by Mary Stone
She frowned. “All right,” she called out loud to nobody in particular, “who was drooling on my chair?”
As she rolled out, she almost kicked one of the other puppies. All ten of them were now big, adorable, and rambunctious—so rambunctious they were even giving Linc a run for his money. They were always, absolutely always, underfoot, always drooling, always hungry, always playing and being mischievous. And when Linc and Kylie tried to go to bed? Forget it. Their bed had been consumed by twelve dog bodies.
The humans were definitely the underdogs in this house.
“Ollie’s got a girlfriend,” Kylie said out loud to Linc, though she really wasn’t sure where he was. “He just called to check in and tell me that he really appreciated all that we did.”
Linc came over with coffee for her in the I HEART NEWFS mug Greg had gotten her for Christmas. He set it down on the desk and kissed her on the top of the head. “Again?”
She laughed. Beez’s widower had called about five times to say that. The old man had really appreciated what they’d done. He’d sent them flowers and chocolates and had spoken highly of Kylie to Greg. And now, he was checking in all the time, like their best friend. “He met a woman at Bingo. Says she’s not Beez, but she’ll do. He’s so funny.”
Linc shook his head. “Leave it to you to become his best friend.”
“Well, he is an old man. He needed a friend. I like being friendly.”
Linc nodded. “You sure do. So guess what?”
She looked up at him. “What?”
“Fixed the handle on your door.”
“Really? No kidding? Thank you,” she said, blowing him a kiss as he went to sit at his own desk. It’d only been eight months of her having to wrestle with the chewed-up door handle or else use the passenger’s side door and jump over the console. Vader had really done a number on the handle—not the headrests—that night at the gorge. “You did it yourself?”
He nodded. “Wasn’t so hard.”
“Then I don’t know why it took you eight freaking months.” She smiled at him sweetly.
He blew on his fingernails and pretended to polish them on his chest. “Pure genius takes time. How’s work in here going?”
She looked around at the accumulating pile of papers on her desk. Maybe she needed to hire a filer. “It’s going. The monsters are at it, though, as usual.”
He shrugged and put his hand down to pet one of the pups. That was the good thing about living in this house—there was no shortage of cute faces to pet. “That’s nothing new.”
“Did you train them at all today?”
“Best I can. Puppies are hard. They’re coming along, though. Slowly. But I can tell they’re smart. They just got a hell of a lot of energy. They’ll make good SARs, though, one day.”
Because of the summer heat, he’d been walking around in nothing but gym shorts all day, and she had to admit, looking mighty fine doing it. They’d just celebrated their three-month anniversary, and she was still as excited to look at him as she ever had been. She laid a hand on her stomach to quell the butterflies.
Or maybe that was something else.
“You feeling all right?”
She looked up to find him gazing at her with worry. “Oh. Fine. Why?”
He pointed to her face. “You just look a little…flushed. You okay?”
She swallowed. Flushed? Or was it a glow? She’d been having feelings lately…feelings that both excited and terrified her. And she wasn’t quite sure how to articulate them to Linc. She knew he’d be thrilled, but still…what if she wasn’t ready?
“I’m perfect…” she said, forcing a smile as a couple of puppies started to nip at each other behind Linc. He spun on his chair to break it up, and as he did, she fanned her face.
Body, stop acting so weird!
She sipped her coffee, trying to concentrate on the report. On work. That was the name of the game. Getting Coulter Confidential on solid footing. Yes, they’d taken over all of Greg’s accounts, including the one with his biggest client, Impact Insurance, but that didn’t mean they could just take it easy. Greg had been very complacent with his business. Kylie was a go-getter. She didn’t want Coulter Confidential to survive—she wanted it to thrive. To grow.
To do that, she’d been working on advertising to drum up business, and Linc had been helping her with a new plan to possibly expand into other markets in the next five years. It was an exciting time, and now, with the wedding behind them, she had all the time and resources to really pour into making it work.
Of course, in order to do that, she’d told Linc that she wanted to put off having kids. Just for a little while. At least the next two years. He’d been supportive. After all, she was still young. They had plenty of time.
Or…maybe no time at all.
A bit of nausea climbed its way up her throat, growing more intense as she tried to swallow it down.
She pushed away from the desk and stood up. “I’m just going to…” She pointed to the bathroom.
Linc, too busy looking at his computer, just waved at her.
As he clicked away at his computer, she fought the now-overpowering urge to vomit until she made it to the bathroom. Behind the closed door, she dry-heaved over the toilet, trying to keep the sound of her gagging down.
Well, that was new.
She took a breath as she hung over the toilet. She couldn’t put this off any longer.
When she was done, she wiped her mouth with a bit of toilet paper, opened the drawer and pulled out the wand from the back of the cabinet where she’d stashed it. She’d gotten it a week ago at the drugstore when she’d realized she was a few days late. She hadn’t really noticed until then, because her periods had been somewhat irregular; she’d been forced to go off the pill because they were giving her headaches. They’d lately been practicing the rhythm method of birth control and using condoms…usually. It should have been fine. But now…
She read the instructions, which told her that once she provided a sample, she’d have her answer in less than three minutes.
Three minutes. Moment of truth.
Taking another deep breath, she squatted on the toilet. No pee.
Of course, she’d suffer from performance anxiety during her moment of truth. She closed her eyes. Squeezed.
Nothing.
She tried to focus on waterfalls. Oceans. Then she reached over and turned on the faucet.
Eventually, she was able to concentrate enough to get a few drops of pee on the stick. As she was hitting full stream, her phone rang. Linc picked it up. She heard him say, “Coulter Confidential, this is Linc.”
She got up from her squat and stared at the stick. “Kylie, you need to take this. Almost done in there, or do you want me to ask them to call back?”
He sounded pretty urgent, like he didn’t want to lose the call.
They had a pretty well-delineated division of responsibility. Linc was good on the SAR matters, but any PI cases were her jurisdiction. He was often calling her in to take down notes on these cases, because she knew how to ask all the right questions.
“Yeah, I’ll be right there!” she said through the door, quickly rolling up the garbage and stuffing it into the garbage can, then tucking the wand back into the bottom drawer.
After washing her hands, she stepped out and walked to her desk as he held the phone out to her.
“Who is it?” she asked. “One of Greg’s clients?”
He smiled and shook his head. “New one. Saw our ad online. Sounds like a pretty big deal. Something about investigating a phony adoption agency.”
She sucked in a breath. Greg’s clients were all well and good, albeit it was always dull day-to-day grunt work, conducting background checks and workers’ comp surveillance. Nothing too exciting. It was those big crimes that really got Kylie’s heart pumping. And this sounded like one of them. The opportunity they were waiting for, maybe.
“Seriously? That does sound big.” She picked up the phone. “He
llo. Coulter Confidential. This is Kylie Coulter.” She never got tired of saying that name. “Who am I speaking with?”
She took down the information as professionally as she could. But even though something like this would’ve had her dancing around the office, unable to keep still, her mind was focused on what was waiting for her in the bathroom. She’d have to look as soon as she got off the phone. She didn’t want Linc finding it before she even had a chance to process it.
Whatever it was, it’d be okay. They’d deal with it. If kids came now, they’d find a way to make it work.
At least, she hoped.
She hung up and looked over at Linc, who was watching her expectantly, waiting for some information. “Well?”
She smiled at him cautiously. “I have a feeling we are in for a very interesting few months.”
Linc raised an eyebrow. “Big case, huh?”
She leaned down to pet the sea of puppies around her chair and sighed. Actually, for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t even thinking about a case.
The End
To be continued…
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Acknowledgments
How does one properly thank everyone involved in taking a dream and making it a reality? Here goes.
In addition to our families, whose unending support provided the foundation for us to find the time and energy to put these thoughts on paper, we want to thank the editors who polished our words and made them shine.
Many thanks to our publisher for risking taking on two newbies and giving us the confidence to become bona fide authors.
More than anyone, we want to thank you, our readers, for clicking on a couple of nobodies and sharing your most important asset, your time, with this book. We hope with all our hearts we made it worthwhile.
Much love,
Mary & Bella
About the Author
Mary Stone lives among the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains of East Tennessee with her two dogs, four cats, a couple of energetic boys, and a very patient husband.
As a young girl, she would go to bed every night, wondering what type of creature might be lurking underneath. It wasn’t until she was older that she learned that the creatures she needed to most fear were human.
Today, she creates vivid stories with courageous, strong heroines and dastardly villains. She invites you to enter her world of serial killers, FBI agents but never damsels in distress. Her female characters can handle themselves, going toe-to-toe with any male character, protagonist or antagonist.
Discover more about Mary Stone on her website.
www.authormarystone.com
Bella Cross spent the past fifteen years teaching bored teenagers all about the Dewey Decimal System while inhaling the dust from the library books she loves so much. With each book she read, a little voice in her head would say, "You can do that too." So, she did.
A thousand heart palpitations later, she is thrilled to release her first novel with the support of her husband, twin girls, and the gigantic Newfoundland she rescued warming her feet.