Hound Dog & Bean (26 page)

H.D. staggered back. “Girl!”

She was even wearing big pretty earrings with hoops and hanging green gemstones.

“What?” she asked. Sarah Jane gave a happy bark at her feet.

“Is this what love does to you?”

She put a hand on an ample hip. “What’s love got to do with it? I got meetings today with important people.”

“Sure.” He placed a matching hand on his much narrower hip. “Like that ever stopped you from wearing granny suits before.”

“I swear to God, Hound Dog, I will rip those dreadlocks off your head!”

“What’s going on out there?” called Dean from the other room.

Sarah started her happy dance and began to bark. It was a cheerful sound, loud for her size but not shrill. She was terribly excited.

She knows
, thought H.D.
She knows something is about to happen
.

“I’ll go sit down and then you take her off the leash, okay?” he asked Elaine. It was then he noticed Sarah Jane was wearing a rainbow leash and matching collar. He grinned.

“What?” Elaine asked with a toss of her head. “I thought it was appropriate.”

“Love you, Elaine.”

She smiled. “You too, shnookums.”

“Okay. Now wait here….” He almost ran to the other room but realized that would just make Sarah run after him. So instead he walked quietly and slowly—backward for most of the way. Sarah Jane watched attentively and with much interest, tail lashing at a speed that threatened to break the sound barrier.

H.D. went into the living room where Dean sat on one end of the couch. He wagged his eyebrows at him and sat down at the other end.

Dean crossed his arms and settled back. “You’re really excited about this. What kind of dog is she?”

“You’ll see. Now let Elaine know we’re ready. If I call, Sarah Jane will just run to me.”

Dean sat up. “Okay. Elaine! We’re ready in here.”

Seconds later Sarah Jane, all red and brown with shades of black and silver and so hairy she looked like an oversized caterpillar, came dashing in the room. She stopped about five feet from both men and began her little dance, her whole body shaking along with her tail. She ran to H.D., trembled with excitement, and gave her human friend two quick nods. Then she turned, leapt onto the couch, and flung herself onto her back in Dean’s lap.

Dean let out a cry of delight and immediately began to rub her little bare belly. “Oh my God, look at you! Oh! Oh! Oh! Just
look
at you!”

H.D. broke into laughter. “She sure knew who to suck up to, didn’t she?”

Sarah Jane began to squirm in delight and looked up at Dean with utter joy. Her floppy ears fell out over his knees and her little feet waved in the air.

For some reason, H.D. felt a ridiculous twinge of jealousy.

“Oh, Hill!” Dean exclaimed. “Oh, what is she?”

“She’s perfect for you, is what she is.” He smiled, the jealousy gone with Dean’s delight. This was what it was all about. “What did you say you wanted? Huh?”

Dean, acting like a child, was bent down making kissing noises and was without delay rewarded with licks from Sarah Jane’s near anteater-length tongue.

“I said I wanted a Yorkie or a dachshund,” he said, and then to H.D.’s astonishment, his voice morphed into baby talk. “But that doesn’t matter now does it, wittle girl? That doesn’t matter at all.” He moved his face back and forth, and Sarah Jane continued to lick him.

“Well, that’s exactly what Sarah Jane is,” Elaine said, stepping into the room. “She’s a Yorkshire terrier and dachshund mix.” She looked around the room. “Nice place, by the way.”

Dean was too busy burying his face in his new dog’s chest, rubbing her belly with his beard, to respond. Sarah Jane’s legs were moving about and her head was tossing to and fro as she tried to kiss him.

“A match made in heaven,” said Elaine.

H.D. nodded happily.

She stepped behind H.D., bent over, and brushing his hair aside, whispered in his ear. “For all three of you, maybe?”

H.D. didn’t know about that. But he did know one thing. At this moment he was the happiest he’d been in a long time.

“Bean? I have the adoption paperwork if you want to fill it out and sign it. That is, if I can break you lovebirds up long enough.”

Dean looked up, beard messed up, and asked her to bring it on.

Elaine sat between them, and when Dean seemed disinclined to release Sarah Jane long enough to take Elaine’s clipboard and pen, she began to fill in the information for him, asking questions when she needed to. H.D. watched all this with glee. He’d been falling in love with Sarah Jane but didn’t know if he could really take care of her the way she deserved. Now he knew she had a good home. Dean had proven that last night.

“I can see now both the dachshund and the Yorkie in her,” Dean was saying when he wasn’t answering questions. “Why just wook at these fwoppy dachshund ears! And this tail! And her pointy face!”

If H.D. hadn’t been so in love, he would have thrown up.

“But this fur! It is pure Yorkie. She looks like a dachshund wearing a Yorkie costume, doesn’t she?” Dean nuzzled her belly again. “Are you wearing a Yorkie coat, little Miss Sarah? Are you?”

Sarah Jane gave a bark of pure joy and began to shake. Her tail was lashing back and forth, and H.D. didn’t know how she wasn’t emasculating Dean.

“You look like a wittle water bug doing that, you know that, little woman?”

She contorted herself so she could kiss him again.

“Just like a wittle water bug.”

Elaine looked at H.D. and mock stuck a finger in her throat. H.D. batted her hand away and she rolled her eyes.

“Can you stop long enough to sign here?” Elaine asked, turning back to Dean.

He sighed and acknowledged that yes, he
could
do that, and signed here and there and wherever else she indicated.

When Dean was done, she began to fold things up and put them in the leather briefcase she’d brought along.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked.

“
Niente
,” she replied and stood up.

“What?” Dean’s eyes went wide.

“That’s Italian for ‘nothing,’” she answered. “We probably owe you a year from now. As a matter-of-fact, we owe you almost two hundred dollars.”

Dean shook his head. “No. You don’t. That was for the dogs.”

“Exactly,” she said, staring down at him with what H.D. knew as her don’t-argue-with-me face. In her new outfit, it was even more impressive than usual. She reached up and brushed her hair behind her ear. “And
this
is for you, Mr. Alexander. It is the least I can do for you
and
Miss Sarah Jane Alexander. I am doing this for her just as much as I am for you. She needs a good home, and she is obviously going to get that here with you.”

“You don’t mind that I’ll be at work all day?”

Elaine shook her head. “I look around and see she will have a good home, and as long as you don’t leave her outside all day, I think she is going to be really happy.”

Dean stood up, picking up his new charge as he did, and held her against his chest. Sarah Jane tucked her head under his chin, and H.D.’s eyes watered at the sight. This was what it was all for.

One dog at a time.

Elaine turned to H.D. “You ready, chief?”

“Sure,” he said, even though he wasn’t. He didn’t want to leave Sarah Jane. No, he admitted to himself. He didn’t want to leave Dean. “I guess I’ll be seeing you,” he said casually as he too rose to his feet.

“Tonight?” Dean asked.

Tonight? God. Three nights in a row? H.D. started to shake his head and found he couldn’t. Damn. He did want to see Dean again, but that could be starting all kinds of trouble….

“For Sarah Jane?” Dean asked, and his big brown eyes were full of pleading. “I’m a stranger. You could help her make the transition to my place, you know?” H.D. had seen that expression on men’s faces before, and it was one that had always sent H.D. running. But today?

“Well…,” he said. “I guess. For the tiny little woman….”

“Oh for goodness sake,” sighed Elaine. “I’ve got to get into work. We have new dogs that need attention in case you’ve forgotten. I should have gone in early. You coming or not?”

H.D. sighed. “Yeah, I’m coming,” he said reluctantly. He nodded his head and narrowed his eyes at her, and then, thank God, she got the message.

“I’ll be waiting in the car.”

When she left, H.D. stepped up to Dean and kissed his sexy bearded cheek. Sarah Jane, seeing the opportunity to lick someone else, began to kiss H.D.’s face.

Dean pulled H.D. close and kissed him on the mouth and Sarah Jane moaned at being thwarted. “I will see
you
tonight.”

H.D. found he was smiling. “Tonight,” he said and followed Elaine out the door.

S
O
BEGAN
the courtship of Hound Dog and Bean.

At least
Bean
knew that was the beginning. Who knew when it occurred to H.D.? Most times he seemed to be oblivious to what was going on between them. It was a shame in some ways, Bean thought. But maybe it was perfect. There was a lot Bean didn’t know about the man he wished to claim as lover, and what he did know pointed to the fact that he would have to have a lot of patience if he wanted Hill in his life.

Boy, how had
that
happened?

It hadn’t been that long ago that he would get annoyed—even pissed off—at Mara telling him how much he needed a boyfriend. How many times had he told her he was just fine and didn’t need anyone? It hadn’t been that long ago that he would get annoyed—even pissed off—at his mother setting him up on a date. How long had his mother been driving him crazy with her constant questions about whether he had met anyone or not? The night with Sloan hadn’t been the first of her blind dates by any means. And look how that evening had ended!

“Well, don’t get me wrong, Dean, but… you’re not really my
type.”

At first Sloan’s comment had been ironic. Bean had been trying to tell Sloan that he wasn’t interested in dating him. He should have been relieved he didn’t have to hurt the man’s feelings. But then, for some reason, Sloan’s rejection had wound up stinging Bean a bit.

Why wasn’t I his type?
Bean had wondered.
What’s wrong with me?

How silly was that?

Male ego, that’s what it was
.

Perhaps. Probably.

The evening had ended with promises to be friends. Sloan had said he would be needing a friend, what with his mother dying. But since that night they hadn’t talked once. Not once. And with every day that passed, days that turned into weeks, it got easier and easier
not
to call.

Especially with the waltz he was doing with H.D. The carefully choreographed dance of getting close, but not too close, and to never make a misstep.

But it was that night when Sarah Jane first came to stay that he would always think of as the beginning of Hound Dog and Bean.

He and H.D. had been curled on the couch watching one of Bean’s favorite movies,
Love! Valor! Compassion!
, and when it was over he had turned to H.D. and asked him if he was ready to go to bed.

Sarah sat up immediately, her eyes suddenly alert. She’d been snuggled between them and at the mention of the word “bed,” her floppy little dachshund ears had stood up on end.

“I didn’t know dachshunds could do that,” Bean said. Perhaps it was the Yorkie in her?

As he and H.D. untangled themselves, Sarah Jane leapt to the floor and ran full tilt for the back door and began barking.

“A teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, little lady must need to go potty,” said H.D.

Potty?
Funny that a man like H.D. didn’t say “take a piss.” Maybe it was because he really thought of her as a lady?

So Bean let her out and while he filled a glass with ice water—he always took one to bed—the little lady did her business and then barked to be let in. No sooner had he opened the door when she shot through the house and headed up the stairs, her nails and collar making clinking and jangling sounds as she hopped her little body with its little legs up each step. Bean and H.D. watched as she went her bouncing way and as soon as she reached the top, she ran right into the first room she came to—the bathroom.

As the two men climbed the stairs, they saw her come peeling out of the bathroom, ears bouncing, and then veer off to the left and into the next room—Bean’s study. Whatever she was looking for wasn’t in there. She came zooming out of the room just as they reached the top of the stairs, and then she darted down the hall and into the next room. They were laughing, astonished at her actions, and actually heard her land on the bed as they went into the room.

She was looking for my bedroom!
Bean realized.

He flicked on the ceiling light and there she was, in the middle of the bed, already beginning her doggy ritual of turning first this way and then that, revolving in little circles, making her nest.

“Who says you get to sleep in our bed?” asked H.D.

Our bed
, thought Bean.
Hill actually said, “our bed.”
His heart skipped at least two beats.

Sarah Jane stopped her little ritual and looked at them and barked three times with great deliberation.

Bean laughed. “Okay. Okay! You can sleep here tonight. But you get the foot of the bed. H.D. and I are going to be using the middle!”

Sarah Jane seemed to ignore them until they climbed in and practically rolled on top of her. She took a clue and moved herself to where she had been regulated with good grace and curled up and went to sleep in minutes.

Bean and H.D., however, had other things to do.

E
LAINE
THOUGHT
she was being helpful when she stopped by The Shepherd’s Bean one morning and asked for a moment of Bean’s time. After having him get her some coffee, of course.

“Sure,” said Bean. “I can talk. What can I help you with? Got some more dogs that need rescuing?”