Chapter Four
“Ruff! Ruff, stop!” Aidan didn’t hesitate, taking off after Ruff and leaving Beck Spencer and her bad news behind.
He managed not to run into a single pedestrian as he tore down the sidewalk along Ambrose Avenue, zooming into the square twenty feet behind Ruff. As they passed the brick-columned entrance, Ruff took a two-second break to get his bearings and pant. Aidan launched at him, snagging the end of the leash.
“Nice work, dude,” he whispered. “Good thinking in the face of enemy fire.”
Ruff dropped down to his haunches and stared up at Aidan like he was shocked that his bad behavior had gotten such a loving response. Assuming he was in trouble, he let out his high-pitched Ruff whine of remorse, which Aidan knew would last thirty seconds, tops.
He really was a poorly trained dog, and the sooner Beck Spencer knew that, the better his chances of getting her to change her mind. So, yeah, maybe he’d held the leash a tad too loosely.
Now, he wrapped the strap around his wrist a few times and seized the looped end with a solid grip.
Turning toward the entrance to the square, he wasn’t surprised to see Beck striding toward them, her gaze locked on Ruff with intention and, yeah, something that he supposed was happiness. He noticed only now that over jeans and a T-shirt, she wore a red apron tied around a narrow frame. Narrow, but a hell of a lot more filled out than when she was fourteen, he couldn’t help noticing.
“Does he do that often?” she asked as she reached him.
“Yes,” he said vehemently. “All the time. You really may want to reconsider your—”
“I’m not going to reconsider anything.” She bent over to get closer to Ruff. “Neither are you, my friend.”
Ruff barked in her face, which only made her laugh. It was a sound he might have found incredibly endearing under any other circumstances.
Damn it all. She wanted Ruff.
As she looked up at him, Aidan stared into milk-chocolate-colored eyes, opened wide under messy bangs that brushed the tops of her brows. The rest of her long brown hair flopped over a shoulder in a sloppy ponytail that looked like it might fall apart at any moment.
And he almost fell over again.
Holy hell, she looked like Charlie. A pretty, delicate, finer version, with a wider mouth and a dusting of freckles on a feminine nose and a…was that flour on her sculpted cheekbone?
Well, that really looked like Charlie. If he hadn’t been sitting in the cockpit of a UH-60 or cracking up his comrades-in-arms with endless bad jokes, he’d been proofing dough in the DFAC kitchen so he could treat the entire team to world-class pizza.
His gaze dropped to the apron and the Slice of Heaven logo on her chest, reminding him that he and his dog—his dog—couldn’t have been less welcome at that pizza parlor.
“Are you sure?” Something told him he was grasping at straws, but right now, he’d grasp at air to keep this dog. “’Cause your aunt—”
“My aunt isn’t making this decision. I am.” She crouched down in front of the dog. “I still can’t believe he found a boxer who looks like this and named him Ruff.”
“Yeah, well, he took a whole lot of grief for the total lack of creativity, but he insisted.”
“He didn’t tell you why?”
“He said it sounded like his bark and because he plays rough.”
Her eyes twinkled, making them spark with a secret. “Exactly the reasons I named our dog Ruff, too.”
“You and Charlie had a dog named Ruff?” How could he not have known that? “He never mentioned that.”
She shrugged, her fingers finding the flop of his ears, which made Ruff bark and give a hard full-body shake to get rid of this new offense. “Charlie was so excited when he called me from Kabul. Said it was a miracle. Like my Ruff was reincarnated.” She tried to pet him again. “And he was.”
“Wow.” Why the hell wouldn’t Charlie tell him that? They had been side by side going through that shell of a bombed-out hospital the day Charlie found this dog curled up in a closet. “He never mentioned any of that to me.”
She straightened and eyed him closely, as if this were the first time she’d really noticed him. “It was between us,” she said. “Brother and sister memories. And thanks for bringing him.” She looked at Ruff, and he could have sworn her eyes misted over. “I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
“No, it wasn’t. A huge pain. Multiple international parties involved, volunteers, money, airfare, and a few twisted arms, all to get Ruff home…” To me.
“Thank you.” She gave a brief smile and shifted her attention to the dog, who was sniffing some grass with clear intent to pee on it, and when he did, she smiled as if it was the cutest thing she’d ever seen.
Not good. Not good at all.
But Night Stalkers don’t quit. Aidan took a breath and mentally regrouped.
“Maybe when Charlie suggested the possibility of you taking him, it was before we realized just what a, you know, difficult dog he is.”
She flicked her hand as if that idea was a flea on Ruff’s fur. Then her eyes tapered to slits as she looked harder at him, her gaze moving over his unshaven face and unkempt hair. “You mustn’t be home on leave, unless they’re letting you guys grow your hair longer than military regulations.”
“I’m out,” he said simply. And he’d started growing his hair after Christmas, when he decided not to re-up when he hit ten years a few months later.
“Oh.” She did a terrible job of hiding how much that surprised her. “I thought you were career Army.”
He’d thought so, too. He wasn’t sure how to answer that, except with the truth. “The job wasn’t much fun without Charlie.”
Her shoulders dropped, and they both stood still for an awkward beat, but then Ruff pulled the leash, attracted to the bushes and grass of a place where dozens of dogs visited each day. Aidan went along with him and glanced at Beck in invitation.
He didn’t need to issue one, though. Her gaze was locked on Ruff as she followed, a mix of wonder and joy and disbelief on her pretty features.
After a moment, she reached for the leash. “May I?”
“You really need to be strong to walk him.” He glanced at her arms, exposed in a short-sleeved T-shirt, noticing they were toned but slender, like the rest of her. “I don’t know if you can manage him easily.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Are you serious? If I could handle a full-grown boxer at eleven, I can do it at twenty-eight.”
He lifted his brows to show his doubt, but untwirled the strap and handed the looped end to her, his fingers brushing soft, feminine skin as she took it.
Everything about her was feminine, to be honest. Although the family resemblance to her brother was strong, she was smaller, sweeter, and a helluva lot prettier. And she wanted his dog, which took away some of that pretty and put her on the wrong side of this battle.
“Oh!” She startled as Ruff yanked and tried to go forward, grabbing the arm Aidan offered as she nearly stumbled.
“Told you.”
“I got it.” Although she didn’t sound so sure. “I can manage him.”
He waited a beat, then his curiosity got the best of him, still unable to believe Charlie wouldn’t share a piece of history after he’d found and kept Ruff. “So you and Charlie had a boxer named Ruff when you were little?”
“Technically, Ruff was mine. My parents got him as a rescue for my tenth birthday.”
“What happened to that Ruff?”
“My aunt…” She shook her head. “We couldn’t bring him here when we moved, and our next-door neighbors adopted him.”
“Oh, got it.” Sarah might have just become his best and strongest ally. “She was not happy to see Ruff.”
“She was bitten as a kid,” she said. “I can’t fault her for that fear, but I don’t need to have them in the same room together.”
But she would be at the pizza parlor all day, right? He sneaked another peek at the flour on her face and the apron, remembering Dad said she was working to help them out. Full time, he hoped. “Don’t you have to work?”
“I do.” She made a face and glanced over her shoulder in the general direction of Slice of Heaven. “I should go back soon.”
“Okay. Then I’ll keep Ruff for as long as you need to think about it. Longer.”
“There’s no thinking involved.” She brushed some hair off her face and shot him a sideways glance. “But I’m getting the impression you’re not keen on my having him.”
Maybe it was time to change tactics and tug the heartstrings. “We got real close in Afghanistan, Ruff and me. Especially in the last few months…after Charlie died.” He pulled back, not wanting to tug so hard he hurt her. “I’m really sorry for your loss, Beck.”
She nodded. “We both lost.”
He appreciated her acknowledging that. “Ruff has been a real solace to me, honestly.”
This time when she looked up at him, he could see the anguish in her sweet features. “I know you were close to Charlie, Aidan. I know you two were inseparable, and I resented you for that. I shouldn’t have, since he loved being around you.”
“So why did you resent that?”
“I guess because you swooped in ten minutes after we landed in Bitter Bark and stole Charlie from me when I needed a brother more than I needed anything in the world.”
He tried to remember when Beck and Charlie had shown up in town as orphans whose parents had died in a car crash. He and Charlie had rarely discussed that, frankly. But then, they were guys. Guys who faced death every single day, so they didn’t spend their spare time talking about it when they didn’t have to. Maybe that was why he’d never mentioned having a boxer named Ruff.
“I didn’t exactly kidnap him,” he said, remembering the early days of his friendship with Charlie when the new kid arrived at school after Christmas break his sophomore year. The minute Aidan found out he’d played baseball at his old school, he’d taken Charlie straight to Coach Bergh and gotten him signed up for tryouts for the spring season.
From that moment on, Charlie and Aidan had been close friends on and off the field.
“You had him playing baseball or at your house or riding around chasing girls or whatever you two did, anywhere but home.”
And they were all good times. Where had Beck been during those years? A child, to him. He couldn’t remember anything more than a casual, Hey, Beck, is Charlie here? when he stood at the front door of that two-story house in a cookie-cutter development called Pine Woods Grove.
“Then you dragged him off to the ROTC,” she added, yanking him from the past.
Dragged him? “He wanted to enlist and skip college,” Aidan reminded her. “I’m the one who convinced him to go to Wake Forest and get a degree. He never wanted to do anything but the military.”
She didn’t answer as they walked Ruff from one tree to the next. Occasionally, Aidan stole another glance at Rebecca Spencer. It was impossible not to notice she was not a child anymore. She moved with grace, like a dancer, her skin luminescent in the sunlight, her messy hair silky, her body feminine with the right amount of curves under that apron.
And then he remembered why he was there. Not to be tempted.
Time to find a new front in this battle and quit looking at hers. “So where are you living in Bitter Bark?”
“With my aunt and uncle now.”
Perfect. “Your aunt is not going to like this dog in her house.”
“Oh, she won’t let him in.”
“Then I can—”
“I’ve already figured this out.” She cut him off. “I’ll move to the apartment above the pizza parlor. Then I can visit him when I have a break and take him out when he needs to go. Easy-peasy.”
For her, not him. And not Ruff.
“Won’t that disappoint your aunt? Doesn’t she like having you live with her?”
She smiled as if to say, Nice try, and let him know she was totally on to him. Didn’t care. Night Stalkers don’t quit, they find a new way to win.
“I think she’d be fine if I moved up there,” she replied. “I never really expected to stay this long, but things are worse than I thought.”
Ruff finally found a spot of sun-washed grass, and they headed to a bench near it.
“I heard your uncle had a stroke. I’m sorry,” Aidan said as they sat down.
“Yeah, he did.” She held up a finger in warning. “And don’t you dare use that as an excuse to keep my dog, too.”
Actually, for once, he wasn’t. “I like Mike. He’s a good man, and I’m sorry he’s struggling.”
She nodded in full agreement. “And that’s why I came to help.”
“How bad was the stroke?”
“Not awful, but bad enough.” Easing back on the park bench, she twirled the leash off her wrist and rubbed it where the strap had chafed a bit. “But it hit him hard mentally. He’s sullen and doesn’t talk much. He certainly doesn’t work. He’s in bed like he’s ninety, not sixty. He’s got some mild paralysis, but it could be treated and overcome with good physical therapy. He won’t do that, so he can’t make pizza.” She choked softly and looked skyward. “And neither can I, but I’m trying to help them hold Slice together.”
“Wow, that place is like an extension of him,” Aidan mused. “I don’t think I ever walked in the door that Uncle Mike wasn’t in the back pounding dough and stirring sauce.”
“He’s owned it for thirty years,” she said on a sigh. “And he’d always expected Charlie to take over when he got out of the Army.”
“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.