I reached for my pocket, realized I had left my phone on my desk, and decided to wait and see if she returned. Five minutes later, just as I was giving up, she pulled into the lot.
She opened her car door, pressed her hands against her hips, and stared. “So, what are you doing?”
“Wondering.”
“About what? It’s hot out here and you’re dressed in a freaking suit.”
“Wondering what the fuck happened. You just drove by like you forgot where I was.”
“I was daydreaming. The next thing I knew I was way up by that Three Corners bar. I’m a ditz sometimes, I swear.”
“Some guys came to talk, and I was bidding them farewell, and whoosh! You blew past.”
“What uhhm. Some guys came to talk, huh?”
“Yeah, they made me a business offer.”
Her eyes fell to the parking lot. She kicked at a loose pebble and then dug the toe of her shoe into the asphalt, trying to free another. “A uhhm. Was it a good one?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
I wondered just how comfortable she was with my gun dealings. She sure seemed to be skittish about it sometimes.
She looked up. “A gun deal?”
“No,” I said. “To provide a security detail.”
She furrowed her brow. “Like armed guards?”
“Something like that.”
“Is that legal?”
I shrugged. “Depends.”
I returned her gaze and waited for her to ask many more questions, wondering how long I could distract her from reaching the actual answer to what she wanted to know.
She sighed heavily. “Ready for lunch?”
That was easy.
“Let me lock up.”
I locked the door and turned around. Wearing a dress with her hair twisted into a bun, she looked elegant. Sophisticated.
Beautiful.
I walked toward her. “I think I’m about ready for a little time off.”
“What do you mean?”
I kissed her lightly, leaned away and waved my hand toward the building. “I need some time away from this.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We. What are we going to do? And the answer’s relax.”
“Sounds fun.”
She was right. It would be fun.
And so much more.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Terra
I walked the row of kennels twice with no preconceived notion of what I was looking for. Several of the dogs were active, some barked incessantly and others were fast asleep. There was one puppy lying down who was awake, quiet and not very active.
But he was adorable.
As I walked past his kennel the first time, he lifted his head slightly and watched me. As soon as I passed, his head flopped down to the floor between his front feet.
His body was completely brown, and his front feet were white. Just above his shoulders, the brown stopped and his entire neck and head were white—except for one brown eye.
The skin all over his body was loose and wrinkly.
And his eyes were sad.
On my third trip along the row of kennels, he lifted his head again and stared. I stopped and stared in return. He opened his mouth wide, yawned and flopped his head down on the floor.
A girl wearing a T-shirt that said I Love Cats approached me. She smiled and tilted her head toward the kennels. “Hi. I’m Nichole. Having any luck?”
I pointed toward the wrinkly pup. “What about that little guy?”
She smiled. “Hank? The English Bulldog?”
“The little wrinkly guy. Is that what he is?”
She nodded.
“His name’s Hank?”
“Yep. Hank. He’s a rescue pup.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, it was a strange situation. The owner got arrested or something, I don’t know for sure. You know. Rumors and stuff. But. The entire litter was abandoned, left in the home unattended. The mother was left outdoors, and the pups inside. The mother, or at least we think it was the mother, was hit by a car and killed. The entire litter died except him. He hadn’t eaten in over a week. Our vet said it was a miracle he lived, but he did. We named him Hank. It’s short for Hank the Tank. You know, because he’s indestructible.”
My throat tightened. He was the perfect pup. I glanced at him again. He lifted his head, this time for only a few seconds. When it fell to the floor of the kennel, I chuckled and turned toward the girl.
“He’s uhhm. So he’s an orphan?”
“I guess that’s one way of putting it.”
As I didn’t see making Michael part of my family was in my immediate future, I felt we needed to make a family of our own. At least until I could figure out a way to reveal the truth. Seeing my father leave Michael’s shop provided all the reassurance I needed to believe that Michael was the one who saved Peter. As proud as I was of him for doing so, knowing my father knew Michael and had made offers to him regarding business made revealing the truth about who I was that much more difficult.