows interest in the thick streak of wet paint on my shirt. Instinctively, I strip my shirt off quickly. “Hey, no, buddy. I don’t need you licking paint off me the first time we meet.” I ball up my shirt and toss it to the side. His fur is thicker than most Labs and I wonder if there’s some husky or collie in him.
“Want to see your house?” I ask him. I know it’s presumptuous to assume she’ll let me have him. But at this point, I’ll do anything for this mutt.
~ ALLIE ~
Please put your shirt back on. The sight of your body will ruin other men for me.
I want to say it. I want to beg it. But I also want to just give one poke to that tantalizing V at the edge of his abs just to see what it feels like. His jeans are low on his hips, just low enough that I can see every precious ripple of muscle on his torso. What does a guy have to do to get a body like that?
“Be right back,” he says and he bounds up the stairs, presumably to his bedroom to get a new shirt. Kosmo follows him.
I want to follow him, too.
Not a minute passes and he’s in front of me again, covered up in a t-shirt that only turns my temperature down a degree or two. Truth is, he looks almost as sexy in that shirt as he did half-naked. Almost.
I follow him through the house as he gives me a tour. He opens the fridge when we’re in the kitchen and asks me if I want a soda. I nod, wishing I could pour the cold liquid over my body right now.
There’s a box of dog treats on the counter that he says he picked up this morning, and he asks if it’s all right for Kosmo to have one. I tell him yes, feeling a warmth settle into me as he sits on the ground and hands Kosmo the treat. Kosmo nuzzles him, looking for another and Logan wraps his thick arms around him in a hug.
I could cry right now. I could honest-to-God cry as I see these two together. It’s like they were meant for each other, and I had nearly stood in their way.
Of course, I had intended to do a house check on him all along. I just let his application fall to the bottom of the bunch. After all, just because I thought he was a lying prick didn’t mean he might not be a good pet owner. And like Cass was quick to point out, just about everyone lies when they are hanging out in hotel bars. Even I had dipped my toe in the water of deceit when I told him my name was Alexandra. It just sounds sexier than Allie, though no one uses my full name except for telemarketers.
But he hadn’t been lying. He is a SEAL. Or was, specifically. And trying to remember what exactly he had told me that night, I’m willing to bet he
never said he currently is a SEAL. Honestly, looking at him during dinner I was so damn focused on how gorgeous he was, the conversation had gone pretty much like this:
“Blah, blah, blah, Logan, blah, blah, blah, Navy SEAL, blah, blah, blah, blah, San Diego, blah, blah, blah, blah, Check, please!”
He shows us the upstairs next and my heart skips two or three beats as we step into the master bedroom.
He smacks the top of his king size mattress to urge Kosmo up onto it. Is it wrong to envy a dog? If he’d make the same gesture for me, I’d probably launch myself onto the mattress, too.
“So, is this where he’ll sleep?” I ask.
“Yep, unless you think someplace else is better.”
“It’s perfect.” Some dogs do better in crates at night, but definitely not this one. And I have to admit, I’m partial to letting a dog sleep with me at night. After all, it’s the only company I get in the sack these days.
I doubt Logan can say the same.
“And I’m thinking I’ll keep a water bowl upstairs in the bathroom here, and one downstairs. Your website said he gets a little more tired than other dogs right now, right?”
“Mmhm. But if the surgery is successful, that should change.” I step into the master bath in the direction he’s pointing, and my jaw drops. It’s as big as my bedroom, and the tile work makes me feel like I’m in some boutique hotel in New York City. There are double sinks, a stand up shower, and a huge soaking tub. With the image of him shirtless still etched in my brain, I can’t resist imagining him in that tub. And since it’s big enough for two, my own likeness creeps into the fantasy. Of course, in my imagination, the ten extra pounds on my thighs and butt have miraculously relocated to my breasts.
I clear my throat. “Was this part of the renovation you were talking about?”
“Yes. I had to strip this place pretty much down to the studs. And I stole some of the space from the bedroom on the other side of this wall to make the bathroom bigger. Like it?”
“Love it,” I reply without hesitation. I’ve never met anyone who’s done a big project like this.