Chapter Seven
Foster was on shelter pickup duty again.
Because he was a caring older brother, he was even going early. Madison said they always needed people to walk the dogs, get them used to leashes, and give them some exercise. He could use a good, long walk. It had been a stressful first week of work and he needed time away from the office—and the librarian—to clear his head so he could head into next week ready to fight.
For his client. Not fight the librarian.
Why would he even fight the librarian?
Just because he kind of liked arguing with her.
Even though she wouldn’t agree to order those journals he needed.
And, fine, he’d pulled one of the junior associates away from document review to look up a few things and it turned out, Becky was right, he didn’t need all those specific journals all the time.
He didn’t like being wrong.
He needed a walk.
Or a run. Maybe there was a dog who’d want to run. He could go for that kind of dog, actually. Maybe he’d be open to adopting a running dog, if it seemed like the kind of dog Madison could take care of when he went back to New York. And it’d make Madison happy. So that felt like a win-win.
His phone rang and he pressed the button on his steering wheel to pick up the call with Bluetooth.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Don’t forget to pick up your sister today, sweetheart.”
“I’m on the way now.”
“What? No! She’s not done until five. If you pick her up early, she’ll miss out on community service hours and then—”
“Mom. Relax. I told her I’d come early to help out.”
“Don’t they have people to do that?”
“Yes. And today I’m going to be one of those people.”
“You always were so generous with your time.”
He was? He didn’t remember being very volunteer-oriented. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something that wasn’t for work or for socializing.
Well, he’d had vigorous sex with Becky.
But that was a week ago and was clearly never to be repeated. Which was fine.
“What are your plans for this evening?”
Oh, right. He was talking to his mother.
“Nothing. I was going to see if Madison wanted to check out a movie or something.”
“Oh, good. Yes, keep her out of the house.”
“You’re not having positive communication?”
“We are, if you mean she responds with the bare minimum of grunts when I ask her a question. Honestly. I understand it’s hard to be a teenager, but that’s no excuse to lose one’s manners.”
“OK, Mom.”
“And I spoke to Mrs. Collins, who said the Kendalls are going out of town, and last time that happened, well . . .”
“Well what?”
“Honestly, Foster. That was the night Madison went to the party and those awful children pressured her to drink.”
“Was that how it happened?” Knowing Madison, Foster was pretty sure the truth was a little different from the way his mother saw it. And, most likely, from the way Madison told it.
“Anyway, take good care of her tonight. Oh, speaking of Mrs. Collins, you know who’s back in town?”
“Mr. Collins?”
“Francesca! I told her that you were in town working on a big case and she seemed very excited. I’ll text you her number—you can take her out.”
“Uh.” He remembered Franny Collins. She was a year or two younger than he, and she was always hanging around the events his mother dragged him to. And for a while there, she was always showing up at his lacrosse games. Then . . .
“Didn’t she get married?” In fact, Foster was pretty sure he was at the wedding.
“Oh, that’s all old news. The husband was hugely unacceptable. We never wish heartache on our children, but Mrs. Collins is so relieved.”
“Well, I’m gonna be pretty busy with this case.” He was sure Franny Collins was a perfectly lovely person. He just had no interest in rediscovering that. “You know how it is.” He tried applying some of his mother’s patented guilt trip. Because she did know; she was married to a lawyer who worked even crazier hours than Foster did and who never had time for anything but work.
“All work and no play, Foster.”
“I’m playing, Mom. I’m going to walk some dogs right now, in fact.”
“Well, if you have time to walk wild shelter dogs, you have time to take Francesca Collins out to dinner.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“How about if I call her and set up . . .”
“Gotta go, Mom. I’m here. See you when I drop Madison off later.”
“But just one—”
He shouldn’t have done it; he knew that. But he did anyway. He hung up on his mother.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, one date with Franny Collins. He really wasn’t doing anything else. He definitely wasn’t dating a librarian.
Not that he wouldn’t date a librarian. It wasn’t like Becky worked for him, specifically. It just seemed . . . complicated. Whenever anyone dated in the office, it got complicated. Even if the relationship worked out, even if it ended in marriage—which didn’t always mean it worked out, just that it reached its inevitable conclusion—there was still too much potential for complication. He didn’t want complicated.
There was no ethical reason why he couldn’t date her. It wasn’t like she reported to him. He hated those guys who preyed on the legal secretaries and junior associates. This wouldn’t be that. They weren’t equals, exactly. Just . . . coworkers. In different departments. He could go weeks without seeing her around the office, potentially. If he wanted to avoid her, he totally could.
And she could totally avoid him. Which was what she had been doing. No, that was reading too much into it. Their paths just hadn’t crossed. True, he’d been to the library quite a few times in the past few days, way more than he ever usually needed to go. He just wanted to make his requests in person. While he got to know people. Even though it was way more convenient for them to get the requests by email, apparently. It was just that whenever he went to the library, Becky wasn’t there.
Not that he was going to see her.
Jesus, sooner or later he was going to have to admit he’d been rejected.
But that hurt his ego. And it was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and who knew when it would be this sunny and warm again? So there was no reason for him to have to face anything, at least until Monday. And on Monday he could avoid the library, which shouldn’t be hard because, as Becky had so helpfully pointed out, he could send one of the juniors to the library for him. Or contact the library electronically. Or he could just go in when Becky wasn’t there, which was apparently whenever he was, so that shouldn’t be hard.
Or he could quit mooning over a woman who, despite their mind-blowing connection, wasn’t interested in him.
He parked next to a little blue compact car and dropped his head onto the steering wheel. He had to get it together. He had moved back home to win a career-making case and to make sure Madison didn’t totally embrace a life of crime. He hadn’t moved here for romantic complications. And right now, a date with Franny Collins felt a hell of a lot less complicated than whatever he was doing with Becky.
Before he gave in to the crazy urge to call Franny—because there was no way that would be uncomplicated—he reminded himself that he was here to pick up his sister from her court-ordered community service and take her to dinner, where he could give her a stern talking-to about listening to their mother and maybe getting better grades. Which would go over great. Because when he was a teenager, he definitely listened to Lydia and focused on nothing but school and being a good son.
Ha. Still, his kind of trouble was harmless. And virtually any bad thing he did that caused him to get in trouble with any sort of authority was always in pursuit of a girl.
He always got the girl.
Unless the girl was Becky.
Pull it together, Foster, he told himself, not that he would listen.
He got out of the car and went to find his baby sister.
* * *
“See? He’s an asshole. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Becky chewed on her lower lip and shifted her camera bag. Dakota was right. It seemed Dakota was always right, at least when it came to men.
Well, most men. She did notice Bullhorn was hanging around a lot.
Not that Bullhorn wasn’t a perfectly nice guy. And he seemed totally smitten with Dakota. Becky would have been worried for the poor guy if she hadn’t seen Dakota sneaking looks at him when he wasn’t watching.
They’d just waved him off for a walk with three retriever mixes, bonded siblings who’d come in together and, hopefully, would leave together. Becky would shoot them later today, if Bullhorn didn’t get them too muddy.
The wait between photo shoots gave Becky just enough time to tell Dakota that, yes, Foster was Deke the Lumberjack, and no, there was no way that was happening. In addition to being a lawyer (no) and a genius (heck no), he was also a pompous jerk, which didn’t necessarily go with the lawyer and the genius part, but it sure wasn’t helping break down any stereotypes.
He did look good in his suits, though.
And she knew he looked good out of them.
But he looked different without the beard. He definitely didn’t look bad—it was practically a crime to cover up that jaw—but he didn’t look like Deke. He looked like Foster, Deke’s less-rugged, jerkier twin brother.
Oh, that was a thought. What if Foster really had a secret twin brother? And they were separated at birth? And Becky would go out one night and see that gorgeous face with that delicious beard and it would be . . .
“Hello! Earth to Becky!”
Dakota’s amused shout woke Becky out of her fantasy. And good thing—secret twins? She was spending way too much time . . . well, she didn’t know what she was spending way too much time doing. Thinking about Foster, probably.
For example, the guy who was standing in the doorway to the shelter looked just like him.
She blinked.
Nope, that was Foster.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a voice that sounded more angry than politely surprised.
“Becky?” he said, and he sounded pissed, too.
Dakota cleared her throat. “Hi. Deke, right?” Becky rolled her eyes. Dakota knew very well that it wasn’t Deke, and the gleam in Dakota’s eyes told Becky she knew it.
“Actually, it’s Foster.”
“Oh, didn’t you introduce yourself as Deke at the bar?” Dakota’s face was pure innocence.
Becky wanted to vomit.
Foster rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I already apologized to Becky.”
“Oh, I don’t think you have anything to apologize to Becky about.”
Becky didn’t think she’d ever seen a man blush before. It made her want to take out her camera and shoot.
Yes, she reminded herself. She wanted to shoot Foster.
Or punch him.
Or at least just stop running into him.
That would make it so much easier to ignore him and his smell. If he just wouldn’t be here, she wouldn’t be tempted to lean into him and inhale along the pulse in his neck. Then she wouldn’t have to remember how much she liked that, and how much that made him shiver and how that made him—
“Becky!”
“Huh?” Not thinking about that at all, she reminded herself.
“Foster was just explaining that he’s here to pick up his sister.”
“Sister?”
“Yeah. She told me she was working with a photographer named Becky. Is that you?”
“No, it’s our other photographer named Becky,” Dakota said, not that either of them was paying attention.
“Maddie’s your sister?”
“I thought you were a librarian?”
“And I thought Maddie was working until five today,” Dakota interrupted.
“Oh, she is,” Foster explained. “I came here to walk dogs.”
“Oh, you just missed Bullhorn.”
“Bullhorn is here walking dogs?”
“He started volunteering. He’s very helpful.”
“Is Franny Collins here, too?”
“Is that a dog?”
“Never mind. So, Becky. Wow. A librarian and a photographer.”
“I know, it’s like a person can have different facets to her personality or something.” For example, Foster was an attentive and athletic lover and he was also a condescending asshole.
“Is Madison around? I’d like to tell her I’m here.”
To get your stupid big-brother points. Gah, she couldn’t believe this was the older brother Maddie was all gaga about.
“She’s in the puppy room,” Dakota said. “I’ll go get her.”
“I’ll come with you,” Becky said.
Foster followed, uninvited.
She was going to turn around and tell Foster that he didn’t need to follow her around, that they were perfectly capable of finding Maddie without him, but when she got to the puppy room, she forgot all about Foster.
Maddie was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor with poor old Starr cradled in her arms. And Maddie was further damaging Starr’s fur by crying into it.
“What’s wrong?” Foster pushed past them and got down on the floor next to his sister.
“Th-th-this is Starr,” Maddie hiccupped.
“OK,” he said, pushing her bangs out of her face. “Hi, Starr.”
“I love her.”
“Oh. Wow. Um. Is Starr a dog?”
“Sweetie,” Dakota interrupted, “you’re not supposed to take the dogs out of their cages without an employee in here.”
“But Starr looked so sad and scared back there, and then when I picked her up, she stopped shaking and cuddled right into me and I love her.”
Foster looked at Becky, panicked. But Becky could do nothing to help him. She loved Starr, too. Dirty little ball of mats that she was.
Fortunately, Dakota, who was right about everything, was there.
“I know you do,” she said, gently peeling Starr out of Maddie’s arms. Starr gave a panicked wiggle and Dakota almost lost her, but then the dog settled into her shoulder and seemed to calm down immediately. “God, I know it. But that’s the thing about working here. You fall in love with all of them. And that’s good.”
“It doesn’t feel good.”
Dakota laughed a little. “But doesn’t it make you feel like the work you’re doing here is important?”
Maddie wiped her eyes. “Yeah. I’m so glad I got drunk and got caught.”
Foster made a choking sound.
“I’m just kidding, doofus.”
“I know, stinker.” He pulled her in to him and kissed the top of her head. “Now, I came here to walk some dogs. Do you have any life-size ones who need some exercise?” He stood up and stretched out his hands to his sister. She let him pull her up and then fell into his arms.
Great, now Becky was going to have to like him. “Do you want to help with the photos?” Maddie asked him.
“Sure. I mean, if it’s OK with Becky.” He looked over Maddie’s head at Becky, and like she could say no to that.
“No problem.”
No problem at all.
* * *
“Hamilton! Over here, Hamilton!”
Foster watched as Madison squeaked a toy behind Becky’s ear, but it was no use. Hamilton the Hound was way more interested in sniffing the grass around him than he was in looking photo fabulous for the shelter’s Facebook page. While they got set up—which mostly involved Maddie running around with Hamilton to tire him out a little bit—he’d pulled out his phone and scrolled through to look at some of Becky’s work.
He didn’t know what a good dog portrait looked like, but all the dogs looked friendly and cute, with individual personalities on display—curious, happy, adoring—so he guessed Becky was pretty good at it. And once they started, he liked watching her work. She got down on the dog’s level, made all kinds of goofy noises while she snapped pictures. And when Hamilton jumped on her to give her a kiss, she went down laughing.
God, she had a great laugh.
“Hamilton! Hammy!”
Becky pointed and gave some quiet instructions to Madison, who actually listened without arguing.
There was clearly something magical about Becky.
Madison stepped out from behind Becky and the camera and continued to squeak.
Hamilton looked up at them, then back at the grass.
“Maybe he’s not into squeaks,” Madison suggested. “It is pretty annoying.”
“That’s all I’ve got. I used up all my treats.” They’d used the last of them to get Lily, a giantess who definitely had some Great Pyrenees in her, to submit to a brushing. It was worth it; the shots came out great, or at least it seemed that way in the cursory glance Becky gave them while Madison picked another dog to photograph. Unfortunately, that left them treatless with Hamilton. He was easy enough to persuade to come outside. It was getting him to look at them that was proving to be difficult.
“He’s looking at me!” Madison whispered, freezing in place.
Becky snapped a shot. Hamilton looked at her. Sort of. His head was still pointed grassward, but his eyes were following Madison.
That was a pretty cute dog. Not a running partner—not if he was that obsessed with grass—but Foster could imagine him with a family full of kids, tearing around in a gloriously grassy yard.
“What are you smiling at?” Madison asked him as she came up to the fence with Hamilton’s leash in tow.
“Nothing.” He definitely wasn’t smiling at the idea of a big yard and a big family. Yikes. “You guys did good out there.”
“We’re not done yet. Move.” She pushed the gate a little, and he got out of the way so she could open it. Hamilton stopped to receive a scratch behind his ears and then Maddie ran with him back inside.
Becky was sitting on the grass inside the fenced enclosure, leaning over her camera to shield it from the sun. “Get any good shots?” he called out to her.
She looked up, as if she was surprised to see him still there. Her hair had come loose from her ponytail—that was Hamilton’s fault—and she had a smudge of dirt on her cheek—also Hamilton. Before Foster knew what he was doing, he had opened the gate and was sitting next to her on the grass.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you doing?”
“Just sitting.” She gave him a suspicious look that was much less innocently curious than the dogs’. “I thought maybe we could have a conversation. You know, like humans.”
“You’re probably sitting in dog pee.”
He took a deep breath. As much as he liked arguing with her, this was starting to get silly. It was a beautiful day, the sun was warming his back, and his sister was happy. “Can we start over?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“No, I think we got off on a pretty amazing foot.”
She blushed. Ha.
“I mean at work. And now here. I mean, I get it if you don’t like me”—no, he didn’t—“but I don’t think that’s true.”
“Oh you don’t, don’t you?”
“I don’t. I know it’s not true for me.”
She looked at him for a long moment. He could see the wheels turning in her head. “It’s not true for me either,” she said softly.
He felt a goofball smile spread across his face.
Becky smiled back.
“So,” he said, leaning back into the grass. “How’d you end up here?”
“In Denver?”
“No, here.” He waved his hand around them.
“In a fenced-in enclosure with a man who just talked me out of ambivalence?”
He sat up enough so he could see her face. She threw a piece of grass at him.
“Well, Dakota works here. She’s the director. And I’ve always liked photography, but I never really did anything with it, you know? It was just sort of a hobby.”
“Are you good?”
“Psh,” she said, but then she paused. “Yeah. I’m OK.”
“And Dakota convinced you to use your powers for good?”
“She’s very persuasive.”
“I’m starting to get that. I heard Bullhorn was here, too.”
“Yeah. He’s been gone a little while. I wonder if we should send out a search party.”
“Nah. Bullhorn may be a loud goofball, but he’s got an amazing sense of direction.”
They sat together in the sun, him squinting up at the sky, her pulling up pieces of grass. Eventually, she lay back, too, so they were side by side, squinting together.
“So how did you get here?”
“Not the fenced-in enclosure here?”
“Denver here.”
“I grew up here.”
“Ah. Your family still around?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t sound very convinced of that.”
“My family and I . . . we’re not close.”
“Ah. I feel like there’s a story there.”
She shrugged. “Not really. They’re all really busy doing important, lifesaving work. I’m a librarian.”
“You say that like being a librarian isn’t lifesaving work.”
“It’s not. Not what I do.”
“Are you saying P&G isn’t practicing lifesaving law?”
“You’re the legal genius, you tell me.”
He thought about it. “I guess that depends on how you define life. And saving.”
“Ha. Spoken like a true lawyer.”
“So what kind of lifesaving work do your parents do?”
“They’re both medical researchers. My sister is, too. Well, one of them. The other one is in space.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She’s an astrophysicist. She lives on the International Space Station.”
“Wow.”
“Yes. She’s literally way above me. And my other sister, the medical researcher, just got a MacArthur Fellowship.”
“Is that the Genius Grant?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Her and Lin-Manuel, huh?”
“Yup. All geniuses.”
He put his hand on her knee. Not to get fresh, just to offer comfort. He knew what it was like to compete with members of your family; he’d rather die than admit it, but that was why he’d gone into law, to prove to his father that he could keep up. He couldn’t imagine having that kind of competition with everyone in his family.
“So how come you took the job with P&G? I thought you were a hotshot in New York?”
“Hotshot? Where do you get your news from?”
“Will. He mostly gets it from Gert.”
“Is Gert the eighty-year-old woman in documents?”
“Yup.”
He took his hand back and tucked it behind his head. “I wouldn’t say I was a hotshot.” But that was only because he would never say the word hotshot. He’d been a big deal at his firm. He probably would have made partner in the next five years.
But then Madison got arrested and Mr. Polak, who went to law school with his dad, called him about this business he was trying to win, and it wasn’t New York, but he’d be near his sister. And he’d make partner in two years instead of five.
So yeah. He was kind of a big deal.
Which, he figured, would be exactly not what Becky wanted to hear.
But, what, he was supposed to make himself small so she would like him? That was some after-school special bullshit.
“It’s OK, hotshot,” she said. “I still like you.”
Her eyes locked on his for the longest second of his life.
“I mean . . . I don’t mean like you like you.”
“You don’t, huh?”
“Gosh, where are all those dogs we’re supposed to photograph?” She put a hand on his chest and pushed him down. But just when he was about to grab her by the waist, she used the leverage to push herself up to a standing position.
She liked him.
That shouldn’t make him so happy.
* * *
“Who’s this one?” Becky called as soon as Maddie was even remotely within earshot. Not because she was desperate to get away from Foster. Because why would she want to get away from him? Just because they had magnetic chemistry and she had just admitted out loud that she liked him. Psh.
Too bad he was everything she didn’t like in a potential mate. If he was, she’d really like him. Like, like him like him.
“I tried to get Starr,” Maddie said as she opened the gate and let their next victim in. As soon as she shut the gate and took the leash off, the dog made a beeline for Foster, still lying on the grass. Becky heard the oof as thirty pounds of exuberant canine made contact with Foster’s midsection.
“This guy will be great. Good choice.”
“It wasn’t my choice.” Maddie pouted. “Dakota wouldn’t let me take Starr.”
“Honey, if Dakota says Starr isn’t ready, she’s not ready.”
“But if we don’t shoot her, no one will adopt her, and if no one adopts her, she’ll never get out of that cage.”
Becky put a hand on Maddie’s back. So the kid had feelings after all. “Maybe you could take her?” As soon as Becky said that, she knew she shouldn’t have. If she had any doubts, she just had to look at the way Maddie’s eyes lit up, then quickly dimmed.
“Your parents don’t like dogs?” she asked, doing a terrible job of keeping her head down and minding her own business.
Maddie snorted. “My mother would never allow a dog like Starr into her house.”
Becky knew the mother was a bit of a neat freak, which was why, she figured, Maddie always looked like a slob. She could appreciate that kind of act of rebellion. Or maybe Maddie just dressed the way the kids were dressing these days.
Well, she was now officially old. She and Starr would make a great couple.
“The form says she’s housebroken.”
“Anyway, my father would never want such a tiny dog. He’d want a big, manly dog. A purebred hunting dog.”
“Your dad’s a hunter?” Becky thought he was a big, fancy lawyer. Like Foster. Ugh.
“No, but he’d want the kind of dog that rich, manly people have.”
Becky thought she understood what Maddie meant. Her own father would never dream of subscribing to such a traditional view of masculinity, and Becky had grown up understanding all about the toxicity of it and the ways society forced men to behave against their best interests . . . maybe her parents would want Starr.
No. Her parents could barely feed themselves. She couldn’t put Starr through that. Looked like the poor girl had been through enough.
“Can’t you talk to Dakota?” Maddie asked hopefully.
Ha. Like Becky could get Dakota to change her mind about anything. Like anyone could. Anyway, she was the expert in this situation, so as much as Becky wanted to intervene, there was no point.
Besides, there was no way Starr was ready for her close-up.
“Not today. But we’ll get her camera ready, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Maddie lied.
“Hey, are you guys doing something with this dog or are you just going to let him attack me?”
Becky turned to find Foster rolling around with the dog, letting himself be covered in kisses. He had grass in his hair.
Becky took a deep breath. You don’t like him like him, she reminded herself.
“Tigger, come here!” The dog gave Foster one more quick lick, then trotted happily over to Maddie, his tongue lolling out of his smiling mouth.
“Tigger? Why is he called Tigger?” Becky asked. “He looks nothing like a Tigger.” He was white with big black spots like a hound dog, but he had the face and ears of a boxer and the blue eyes of a cattle dog or a husky.
This was one interesting-looking dog.
Interesting dogs were good for business.
But still, he was no Tigger.
“Ready?” Maddie asked.
“Ready for what?”
“Foster, get out of the way,” she called to her brother, and he got up and stood by them.
“Watch. Tigger, jump!” She started running across the yard.
And Tigger . . . well, it was clear how Tigger got his name.
She’d never seen a dog jump so high in her life.
“Oh my God!” Becky screamed with laughter as Tigger bounced his way across the yard in Maddie’s wake. “Can you take a video of this?” she asked Foster, who’d been on his phone earlier—probably checking work email, the hotshot—so she knew he had the equipment.
He didn’t say anything, so she took her eyes off Tigger for a second, only to see him with his phone out, covering his mouth and following the bouncy procession around the enclosure.
Becky stood back. A video would definitely make people fall in love with Tigger. And the more people who fell in love with him, the more likely he was to get adopted.
She tried not to think about Starr, sitting unadoptable in her crate. Instead, she watched Tigger bounce, watched Maddie tire him out so he would sit still enough for her to take a photo that wasn’t a complete bouncy blur, and she got to work.