Sit...Stay...Beg (The Dogfather Book 1)

“A blurb?” He made a disgusted face. “Sounds like something that falls out of a mastiff’s mouth.”

  “A lovely thought for our dinner.”

  He relented with a smile. “So what’s my blurb, Jessica Jane Curtis, journalist extraordinaire?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Come on, give it a go. Garrett Kilcannon is…what?”

  She wasn’t close to knowing yet, but she decided to humor him.

  “Garrett Kilcannon resists type,” she said, leaning back, holding his gaze, and purposely using a voice that let him know she was “reading” in her head. “Tall, dark, and handsome with an irresistible smile and a twinkle in his deep-blue eyes, he can be rugged outdoors, metropolitan sophisticated, and obviously knows his way around a line of code, since he built a successful tech company. He has a soft heart for animals and his family, but doesn’t open easily to strangers. In a word, he is an enigma that drew this journalist closer, fascinating and baffling her.”

  His jaw dropped. “You’ve been working on that for a while.”

  “Nope.” She took a sip of wine, confidence soaring. “That’s a first draft, inspired by the company and”—she tapped the rim of her wineglass with her index finger—“the magic grape juice. I’m sure you’d like to change something.”

  “Delete handsome.”

  “Replace it with humble?” she suggested.

  “Gotta hand it to you, Lois Lane.”

  “It’s Jessica Jane.”

  “You’re a good writer,” he said, holding her gaze so intently a few butterfly wings fluttered in her stomach.

  “It’s not hard. Try drafting a blurb yourself.”

  “On me?” He pfft a breath. “Too boring.”

  “Then on me.”

  He lifted a brow, interested in that challenge. “Okay.” He took another drink of his wine, as if he needed inspiration of his own, then studied her for a minute. “Jessica Jane Curtis is…pretty.” He gave a self-deprecating roll of his eyes. “I’m no wordsmith.”

  “Points for using my first and middle name, which adds an I’m-an-insider sheen to your story. And pretty?” She tipped her head with exaggerated coyness. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “I can do better.” He inched his plate away, leaning closer over the table. “Jessica Jane Curtis was pretty as a teenager. She had cute freckles, big eyes, and the kind of body that made teenage boys try not to stare over the dinner table.”

  She laughed. “First of all, the historical reference in building a profile is brilliant. A-plus for a great story lead-in. Second of all, you never, not once, stared at me. And believe me, I watched and waited.”

  “I’m not done yet. But the pretty teenager,” he continued, “grew up into an intelligent, inquisitive, independent young woman with mysterious jade eyes, hair that turns gold in candlelight, and a…sexy mouth.”

  “Whoa.” She let out a breath, not expecting that.

  “You’d probably do much better with that description, but it’s what I see.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered, feeling her face warm. Maybe more than her face. “Huge props for the alliteration. And, you know, the jade and candlelight stuff is wonderfully vivid. Not sure anyone’s ever called my mouth sexy.”

  “Then they haven’t kissed it.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Is it time for our daily reference to the Manhunt make-out session again?”

  “No need to reference. Replay, maybe. No referencing necessary.”

  Replay. The idea slid over her like hot lava, heating her belly and below. “You know what you’re good at?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “Playing Manhunt?”

  “Not being interviewed. Why is that?”

  He shifted in his seat. “You know I’ve been burned by the media before, that’s no secret.”

  “I’m not going to burn you, I promise.”

  The look he gave her said he didn’t believe that for one second. “That’s what Brad Darber said.”

  The Forbes reporter. “Well, I’m Jessica Jane Curtis, and I’m not interested in contract negotiations with the company that bought yours. I’m interested in you. Inside”—she tapped her chest—“here.”

  “How do you go about getting there?” he asked.

  “Well, if you’d ever let me, I ask questions and find emotional beats.”

  He made a face that mixed confusion and horror. “What the hell are those, and do they leave a mark?”

  She laughed. “It’s a way of sifting through your personal story to find the things that carved you into who you are. Everyone has them.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, but signaled the waiter as he walked by and, after they both turned down dessert, he got the check. After he handed over his credit card, he turned to her, and she braced for the quick and clean end to the evening. Which would hurt, but maybe it was for the best.

  “I have an idea,” he said, surprising her.

  “Quick round of Manhunt?”

  He laughed easily, relaxed again. “I like the way you think, but my idea is a little less fun. Why don’t you tell me some things that marked you with an emotional beating?”

  “Emotional beat,” she corrected.

  “Sounds like the same thing to me.”

  Then she’d have to convince him it wasn’t. “I guess I could. What do you want to know about?”

  “All that stuff you were telling Lola. About when you were sixteen and had to leave.”

  She stared at him, growing cold inside.

  “You could, you know, share it with a human this time.”

  The waiter came back with the bill and handed it to Garrett, who thanked him, opened the folder, added a tip, and signed without a word. “If you teach me this emotional-beat business tonight, we’ll schedule your interview for tomorrow. All day.”

  “Deal,” she whispered, suddenly knowing exactly what he must feel every time she threatened to dig deep.

  Could a wall-breaker protect her own fortress?

  Chapter Twelve

  Garrett chose a booth in the corner of the tiny restaurant adjacent to the Bitter Bark Bed & Breakfast. It wasn’t a college haunt, and it wasn’t a super popular local spot, especially midweek.

  It was private and intimate and exactly what he wanted.

  He let Jessie pick her side of the booth and slide in, and then he sat right next to her. Not too close so she felt crowded, but close enough that he could easily touch her or brush the bit of thigh that showed when she sat down, and catch a whiff of a floral perfume.

  She wanted only sparkling water, which sounded even better than a beer, so he had one, too.

  “So how do we start?” he asked her after they were settled. “With your first memory of childhood? How far back in time?”

  She stabbed a lime bobbing in her drink with a stirrer, thinking. “I usually start with a topic that I know makes my subject comfortable. Which is why I specifically ask for the first interview to be in someone’s office or home. That’s where I can see what matters to them, based on our surroundings.”

  “What would I see if I were sitting in your living room?”

  “My two roommates and the mess they leave,” she said with a dry laugh. “You’d do better at my office so you can see what’s on my desk. And, full disclosure, it’s not an office, but a very small cube in the middle of a maze of other cubes.”

  “I know that maze well. What’s tacked to your cube wall?”

  “A picture of me near the Eiffel Tower from a trip to Paris, a butterfly I thought was beautiful, a motivational quote, and a list of A-list types I’d like to interview for the website.”

  “Am I on it?” Suddenly, the idea that his name could be hanging on her office wall threw him a little.

  “Not that list.”

  He had to keep this on her. “Well, we’re not there, we’re here. But Bitter Bark was your home once, right?”

  She inhaled
and glanced at the restaurant. “It’s so different from when I was here. I didn’t feel that connected to Bitter Bark, North Carolina.”

  “Then why did it hurt to leave?”

  She pointed to him. “Good question.”

  “So answer it.”

  “I meant that was literally a good question. Anytime you can ask a ‘why’ question, you’ll get the best, most honest answer.”

  “And that answer would be…”

  She thought for a moment before answering. “It hurt to for a couple of reasons, including being yanked right before my junior year in high school and leaving my best friend and her amazing family, but also because I was second. Completely and utterly second.”

  “What do you mean?” At her look of incredulity, he corrected himself. “I mean, why do you say that?”

  Laughing again, she put her hand over his. “You’re so cute it hurts.”

  “Please don’t put that in your article,” he said, using his other hand to take a drink. “Explain second.”

  “I was second,” she answered, “to my sister. In everything. In every possible way.”

  “Were you jealous of her?”

  “Not of her talent, which was considerable. Or the fact that she got every extra dime and so much attention and adulation. My sister is beautiful and has, well, she had a special talent. But I didn’t envy it, no.” She started to shake her head, then stopped. “Okay, maybe a teeny tiny little bit.”

  He angled his head a little closer to hers. “So glad to hear you’re normal.”

  “Points for hitting an emotional beat,” she whispered.

  “Yes.” He made a triumphant gesture with his fist, and she cracked up.

  “Just a little beat,” she added. “Nothing major.”

  “Then tell me more until we get to a major one.”

  “What I was jealous of,” she admitted, “was how close my mother and sister were. How they were always each other’s number-one person to share anything with. I mean, it was understandable. They went away every weekend to dance competitions. Once I was old enough to stay home alone or spend the weekends at Waterford, I never went with them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they were endless hours of hell watching a million overly made-up little divas dance to the same fifteen songs, all so we could see a three-minute solo of Stephanie. And the presentation of a trophy that she always won.”

  He smiled at that, and the fact that she took his hand, maybe without realizing it, as if she wanted to touch him while she shared her story.

  “So, Mom and Steph had a zillion inside jokes and shared experiences and nicknames for the other dancers, and they always had each other’s back. Always. I wanted that, but I just didn’t have it. I wanted to be someone’s number one.”

  He curled his fingers around hers. “I get that feeling.” He’d seen it in the faces of lost dogs. In the expressions of lost people. In the mirror, sometimes.

  “For the record, Garrett, what I just revealed to you is a basic wound. When someone offers you a glimpse of a wound, you dive in.”

  He curled his lip. “That sounds cruel.”

  “Not if it’s done right,” she assured him, turning to face him more.

  “How can diving into a wound be anything but harsh? Even if you wanted to share it?”

  She nodded, encouraging him. “Exactly. The trick is to get me to do that. Be creative, be subtle, but don’t miss the opportunity. I took down a few bricks, and that’s when you…try to take down more to see the real me.”

  He searched her face, seeing the real her, no bricks. Only inviting green eyes and soft, soft lips.

  “So…number one.” He tried to focus. “You want to be someone’s number one?”

  She cringed a little. “It’s not quite that simple, and it does make me sound like, I don’t know, a husband hunter or someone equally desperate.”

  Not to him. It made her sound normal, human, and a little vulnerable, which he liked.

  “But I love my job, and I want to be number one there. That would work, you see. But I have to beat out some very formidable competition.”

  “Someone bigger and better and, what did you say, beautifuler?”

  She inched back, surprised. “You really were eavesdropping on my conversation with Lola.”

  “Not intentionally,” he assured her. “Mostly, I was trying to gather my wits to tell you to get the hell out of Dodge. But then…”

  “Lola ran after me.”

  “And you were crying.” He stroked her knuckles. “Why were you crying, Jessie?”

  She took a slow, shuddering breath. “Leaving Waterford.”

  He wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but sensed he’d just taken down one of those bricks she’d been talking about. So he should dive in, right? “Why was that so hard?”

  “It was like Camelot to me,” she whispered. “All that love. All that connection. All that family and fun and so many number ones, a person could never be lost. Neither could a dog,” she added with a laugh. “Strays are welcome at Waterford, and…I was.”

  Something stirred in his soul, a deep, primal, unexpected but so familiar feeling that he had to do something. Save someone. Hold and fix and protect and love someone.

  Oh man. He knew this feeling. Not only with a few hundred rescue dogs. But with the woman who’d scarred and changed and damaged everything. Jessie might be revealing her emotional baggage, but it was cutting deep into his.

  Why didn’t that make him run? Why didn’t that make him want to get away from her, and fast? Why did he want more?

  He realized she was looking hard at him. “Are you okay?”

  “Just…trying to think of my ‘why’ questions.” He inched closer. “Like why do I want to kiss you so much right now?”

  She gave a shaky smile. “Probably because…I do, too.”

  Still holding her gaze, he leaned into her mouth, drawn like a magnet, aching for the contact with her lips. Nothing else mattered.

  When her eyes fluttered, he closed the space and kissed her.

  His blood thrummed, tightening his chest as he flicked his tongue over her lips. That was enough to kiss her again, with even more intensity, both of them melding closer in the booth. He dropped his hand from her cheek to her shoulder, sliding down her arm, brushing his fingers over her bare thigh.

  Interviews were forgotten. Questions disappeared. The slow burn of arousal replaced everything. “I remember kissing this girl,” he whispered, separating, but only to kiss her cheek and jaw.

  “And all roads lead back to Manhunt.”

  “Not a bad destination, Jess.”

  For a long beat, they looked at each other, the tiny vein in her temple beating with the same increased rhythm of his pulse.

  Deep in his pocket, his phone vibrated and dinged softly, the sound of a call that he would most certainly ignore.

  “You going to get that?”

  “No.”

  “I think you better.”

  In other words, stop and think about this. He pulled out the phone, reacting at the name on the caller ID. “It’s Bill. The guy Marie said came into the shelter with Lola.”

  “Oh, talk to him, Garrett. Please.”

  He nodded and tapped the screen. “Hello?”

  “Hey, this is, uh, Bill. About the dog.”

  Jessie leaned closer, so he angled the phone to let her hear both sides of the conversation. “Yeah, Bill. Thanks for returning my call.”

  “Listen, I don’t want to get involved, ’cause I’m not, you know, a dog person. And I’m not a, you know, person who gets in the middle of people’s shit.”

  They shared a confused look as Garrett encouraged him to keep talking. “I understand, Bill. Anything you tell me is confidential. We’re trying to find out if she’s been lost or abandoned.”

  “Well, it’s mighty hard to say which one it was,” Bill murmured. “Maybe lost, maybe abandoned. But I never seen nothing like that in my life.”
>
  “Like what?” Garrett asked, holding Jessie’s gaze, which looked as confused as he felt.

  “I was sittin’ at a rest stop on 73 drinking coffee in my van, and this guy pulls up right in front of me, facing me, in a pickup truck with a dog in the passenger seat. He gets out and leaves both windows all the way down. I thought for air, you know, but wouldn’t you know it? That dog climbed right out and started taking off.”

  Garrett felt himself tense as he always did when someone mistreated a dog. Intentionally or not. “What happened?”

  “Well, I sat there for a second, trying to decide if I should go find the guy or chase down the dog. Then it became pretty damn obvious that dog was headed for the highway.”

  Jessie flinched, putting her knuckles to her mouth, as if she couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to Lola.

  “I ran my ass off, got the dog, who obeyed the order to stop, I should say. But it didn’t have no collar on, so it wasn’t easy to get him to go back to that truck. When I did get back in the parking lot, what do I see? That truck pulling out and hauling ass.”

  They left her behind? Jessie mouthed the question, horror in her eyes.

  “So either that guy in the truck was dumb as a rock and didn’t notice his dog was gone, or he, you know, did that on purpose.”

  Garrett closed his eyes. “Did you get a good look at the man?”

  “Nah. Had a ball cap on. I did see Rhode Island plates on the car, though. But I didn’t get the number.” He paused a second. “I knew where the North Ames shelter was ’cause I had a painting job down there, so I dropped the dog off. I’m glad it’s okay.”

  “She,” Garrett corrected. “We’ve named her Lola, and she’s fine. Thanks a lot, Bill. You did the right thing.”

  “Some people are idiots, you know?” Bill added.

  “No kidding.”

  “Thanks for the information, Bill,” Garrett said. “Appreciate it, man. You did a good thing for that dog.”

  He snorted and said goodbye.

  Jessie dropped back against the leather booth, deflated. “How could someone do that?”

  “To quote my friend Bill the painter, people are idiots, you know?”

  She shook her head. “Now what?”