More, Please (5 page)

I bought a strip of townhomes that were
in foreclosure when I moved here, and am fixing them up one by one. I love the
work. I love taking something that has been neglected and turning it into
something that shines. If I stick around after I sell these ones, I might do it
again. Sadly, there are plenty of foreclosures in our area these days.

“Sorry. Been meaning to, but I’ve been a
bit chained to my desk now that Dad’s unable to take the lead on projects.”

My point exactly, I want to say. But I
don’t. I know Ryan enjoys his work to some degree, but I also know there is a trace
of resentment toward me for not stepping up to bat when Dad wanted me in his
company years ago.

“Just think about it,” he finishes, rising
from the wicker chair and stretching his back as he gazes at the sunset.

I see the way he looks at the stand of trees
leading up to the creek as he stretches, and it saddens me. I never pictured Ryan
taking over for Dad. Not Ryan, who liked backpacking and hiking and rock
climbing. Looking back at the two of us as we were growing up, I’m a little
surprised that he wasn’t the one who ended up a Navy SEAL rather than me.

But he has a responsible streak in him a
mile long. And I’m damn grateful our family has him. “I will think about it. Promise.”
And I will. After the townhomes are renovated and sold, I might be looking for
another challenge to fill my time.

I’m clueless, though, how a mission-driven
guy like me would thrive at JLS Heartland.

Nodding and giving my shoulder a pat, he
walks back into the house. The silence of the night somehow bothers me—it
always has since my last year in the SEALs—as though I’m waiting for a
firefight to erupt or an IED to explode beneath me. My heart picks up its pace,
and my throat feels like it’s closing.

I know it isn’t. This, I can control now.

I suck in a deep breath, reminding myself
that oxygen is not scarce and look back down at my phone to distract myself. I
start tapping out a message:

“Alexandra, I’m writing to follow up
about Kosmo since I haven’t heard from you. I’m still interested in him and
know that I could provide a good home for him. I would appreciate it if you
would contact me ASAP to conduct the house check you mentioned.”

I gaze out at the final rays of sun as
they disappear behind the trees in the distance, remembering the image of the
refreshing woman that I shared dinner with. She had that kind of sweetness that
guys like me eat up. Such a stark contrast to how she was the next morning.

Coming from a band of three brothers, the
intricacies of the female mind continue to evade me.

“I’m not sure what happened between the
time you departed that Friday evening and the following Saturday morning that
caused you to detest me…”

I pause, and delete the word “detest.”

“…dislike me. However, it is imperative
that Kosmo receives the medical care he needs and I can provide this without
further delay.”

That’s right. Guilt her.

Through the open windows, I hear the
laughter of my niece inside as she plays
Go Fish
with my brothers. My
heart feels its usual tug.

“
Regardless, I would like to offer to
pay for any medical expenses Kosmo has, and would like to discuss with you and
his vet scheduling the surgery he needs.”

I close with my contact information, and
hold myself back from adding my advice that she seek psychiatric help for her
obvious multiple personality issues. After all, now is the time to focus on Kosmo.

- LOGAN -

I had expected a reply. I hadn’t expected
it so quickly.

Within an hour of sending my email, she
asked if she could do the house check tomorrow during the day sometime. She was
surprisingly polite, and apologetic for not being able to do it after normal
work hours, but she works most nights.

So now it’s closing in on 10 a.m. and I’m
rushing to finish painting this wall in the townhome that adjoins to mine
before she arrives. I hate leaving a wall half-painted. My team is in the third
townhome over, knocking down the wall between the kitchen and the living room, just
as they had in this one last week. The noise is overwhelming, and I’m really
worried she’ll tell me that my house is too chaotic for a dog like Kosmo to
recover from surgery. I plan on putting the heavy work on pause during that
time anyway, but I just don’t want anything to trigger this woman into going
Ice Queen on me again.

The windows are open, and I’m surprised
to hear a car pull up in front of my home ten minutes early. Leaning over to
peek out the window, my hand slips and I end up with a thick, giant streak of
beige paint on my blue shirt.

Dammit.
Way to make an impression
.

I open the door before she even is able
to ring the bell next door. “Hi.”

Glancing at the number on the door, she
looks confused. “Oh. I thought you had written that you were in #1.”

“I am.” I step outside and move to my own
door, swinging it open. “I’m just working on #2 and 3 now. I bought this row of
townhomes and am renovating them.”

“Oh,” she says noncommittally and adds,
“Wow,” when she steps into my living room.

I have to admit, my house looks great. I
bought most of the furniture and art pieces at Maeve’s direction when I moved
to Annapolis for my last tour with the Navy. There’s nothing that looks
“bachelor pad” here and that suits me fine.

“This is really beautiful,” she says, her
eyes darting around the room.

“Well, don’t be too impressed. My friend
Maeve is an interior designer.”

“She’s talented. Does she live in
Newton’s Creek?”

I suppress a laugh, trying to imagine
Maeve in a small Midwestern town like this one. “No, she’s in Annapolis, Maryland.”

Her hand strokes the supple leather of
the couch and I notice she seems to be appreciating the woodwork I installed. There’s
dentil molding along the ceiling and built-in bookshelves around the fireplace.
I love books and I like to show them off.

She walks toward them. “You must read a
lot.”

“I try. I’ve only read half of these
though.”

“You could get an e-reader and not have
to store all these,” she says, making me grimace. I like e-readers—don’t
get me wrong. When I was deployed, it was the only way I could read as much as
I liked since I couldn’t fill my rucksack with books. But given the choice, I
just prefer the weight of a good, heavy book in my hands.

“I guess,” I reply. “But then what would
I put on my bookshelves?”

She nods, her eyes wandering to the huge smear
of paint on my chest.

I glance down apologetically. “Sorry. I
was painting next door,” I say.

Her eyes are still on my chest, but she
seems to be staring at my pecs more than the paint. She bites her bottom lip
awkwardly. “So, Kosmo is in the car. Shall I bring him in?” she asks,
fluttering her lashes nervously as her eyes meet mine.

“Of course. I was expecting you to.”

“Yeah. I just have learned to always take
a quick peek at a house first. Sometimes applicants don’t tell me about other
dogs that might not get along with ours. Or once a house I visited had a
definite hoarder situation going on. And another time there was a guy who
greeted me at the door wearing nothing but a thong. I mean, who wants to expose
a nice dog to that?” she finishes, stifling a laugh, and I swear her eyes
glance down at my groin momentarily.

This woman completely baffles me. I’m
getting the same vibe I did from her that night at dinner, the one that tells
me she’s attracted to me. But I’m still waiting for her head to start spinning
as she mutates into the woman who stared daggers at me the morning after.

She heads toward the door, but stops
abruptly at a framed photograph of my team and me before my final mission with
the SEALs. It’s signed by all my SEAL brothers.

“What’s this?” Her voice is faint and I
can barely hear it over the circular saw two doors down.

“Just a photo of my team.”

Taking two steps closer to it, she almost
looks pale suddenly, and I’m clueless why. I’m a little freaked out by the
expression on her face right now. She’s eyeing my picture in a way I can’t even
define.

That photo means a lot to me and if she
does something weird like sending it crashing to the floor, I’ll be pretty
pissed off.

“And that’s you. Second from the right,”
she notices.

“Yeah.”

She touches her fingers to her lips. “You
were a SEAL.”

My eyebrows arch. I’m positive that I
told her that when we had dinner. “Yeah. We talked about that. Remember?”

“But your application said you’re a
construction manager.”

“Um, yeah. I separated from the military last
year. Got a little too banged up for it.” I’m vague like I always am. If pressed
for details, I tell people about my shoulder injury because it usually shuts
them up. It’s really no one’s business that I came back from my last couple missions
with moderate PTSD, as defined by the docs. I’m doing much better. And somehow
talking about having it now just doesn’t seem right to me since most the guys I
know who have it are a lot worse off than me.

“Oh, no,” she says quietly, her lower lip
inexplicably quivering. “I really owe you an apology.”

“Why?”

“I assumed that you had been lying about
being a SEAL just to—um…”

“Get laid,” I finish for her. I toss my
head back and laugh. “So is that why you suddenly disappeared that night?”

“No. I didn’t think that till the morning
after when I saw your application and some other job listed as your occupation.
And then when you said your name wasn’t really Logan…”

“It is,” I interrupt, trying hard to hold
back a smile. “I only fill out forms with my legal name though. A habit from ten
years in the military.”

“Yeah, I get that now.” She sighs,
looking humiliated. “But you did tell me you were from San Diego.”

 “If I recall correctly, you asked
me where home was. I only moved back here temporarily for some family reasons. If
you had asked me where I lived, I would have said right here.” I shake my head.
“Look, I’m sorry if I wasn’t specific enough for you. Maybe I should have made
things clearer. But I don’t lie to women.”

That is the God’s truth. Lies are like
unexploded ordnance. You don’t know when they’ll blow up in your face, but they
will.

“I’m really sorry,” she says.

I touch her shoulder impulsively. I can’t
resist because she really looks defeated and I hate it when people look that
way. “Not a problem.”

“I’ll get Kosmo.” She walks out my door
without even looking me in the eyes.

It’s really not the big deal she thinks
it is. It’s not like she poured gasoline on my truck and lit a match. She just
acted a little bitchy one morning.

Hell, my last girlfriend treated me like
that once a month when she’d get PMS, and I wasn’t mad at her about it.

I step to the open doorway and see Kosmo
bound out of the car. He’s big and burly and full of personality, I can tell
already. I love how dogs just barrel through life. I’ve seen it before. They
don’t let things get to them much.

Got a heart valve problem? Oh well. Where’s
my toy?

Missing leg? No prob! Let’s play anyway.

Blind in both eyes? So what. Got a bone
for me?

I try to keep that attitude. It was hard
when I was told that my time with the SEALs had come to an end. No one wants to
hear that. But I just try to barrel through, same as Kosmo.

When they step in the house, I sit on the
ground as Alexandra unhooks his leash, and let him sniff and lick me anywhere
he wants. He immediately shows interest in the thick streak of wet paint on my
shirt. Instinctively, I strip my shirt off quickly. “Hey, no, buddy. I don’t
need you licking paint off me the first time we meet.” I ball up my shirt and
toss it to the side. His fur is thicker than most Labs and I wonder if there’s
some husky or collie in him.

“Want to see your house?” I ask him. I
know it’s presumptuous to assume she’ll let me have him. But at this point,
I’ll do anything for this mutt.

~ ALLIE ~

Please put your shirt back on. The sight
of your body will ruin other men for me.

I want to say it. I want to beg it. But I
also want to just give one poke to that tantalizing V at the edge of his abs
just to see what it feels like. His jeans are low on his hips, just low enough
that I can see every precious ripple of muscle on his torso. What does a guy
have to do to get a body like that?

“Be right back,” he says and he bounds up
the stairs, presumably to his bedroom to get a new shirt. Kosmo follows him.

I want to follow him, too.

Not a minute passes and he’s in front of
me again, covered up in a t-shirt that only turns my temperature down a degree
or two. Truth is, he looks almost as sexy in that shirt as he did half-naked.
Almost.

I follow him through the house as he gives
me a tour. He opens the fridge when we’re in the kitchen and asks me if I want
a soda. I nod, wishing I could pour the cold liquid over my body right now.

There’s a box of dog treats on the
counter that he says he picked up this morning, and he asks if it’s all right
for Kosmo to have one. I tell him yes, feeling a warmth settle into me as he
sits on the ground and hands Kosmo the treat. Kosmo nuzzles him, looking for
another and Logan wraps his thick arms around him in a hug.

I could cry right now. I could honest-to-God
cry as I see these two together. It’s like they were meant for each other, and I
had nearly stood in their way.

Of course, I had intended to do a house
check on him all along. I just let his application fall to the bottom of the
bunch. After all, just because I thought he was a lying prick didn’t mean he
might not be a good pet owner. And like Cass was quick to point out, just about
everyone lies when they are hanging out in hotel bars. Even
I
had dipped
my toe in the water of deceit when I told him my name was Alexandra. It just
sounds sexier than Allie, though no one uses my full name except for
telemarketers.

But he hadn’t been lying. He is a SEAL. Or
was, specifically. And trying to remember what exactly he had told me that
night, I’m willing to bet he never said he
currently
is a SEAL. Honestly,
looking at him during dinner I was so damn focused on how gorgeous he was, the
conversation had gone pretty much like this:

“Blah, blah, blah, Logan, blah, blah,
blah, Navy SEAL, blah, blah, blah, blah, San Diego, blah, blah, blah, blah,
Check, please!”

He shows us the upstairs next and my
heart skips two or three beats as we step into the master bedroom.

He smacks the top of his king size
mattress to urge Kosmo up onto it. Is it wrong to envy a dog? If he’d make the
same gesture for me, I’d probably launch myself onto the mattress, too.

“So, is this where he’ll sleep?” I ask.

“Yep, unless you think someplace else is
better.”

“It’s perfect.” Some dogs do better in
crates at night, but definitely not this one. And I have to admit, I’m partial
to letting a dog sleep with me at night. After all, it’s the only company I get
in the sack these days.

I doubt Logan can say the same.

“And I’m thinking I’ll keep a water bowl
upstairs in the bathroom here, and one downstairs. Your website said he gets a
little more tired than other dogs right now, right?”

“Mmhm. But if the surgery is successful,
that should change.” I step into the master bath in the direction he’s
pointing, and my jaw drops. It’s as big as my bedroom, and the tile work makes
me feel like I’m in some boutique hotel in New York City. There are double
sinks, a stand up shower, and a huge soaking tub. With the image of him
shirtless still etched in my brain, I can’t resist imagining him in that tub. And
since it’s big enough for two, my own likeness creeps into the fantasy. Of
course, in my imagination, the ten extra pounds on my thighs and butt have
miraculously relocated to my breasts.

I clear my throat. “Was this part of the
renovation you were talking about?”

“Yes. I had to strip this place pretty
much down to the studs. And I stole some of the space from the bedroom on the
other side of this wall to make the bathroom bigger. Like it?”

“Love it,” I reply without hesitation. I’ve
never met anyone who’s done a big project like this.

I step back into his bedroom where Kosmo
is making himself at home on the four-poster bed. The room is definitively
masculine with its dark wood and a leather recliner facing a television along
the back wall. Another two bookcases stand on either side of a picture window. Glancing
outside, I notice a fence around his yard—perfect for a dog like Kosmo. Just
outside the fence, I see a rocky portion of Newton’s Creek, the picturesque
stream that gave its name to our town. The view is lovely, and I can picture
Logan dropping a fishing rod into the water there with Kosmo at his side.

“You have a big yard for a townhome,” I tell
him.

“Let me show you it,” he says, backing
out of the room. “Since it’s an end unit, I decided I’d fence off the side yard,
too.”

We walk down to the kitchen and he swings
open the back door. Kosmo darts into the green space, sniffing and exploring. He’s
in heaven right now.

“He seems pretty happy here,” Logan notices.

“He does,” I agree.

He turns to me, suddenly looking serious.
“Listen, I need to ask you something important.”

I immediately brace myself. I knew this
was too good to be true.

“How is he with kids?” he asks.

I expel the breath I was holding. I’m not
sure what I was expecting, but when a man you barely know offers to cover a dog’s
$4,000 surgery, it’s natural to think there might be some strings attached.

“You have kids?”

“No. But I have a seven-year-old niece
who I spend a lot of time with when she’s staying with her dad. I’d need a dog
to get along with her.” He pauses. “I’ll pay his medical bills regardless,
though. I just don’t want her getting attached to a dog that might not get
along with her. Life doles out enough rejection as it is.”

I’m impressed that he even thinks on that
level. So many people don’t see the big picture when it comes to adopting a
dog. It’s not all cuddles and long walks and games of fetch. “He plays all the
time with my friend’s four-year-old,” I say, remembering how patient Kosmo was
when Kim’s son yanked his tail. “I mean, you really need to be cautious with
any dog, and especially when he’s recovering from surgery he might be crabby. But
I haven’t seen anything that would make me hesitate in letting you adopt him.”

“So you’ll let me?” He looks hopeful.

“Yes.” I feel a little lump in my throat
at the thought of handing Kosmo over to someone else. I always feel this way,
though. “And it’s written in the contract that you’ll sign that if for any
reason you can’t provide a home for him, you have to give him back to us.”

“Absolutely. So what happens now? Do you
just leave him here?”

I almost agree to. I feel that certain Kosmo
is exactly where he belongs. “Um, no. I actually have to check your references
first. I usually do those after house checks because it sometimes takes a while
to track people down, and half the time I get stood up for house checks, anyway.”

“Really?”

“Yep. But anyway, that will give you time
to buy the things you’ll need. I’ll give you a list and the brand of foods and
treats he’s been eating. I’d stick to what he’s used to, at least for a while. And
his medicine—” I begin, hesitating only briefly. “You’ll need to stock up
on his heart meds because he can’t go a day without them. I have about a week’s
worth that I can give you. They’re, um, pretty expensive,” I warn him, ready to
watch him bail.

“It’s not a problem.” He says it without hesitation,
and I can’t help but wonder how much this guy’s banking as a construction
manager. After buying a row of townhomes and putting all this work into them, I
can’t imagine he’s got a lot of other projects right now. But I won’t look a
gift horse in the mouth.

“I can drop him off later this week, if
that’s okay. I’d really like to do it before Friday evening, if possible.” I
wouldn’t ordinarily tell him why, but for some reason I’m compelled to. “The
shelter euthanizes dogs then and since I’ll have an extra space available in my
home, I’d really like to pick up another dog who has run out of time.”

His eyes are still fixed on Kosmo as he
plays in the yard, but his expression changes. “Jesus,” he says quietly. “Yeah,
I’ll buy everything I need tonight and be ready for him as soon as you want to
bring him over.”

“Great, thanks.” I slap my hand to my
thigh, and Kosmo charges to my side. “Well, I don’t want to take up any more of
your time today. I should probably get going.”

He nods, heading back into the house, and
I fight disappointment because I really don’t want to go.

“Thanks for coming by, Alexandra.”

“Allie,” I say, hooking Kosmo back up to
his leash. “Most people really just call me Allie.”

“Really? You look more like an Alexandra
to me.”

I stare at him silently a moment. He
probably doesn’t know I am taking that as a compliment, but I am. When I look
in the mirror, I don’t see anyone as exotic or dramatic as an Alexandra staring
back at me. I like the idea that he might see something different.

He walks me out the front door and up to
the side of my car.

Bending over, he gives Kosmo a final pet
and kisses him on the top of his head. That’s one lucky dog, I’m thinking.

“See you soon, boy,” he says, opening up
the car door. I hope he doesn’t notice that my car smells like a kennel.

Walking over to my side of the car, he
asks, “So why did you leave?”

I’m caught off guard. Maybe it’s the
proximity to him that’s causing it, but my brain seems to be short-circuiting
as he gallantly opens my door for me. “Hmm?”

“That night at the hotel. If it wasn’t
because you thought I was lying about being a SEAL, then why did you disappear
on me?”

Sighing, I sit in my car wishing I could
come up with a good way of spinning the truth. “I just chickened out. That’s…
not like me. You know, following a guy up to his hotel room. I’ve never done
that before.”

He smiles. “Technically, you still
haven’t. You didn’t make it over the threshold.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“No need to be sorry. I just wish you had
told me. I’d never push a woman into something she’s not comfortable with.”

This guy is too good to be true. I’m
tempted to throw myself at him again like I did in that elevator, but I’m sure
that train has left the station. After all, I haven’t really made the best
impression on him.

No need to humiliate myself further with
this man.

“Well, I’m sorry, just the same.” He’ll
never know how sorry. The mere sight of Logan does more for my sex drive than
the best vibrator I sell.

As he shuts my car door for me, Kosmo sticks
his head over the seat and licks my ear. Wish Logan would do that, but I can’t
be too sad about it.

After all, Kosmo’s getting a home and the
surgery he needs, and I’ll be saving another dog this week.

Life is lonely. But life is good.