Something crashed, and one of the garbage cans fell over. Holt turned to see a skinny little dog scarfing down banana peels from the bag it had torn open. What kind of hungry did a dog have to be to eat banana peels?
From behind him, Maddie squeaked and leapt forward. His heart clawed its way into his throat as he lunged for her and missed. She was going to get bitten. Hurt. On his watch. The dog reared up, and he braced to dive between snapping jaws and the child.
She was… giggling.
The dog had its front paws on her shoulders and was bathing her face with its tongue. Maddie had her arms around it, grinning in absolute delight.
Holt’s knees went weak with relief, and he had to reach out and steady himself against the wall of the building. The dog was friendly. Walking over, he gently lifted it off Maddie’s shoulders. It immediately flopped onto its back. Her back, he noted, as she wriggled in obvious demand for belly scratches, the skinny whip of a tail swishing against the ground.
He couldn’t quite stop himself from complying. “What are we gonna do about you?”
“Well, that’s easy, silly. She’s hungry. We should feed her.”
“Feed who?” Jonah stuck his head out the door. “Oh.”
Brax followed him out. “I see we have a guest.”
“Yeah, she could do with something more appropriate to eat than banana peels. But we’ve got to figure out who she belongs to.” Even as Holt said it, he knew this dog didn’t belong to anybody. She wore no collar and was far too skinny—maybe forty pounds when she should’ve been over fifty—with each of her ribs showing against the dirty brown coat. She’d clearly been on her own for a significant amount of time.
The dog rolled back to her feet, whole body vibrating from wags as she leaned against Maddie. Maddie draped one arm over her shoulders, and they both looked up at him with pleading eyes.
Gah. Those eyes! He’d been trained to withstand all manner of torture, but this. This was just fighting dirty.
Needing some kind of backup, Holt looked at his friends.
Brax just grinned. “Brother, you’re screwed.”
* * *
It wasa good day that started with an orgasm and ended with ecstatic clients and multiple referrals. Cayla decided bookending that day with another orgasm—preferably a mutual one this time—would make it even better. She wondered if Holt had made it to the hardware store, and if he’d had a chance to install the new lock yet. Hope sprang eternal.
He hadn’t contacted her today other than to say he’d have dinner on warm for when she got home. She could only hope that was because all had been calm and quiet, with nothing new from Arthur and no major misbehavior on Maddie’s part. She was a good kid, but this was the first day she’d been with Holt entirely on their own. Undoubtedly, she’d be testing his boundaries as a parental figure. Cayla just hoped it hadn’t been too trying for him.
She stepped into the kitchen to the smell of onions, peppers, and tomatoes, with a heavy hint of garlic. Spaghetti, if her nose didn’t deceive her. Her mouth watered, anticipating a plateful, hopefully with a slice of rich, buttery garlic bread.
Holt appeared in the doorway from the living room. “You’re home.”
“I am.” Feeling buoyant and happy, she skipped across the room, much as her daughter tended to, and bounced up to kiss him soundly on the mouth. “I had the best day.”
“Good! The wedding went well?”
“It went absolutely fantastic. And I ended up with four referrals by the end of the reception.”
“That’s worth drinking to. Let me pour you a glass of wine.”
“I won’t say no.” She wandered over to grab a plate and began filling it from the pots on the stove as she gave him the high points of the day.
It wasn’t until she reached for the wine that she took a close look at his face. He looked… guilty. Not quite meeting her eyes as he handed her the glass.
Her own smile faded. “What is it?”
He fidgeted, a move so uncharacteristic she knew something was definitely wrong.
“Holt? Did something happen? Did Arthur show up?”
His hand shot out to cover hers and squeezed. “No. No, nothing like that.”
She realized she had yet to see or hear any sign of her daughter and felt fresh panic begin to brew. “Where’s Maddie?”
“She’s absolutely fine. Don’t worry. She’s playing out back.”
That was when Cayla heard the barking. On a narrow-eyed glare, she strode to the window and saw Maddie romping around the yard with an unfamiliar dog.
She rounded on him. “Holt! You can’t just get her a dog without discussing it with me. I expressly told you the other day that I couldn’t handle adding another living thing to this household. How could you do this?”
“I know. And I didn’t. I mean, not on purpose. I swear, it’s not my fault! She pulled a Puss In Boots.”
“What are you talking about?”
He scrubbed a hand over his head. “We were at the bakery, and I took the trash out, and Maddie came out with me, and there was this dog digging through the garbage. We couldn’t just leave her there. She was clearly starving. But when I told Maddie we had to find out who she belonged to, she looked at me with these eyes. Like I was the worst person in the world if I didn’t bring her home with us. I’ve survived waterboarding, sensory deprivation, and a whole host of other things I’d never describe to you, and I couldn’t say no to a five-year-old.”
Cayla didn’t want a dog. She didn’t have the bandwidth for a dog. But she knew exactly what face he was talking about, and she recognized she probably should’ve warned him about it.
“Rookie move, Steele. Parenting 101 means you are required to withstand the utilization of The Face. Otherwise, total chaos reigns and you end up raising little tyrants.”
“I know. And I get it. But look at them, Cayla. Are you really going to be the one to take that away from her?”
He turned her toward the window again so she could see Maddie flopping on the grass with her new four-legged companion in the fading light, the world’s biggest smile on her face as the dog cuddled into her. They were close enough Cayla could count the poor animal’s ribs. If she’d had a home, it wasn’t a good one. And the county animal shelter was already under-funded and over-crowded. She was a bleeding heart. The only way she’d been able to say no this long was that no situation like this had presented itself. But she could no more put that dog in a kill shelter or kick her out on the street than she could let go of her own child.
“I kind of hate you a little bit right now.”
“Fair. Would it help if I promised to do all the cleaning up after the dog and teaching Maddie how to be responsible for her?”
“It’s a start.”
She tried to hold herself stiff as he tugged her back against his body, wrapping those strong arms around her as he bent his mouth close to her ear. “How about if I promise to make up for the inconvenience and additional stress with baked goods and orgasms?”
Her lips twitched. “I suppose that depends.”
“On what?”
“Did you actually make it to the hardware store today?”
His silence was answer enough.
Cayla sighed and pulled away.
“I really meant to. But once Banana Bread turned up, we got kinda busy, going down to the co-op to buy dog food and a bed and a crate and supplies, and then getting her home and bathed and settled and… Yeah. By the time I thought of it again, they were already closed.”
“Banana Bread?”
“She was eating banana peels from the trash when we found her, so that’s what Maddie named her. I was thinking we could call her BB for short.”
In that moment he looked so young himself, with a boyish hope shining in those big blue eyes.
“Did you have a dog growing up?”