Double Dog Dare

  He had to admit, he had no idea.

  “What did she look like?” he asked.

  “Long, dark hair. Maybe twentysomething. Pretty, but I couldn’t help her, not that I would have,” he added quickly.

  That sounded an awful lot like Savannah.

  Which meant he had to protect Stella. Even if he had to hide her somewhere for the duration of her treatment, he had to keep that dog long enough for this procedure to succeed. He didn’t care how many rules he had to break.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Darcy curled in the corner on a beanbag chair, one of the few things Cilla Forsythe had left behind when she moved out of her travel agency office. Midafternoon sun poured in from the wide front window that looked out down a side street, with a corner of Bushrod Square visible. On her lap, Kookie snored contentedly, and on the floor, Josh had about fifteen pages of rudimentary sketches spread out.

  He worked—hard—when he didn’t want to deal with a problem, Darcy decided. It was his escape mechanism. Since they’d left the apartment building and set up camp here, he talked very little about the fact that Savannah must have come looking for her dog. He merely dove headfirst into the idea of building out a grooming salon in this space without taking a break except for lunch.

  And as much as Darcy wanted to concentrate on his great ideas, she couldn’t help playing various Savannah scenarios in her head.

  “So, here’s the reception area,” Josh said, flipping a page for her to view. “And if you want, we can put a glass panel there so your customers can see their dogs in the blow-dry area, or whatever you call it.”

  “Styling and finishing.” Darcy gnawed her lower lip. “What if she comes back in the middle of the night?”

  Josh’s shoulders moved with another sigh as he looked up. “I’ll handle her.”

  “She does have a right to her dog. And we don’t know how ‘legal’ that paper was, since your mother said that lawyer will do anything they pay him to do.”

  “It’s legal enough.”

  “But would Savannah actually deny Stella a chance to get her sight back? Is she that awful?”

  Back to the paper and pencil, he didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he did.

  “We have to figure out how to keep her from getting Stella for a few weeks,” Darcy said. “Dr. Walker said this could be over in a month, even less.”

  He nodded slowly. “Are you sure you only want one sink?”

  She pushed off the beanbag chair to land on the floor next to him. “Joshua Ranier.” She screwed up her face. “What’s your middle name?”

  “Caleb.”

  “Joshua Caleb? Someone liked the Old Testament.”

  “My dad.”

  “Joshua Caleb Ranier,” she finished her original thought, getting his attention. “You can’t ignore the problem of Savannah. We have to figure this out.”

  His dark eyes grew pained. “Every time I realize how little I knew about her, it’s like I’m gut-punched again. I thought I loved her.”

  “But did you know it?” she asked.

  “I…” He considered the question. “How do you know if you really love someone?”

  “Beats me, but my mother always said she knew. Big believer in love at first sight, if not first few sights, and obviously my dad believes that, too.”

  “Was theirs love at first sight?”

  She couldn’t tell if the question was another deflection technique, but she humored him and answered. “So they say, although I’m sure that since almost forty years have passed, the meeting has been romanticized. Dad was dating another woman, and she and he decided to set up two friends on a double date.”

  “The setting-up thing started early, I see.”

  She laughed. “I never thought about that, but yes. Only, that time, it was the Dogfather himself who got hit by Cupid’s arrow. He says he walked into the bar where Annie Harper was waiting to meet Dad’s friend and was thunderstruck from the moment he laid eyes on her.”

  “He didn’t know her before?”

  She shook her head. “She was a friend of Katie, his girlfriend at the time. By the end of the night, he decided he was in love, and to hear my mom tell the story, the same happened to her.” She smiled. “They retold it on their anniversary every year, which was always celebrated with the kids.”

  “How’d your mom’s friend take the news?” he asked. “Must have been a kick in the heart.”

  She gave him a sympathetic smile, appreciating that he saw the romance from the jilted woman’s point of view. “Dad says he told her right away and they broke up. Whoever the guy was didn’t care, since Dad and Mom obviously hit it off. By week’s end, he and Mom were ‘an item’—their words, not mine. They got married young, too.” She raised a brow. “Well under nine months from the day Liam was born.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head, scanning her face. “Your family is a freaking thing of beauty, you know that? Does anyone ever go off the deep end or argue or make unforgivable mistakes or try to ruin one of the others?”

  “No,” she said. “And I know Gideon has been awful to you, and you have bad blood. But is it possible you’re painting the whole family with a broad brushstroke? Even your mother? Malcolm and Brea didn’t seem so terrible. People mellow with age, Josh, and change.”

  He shot her a look. “You’re determined to make me like them.”

  “Or try to see them in a positive light.” Suddenly, her eyes widened as an idea hit. “Why don’t we stay at Waterford Farm? We can move in with the dogs, and Savannah will never find us there. My dad would…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Not do anything to aid and abet dognappers,” he finished.

  She made a face. “You’re probably right about that. In fact, if he knew Savannah was here and wanted Stella, he’d say we’d have to tell her where she is. Are you sure?”

  “That she’d stop the procedure? I have no idea. I don’t know her at all.”

  “No, no. I mean are you sure it was her? Maybe the lady who lives in the downstairs came up or the Realtor?”

  “Mrs. Crane is a nice older woman, but no one Bill would describe as ‘pretty,’ and she wouldn’t try to get into your apartment. On the off chance it was the real estate agent, I texted her and she said she hasn’t been near the building since she toured it with you, and she hasn’t sent anyone there since there are no units ready to rent.”

  And Darcy had checked with Molly and Ella, not offering explanations, but confirming they hadn’t been over to see her. No one else knew her new address yet. “If Savannah wanted Stella back, why wouldn’t she call you? Or return your ten messages?” she asked.

  He eased back, thinking. “From the first, her phone clicked into voice mail without ringing. I don’t know if she got them. She doesn’t have read receipts on her phone, so I don’t know if she read the texts I’ve sent. She might have cut herself off or lost her phone for all I know.”

  “It could have been anyone, though,” Darcy said. “Someone one of the workers accidentally let in who lives across the courtyard. Kookie can be annoying as hell when she goes on a barking rant.”

  He nodded, looking at the papers but, she suspected, not seeing his rudimentary drawings.

  “The fact is we don’t know it was Savannah, Josh, and we need to find out.”

  “Which is why we’re going to stay and see if she comes back, but we won’t let her get Stella.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “Stella can stay at your place. If she knocks and the dogs bark, you hide Stella and tell her that was your dog she heard and that I am out of town and took Stella with me.”

  She played it out in her mind, then held up her knuckles for a tap. “Good plan, HL.”

  “Except, what if she comes to my apartment first, and I’m there?” he asked.

  She couldn’t resist a saucy smile. “Then stay with me.”

  He grinned right back. “Good plan, Miss K. But what if she stakes out the building and sees us l
eaving with the dogs?”

  “Uh, hide them in bags? Oldest dog trick in the book.”

  He started to smile, then chuckle, then threw his head back and let out a laugh that came from deep inside his impressive chest.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I never…” It took him a few seconds to stop laughing. “I never break rules, Darcy Kilcannon.” He stopped for a second. “Wait. What’s your middle name?”

  “Colleen, after my aunt we talked to when we got here, the one who’s next door running Bone Appetit.”

  “Darcy Colleen Kilcannon.”

  The way he said her whole, full name did something wild to her body, making nerves ping and adrenaline splash and blood rush to her heart to make it pound. “Yes?”

  “You make me break rules.”

  “Nope. Stella does.”

  He shook his head. “You make me trust you,” he said. “And that is a cardinal rule I swore I’d never break.”

  She attempted to swallow, but her mouth was dry and her throat tight with emotion. “We’re even, then.”

  “You trust me?”

  “I’m…” She glanced at the paper on the floor. “Not doing a damn thing alone like I wanted to.”

  “Alone…” He put his hand on her cheek, angling her head, preparing for a kiss. “Is highly overrated.”

  “It is when together feels this good,” she whispered.

  He closed the space and kissed her, softly and sweetly and with so much promise she could have cried. His fingers coasted over her cheek, while his tongue coaxed her mouth open so she could taste more of him.

  Heat curled through her, settling low in her belly, plucking at her, torturing her, making her want—

  A tap at the window made Darcy jump, fast and hard. She whipped around, half expecting the evil glare of a “young brunette,” so it was nothing but relief to see a familiar young brunette with her face pressed against the glass, unabashedly staring at them. Then howling in laughter.

  “Oh Lord. That’s my cousin,” she said, pushing up to unlock the door that she shouldn’t have locked but had because…Savannah. As she opened the latch, she realized Ella had never met—

  “Hot Landlord?” she guessed, pointing at him.

  Josh chuckled and stood up to greet her. “Crazy cousin?”

  And like that, the ice was broken as the real introductions were done and Ella seized the sketches with her usual infectious enthusiasm and boundless drama.

  “This is astounding!” She practically whirled around, waving papers, pointing at this imaginary station and that soon-to-be kennel bank. “You are a godsend!”

  “I don’t know about that,” Josh said. “But I’m happy to help. I love projects like this, and I can do it all myself.”

  Ella raised her eyebrows in Darcy’s direction. “Hot and handy.”

  Darcy gave a smug look. “I can pick ’em.”

  “Well, I’m thrilled you can help, Josh, because the sooner she opens this business, the sooner we’ll be sharing customers.” Ella set the page down and slid an arm around Darcy. “What’s going on? Your text was cryptic.”

  No surprise that even without words, Ella could read through her lines. “Well, we’re in the middle of this…” The words trailed off, sounding silly even as she said them, but Josh put his hand on her shoulder.

  “You can tell her, Darce. I know you tell her everything.”

  She looked up at him, touched that he understood and even more touched that he trusted Ella simply because he knew she did. “We’ve got a problem,” she admitted. “And it might require us to commit dognapping.”

  Ella’s eyes widened.

  Josh let Darcy tell the whole story, including why Savannah might be in hiding, but left out the fact that she’d slept with Josh’s stepbrother. Of course she’d share that later, but not with him here. Anyway, leaving the dog with no way to get in touch with her told Ella all she needed to know about Savannah.

  “There’s no question you’re doing the right thing,” Ella announced when Darcy finished. “The dog needs a chance, and you’re not hurting her, or doing anything but the kindest, most humane thing. What are you worried about?”

  “That she’d take her away and end the procedure,” Darcy said. “And who knows? Maybe she’d try and sue us or wreck this business or Josh’s. She’s kind of a loose cannon.”

  Josh snorted. “Darcy loves a good understatement.”

  “I know, right?” Ella laughed, obviously delighted that he knew Darcy that well. “Well, if I can help you, I will. Leave the dog with me at the store if you need to, or at my house. I’m fully behind dognapping for the blind.” She gave Darcy a quick hug and reached for Josh, but he held up a hand and snagged his phone to read a text.

  “We can pick up Stella,” he said with a breath of relief. “She’s doing great.”

  They all hugged, then, a group thing with Josh’s big arms around both women and a couple of kisses on cheeks. Darcy leaned back and looked from one to the other, a sudden, unexpected, and shocking wave of emotion rolling over her. Longing, joy, wonder, hope, and…something that felt an awful lot like surrender.

  She wanted both of them to be in her life. To care for each other. To matter.

  Oh God. If she fell in love with Joshua Caleb Ranier, would she be giving up her independence? She didn’t know, but right then, she longed to find out.

  * * *

  Josh didn’t want to leave. He’d settled on the sofa in Darcy’s living room with one dog on each side of him after they’d finished dinner, cleaned up, and split the last of a bottle of wine. It was getting late, and all he needed to do was push up, say good night, and leave her alone.

  But he couldn’t move.

  Darcy knelt in front of the coffee table, a tablet open to pages of grooming salon ideas, her long hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, any bits of makeup she’d had on earlier in the day smudged off by now.

  He guessed it was natural that comparisons to Savannah would rise up in his head and heart. One woman painted her face as if it were an art form; the other probably never wore false eyelashes in her life. One preferred high-end restaurants and late-night clubbing; the other threw some chicken in a pan, popped open a mediocre bottle of wine, and made no apologies for changing into flannel shorts and an oversized T-shirt that said Jurassic Bark with a cartoon dinosaur dog. One had lied, cheated, stolen, and God knew what else. And this one?

  She was a flipping angel.

  So, yeah, comparisons were rising up, and all they did was make him want even more to not move.

  Darcy turned the tablet from one side to the other, cocking her head to consider whatever she was looking at. “I swore I wasn’t going to do this.”

  “Work on the salon ideas all night?” Because he really could use a little more than dog company on this couch.

  “Fall into the pit of pink.” She lowered the tablet and looked at him. “I want to outgrow it, you know? The grooming studio at Waterford is pink.”

  “There is a lot of pink in your life.” He tapped the sofa, which was probably not “pure” pink, but he didn’t know what else to call it. Peach? Raspberry? Something fruity.

  “But I get to start fresh at the salon. And what am I drawn to?” She turned the tablet, and he squinted at something that looked, well, pink. “Could you die?”

  He laughed and fought a yawn. “Die,” he repeated.

  “Too late. You’re already dead on your feet.”

  “Technically, I’m on your pink sofa.”

  “That’s mauve and I really wanted to do the salon in blues. But I love pink. I can’t deny who I am.”

  He chuckled. “Why mess with perfection?”

  She beamed up at him. And he fought another unwanted yawn, making her laugh. “Look, you’re wiped out. We both are. You go. I’ll get the girls into bed.”

  He chuckled at the statement, which sounded so familiar and parental. “They’re happy where they are,” he said, patting both furry white b
odies. “And so am I.”

  “Then stay.” The words popped out fast, simple, eager. “Didn’t we decide that was the right thing to do in case Savannah comes a-knockin’?”

  “We did, but…”

  Getting up on her knees, she semicrawled across the space between them, then settled down in front of him. “It would be fun.”

  “Fun?” He grinned, and she laughed. “Yes, Your Majesty, Queen of the Understatement. It would be fun.” He leaned closer. “It would also be…” Dangerous. Intimate. A massive step away from friends with or without dogs.

  As each second ticked by and he didn’t finish the sentence, she inched closer, little by little.

  “Nice,” he finally said.

  She smiled. “Speaking of understatements.”

  “Really nice.”

  “Mmm.” She propped her elbow on his knee. “That’s all you got?”

  He leaned all the way over, getting his face right in front of hers. “What do you want me to say, Darcy? That I want to spend the night with you more than I know how to express? That once I get in bed with you, I won’t want to stop or leave or sleep anywhere else? That I know that making love is going to change everything, and when I kiss you I don’t care?”

  He saw tiny goose bumps lift the little blond hairs on her arms and her throat move as she tried to swallow, silent.

  “If you can handle all of that, and you want it as much as I do, then I’ll stay. And fun’s going to take on a whole new meaning.”

  Her mouth opened to a sweet little o, but nothing came out.

  “Too much?” he asked.

  “Could you just…” She breathed the words.

  “Wait?”

  “Just…” She pressed her hand on his knee, the muscles in her arms straining as if she was fighting the need to slide her hand up his thigh. He watched her knuckles turn white, felt her pulse hammer against him, heard the hitch in her next breath. “Hold me?”

  He looked at her, not trusting his response, because his first answer was, No. He couldn’t just hold her. What did she think he was made of?