Chapter Four
This was dangerous territory, and Liam knew it.
This sunny morning at the park. This precious little child. This gorgeous woman who looked all natural and morning soft, her hair a hundred different shades of golden blond pulled back in a sloppy ponytail with a few stray strands around her face.
Very, very dangerous for the man who vowed that no matter what transpired this morning, no matter if she took the dog or sent him packing or told him one more time how lonely she was, he would not fall down the Andi Rivers Slippery Slope to Misery.
Man, he’d have to hang on tight to avoid that particular ride. Because, this moment, sitting in the sun on a park bench, listening to Andi’s sweet laugh and Christian’s “command voice” and Jag’s tireless bark in response, he knew down to his last strand of DNA that he could do this all day. Longer.
And he had to remember, that was the problem with Andrea Rivers. She didn’t do longer.
“Can I walk him?” Christian asked, lifting up the leash Liam had dropped. “Then I can tell him to setzen and bleib.”
“If you stay close,” Liam said. “Okay with you, Mom? Or we can go with him.”
“No, I want to go alone,” Christian insisted, glancing around at the empty playground. “I’m not a baby.”
“Yes, but Liam’s right. Stay where we can see you,” Andi said. “You can circle this play area, but no farther.”
“Okay.” He held the leash out to Liam with a question in his eyes.
“You can put it on him,” Liam said.
Self-doubt flashed in his pale blue eyes, instantly touching something deep in Liam. Something he couldn’t name, but it felt familiar.
“You can do it,” Liam assured him. “Tell him to sit and stay, and then squeeze that little clip and put it right on the silver ring on the collar.”
Christian swallowed, then nodded, mentally reviewing the instructions before using his little-boy yell to get Jag to sit. It worked well enough.
Christian got him to stay and used his tiny fingers to clip the leash. Liam could practically feel Andi inching forward, ready to assist, but she restrained herself and let her son learn a lesson Liam knew before he was two: how to leash a dog.
“Where I can see you, Christian,” she reminded him.
“I promise.” He gave Jag’s leash a tentative tug. “Come, boy. Oh, I mean…what’s the word for walk?”
“You can say vorwӓrts, but you don’t have to. He’s trained to go with whoever is walking him on a leash if he senses that’s okay with me,” Liam explained. “Just take off, and he’ll stay right next to you.”
Christian beamed. “Okay. Thanks. Bye!”
“Wow,” Andi whispered as they watched the two of them walk away.
Liam glanced at her, trying to figure out what that response meant.
“That’s the most I’ve heard him talk to someone who’s not me in a long time,” she explained. “He’s normally so shy.”
“Dogs are magic like that.”
She turned to him, her smile relaxed and warm. “It’s not just the dog.”
He took the compliment with a nod and studied her for a moment, mostly because he was unable to look away. It was like pouring ice water down the parched throat of a man who’d been wandering the desert for years.
“Does that mean you’ll take him?” he asked.
She sighed. “Liam, I don’t even know where to begin with a dog. I’m at work all day and in meetings with clients and can’t be sure I could come home to let him out or feed him. Christian is at school and after-school care most days. And I don’t…” She turned to watch Christian, who was making poor Jag sit, stay, and bark like there was no tomorrow. Every success made the little boy clap or giggle. “I have to think about it. It’s a huge, long commitment owning a dog.”
“And you don’t do huge, long commitments.”
She closed her eyes like he’d hit a target. “That didn’t take long.”
“Just want you to know I’m not here trying for round three, Andi. You need a dog and I have one.”
“I didn’t know I needed a dog until your father told me I did.” She fought the slightest smile. “And I’m sure he has ulterior motives.”
“Maybe he does,” Liam said. “But I don’t.”
She wet her lips, still watching her son, thinking. “You never were one to mince words.”
“Don’t see a point in it,” he said. He rubbed his chin, the morning whiskers rough on his fingertips. He could have shaved, almost did, but that would have meant he cared too much. And he didn’t want to care at all. “You might be helping me, too,” he added.
“How’s that?”
“Jag needs some practical experience,” he told her. “He’s not my best work to date.”
She laughed softly. “Then he can’t protect us?”
“Of course he can. He’s a great protection dog for a home and situation like yours. But that’s honestly not what he’s trained to do. The Schutzhund dogs are for very elite security purposes, which is why we get a small fortune for each one I train. But they have to meet stringent requirements, and Jag has passed all but one.”
“What’s that?”
Jag barked, and Christian let out a simultaneous yelp, making them both look at him.
“Distractions.” Liam leaped immediately at the sight of a woman in running clothes coming closer. “Tell him to sit,” Liam said as he got closer.
But Jag’s barking and a little bit of pull on the leash threw off Christian’s game, and he looked from Jag to the approaching jogger with fear.
“Nothing to be afraid of.” Liam got right down in front of Jag, held his gaze, and gave one order, under his breath, in the dog’s ear. Of course, it was enough. Jag stopped barking, looked at Liam, and sat.
“What did you say?” Christian asked.
“It’s our code word,” Liam said. “It makes him stop whatever he’s doing.”
The woman stopped to run in place when Jag’s barking quieted, looking at them with a mix of wariness and something else Liam couldn’t quite interpret. Interest? Expectation? Something lit her dark eyes as she brushed a few brown hairs off a sweat-dampened face.
“He’s beautiful,” she said with a bit of wonder in her voice. A dog lover, then. “May I?”
Liam took over the collar, gripping tightly but nodding. “He’ll want to sniff you,” Liam warned.
“He likes bellies,” Christian added, making the woman look at him and smile.
“I bet that’s fun for you,” she said, talking in that high-pitched voice that some people used around kids.
“He won’t bite if Liam says you’re okay,” Christian said confidently, clearly enjoying this small authority about the dog.
She came closer, letting Jag have a good sniff, then offering her hand for a lick. The move struck Liam as odd, but some people liked to prove they weren’t scared, and maybe she knew how to establish a bond.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“Jag,” Christian offered proudly.
“And what’s your name?” she asked him.
He looked up at her, not answering. All that doggie bravado disappeared as if he suddenly realized he was in the middle of a conversation with a stranger.
“It’s okay,” the lady said, using that just-licked hand to pat his shoulder. “I was shy, too, when I was your age.”
Christian backed up as Andi joined them, her mom radar probably sensing where this encounter would go.
“You can say hello, Christian,” she said sweetly.
“Christian.” The woman beamed at him, Jag apparently forgotten. She pressed her hands together, a few diamonds and gold glittering on fingers with red-tipped nails. “That’s a nice name.” She looked at Liam. “Named after your daddy?”
“Oh, uh, no…” Liam said, but Christian turned and pressed his face into Andi’s legs. “I’m not his father.”
Andi offered an apologetic smile, but the woman angled her head, looking from one to the other with enough judgment or curiosity that it was uncomfortable.
Then she gave a tight smile. “Your doggie is very handsome, Christian.” She raised her voice as if the child was hard of hearing as well as shy around strangers. “And so are you. Thanks for letting me pet him.” She started jogging in place again, then her gaze settled on Andi. “He’s a nice boy.”
“Thank you.”
“He’s, what? Six years old?”
Andi nodded, her hands on Christian’s shoulders. “Yes, six.”
The woman’s expression grew wistful, almost sad, and she visibly swallowed. “That’s a sweet age.” She held Andi’s gaze for a moment, looking as if she had more to say. Then, suddenly, she waved and yelled, “Bye!” as she took off down the path at a quick clip.
“It’s okay, Christian,” Andi said, easing him away from his hideaway against her hips.
He turned slowly to the dog and started to retrieve the leash he’d dropped, but Liam had picked it up. “Can I walk some more?” he asked tentatively.
“Of course,” Liam said.
“Will you sit down again, Mommy? I liked walking him alone.”
She sighed and nodded. “We’ll be right on that bench.”
“Mr. Liam, will you tell me that secret word?”
Liam shook his head. “Right now, I’m the only person who can use it with him. That’s a very important part of his training. Only the person or family he’s trained to protect can know that word. If someone else makes Jag bark, I’ll be right there to help you.”
Satisfied with that, Christian guided Jag back to the brick path, tugging the leash and walking again.
Andi watched after him, closing her eyes as if something had hit her hard.
“I was the same way,” Liam said softly. “In fact, I still am. It’s hard to explain what introverted feels like to someone who’s outgoing and talkative.”
“But he wasn’t always this shy,” she said softly. “He was quiet, but now it’s literally painful for him to talk to people.”
“You told me a little bit about that,” he said, remembering some of the things she’d said right here in the square a couple months ago, a conversation he’d replayed in his head many times. Christian struggled when his father died, she’d told him. That’s why she said she’d never take a chance like that again. Christian was the only man in her life.
She didn’t say anything, but headed back to the shady bench, sitting down again, her gaze on her son.
“This is why I can’t take your dog.” She turned from her son to level her sky-blue eyes on Liam. “But thank you for the offer.”
A frown tugged. “I can be pretty dense, Andi, so help me out here. Not sure how you’re getting from point A to ‘I can’t take your dog.’”
She smiled. “Because you and I both know exactly what it will lead to.”
Liam knew what he hoped it might lead to in a perfect, blissful, ideal world, but he certainly wasn’t sure. “What do you think it will lead to?” he asked.
“Well, let’s see. You’ll have to help Christian learn how to handle Jag. I seem to recall that there’s a fairly official order of events when you give one of your highly trained protection dogs to a new owner. Right?”
“Absolutely. There is a handover process that takes some time. I have to teach Jag that you two are his handlers now, and he’s taking orders from you. I’d have to teach both of you to learn the German commands. There’s obedience and response training and getting him acclimated to your house.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly…what?”
“We’d be together. A few days, some nights. Feelings would…emerge.”
He laughed softly at her choice of words. “My feelings are all emerged and managed, Andi. I know you don’t want what I want.”
“And you don’t want what I want.”
He was quiet for a moment, and she looked sharply at him. “Or have you changed your mind, Liam?” she asked.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t kick myself a few times for being a high-road-taking blockhead who didn’t accept a dream offer.”
“You’re not a blockhead,” she said, reaching over to touch his hand. “You’re a good, considerate, kind man who won’t take advantage of a woman even when she begs for it after three glasses of wine.”
Had it been only the wine, then? Disappointment thudded, harder than he’d expected. “You didn’t beg for anything, Andi.”
She slid him a look. “Like I said, kind. You’re letting me off the hook, of course, but we both know what happened. Or what didn’t happen, as the case may be.”
He didn’t argue that. “And I still don’t follow how you taking Jag is going to lead to some dark and dangerous liaison that will ruin your life.”
“Not dark, not dangerous, not ruinous,” she said. “Which is why it would be so tempting, and if I spend enough time with you, something is going to happen, and that would probably turn into more than one something—”
“Which would suck,” he said, slathering on some sarcasm and making her laugh a little. Pretty sound, that.
“Of course it would be amazing,” she said. “And then you’d be around all the time, and Christian would get dependent on you because you’d be the father figure missing in his life, and then…wham.”
“Wham.” He felt a smile tug. “Can’t wait to find out what that means.”
“It means heartache and unhappiness and explaining that you’re not the daddy that strangers like that woman think you are.”
“Andi.” He turned completely to look at her. “Your logic is faulty. It’s a dog, not a proposal of marriage.”
Just then, Jag barked, and they both looked to see him focused on a squirrel, pulling Christian hard.
“Damn,” Liam muttered, getting up. “Gotta work on that distraction problem.”
She joined him, both of them heading toward Christian, who shouted a sit order with enough command in his voice that Jag reacted immediately, staring at his new little friend.
“Oh,” Andi said, putting her hand to her chest. “Look at that. He did it.”
“And we didn’t even have to have six months of training that turned into heartache and desolation.”
She elbowed him. “You know what I mean.”
“I do, but I don’t agree.”
“Which is precisely why I’m saying no to this dog.”
He nodded toward Jag and Christian. The little boy plopped on his bottom with two arms around Jag’s neck, talking to him with the most serious face, his mouth moving nonstop. “Sure doesn’t look like something that would be bad for a kid struggling with shyness,” Liam said.
Andi let out a long, slow sigh, and he could practically feel her inner battle. Any second, she’d say yes. Then she looked up at Liam, opened her mouth, and closed it again.
She stared at him, hard and long and seriously conflicted. “No, I can’t,” she said. “It’s too much of a risk.”
“So’s not having protection after someone broke into your house.”
She nodded. “I have a new lock. I mean, I will when I get it installed.”
“I can do that for you right now, Andi.” At her look, he added, “Unless that’s the first step to wedding plans in the Andi Rivers Convoluted Logic of Relationship Progression.”
She laughed. “Okay. You can install the lock.”
Of course he could. But how could he get rid of the one on her heart? He’d spent two years trying to figure that out, and as much as he told himself to quit trying, he knew he couldn’t.
Hell. Maybe she was right about the dog.