The Perfect Match

by Kimberly Cates

  Charlie and Mac had been hurt enough by the one woman on earth who was supposed to love them. And since Cash had screwed up choosing a mother for his children so badly the first time, he wasn’t about to chance it again.

  Not that he’d really chosen Lisa for anything but a hot lay. Look at where that had gotten him.

  Suddenly Mac’s piping voice penetrated his thoughts.

  “You’re not my babysitter!” Mac exclaimed with a scowl, backing her wheelchair away from Rowena. “You’re that very bad lady that hit my daddy. You should be in jail right now.”

  The other pre-kindergarten kids gasped, staring at Rowena as if she were a hardened criminal.

  Rowena threw Cash a glare. “Jump in here any time, Deputy.”

  Cash grinned, liking the way the tables had turned. “Actually, Rowena is going to be taking care of you and Charlie for a little while, kitten. Until Mr. Google’s leg gets better.”

  “Charlie was bad so he breaked it,” Mac informed her teacher. “But that’s what you get when you sneak a bear into the house.”

  “A bear?” Ms. Daily repeated, looking from MacKenzie to Cash in surprise.

  “It’s really a dog,” he explained. “A very big dog.”

  “A Newfoundland,” Rowena added.

  “I adore Newfies!” Ms. Daily exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “You’re that pet shop woman everybody’s talking about, aren’t you, Ms. Brown?”

  “Arrested but never convicted,” Rowena said, slanting Cash a saucy grin.

  “I’ve been thinking about getting a dog,” Ms. Daily told Rowena. “You know how it is. I’m a woman, living alone.” She turned her attention to Cash, all but batting her eyes. “I asked Deputy Lawless at the beginning of the school year to come over to my house and check the windows and locks and such to make sure they’re secure. He promised he’d try to stop by some night, but he never did.”

  “Oh,” Rowena said politely. “That’s too bad.”

  Yeah, Cash thought. It’s a crying shame. He must have had some survival instinct still operating in his subconscious, staying away as he did. Ms. Daily obviously had a lot more in mind than home safety, and with her being Mac’s teacher, it could have made things plenty awkward. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, letting the woman think he and Rowena had something besides babysitting on their agenda.

  He walked over and slipped his arm lightly around Rowena’s waist. Rowena went stone stiff, then looked at him as if his hair was on fire. In spite of that, she felt good to him, her waist trim beneath those baggy shirts she wore, her body warm underneath soft cotton.

  “Rowena is just the person to set you up with a dog,” Cash said, giving her an affectionate squeeze as he watched Ms. Daily’s face fall. “And that Destroyer—he’s one dog in a million.”

  “Really?” Ms. Daily said, perking up a little. “I’d love to meet him! I’m not doing anything right after school tonight.”

  Rowena pulled out of Cash’s grasp, purposely stepping on his toe in the process. Luckily, it was hard to make an impression through steel-toed boots. “Clancy’s not up for adoption,” she said flatly.

  Cash’s jaw almost hit the floor. “What do you mean he’s not up for adoption? You’ve been trying to unload him on me for—I mean, talk me into adding him to the family for three weeks,” he amended, remembering his audience.

  “You were going to adopt the Newfie, Deputy?” Ms. Daily asked in surprise. “That would be wonderful for the girls! I wouldn’t dream of snatching him from under your noses.”

  Please, Cash thought. Snatch him. In fact, I’ll pay you to take him…

  “A dog is more than we can handle at my house right now, isn’t it, Mac?” He tried to enlist his daughter’s help. After the disaster last night, he at least expected her to be on his side.

  But even Mac looked wistful. “I love that doggy real much. But he breaks things, Ms. Daily. Like beds and legs and screens and stuff. He jumped right through the window so he could sleep with me an’ my sister an’ the policemen came with guns.”

  Terrific. Even Mac was in league against him.

  “What happened last night was an accident, Mac. Just a misunderstanding.” He tried to repair the damage. If the demon dog was sold to Ms. Daily, Cash’s problems would be over. Charlie would have to accept the dog was out of her reach forever. She’d get over her infatuation with the animal, and life could go back to normal.

  Or could it? Cash remembered Charlie’s anguished tears as he’d driven the dog back to Rowena’s shop. Charlie had clung to the Newfoundland as if it were a buoy in a flooded river, the only thing keeping swift currents from sucking her under.

  Christ, it ripped his heart out seeing her that way, and yet what choice did he have? Look at the mayhem the dog had caused being in the house one lousy night.

  Ms. Daily seemed to consider. “Well, accidents do happen, don’t they, MacKenzie? And I really do want a Newfoundland.”

  “They’re a wonderful breed as long as you don’t mind shedding and drooling and your house isn’t full of knickknacks,” Rowena warned. “They can take out a table top full of knickknacks with one sweep of their tail.”

  “Oh, well…” Ms. Daily seemed to hesitate a moment.

  “You never mentioned any of that to me,” Cash complained.

  “Once you research the breed, Ms. Daily, you know, do your homework, I’d be happy to put you in touch with the nearest Newf rescue organization,” Rowena assured the teacher. “They do fantastic work with their dogs.”

  “A rescue what?”

  “Volunteers that take in certain breeds when they end up in shelters or puppy mills or whose owners can’t keep them anymore. They take the dogs into their homes and work out any kinks in their behavior. Then they match them with new owners. A quiet, single-dog home for more nervous types. Children if a dog is rambunctious and loves to play. I’d be happy to put you in touch with the rescue organization.”

  “But if Deputy Lawless doesn’t want a dog, why can’t I have the Newfie he was talking about? Destroyer?”

  “His name is Clancy,” Rowena said, looking Cash stubbornly in the eye. “And he already belongs to somebody else.”

  THE END-OF-DAY SCHOOL BELL rang outside the building as well as in. Ever since Rowena had opened her shop, the sound had measured out her day. The morning bell—cleaning cages, stocking shelves, preparing to greet customers. Moms who’d dropped off their older kids would wander over with toddlers in tow looking for goldfish food or hamster pellets or asking Rowena the kinds of questions she loved best.

  Jaime’s birthday is coming up. We’re thinking of getting her a puppy.

  Rowena still felt a thrill every time a parent trusted her, cared enough to ask her. She adored talking about the different breeds, the different personalities. Finding yet another perfect match. And the retired people—she might be the only person they talked to all day besides the cat or dog that had become their family now that the child who’d become a doctor had moved to California. Or the husband or wife they once bickered with disappeared through divorce or death.

  The animals Rowena’s clients took into their hearts, into their lives didn’t replace the loved one lost to age or to distance. But at least another living creature helped to soothe the sting.

  When the final bell rang, the bell that let school out, it ushered in a far more boisterous crowd. Freed from the grind of multiplication tables and fractions and adding two plus two, the five-to twelve-years-olds who were her customers were given free rein to explore the mysteries of how geckos’ toes got sticky enough to walk up a glass aquarium side or how a parrot learned to talk.

  But today’s bell might as well have been the kind that signaled the start of a boxing match. From the minute Cash had rolled Mac’s wheelchair out of the classroom, Rowena had sensed he was spoiling for a fight.

  To his credit, he didn’t succumb to the temptation of chewing her out—at least until he’d strapped Mac safely in her car seat.

/>   He shut the door, and Rowena followed him and the wheelchair around to the back.

  “Why don’t you just tell me whatever is bugging you before the top of your head blows off?” Rowena challenged, knowing they had only so much time to get this scene over with before Charlie came out. “I know what you’re going to say.”

  “Then why should I bother to say it?” Cash snarled.

  “Because if you don’t, the top of your head’s going to blow off. That vein in your temple is beating so hard it looks like it’s going to burst. And I’d just as soon not have a brain hemorrhage on my conscience.”

  “Fine, then. You want to know what I’m thinking? I’m wondering what the hell’s the matter with you.” Cash folded Mac’s wheelchair up, putting it into the back of the SUV with a force that made the whole car bounce. “You own a pet store. You sell pets. Why the hell won’t you sell one to Ms. Daily?”

  “I’ll be happy to sell her a dog. Just not that dog.”

  “Because he belongs to somebody else?” Cash slammed down the hatch. “What kind of bullshit excuse is that?”

  Rowena looked across the playground, saw Charlie. Laughing clusters of children buzzed all around the open field, but Charlie walked alone, so solemn, so solitary, it broke Rowena’s heart.

  “You want to tell that little girl the connection she feels to that dog is bullshit?” Rowena argued. “She defied you, Cash. Tried to hide the dog from you.”

  “Hide that monster? Fat chance that was going to work!”

  “You know that, and I know that, but she didn’t. She was willing to risk it. Do you have any idea how desperate she had to be to do that?”

  “Plenty of kids try to pull one over on their parents,” Cash argued. “It’s natural.”

  “Sure it is. All a part of growing up. Charlie should be testing the limits, trying your patience, making mistakes because she knows damned well you’ll love her no matter what.”

  “Of course I’ll love her! She knows that!”

  “She doesn’t know that. Charlie doesn’t believe…”

  “Don’t tell me about my daughter,” Cash warned, gritting his teeth. “You’ve barely met her, and I’ve been there for that child her whole life.”

  “You have. But her mother hasn’t. In Charlie’s world, that changed everything. Maybe Charlie can’t own Clancy, but that doesn’t mean somebody else can. If Clancy stays with me, she’ll be able to see him, and—”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is all about, is it?” Cash folded his arms over his chest and stalked to the side of the car. “Your little altruistic helping the single father out of a jam bit. What you were really trying to do was weasel that dog into my house however you can.”

  Rowena’s temper flared. “That’s not true! I—”

  “Maybe we should forget this whole thing,” Cash said. “I don’t know why I agreed to it in the first place.”

  “Because you need help, just as much as Charlie needs that dog!”

  “We’re not another pack of strays for you to take in.” Pride, stubbornness etched his face, and yet Rowena saw something buried deeper. A vulnerability cloaked in anger.

  “I take care of my family.” He jabbed his thumb into his chest. “I do. No one else.”

  “I know you do.” She said it so quietly she startled him. He glared down at her, muscles in his face tight, his eyes blazing. And suddenly she knew—the reason he’d gotten so angry, the reason for all his harsh words, the reason he was trying to shove her away as hard as he could…

  She hadn’t said anything to him that he hadn’t said to himself.

  What kind of poison was that for a proud man like Cash Lawless to swallow day after day? Rowena could guess the kind of creed the deputy would live by. A man takes care of his own. Protects his children. Keeps them safe. But Cash couldn’t magically raise Mac from her wheelchair or make his little girl’s legs whole. And he couldn’t give Charlie back the bedrock every child deserved to build their lives on—that her mother would always be there for her, no matter what.

  And every time he looked at Rowena, he had to face the decision he’d made not to give Charlie the dog Rowena believed could heal the child’s broken heart.

  Every time Cash looked at Rowena, he had to ask himself the question: what if she was right?

  She sucked in a steadying breath, aching for him as Charlie skirted three boys with construction paper jack-o’-lanterns in their hands and approached the SUV. The emotional ravages of the night before chalked the child’s face white and drew dark circles beneath her lashes. Charlie’s hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a brush in two days. But when would Cash have had time to do it in the confusion of dealing with the emergency room and trying to get Vinny’s leg set and still getting the kids to school on time?

  The mouse-brown strands hung limp against Charlie’s cheeks, her hair as lifeless as her eyes. Eyes filled with confusion when they saw Rowena standing there. Mac must’ve rolled down her window, because the five-year-old leaned out of it, yelling to her sister.

  “Hey, Charlie! The bad dog lady is going to be our Mr. Google until our real one gets better!”

  “Really?” Charlie stubbed the toe of her tennis shoe on a bump in the asphalt. She righted herself, then looked from one adult to the other. “Is that true, Daddy?”

  Rowena could see Cash wince as the little girl’s face brightened just a whisper, like a parched flower at the first drop of rain. He rounded the car to where she now stood, barely a foot from Mac’s window.

  His jaw worked, and Rowena sensed what he was about to do. Call off the deal. “Charlie, I don’t think…”

  “—you girls can do without me,” Rowena interrupted, jarring Cash with her elbow in the hopes she could knock some sense into him. “How else is your daddy going to pick you up from school every day or get Mac to therapy on time? And you girls can’t stay alone in the house when your daddy’s at work, can you?”

  It was Cash she was talking to, reminding him of all the reasons this arrangement of theirs was a bitter necessity that he’d damned well better swallow. And she knew the stubborn deputy understood exactly what she was saying.

  She heard him make a low sound of frustration in his throat. Charlie must have taken it for an assent. The child looked from her father to Rowena.

  “That’s what’s going to happen?” Charlie asked in a small voice. “You—you’ll take care of Mac and me?”

  “That’s the plan,” Rowena told her.

  “But what about the puppies and kitties and stuff in your shop?”

  “I’ll take care of them while you and Mac are in school or your daddy’s home from work. And sometimes, you and Mac and I will go to the shop and you two can help me. If you don’t mind too much.”

  Disbelief flooded Charlie’s pinched features. “Maybe that isn’t such a good idea.” She peered up at Cash, all those little worry lines back in her face. “If I hadn’t been naughty and gone in your shop when I wasn’t supposed to I never would have loved Clancy and the bad stuff last night wouldn’t have happened.”

  Rowena warmed as Cash stroked Charlie’s tangled hair. “We’ll bend the rules just this once,” he told his daughter. “How about it, cupcake?”

  Tears threatened, the child’s thin shoulders shaking.

  “What’s wrong, baby? I thought you’d like the idea of going to the pet shop with Rowena.”

  “I do, Daddy. So much…but…I was bad. I don’t…deserve it.”

  “Oh, sweetheart—” Cash leaned down to pick her up, but Charlie backed away. Rowena saw Cash’s eyes flicker with confusion and a sliver of hurt as Charlie wrapped her arms tight around her middle. What on earth was going on here?

  Rowena knew there was no place on earth the little girl would rather be right now than in her father’s arms.

  “I thought…I thought you’d lose your job because all the policemen had to come to our house and Mr. Google couldn’t watch us ’cause his leg got broke.” The child’s fears spilled
out in a rush. “And maybe Mac and me couldn’t go to school. And then I’d have to flunk fourth grade.”

  “Yeah,” Mac said from her window. “And all ’cause you broke Mr. Google, right, Charlie?”

  Charlie nodded. Her mouth wobbled as she fought not to cry. Rowena saw Cash’s hands fist. “Mr. Google is going to be fine—”

  Rowena caught his eye, gave her head the tiniest shake. Cash went quiet. It humbled Rowena, his first fragile offering of trust.

  Rowena hunkered down in front of Charlie.