“Charlie couldn’t wait for that,” Aidan said. “He was going to get out this spring…right now.”
They were both quiet for a moment, then she said, “Uncle Mike knew that, of course, and now…” She shook her head. “He seems to not want to go on.”
Aidan turned away, leaning his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together to brace for the expected wave of grief and guilt. They always came in a pair, those two. Sadness that Charlie was gone, shame that he was still very much alive.
“So are you taking over Slice of Heaven, then?” he finally asked.
She laughed without a drop of humor. “No, that isn’t what I want to do. I have a great business and a full life in Chicago, but I can’t leave my aunt and uncle high and dry. She has her hands full with him, and someone needs to make pizza and run the restaurant, or they’ll lose everything. Money’s tight, and hiring is impossible right now.”
And all that left no room for a dog. He rooted for a way to remind her of that without beating the possibility to death, but before he thought of anything, she turned around and looked back toward the street.
“Speaking of which, I better get back to work. It’s almost lunchtime, and we might actually get a customer, although I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“That place used to be wall to wall. Best pizza in the state.”
“Used to be.” She closed her eyes with a slight groan. “And Uncle Mike has the Best of Bitter Bark awards on the wall to prove it. He won twenty-four consecutive years, since the contest and festival started.”
Aidan laughed. “I think Charlie reminded me every single time we made pizza together, which was about a thousand.”
Interest glinted in her eyes. “If you picked up any secret techniques during those thousand times, I sure could use some pointers.”
He frowned, sensing she was serious, even though she’d made it sound like a joke. “Charlie always said the trick is in the hands.”
“And the water. And the temperature. And the humidity. And the whims of the pizza gods.”
“But mostly the hands.”
She held out her hands, showing very fine-boned hands with long, slender fingers. “These haven’t figured out the trick yet.”
“I can see your problem.” He took one of her hands, practically engulfing it in his much-larger, much-rougher grip. “You’re not strong enough to make pizza.”
She tugged her hand free of his. “How many times are you going to accuse me in one conversation of being weak? Can’t hold the leash, can’t roll the dough. Please.”
He cringed, realizing the mistake. “Sorry, Beck. I’m sure you’re strong in many other ways—the fact that you’re here proves that. But Charlie always said that you have to knead full strength, rolling and folding with power. It’s the only way to get the windowpane.”
She dropped her head into those slender hands. “That freaking windowpane is the bane of my existence.”
“You’re really struggling, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea. I can’t even make the damn crust in a round shape, and it always seems not to have the right…” She held her hand out and let it fall at the wrist.
“Flop,” he supplied. “Charlie taught me how to get that. Really has to do with the water ratio and how long you leave it in the oven. And the weather. Use more water in the dough mix during the hotter months.”
She eased back, stunned. “You know that?”
“I told you, he taught me everything. Now that I’m home, I swear my family is bugging me to make pizza every week.”
“Huh. Well, lucky you. I wish I knew the tricks of the trade. I mean, I know them, I just can’t seem to apply them.” She pushed up. “But I do have to get back.” She tugged the leash gently. “So, let’s go, Ruff. We’ll get you settled in your new apartment and break the news to Auntie Sarah. I’m sure she’ll be overjoyed with this turn of events.”
Damn it, he’d completely forgotten the war he was supposed to be fighting, lost in an easy conversation with a pretty girl.
“You’re taking him? Just like that?” Aidan stood, a fresh punch of heartache at the realization that Ruff was leaving now. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“He needs a bed, bowls, toys, food.” And me. He needs me.
“You didn’t bring any of that for me?”
No, because he’d lived on the false hope that this would be a fool’s errand. “I have emergency supplies in the Jeep I brought from Waterford Farm,” he said. “Only enough for a day or two at the most. And by then…” He raised his brows in warning. And hope. “You might be ready to change your mind.”
“No minds are being changed, Aidan. Sorry.”
“Okay.” He exhaled softly as they got up and started walking through the park, with Ruff content enough to lead but not pull, or do anything overtly bad, like he should be doing to help Aidan out.
Aidan dug through his artillery knowing he had to take one more shot. He knew he had the perfect weapon, but didn’t want to use it. Deathbed promises would make her eyes well up again, and he had zero desire to hurt her in this process. There had to be a better way.
“What about when you go home?” he asked. “You can’t take him to Chicago. You work and live in a high-rise, right? He’d go stir crazy. He needs a lot of exercise. Like, major amounts. All day.”
A quick laugh bubbled up, which was stinkin’ adorable and made him want to howl in the face of his obvious defeat. “Hate to break it to you, but dogs are legal in Illinois and welcome in my building. We actually have a dog run on the roof and a park that faces the lake across the street.”
Great. “But, your work? You’re a baby photographer?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied.
He grunted. “Oh man, I wouldn’t trust him with a thousand-dollar camera, and he’ll probably make your babies cry.”
“You really don’t want me to take him, do you?”
He turned to her and looked directly into her eyes, out of excuses but not too proud to beg. And maybe pull out the deathbed promise after all, since Ruff was less than five minutes from gone.
How did he tell her what Charlie said on that stretcher without breaking her heart?
“Beck, your brother made it clear in the…end…that he wanted me to have Ruff. He was still quite lucid, but he…” He swallowed, aware that those brown eyes, so much like the ones he was seeing in his memory, were locked on him, riveted to his words—hanging on each one, as a matter of fact. “He told me quite clearly that he wanted me to have Ruff. He asked if my dad would start the process of bringing him here so he could live at Waterford Farm, our family’s canine facility. I think he felt that Ruff belongs there, with me, someone who knows him well and can take care of him.”
Her eyes didn’t well up, and her gaze didn’t flicker. For all her femininity and apparent “weakness” that he shouldn’t have pointed out, there was a strength in her expression that nearly made him take a step backward.
“You think Charlie changed his mind sometime between writing a letter to make it official if something happened to him and when something did happen to him?”
He thought about that, and no real answer emerged. “Since he never told me that he promised you the dog, I don’t know. All I know is what he said that night, Beck. And all I want to do is honor his request.”
“As I do. Ruff is his legacy and his gift to me.” She looked down at the dog. “I only want to do exactly what Charlie wanted, and I’m sorry that he told you that when he…then.” She closed her eyes for a second, but when she opened them, they were clear and direct. “But I have a letter from him. It’s signed, dated, and when you read it, you’ll see that he not only wanted me to have Ruff, but the reason he took him from the rubble of that building in the first place was so that I could have the boxer I lost when my parents died.”
He stared at her, remembering Charlie’s determination, even though more than a few other soldiers had tried to tell him
that taking the dog back to base was a bad idea. He’d been hell-bent on it, and Aidan had chalked it up to Charlie being Charlie.
But he’d been hell-bent about Aidan taking Ruff, too. “If what you’re saying is true, then—”
“No if about it,” she said as she started walking with purpose toward Slice of Heaven, letting Ruff lead the way.
There was an if to him, though. A big one.
Silent, as if she sensed she’d won this round, Beck concentrated on the leash, trying like hell not to get pulled by Ruff. Then her steps slowed and stopped completely when they reached the front door of Slice of Heaven, her jaw suddenly dropping as she peered through the glass window that faced the street. “What the heck?”
Aidan followed her gaze, seeing about eight customers at tables, with two more at the counter, ordering from a frazzled-looking Sarah Leone.
“Customers!” Beck exclaimed.
“That’s good, right?”
“Not unless I make some pizza.” She yanked the front door open, and Ruff went lunging into the restaurant, barking at DEFCON 1, only a little louder than her aunt’s sudden shriek. Fighting to hold Ruff back, Beck whipped around and gave him a look of sheer desperation. “Help!”
“Give me the dog.” He managed to get the leash from her.
“Don’t you dare take him,” she warned.
So this was it? This was goodbye? With the same deft control he’d use on a Black Hawk under fire, he dipped and rolled and hovered for another approach at his target. And then he got one.
“I’ll help you,” he said, giving Ruff a harsh tug and an order to calm down. “Let’s get him upstairs and take me into the kitchen,” he said.
“In the kitchen?”
“So I can make your pizza.”
She gave that a millisecond of thought and then broke into a blinding smile. “I owe you one.”
He raised a hopeful brow.
“Not that one, but I like your tenacity, Kil.” With a sly wink and the use of a nickname only one man had used, she reminded him so much of Charlie, it took his breath away.
But he’d gained some ground, living long enough to get more time with Ruff and another chance to fly back into this skirmish with a winning strategy.
Because Night Stalkers don’t quit. And pretty Beck Spencer would have to accept that, sooner or later.
Chapter Five
Beck waved off Aunt Sarah’s howl of discontent as the dog made his way deeper into the dining room, and then she gave Aidan a solid shove into the kitchen. Inside the door, she snagged the master key ring and jingled it in the direction of the back stairs up to the apartment.
“Follow me.”
Ruff bounded up the steps ahead of her, pulling Aidan along, and as the leash got between them, Beck nearly faceplanted on the second step.
“Careful,” Aidan said, grabbing her under the arm, saving her from the fall.
“Doesn’t he ever follow directions?”
“Never. Not ever.”
She had to laugh at his continued attempts to talk her out of something she would never be talked out of. But he was cute. Wasting his time, but easy on the eyes.
In a half run, she stayed a step behind Ruff, who led the way like this was all his idea. Behind her, she heard Aidan chuckle, too, before giving another demand for Ruff to settle down, which was totally ignored.
For a second, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed, but couldn’t take time to think of it, because Aunt Sarah’s complaints and calls for assistance in the kitchen reverberated through the narrow wooden stairwell.
“I can lock him up here if you want to get started on the pizza,” she suggested.
“Not until I check it out.” Aidan looked around the small space at the top of the stairs while she flipped through the keys to find the one that opened the apartment.
“Will he be safe up here?” he asked. “Nothing he could ingest or that could hurt him in there?”
She managed to get the door open to the tiny one-bedroom, a power wave of bad memories hitting her as she did. Always the same moment flashed in her mind when she walked into this room. The week before Thanksgiving, when Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike had climbed the steps with Charlie and Beck, carrying their suitcases, trying to stay chipper, telling them about the pizza parlor down below…
This is your life now.
She shook off the ancient ache and looked around at the apartment they’d moved out of not long after that. Over time, the living area had become a bit of a storage unit, but mostly for furniture, old restaurant equipment, and a pallet of paint cans from when Uncle Mike wanted to paint the pizza parlor dining room seafoam-green, but gave up after seeing how putrid it looked on one wall. So now they covered the lone seafoam-green wall with the Best of Bitter Bark awards and hoped customers looked at those and not the hideous color.
In one corner, a stack of sealed, unused pizza boxes towered nearly to the ceiling, and the rest of the place had a few boxes of files and papers.
“We never keep food up here,” she said. “He should be fine.”
Aidan glanced around, frowning. “Define fine.”
“Unless he eats sofas or paint or…” She looked down. “Hardwood floor. I think he’s safe.”
Ruff started sniffing and exploring, pulling his leash taut, and Aidan still didn’t look satisfied. “It’s dark in here.”
She rushed to a bank of windows along the front room, dragging the heavy drapes all the way open, immediately bathing the room in light. “And he has a view of Bushrod Square,” she said with the flourish of a real estate agent working every trick she had. “It’s really a lovely apartment.”
“Water. He has to have water.”
“Of course! The kitchen functions.” She breezed to the galley kitchen and searched wildly for a dish, pulling cabinets open and snagging a plastic bowl like it was the Holy Grail.
“Here we go!” She flipped on the faucet, filled up the bowl, splashed a little in her haste, but planted it square in the middle of the living room. “Thirsty from all that barking, Ruff? Here you go, baby.”
“And that means he’ll have to pee.”
She resisted the urge to glare at the man who never gave up when it came to this dog. Maybe to anything. “He peed sixty times in the square, and we’ll take him out after we get a few pies served. Can we go now?”
“Let’s see.” He unhooked the leash and backed away from Ruff as if he half expected the dog to bolt, jump, or leap out the window.
He did none of that, but loped toward the water bowl and slurped noisily.
“See? He’s fine.”
Aidan didn’t answer, but watched him, then looked again at Aunt Sarah’s old paisley-print sofa. “Sleep there, Ruff,” he said. “Take a long afternoon snooze.”
At the word snooze, he perked up his head, barked once, and ambled to the sofa with the speed of a hundred-year-old man thinking about his nap. Come on, Ruff.
“Snooze, boy,” Aidan ordered.
Ruff climbed up, stretched out, knocked a throw pillow out of his way with his head, and let out the mother of all belches.
“Did I mention he’s disgusting?” Aidan asked.
“Nope, but you will.” She gave Aidan a good nudge toward the door. “Come on. A rush is rare. Like, unheard of. I don’t want to lose these customers.”
Aidan took one more look at Ruff, but she ushered him out the door. “He has to get used to this place. I’ll clean it out tonight, and we’ll both move in, all comfy and safe. Let’s go.”
Down the stairs, she pushed the door into the kitchen and nearly got mowed down by Aunt Sarah as she bounded in from the dining room.
“What is he—”
Beck cut her off by stepping between them, using one hand to point Aidan toward the pizza counter and the other flat in front of Sarah’s face in the kindest, clearest way she could say stop.
“He’s here to help. Isn’t that awesome?” Beck said, dialing up the brightness with a w
ide smile. “He can make actual pizza that people will eat.”
“But where’s the—”
“Upstairs, out of your way. How many people, what pies, and do you need any salads?”
Sarah’s jaw unhinged, and she pushed back a lock of hair, the lines even deeper now on her sixty-year-old face. “Four,” she finally said. “All large. Two cheese. One pepperoni. One half mushrooms, half veggie. Six salads.”
Beck gave a quick nod, calculating whether she’d made enough dough for four large pizzas. Well, she’d made it. How it tasted was anyone’s guess. “We can do that. Get them drinks.”
The second Sarah’s gaze slipped over her shoulder toward Aidan, Beck got right in her face, blocking her view. “Drinks at the fountain. Behind the pickup counter. In the dining room.” She tapped Sarah’s shoulder. “Don’t be paralyzed by the big rush of business, Aunt Sarah. It’s an answered prayer.”
With a flash of her green eyes, Sarah pivoted and got to work. On a sigh of relief, Beck turned and took that breath right back in again.
Aidan already had a Slice of Heaven apron on, his head down as he kneaded a doughball like the stuff was whipped cream made to conform to his hands. He pushed, rolled, folded, scooped some flour into his hand, and slapped that unresponsive ball of hell onto the countertop and started pushing it out to a perfect twelve-inch circle.
Wow. “How did you do that?”
He stole a glance at her, a lock of his hair brushing his eyebrow, crystal-blue eyes glinting with a whisper of arrogance. “Told you. It’s all in the hands.” Then he sniffed. “Something in the oven, Beck?”
Was there? “No, it’s been on too long. The smell goes away when we put something in it.”
“Something like this?” He lifted his hands off the dough, spread his fingers wide, and flipped the pie back and forth for full examination.
Forget the dough. Look at those hands. They were…good. Damn near as big as that pie, tanned and strong with clean, clipped nails, and enough nicks and scars to make her want to know the story behind each one. “Oh yes.”
He glanced up and gave a half smile that was almost as jolting as his hands. “Like it, do you?”