“Oh, my god! Are you all right?” Jessie cried as she hurried forward.
Zach popped his eyes open to find her staring down at him. Her big blue eyes were filled with alarm and she was uselessly flapping her bare hands at her sides as if she were trying to achieve liftoff. Her green puffy coat was unzipped and her woolen hat with the oversized pom-pom, earflaps, and braids was askew, allowing a chunk of two-tone bangs to drape over her forehead, almost covering her eyes.
Before he could answer her, she dropped to her knees beside him and began to brush him off, digging him out of the pile of snow.
“Chaos, see what happens when you wander off?” the younger girl chastised the cat as her older sister scooped him off Zach’s chest and held him close.
Rufus sniffed the kitten, who ignored him and burrowed into the girl’s coat.
“Thanks, mister.” The younger sister joined her mother in the snowbank and grabbed Zach’s hands with one of her icy cold mittens, not that Zach could feel anything, as his fingers were pretty much numb. She tried to pull him up but he was still half buried.
“We need to get you inside,” Jessie said. She began to brush the snow off his pajama bottoms. “You’re frozen.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” he protested. With Jessie’s hands brushing off all of his body, he was suddenly relieved that he was numb from the chest down. His teeth began chattering as he tried to roll to his feet without success. “J-j-just g-glad you have y-your cat back. You should p-probably t-take him home now.”
“We’ll help you inside first,” she insisted.
Jessie braced her feet against the icy part of the snowbank and used her body weight to haul him to his feet. She was stronger than she looked and he fell against her, slipping on the icy ground as he tried to get his balance. He flailed and one hand landed on her shoulder while the other latched onto the front of her coat. It took him a second to realize he was clutching her boob and he jumped back, dropping his hand and skidding on a patch of ice in his effort to get away from her.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. He raised his hands in the air as if trying to prove he hadn’t been trying to cop a feel.
Jessie looked startled and then like she was trying not to laugh as his feet scrabbled on the slippery ground and his arms windmilled as he tried to get his balance. She pursed her lips and stepped forward, catching him about the waist and pulling one of his arms over her shoulder.
“Come on,” she said. “Before you damage something permanently.”
“No worries. My dignity has already been frozen off,” he said.
This time she did laugh.
“Maddie, go get the door for us, sweetie,” she said.
The younger girl in the blue coat scampered up the steps and pushed open his front door. Jessie half carried, half dragged him up the steps with Rufus and the other girl—whom she had called Gracie—bringing up the rear, still holding Chaos the kitten.
Zach did a quick scan to make sure his sparsely decorated bachelor pad didn’t have any stray underwear or socks kicking around or anything else that might damage a young girl’s psyche. Other than an empty pizza box on the counter and a newspaper on the coffee table, the place was clear. The game was still on and he glanced at the screen to catch the score. His Cowboys were up. Amen!
Living in Patriot country, he knew his love of the Texas team was blasphemy, so he tried to keep it on the down-low, but he had fallen hard for the team during his childhood in California, playing youth football during Dallas’s Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith reign, and he’d never given them up.
Jessie helped him over to the couch and he resumed his seat. She grabbed the thick black and gray afghan his mother had knitted for him and tucked it around his shoulders.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asked. “Tea? Hot chocolate?”
“Hot chocolate!” Maddie cried.
“I wasn’t asking you,” Jessie said. “I was asking . . .”
“Mister,” Maddie said. “I call him mister.”
Zach smiled despite his shivers. “My name is Zachary Caine, but my friends call me Zach.”
“Am I your friend?” Maddie asked. She hit him with a steady blue gaze and he noticed that her sister stood motionless behind her, watching their interaction.
“We’re neighbors,” he said. “I think it’s mandatory that we become friends, don’t you?”
A blindingly bright smile lit Maddie’s face and she nodded. He glanced at Gracie and was pleased to see a small smile tip the corners of her lips.
“You’re right,” Jessie said. “I know the last time we met, I was not at my best. Please forgive me?”
Zach stared into her big blue eyes full of beguiling warmth and humor and felt her working the same magic on him that her daughters had when they’d pleaded for their cat’s rescue. He could no more refuse her than he could her girls. It occurred to him then that these women were dangerous to his peace and tranquility; still, he’d been raised hip deep in women and it was ingrained in him to look after them.
“Of course,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said. “Please call me Jessie, and these are my daughters, Maddie and Gracie.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Zach said. He gave the girls his most winning smile. Maddie smiled back while Gracie turned a faint shade of pink and buried her nose in her cat’s fur.
“So, do neighbors have hot chocolate together?” Maddie asked. Her look was sly and Zach almost laughed.
“Yes, I think they do,” he said. He started to get up but Jessie waved for him to sit.
“Sit. Warm up,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
The bottom floor of Zach’s house was an open floor plan, so while he visited with the girls, Jessie crossed the room into his kitchen area. She stood in the center as if trying to figure out where everything would be without having to open every cupboard.
“Mugs are in the cabinet over the coffee maker, hot chocolate is on the top shelf of the pantry to the right of the fridge, milk is in the fridge, and the microwave is on the counter,” he called.
“Got it.” Jessie gave him a thumbs-up and set to work.
“How’s Chaos doing?” Zach asked Gracie. He was a little worried that the cat might have gotten hurt in their fall. He had tried to cushion him as best as he could but the kitten was tiny and had smacked his chest hard when they landed.
Gracie unzipped her jacket and took the kitten out. He had curled up into a sleepy little ball and when she opened her coat, he mewled in protest.
Maddie reached up and gently stroked his head and the kitten stretched out under the attention, letting them see that he was just fine.
“Chaos is a tough kitty,” Maddie said. “We think he’s going to grow up to be a real live tiger.”
Zach raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
Maddie held up her hands and made claws out of her fingers. “Roar!”
“Impressive,” Zach said.
“I’ve been teaching him,” Maddie said with the assurance only a child still in the single digits in age could muster when speaking of the improbable.
“Is that you?” Gracie asked.
Zach turned his head to see her pointing to a series of photographs that hung on the wall in his dining alcove.
“Not just me,” he said. “Rufus, too.”
Gracie busted out a belly laugh. Zach felt his lips tip up in the corners. As the quieter of the two, he suspected Gracie didn’t share her emotions as easily as her younger sister. Making her laugh felt like an achievement.
“What’s so funny?” Maddie asked. She crossed the room to join her sister. She glanced from the framed portraits to Zach and Rufus, who was once again sprawled on his portion of the couch, and back to the pictures. Then she, too, started to laugh. It was a good sound.
“Girls, what’s the racket?” Jessie asked as sh
e came into the living room with four mugs of cocoa, two handles in each hand.
“Mommy, Zach and Rufus . . .” Gracie couldn’t go on. She pressed a hand to her stomach and laughed some more.
Jessie quirked an eyebrow at Zach in question but he just shrugged. She put the mugs down on the newspaper on the coffee table and joined her girls. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, which only forced the laugh out of her nose in a snort.
Her eyes went wide with embarrassment, but the sound made the girls laugh harder, and she dropped her hand and joined them. She ushered the girls back into the living room and passed out the mugs of cocoa.
“Explain, please,” she said as she handed Zach his mug.
“Where to begin?” he mused.
“The matching outfits?” Jessie suggested. Her big blue eyes, the same ones her daughters had trained on him, twinkled.
“The Fourth of July,” Gracie said.
“No, Thanksgiving,” Maddie said.
Zach glanced at Rufus. As if he knew he was the topic of conversation, the dog sat up on the couch and struck a pose, sitting at attention like he was in on the conversation. Zach was only surprised he didn’t demand his own mug of cocoa.
“Rufus’s mom person used to work for me at the Bluff Point brewery,” he began.
“What’s a brewery?” Maddie asked.
“It’s where they make beer,” Gracie said.
“Just so.” Zach nodded at her. Then he narrowed his eyes. “How old are you?”
“Seven,” Gracie said. “She’s five. They don’t know as much.”
“Do, too,” Maddie huffed. She gave her older sister an outraged look and muttered, “I know more than you do.”
“Do not,” Gracie said.
Before they began the squabble they were winding up for, Jessie said, “Girls, do you want to know about Zach and Rufus and the matching outfits?” They both nodded, and Jessie said, “Then maybe we should let Zach speak.”
“Sorry,” Gracie said.
“Sorry, mist . . . er . . . Zach,” Maddie said. She picked up her mug, imitating her mother’s dainty hold on her cup, and gave him her full attention.
Zach had always liked kids; his friends speculated that it was because he was so in touch with his inner child, but he found their honesty and zest for life refreshing. He suppressed a grin and took a sip.
He looked at Jessie in surprise. This was not the cocoa from the box of premeasured pouches in his cupboard. She had clearly done some magical voodoo mojo in his kitchen when he wasn’t looking. The cocoa, which when he made it usually had a thick coating of powder floating on top, was rich and creamy and had a tiny kick of heat to it.
“Secret recipe,” Jessie said. She winked at him and Zach blinked. Had Jessie Connelly always been this adorable?
She pushed her hat off of her head and he noticed that since he’d last run into her, she’d cut her long blonde hair and now it was a much darker shade, but with a couple of inches of the lighter blonde still on the tips. It was styled in a messy shoulder-length hairdo that framed her heart-shaped face becomingly, making her look as if she were barely out of high school.
“Story, Mister Zach,” Maddie said. Her voice was so demanding he was surprised she didn’t snap her fingers in his face.
“Maddie,” Jessie’s voice held a note of censure.
Maddie sighed and said, “Story, please, Mister Zach.”
She looked as if she would expire on the spot if he didn’t tell the story right now. Zach nodded. He got that.
“Here, let me show you,” he said. “Rufus, come here, boy.”
Rufus bounded across the couch to sit beside Zach. He looped his arm around the dog and put his head next to Rufus’s. Despite the difference in their hair color, they had a marked similarity of expression, which had started the whole dressing-as-twins-and-having-pictures-taken thing.
“Look at our faces,” Zach said. “We could be twins, am I right?”
All three women stared at them, glancing back and forth as they assessed their features. Gracie nodded and spoke first, saying, “You have the same nose and eyebrows.”
“And fuzzy faces,” Maddie said. She patted Zach’s unshaven chin and then Rufus’s.
“It’s uncanny,” Jessie said. She quickly took a sip of her cocoa so Zach couldn’t tell if she was hiding her smile in her mug or not.
“Rufus’s person, Amanda Willoughby, was the brewery accountant, and she always brought Rufus to work with her. Since everyone said Rufus and I look alike, I decided to take a picture of the two of us dressed in matching outfits for her birthday. Her birthday is March fifteenth, so I went with togas and laurel wreaths,” Zach said.
“The Ides of March.” Jessie nodded. “Togas were the natural choice.”
“Right?” Zach asked. He grinned. Cute and smart and a helluva cocoa maker, there was clearly more to Jessie Connelly than he had figured. He took a sip of his hot chocolate. He liked the spice. “Anyway, Amanda thought it was hilarious so she sent it to our social media team to use and they blasted it out there and the next thing I knew, Rufus and I had our own following, so now we dress up for laughs and use it to promote the brewery.”
“Does Amanda live here?” Gracie asked.
“No,” Zach said. “She’s in England. Her husband got transferred and she went with him. They couldn’t take Rufus so I offered to keep him until they decide if they are staying in England or not.”
“You’re fostering Rufus like we’re fostering Chaos,” Maddie said. “Except I don’t want to foster him; I want to keep him.”
“We’ve talked about this, Maddie,” Jessie said. Her voice was mild but firm. “Pets are a lot of responsibility and Chaos, well, he gets into things.”
Judging by the kitten’s ability to get onto Zach’s roof, he had to figure this was the understatement of the century. He met Jessie’s gaze and they shared a look of complete understanding.
“Hey, Zach, sorry to be a pest but do you have an extra toothbrush?”
Zach whipped his head in the direction of the doorway. Standing there, wearing nothing but one of his oversized sweatshirts and a pair of leggings, was Savannah Kelly, one of his field marketers.
Chapter 3
“Uh . . .” he stalled. He’d been so enjoying Jessie and the girls, he’d forgotten he had houseguests. Awkward.
Jessie glanced from Savannah to him and then to the floor like she wasn’t sure where she should look. Her face turned a hot shade of pink as if she’d walked in on them naked or doing the horizontal mambo or something.
“It’s not what you—” he began but Jessie interrupted him.
“Oh, wow, just wow!” she cried. “Look at the time.”
Maddie and Gracie both glanced around the room, looking for a clock. There wasn’t one in his living room.
“We have to go, girls, now!” she said. Jessie jumped up from her seat and set her mug of cocoa on the table.
“But I haven’t finished my cocoa,” Maddie protested.
Gracie glanced from her sister to her mother and Zach had a feeling that the contest of wills in their house was usually between Jessie and Maddie with Gracie as observer.
“We have cocoa at home,” Jessie said.
Her voice was firm and direct in a very do-not-argue-with-me tone, and Zach felt himself sit up straighter even though she wasn’t talking to him.
Maddie met her mother’s eyes and took a deliberately slow sip from her mug in blatant defiance of Jessie’s orders. Zach had to admire the kid’s spunk even though he knew as a grown-up he shouldn’t approve.
“Oh, don’t leave on my account,” Savannah said. “I’m just crashing here because of last night’s storm.”
She strolled into the room and smiled at everyone. With her hair tumbled about her shoulders and her face free of makeup, she didn’t look much
older than the girls.
Zach did some quick mental math. At twenty-two, Savannah had fifteen years on the girls and she was twelve years his junior, putting her right in between them in age.
He was about to explain further about his field marketers being stranded after last night’s storm buried their cars in snow at the brewery, but he never got the chance.
“Our cat got stuck on Zach’s roof,” Maddie said. She stood and tugged on her sister’s sleeve. “Show her.”
Gracie unzipped her coat and Chaos’s little head poked out.
“Oh,” Savannah cried. “She’s precious.”
“He,” Maddie corrected her.
“He is precious.” Savannah smiled.
She rubbed Chaos’s little orange head with the tip of one well-manicured finger. Even from all the way over on the couch, Zach could hear him purr. Oh, sure, take a swipe at the guy who saves your behind but purr for the ladies. Wily cat.
“Savannah, does Zach have—oh, hi.” Desiree Markowitz appeared at the base of the stairs.
She was tall and leggy like Savannah but where Savannah was all tousled honey hair and big blue eyes, Desiree was deep brown almond eyes, dark skin, and a head of massive black spiral curls that bounced down past her shoulders.
Zach glanced over at Jessie. Her eyes were wide and she looked as if she’d lost her powers of speech.
“Desi, look at this kitten,” Savannah said.
“Oh, totes adorbs,” Desiree said. She bent over to rub his head and Chaos stretched in Gracie’s arms, loving the adoration.
“Yo, bitches, did you get—oh, crap,” Marla Bikstrom said as she stepped into the room and took in the sight of the two young girls. “Sorry, I didn’t know we had little ears in the house.”
With her short spiky red hair and hazel green brown eyes, Marla was the firecracker in the group. She was also the one with the foulest mouth, worst taste in men, and lousy impulse control. Of all of his field marketers, Marla was the one Zach lost the most sleep over.
He refused to acknowledge how much of a mother hen that made him. He was just a responsible business owner, nothing more. He glanced at the six females in front of him. The scales had clearly tipped. Six females to one male; he was way outnumbered even if he counted Rufus and Chaos.
Every Dog Has His Day Page 2