Author: Kristan Higgins

“And how about that summer romance?” Lucy asked. “You up for that?”

Parker paused. “Well, I happened to meet a very attractive lobsterman yesterday.”

“No, sir! That’s great! Do I smell a fling?”

They chatted a few minutes more; Lucy said Ethan was in the shower, so he’d call her later. And even though Parker knew she’d be talking to her son again that day, she couldn’t help feeling a little lonely as she hung up. The three of them in San Francisco, her alone in Maine. Such were the perils of joint custody.

Well. She wasn’t completely alone. She had Thing One, heaven help her. That was going to be…difficult. It wasn’t so much that he worked for her father, or even that he hadn’t warned her about the trust-fund issues, because yes, Parker could see that legally, he was stuck.

It was that—Go ahead, this is good, advised Spike—even after all these years of her father’s neglect and vague disapproval, she would’ve given a lot to have one-tenth of the affection Harry Welles offered so freely to James. Maybe James was the son he’d always wanted. Maybe James reminded Harry of his younger self. But just once, it would’ve been nice if her father had called her up and asked her to come for dinner or play a game of squash or go to one of his single-malt nights.

Stupid, that even after all these years, she still wanted her dad. Not the man Harry had become, but the man he’d once been, who’d pushed her on a swing and let her sit in his chair at Welles Financial and answer his phone.

Well. That guy had taken a bullet to the heart when she was ten years old.

“Old news, my friends,” Parker said. She started the car and glanced across the street. Gideon’s Cove Animal Shelter, the sign said. And quite unexpectedly, she found herself turning into the driveway. There was a gray-shingled house and a small outbuilding from which the sound of barking could be heard.

“Hello there!” called a young woman as Parker got out of the car. She came over, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Can I help you?” She glanced at Parker’s Rhode Island plates. “You must be Julia Harrington’s niece. Hi, I’m Beth Seymour. Sorry. Small towns. We know everyone’s business.”

“Parker Welles. Nice to meet you.”

“You looking for a pet?” Beth asked.

“No, I just stopped. I’ve never had a pet before.” Except Apollo, if you could count that thing. She wondered briefly what had happened to it. Harry probably gave it to a minion. Or ate it.

“Come on in, since you’re here,” Beth said. Crafty woman. Parker followed. She was not going to get a dog. Or a cat—Lucy had a cat, and it was always leaping onto Parker’s lap and sniffing her lips, which Parker found quite repulsive. Why she was even standing here was a mystery.

“Pets take a lot of work. I won’t lie,” Beth said, opening the door of the outbuilding. “But the love they give you…it’s worth any price.”

Nice sale line. “So what have you got here? Not that I’m really looking.” You could be! sang the Holy Rollers. Pets can fill those giant voids in people’s lives!

“Well, we try to be a no-kill shelter,” Beth said, “but times are kind of hard, and donations have been down. We have a lot of animals, sad to say, and we’re running out of room. The vet’s coming to put a couple to sleep today, actually.”

Shee-it. Parker could picture a chunk of resolve crumbling like sand. “That’s really sad.”

At the sight of their caregiver, several dogs leaped to their feet, barking joyfully. Or savagely. Parker couldn’t tell. “This girl’s going on to her great reward today.” Beth stopped in front of the first enclosure and pointed to an orange tabby cat. To Parker’s eyes, it already looked dead, its filmy eyes half-open, fur dull and uneven. “She’s twenty-one, can you believe it? Her owner died two weeks ago. At least they’ll be in heaven together.”

It’s true, the Holy Rollers confirmed.

“This girl is the other one we have to let go.” Beth knelt down in front of the next kennel. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she crooned. “Don’t be scared.”

Parker looked in. A brown-and-white dog sat in the corner, as far away from the door of her cage as she could get, trembling. Parker couldn’t see her face, but her fur was long and feathery.

“You think she knows?” Parker asked, shoving her hands in her pockets. “She looks scared.”

“No. She’s always like this. Bob Castellano—have you met him yet? No? Well, he was behind someone out on Route 119, and they pushed the dog right out the window. Didn’t even stop! Can you believe that? She had a broken leg and two broken ribs, not to mention a bunch of cuts and bruises. She’s all mended now, but no one wants her. She’s too shy.”

“Guess you can’t blame her.”

“Yeah. She’s been with us four months now.”

“Think she’d bite? Since she’s so scared?”

“I’ve never even heard her growl. She’s too afraid.” Beth stood up and sighed. “So. She’ll be put down later on, too, poor thing. But down here, we have kittens. Christy and Will Jones are taking two of them, but there are two left. And we have this very cute little pit-bull mutt—he’s an absolute sweetheart.”

Parker didn’t move. Thrown out of a moving car, huh? Unbelievable. Well, it was one of a thousand horror stories, she was sure. She couldn’t afford a pet, no matter how sad its life had been thus far. And she didn’t know anything about dogs. She liked them, often stopped to admire one here and there, but she didn’t know how to train one or take care of it.

Even if she wanted to have a dog, she had nowhere to put the thing. Parker wasn’t sure where she herself would be sleeping tonight. Most likely, the car once again.

“I’ll take her,” she said.

Fifty bucks later—really, not so much—with another fifty in dog supplies—collar, leash, shampoo, food, heartworm pills, brush—Parker went slowly into the dog’s cage. The poor thing bowed her head and looked away as if certain Parker was about to kick her.

“Hi,” Parker said, squatting down. “Want to come home with me?” The dog didn’t move, but she didn’t flinch, either, when Parker reached out and petted her neck, working her way up to the dog’s cheeks, which were as soft and plush as velvet. The dog didn’t resist, but didn’t look at her. “I won’t hurt you, sweetie,” Parker murmured. Slowly, as if picking up Nicky while he was asleep, she lifted the dog into her arms. No resistance.

“Looks like she found her forever family,” Beth said.

The Holy Rollers sighed in deep satisfaction. Spike even wiped away a tear.

“What will you name her?” Beth asked.

Parker looked down at her new best friend. Not the most attractive dog, with her drooping ears and sorrowful face. She had a bald spot behind one ear, and one of her eyes didn’t open quite as much as the other. Her head seemed too big for her body. Parker looked at Beth and smiled. “Beauty.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

JAMES WAS FILTHY and exhausted by the time Parker finally found her way back to the house. He watched as she got out of the car, then turned and lifted something out. It was a dog, some kind of spaniel mutt, maybe twenty pounds, curled into her arms. She set the animal on the ground and clipped on a leash.

“Aw. We have a dog now?” James said.

“I have a dog now,” Parker said. “Thing One, meet Beauty. Beauty, Thing One.”

“Hi, Beauty,” James said. The dog tucked her head behind Parker’s knee and peed, not even bothering to crouch, trembling, unable to even look at him.

Parker tilted her head and gave James a smile. “You have that effect on women, I guess.”

He returned her smile. “Not all women.”

Her ears started doing that sunrise thing, getting all pink, then red. Then she popped the trunk and lifted out a bag. “I bought out the hardware store. Think you could grab a few things so we could get to work?”

“Sure.”

We, huh? She walked past him, her dog scuttling along, half-crouched, as if James was about to karate-chop her on the head. Parker, on the other hand, looked pretty damn good in those jeans, all long legs and perfect ass. And how was it that she smelled good…well, okay, sure, she smelled like dog, but also a little bit like…whatever it was she smelled like. Lemons or something. Flowers. Who knew? She smelled good, dog or no dog.

Just before she got in, her cell phone rang. “Hey, Ethan!” she said, her face lighting up. “No, I talked to them a little while ago. How are you? You did? Cool! Hang on a sec, the cell-phone service out here is horrible. Let me go down to the dock. Yes, there’s a dock, and no, it’s not what you’re picturing.”

She set her bag down and went around to the front of the house, the dog slinking beside her through the long grass.

And here was the thing. It irritated him. First of all, he’d spent the past few hours shoveling garbage on her behalf, and like some little kid who’d gotten an A on his paper, he wanted to show her. Think you could grow a pair, guy? his conscience asked. Secondly, message received. The Paragon calls, the minion can wait. Not that Ethan Mirabelli was a bad guy, based on James’s interactions with him over the years…friendly, successful, great father. That was the problem.

And third…she was down on the dock, and he hadn’t checked that out yet, and who knew if it was sturdy? What if she fell in? She was standing on it, and it hadn’t sunk, but he’d been too busy getting the water turned back on and clearing out her room to get to it.

She was laughing now. She sat on the dock cross-legged, looking every bit the upper-crust, beautiful, graceful woman she was. Oh, a little hair toss. Too bad the Paragon wasn’t able to see it.

“You’re an idiot,” James told himself. He went back inside—plenty more crap to shovel—and got to work.

But he checked on her every thirty seconds or so, just to make sure she hadn’t fallen in.

* * *

WHEN SHE HUNG UP with Ethan, Parker felt considerably cheered. The fact that he’d called made her feel less out of the loop. One thing to check in with your kid a couple times a day, another to have Ethan call her just to say hi. Maybe Lucy had told him she’d sounded lonely—and she’d tried not to, honest—or maybe, and more likely, Eth was a prince.

For about five minutes last summer, when Lucy had decided that she should marry some guy who wasn’t related to her dead husband, Ethan and Parker had thought about trying to be more than friends and parents of the same kid. After all, they laughed at the same jokes. They were both attractive. Once upon a time, they’d gotten it on with satisfactory physical results and a beautiful child. They were both single. Why not, right?

But whatever chemistry had once been between them had faded, and one kiss was enough to make them each rub their mouths with the backs of their hands. “You gave me cooties,” Ethan had said, and they’d ended up baking brownies and playing Scrabble.

It was too bad, in a way, because Ethan was pretty damn perfect. If he could clone himself and excise the part that had loved Lucy since he was nineteen years old, she was pretty sure he could be the One.

“What do you think, Beauty?” Parker asked. The dog had followed her without protest, James being the more obvious threat, but she wouldn’t make eye contact. Slowly, Parker put her hand out and stroked the dog’s cheek with one finger. So soft. “Good girl,” Parker said. “Good girl, Beauty.” The dog sidled closer to her, and a strange, sweet feeling filled Parker’s chest. She’d like to find the person who’d thrown her dog out of a moving vehicle and kick him in the nuts. Wearing her sharpest Jimmy Choo heels.